|
|
Dealing With Depression
Depression or “depressive reactions” is a mood response that is often brought on by the stresses and strains in our lives. For some, it can be triggered by a serious loss, a difficult relationship, financial problems or any overwhelmingly stressful...
"New Bodybuilding Study on the Benefits of 'Deadlifts'."
Deadlifts are a very potential muscle-building exercise, that will rejuvenate your entire physical condition, to a whole new level -- if executed astutely.
Here are some facts, on how Deadlifts can dramatically improve your physical power, to...
Obesity and Weight Loss - Muscle and the importance of low body fat!
Today you have a good chance of getting diabetes or becoming obese or both. And if you do, then chances are you will be in for a long life filled with pain, discomfort and little quality in your life. However, it does not have to come to that. Hi,...
The One Thing You Need To Build Muscle
One of the most important things you can do in your attempts to
build muscle is to have patience. Most people I talk to in the
gym, especially beginners, want to gain muscle overnight.
But the truth is, building muscle only comes from...
Yoke Hatha Yoga with the Raw Foods for Superb Health
Since writing my two books, Beautiful On Raw: UnCooked Creations and Your Right to Be Beautiful: How to Halt the Train of Aging and Meet the Most Beautiful You, about my exploration and acceptance of the raw food lifestyle, I have added another...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Top 10 Ways Chinese Medicine Can Help You, Part 1
The Top 10 List 1. It's All Connected 2. It's Mysterious 3. It Works 4. It's Simple AND Complex 5. It's Intuitive AND Intellectual 6. It's Interactive 7. It Benefits You Too 8. It's Traditional and Ancient 9. It's Theories have Broad Implications 10. It can be a Lucrative AND Altruistic Career 11. There are so many Options
Ok, so there are 11. Deal with it! ;-)
#1: It's All Connected (Holistic Medicine)
If you're interested in Alternative Medicine, you probably have heard this phrase over and over again. What is holistic medicine? Holistic health? What is a holistic veterinarian? Well, I'm not going to speak for everyone... What I can tell you is how Chinese Medicine is a holistic mind body medicine, and by that I mean: it is all connected.
Chinese medicine connects you with your environment. It integrates natural metaphors into its system of diagnosis. Cold weather can cause a cold condition (for example, a "cold" common cold where the mucus is clear and chills are stronger than the fever), and hot weather can cause a hot condition (e.g. a "hot" common cold with sore throat, or a worsening of inflammatory (hot) rheumatoid arthritis).
Chinese medicine connects your mind and body. Or maybe it's better to say: Chinese medicine never disconnected mind and body. After centuries of mind body dualism, western medicine (biomedicine) has only recently begun to bring mind and body back together, most notably in an interesting new science called psychoneuroimmunology. Chinese medicine diagnoses according to patterns (groups of symptoms) and every pattern has implied states of mind and emotion. There are also Chinese constitutional types with their own particular mental and emotional tendencies. These are two pivot points for Traditional Chinese Medicine's holistic mind body approach.
This is the reason I got into Chinese Medicine. A life-changing self-examination led to the realization that hidden parts of my psyche had controlled my thoughts, emotions, and decisions for most of my life. Then I saw that CM also had a way of relating body, mind, and emotion. I thought, "Wow, maybe I can find out more of the hidden things that are keeping me from maximum health, happiness, and effectiveness, and then help people too!"
When you come to see an Chinese Medicine Doctor as a patient, we listen to your symptoms, ask questions, look at your tongue (it's the only muscle we can see and it provides us with clues about the state of your internal organs), take your pulse (not just your heartrate, but 6 positions on each hand that correspond to the state of the 12 major organs), listen to the sound of your voice, how fast you talk, look at the tint of your skin, the quality of your nails, and even note your smell! It's said that the superior physician can diagnose you after just watching you walk into his office. Indeed, some practitioners only have to ask 4 or 5 questions to nail down your pattern and then can predict remarkable things about your health and emotions. The rest of us are still learning; that's why they call it a practice!
