Immune Health and Balance – Page 9 – Medford Acupuncture & Herbal Clinic

Lower Your Internal Thermostat

Written by Ann Zimmerman on August 6, 2013. Posted in Chinese Medicine, Immune Health and Balance.

It seems that everyone is talking about the weather these days. We all know that summer is the season of heat. This is great if you want to go swimming or play in the river, but it can be quite distracting if you are doing most other outdoor activities. Chinese medicine focuses a lot of attention on the internal body temperature. Unlike the western approach of using a thermometer to determine the body temperature, Chinese medicine pays greater attention to how a person feels subjectively about their temperature. In other words, does a patient feel hot or cold, or are they generally comfortable. Temperature is such an important subject in Chinese medical treatment that it is one of the primary 8 principles used to diagnose and treat any illness.

On hot days, it is natural to feel warmer in response to the temperature of our surroundings. It is also expected that when the weather turns cooler our bodies would feel cooler as well. But these tendencies can be influenced by our internal balance. If we are cold internally, then colder weather can exacerbate cold symptoms, leading to a feeling of chilliness, nasal discharge, frequent colds, diarrhea, frequent urination, or digestive problems. If we have “internal heat” in the body, then the warm days may effect us more intensely, leading to symptoms of headaches, increased sweating, red eyes, irritability, dryness, skin rashes/itchiness, constipation, urinary difficulty, digestive complaints, or bleeding problems.

Work and Play by Ann Zimmerman, LAc.

Written by Ann Zimmerman on August 5, 2013. Posted in Immune Health and Balance, Mental and Emotional Health.

Work and play is the balancing act of summer. This time of year the beautiful weather, blooming flowers, fresh cherries, long days, etc are truly a joy, one that most can recognize and feel deep in their being.

Free time often includes spending time outside and packing the schedule with all the things you can do in this time of year. People tend to be more social and eager to gather and our lives get really busy, the weekend warrior awakens in full force.

So there tends to be a buzz about having fun, new experiences, expansion, yet we still have to “chop wood and carry water.” This saying refers to maintaing the basic mundane aspects of life…..working your job, balancing the check book, cleaning the toilets, keeping a budget, tending to your low back pain, etc.

Finding your Middleway

Written by Ann Zimmerman on May 20, 2013. Posted in Immune Health and Balance.

by Ann Zimmerman, LAc.

In a time when we are constantly feeling pulled between the desires to get more done and to relax, finding the “middle” is an ongoing daily effort. To find your personal balance point between more or less is to find your “way.”

When trying to understand the concept of balance, it is helpful to approach it through very simple questions. For example, is it good to never eat or to eat all the time? No. The pendulum here can swing from gorging yourself to starving yourself. Those are the two extremes of the pendulum: the yin and the yang, expansion and contraction, and non-doing and doing. If you are in balance, you eat when it is time to eat in a way that maintains the health of your body. To do otherwise is to waste energy dealing with the effects of eating too little, too much, or eating the wrong foods for you.

Extreme behaviors begin to carve grooves in our landscape that we get stuck in. As a result, we spend much of our energy on the effects of the extreme behaviors. Our extremes teach us what imbalanced behavior patterns feel like and why we do not always stay up super late or eat the whole chocolate cake. I love the saying, “Everything in moderation, including moderation.” My 99 year old great Aunt Dot attributes her long life to this saying.