Diagnosis is connected to treatment. Once we have a good diagnosis, we know the best food, exercise, lifestyle, herbal formulas, and acupuncture points for you. Biomedicine often has a name for your disease but no treatment; Chinese Medicine can take a look from another angle and find treatments based on your pattern or meridian diagnosis. For every disease, there is a treatment.
#2 - Chinese Medicine is Mysterious.
There are many systems and theories by which we practice CM (Chinese Medicine). They often overlap... 10 practitioners might diagnose the same patient differently. Perhaps 6 of them are just plain wrong- but 3 or 4 of them could help. There's more than one answer? That challenges the western mind. This doesn't mean there's more than one reality- just more than one perspective on it.
Real people are complex- they could have a pain, emotional problems, and a digestive complaint at the same time. Sometimes, treating one aspect cures another one. Other times, all must be taken into account for there to be any permanent results. Yet the totality of a human being is always a mystery.
Symbolic Medicine
Chinese Medicine comes from a culture whose language is written in symbols... The Chinese language has a new symbol for every word, instead of building words from phonetic building blocks as English does. Because of this, the ideas are more symbolic and fluid. There is a logic to it, but sometimes the borders are a bit more blurred than in Western medicine.
The Mystery of How
How and why does Chinese Medicine work? We can describe in Chinese Medical terms how acupuncture and herbs work, but research is still clarifying how it works in biomedical terms (for a summary of what we do know, click here).
These are two different ways of decribing the same reality. Two angles on the same object. Think about binoculars... the two slightly different vantage points yield a three-dimensional view. Each medicine is incomplete and has strengths and weaknesses. Together they help us see the truth more clearly. Just as when our eyes merge the two binocular images into one, as western and eastern medicine become more and more integrated, we are seeing more and more of the three-dimensional picture of human health.
#3 - Chinese Medicine works - It's Practical
The theories (however intriguing or mysterious) lead to treatments that usually work. Healing occurs to the amazement of MD's and sometimes even to the new practitioner!
As an intern, even before graduating from schoo, I:
* Stopped a severe asthma attack... effectively preventing a trip to the ER * Lowered a man's blood pressure enough to get him kicked out of a blood pressure medication study (his BP was no longer high enough to qualify him) * Prevented allergy attacks * Eliminated pain and restored lost feeling from diabetic neuropathy * Decreased the severity of PMS symptoms * Alleviated lupus symptoms
(quenched a "flare up") * Restored sleep to insomniacs * Chased away all kinds of musculoskeletal aches and pains * Eliminated severe medication-dependent acid reflux vomiting; the man no longer needs medication or herbs and is fine
Since then, in practice:
A jet-skier had a severe case of hives for 6 months, had been to many MD's, had spent about $11,000, and had gotten no relief. He couldn't sleep comfortably, work, or be out in the sun. Doctors were ready to admit him to UCSD. He came to see me, and after 2 acupuncture treatments and 2 days of a 7-day herb formula, his skin was completely clear. When I lasted talked to him, he was getting ready to race in the world jet-ski finals at Lake Havasu. Oh, and his entire treatment cost less than $200.
A 9-month pregnant woman came to me because her baby was facing the wrong direction. Her MD wanted to physically turn the baby from the outside, or put her through the surgery, cost, and scar of a C-section. I heated an acupuncture point on each of her little toes 10 times for 3 days, and the baby flipped. She was ecstatic and thanked me profusely.
Several of my patients have had weakness and nerve tingling in their fingers that starts deep inside the shoulder (supraspinatus nerve impingement). The only alternative is surgery. This usually takes about 8 acupuncture treatments to cure.
Healed Healers Healing You
Many Chinese Medicine students decide to become an CM physicians after being significantly healed (and impressed) by it. About one-third of them come to the profession for this reason.
A friend of mine had lupus and was treated by MD's with steroids- she gained 40 pounds. She was told to expect to live only another 10 years or so. She tried chinese herbal medicine, and it put her lupus into remission. She was so impressed that she decided to make chinese medicine her profession.
# 4 It's Simple AND Complex
At first you are captivated by the simple poetry of CM - but in time you are nearly overwhelmed by its depth and complexity.
The Advantages of the Simplicity Option
You can diagnose and treat disease at varying levels of complexity. You can always go back to the simpler perspective if you get lost in the complexity- this is the advantage of CM- at times, MD diagnoses are complex and elaborate, but they lack a treatment to address them. Western Medicine is great at describing in minute detail what is wrong with you, but it can't always fix the problem.
Nearly Limitless Complexity and Variation
CM also can be complex- there are 29 or so symptom-patterns which manifest in one or more of the 12 organ-systems, and there are dozens of pathomechanisms involved by which pathogens and organ dysfunctions affect one another. External influences can manifest in different ways in different people. We trace this by taking into account the individual's constitutional excesses and deficiencies. There are thousands of herbs; about 400 are used commonly, and each has 3-4 functions. There are hundreds of acupuncture points, each with functions and empirical indications. These are only the basics- there is a vast amount of variation within Chinese Medicine... but just these basics map out a matrix of thousands of relationships and insights.
#5 - it's Intuitive AND Intellectual
Knowing Hands
The 360 or so basic acupuncture points (and there are 100's more extra points) each have a specific anatomical location. Clinically, however, we often treat the "ah-shi" point (literally "that's it" - the most sensitive area nearby). Ah-shi points are found with help from the patient, but acupunturists often find that they "knew" where the point was (by feel) even before the patient said, "yeah, that's it." Massage therapists experience this too. Patients often say, "How did you know it hurt there?" or "I didn't even know that was sore!"
What are these "knowing" hands? Intuition? A learned kinesthetic wisdom? Both? This goes back to #2, "It's Mysterious."
Both Sides of Your Brain
Most students of western medicine choose their profession for three reasons:
* They want to help people * They're good at science (left-brained) * They want to make good money * The typical CM student, on the other hand, is more right-brained, and less money-oriented. In fact, practice management seminars for acupuncturists often focus on the idea that "it's ok to charge your patients money!"
This distinction may change as the mainstream conception of CM changes; left brain facts and theories are indispensable to the practice of CM. As was said in #4, "It's simple AND complex," there is quite are quite a bit of facts and theories to learn, and integrating them in practice takes good analytical skills. And it's becoming clear that CM practitioners can make a great living (see #10 below).
In a way, the practice of CM is more balanced than western medical practice or massage because it requires the usage of both left and right brains. Biomedicine can be too intellectual (left-brained). Massage can be too simple. In Chinese Medicine, there is an art to:
* Pulse-taking * Communicating with patients about issues that include the mental, emotional and physical (in biomedicine, patients are often sent to specialists who can deal with only one part of them. CM in the U.S. attracts complex patients.) * Integrating all the data into a comprehensive diagnosis (CM diagnosis is more syndrome-oriented and includes complex, often non-linear phenomena), and * Choosing an applying a number of different treatment modalities.
Continued in Part 2!
About the Author
Acupuncturist, herbalist, and medical professor Brian B. Carter founded the alternative health megasite The Pulse of Oriental Medicine (http://www.PulseMed.org/). He is the author of the book "Powerful Body, Peaceful Mind: How to Heal Yourself with Foods, Herbs, and Acupressure" (November, 2004). Brian speaks on radio across the country, and has been quoted and interviewed by Real Simple, Glamour, and ESPN magazines.
|
|
|
|
|
How To Gain Weight and Build Muscle Fast |
A complete and FREE guide on how to gain weight and build muscle. Weight gain diets, bodybuilding supplements and targeted weight training for the ... |
www.gain-weight-muscle-fast.com |
  |
Build Muscle |
Can a post-exercise supplement help you build muscle faster, ... And one of the biggest debates centers on how much protein you need to build muscle. ... |
www.thefactsaboutfitness.com |
  |
Build Muscle UK - The home of free muscle building and fitness advice! |
Build Muscle UK, here we have an ever growing world gym directory, free training tips from our members and the chance for aspiring models to appear in our ... |
www.buildmuscle.co.uk |
  |
Building muscle...weight lifting routines, tips and nutrition |
Build muscle fast using weight lifting routines and muscle building tips that work. Muscle building programs and nutrition. |
www.building-muscle101.com |
  |
Health-and-Fitness - Build-Muscle Ezine Articles |
EzineArticles.com allows ezine or email list publishers to upload or download free expert content that can be used within email newsletters or websites. |
ezinearticles.com |
  |
Building Muscle Lose Fat Gain Muscle Bodybuilding Portal - Home |
Ten Eating Tips To Build Muscle Fast! ... By the time you finish reading this you will have the basics down to eating to build muscle fast! ... |
www.gainmuscleandlosefat.com |
  |
Protein by the hour: build muscle by knowing what type of protein ... |
Protein by the hour: build muscle by knowing what type of protein to eat—and when to eat it - Fuel from Mens Fitness in Health & Fitness provided free by ... |
www.findarticles.com |
  |
Run to build muscle: turn your cardio into a resistance workout ... |
Run to build muscle: turn your cardio into a resistance workout and get the best of both worlds - Cardio Clinic from Mens Fitness in Health & Fitness ... |
www.findarticles.com |
  |
Build Muscle Fast - BodyBuilding Workouts - Strength Training Tips |
The most powerful muscle building and strength increasing information. Strength training techniques and principles in this book will change your body and ... |
www.seriousstrengthtraining.com |
  |
Build Muscle | How To Build Muscle | Building Muscle | BodyBuilding |
Learn how to build muscle mass fast with these powerful muscle building articles, tips, and workout programs for building muscle from trainer and ... |
www.shawnlebrunfitness.com |
  |
build muscle on 43 Things |
William Butler Yeats. RSS 2.0 button (What is RSS?) First added to PhreeStyle's list. build muscle. People doing this: ... |
www.43things.com |
  |
Go Ask Alice!: Losing fat and building muscle mass: Can this be ... |
I have heard that it is not possible to both lose fat and build muscle mass simultaneously: ideally, a person should do cardiovascular exercise with dieting ... |
www.goaskalice.columbia.edu |
  |
Go Ask Alice!: Wants to build muscle mass through weight lifting ... |
Dear Alice, I am a twenty-nine year old woman. I am interested in increasing my muscle mass. Could you please tell me what steps to take in weight lifting ... |
www.goaskalice.columbia.edu |
  |
Bodybuilding.com - Complete Muscle Gaining Supplement Guide ... |
However, they will definately help you build muscle a lot quicker. ... You can't build muscle without it! You will want to take in about 1-2 grams of ... |
www.bodybuilding.com |
  |
Quickest muscle building techniques...Building muscle losing fat |
Ironpower's Quickest muscle building techniques...Build muscle lose fat, best foods, diet, exercise, supplements. |
www.ironpower.biz |
  |
How to Gain Muscle |
Learn how to gain muscle from your About Exercise Guide. |
exercise.about.com |
  |
How to Build Muscle |
How to Build Muscle. ... How to Build Muscle. So many of us want to lose fat, we forget about the people out there who'd like to gain a few pounds. ... |
exercise.about.com |
  |
HOW WOMEN BUILD MUSCLE |
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML |
Your browser may not have a PDF reader available. Google recommends visiting our text version of this document. |
  |
Free weight training workouts and muscle building routines |
The all natural Optimum Anabolics Challenge is now in full swing, 9 weeks of ultimate natural training to build muscle and burn fat using the most effective ... |
www.muscleblitz.com |
  |
Build Muscle Lose Fat - Turn Fat Into Muscle - Building Muscle And ... |
Also get our special diet meal planner software, a convenient tool for meal preparation and diet evaluation for those who follow the build muscle lose fat ... |
www.trulyhuge.com |
  |
|