Regain & Maintain Your Health
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Tai Chi with Michael |
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Recognizing and Managing Stress
None of us are immune from the effects of stress, either emotional or physical ... and because of that, it’s essential to work on strengthening the immune system.
We recently watched a somewhat disturbing documentary called The Silence of the Bees about what seems like an immune system breakdown affecting whole colonies of honeybees. (A modern day equivalent of the ‘canary-in-the-coal-mine?’) The story of the bees and the destruction of their immune systems made me think about our immune systems and the strain they’re under. With Autumn and Winter on the way, we need to strengthen our immune systems so we can meet the challenges of the cold, dark, damp weather to come.
Thought-wise, it was a short step to thinking about what I need to be talking about now that Autumn and Winter are coming up. Because what we do (or don’t do) to strengthen our immune systems today will affect how healthy we’re likely to be when the cold, dark, damp weather returns.
Riding The Tiger
There’s a Kung Fu term that aptly describes the clarity of awareness needed when we face upsetting or dangerous situations: Riding The Tiger. If we think of stress as the ‘Tiger’ we need to be careful because it seems to be always around these days in a wide-variety of shapes and sizes.
And while it’s not likely any of us will get chomped on by a tiger, we’re likely to experience intense jolts, or prolonged periods of stress which can undermine the strength of the immune system and leave us vulnerable to illness.
What You Can Do
Each of us have built-in capacities to become and stay healthy, and there are things you can do to build your resistance to illness.
- Practice deep breathing
- Learn Tai Chi Chuan or Chi Kung
- Consult with an Oriental Medicine practitioner
Spend Time In The Garden
Dirt is very receptive, you can smash it with a hoe, scrape it with metal rakes, jab it with pitchforks ... and it doesn’t seem to mind at all.
So going into a garden and dropping your *^%$ there is a time-honored way to rejuvenate. And in the spirit of relaxation and wisdom, we invite you into one of our favorite places ... The Haiku Garden ...
Chi and Oriental Medicine
Acupuncture remained relatively unheard of until 1974 when James Reston, a reporter for the New York Times accompanied President Nixon on a trip to China where they witnessed an appendectomy and several demonstrations of serious surgeries being performed with acupuncture as the only anesthetic using Acupuncture Anesthesia.
Oriental Medicine (what most people think of as only ‘acupuncture’) is a new arrival on today’s evolving health care scene. This newness, combined with the unfamiliarity of Oriental Medicine’s underlying ideas — Chi, Yin-Yang, 5 Element Theory — can understandably puzzle a Western-educated mind.
When you breathe air into your lungs, you’re bringing ‘Chi’ into your body.
For example, after a few treatments you may find yourself saying: “I feel much better, but I don’t understand why.”
Some people tell me they think to themselves: “I don’t know what this ‘Chi’ thing is, but I just feel good after doing Chi Kung.” Or, “I don’t know what ‘Chi’ is, but I sure feel much better after an acupuncture treatment.”
Trust How You Feel
Until you become more familiar with how the Oriental Medicine treatment process works, once your body is feeling better, the mind is known to play a little questioning game that goes something like this: “What am I doing? What is this? How is this happening? This is totally different from what I’m used to.” And perhaps you have other variations to add to the list.
Elite Western medical centers like the Mayo Clinic, Duke University Medical Center, and the University of California-San Francisco now offer acupuncture.
Or maybe someone who knows you’ve been having health problems says: “You’re looking good; what have you been doing?” And all you can think to say is, “Oh, I’m doing this ancient Oriental Medicine stuff.”; which can cause a bit of ‘social dissonance’ (especially if most people you know typically talk about their procedures, medications, and tests).
You may also wonder: “Wow, nobody else I know is talking about or using Oriental Medicine” — and then realize the ‘security-of-the-crowd’ is conspicuously absent.
Knowing Is Your Guide
And then comes the point in the treatment process where you begin to remember: You remember ... I feel better ... I feel healthier ... I feel good.
You remember how you felt when other approaches weren’t working well for you and you decided to try Oriental Medicine. Often, it wasn’t that long ago that your problem was acute, and now it’s much better — or gone.
So now you know the ‘power’ of Oriental Medicine, but you still don’t know what this thing called “Chi” is.
So What Is Chi?
Chi (pronounced “Chee”) is the foundational idea of Oriental Medicine. Chi has been understood since ancient times, and although many other East Asian products made their way along the ‘Silk Road’ between east and west — gunpowder, porcelain and tea — the concept and practice of ‘Chi’ — while available — was not in high demand.
What is Chi
A new born baby
is brimming with Chi;
A dead person
has none.
Today Oriental Medicine is finding its way into the broad American mainstream — through the new ‘Silk Road’ of global trade — and finding its place within the American health care system.
So you could say that to feel healthy is to feel your Chi, with Chi being your body’s energy or ‘life-force.’ When you have enough Chi, and it’s getting everywhere in your body that it needs to be, you feel healthy. And when you feel healthy, you have the energy you need to do the things you want and need to do. That energy is called ‘Chi.’
Chi is the bio-electrical energy that flows through your body all the time. When it’s flowing smoothly, you feel good; when it gets blocked or tangled up, you feel pain or discomfort.
Related Articles
Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual by Michael Pollan
“As the cost of food in America has declined … we have been eating much more (and spending more on health care).”
This is just one morsel from Michael Pollan’s new book: Food Rules; a pithy compendium of stark insights highlighting the mess that has become the ‘Western’ diet.
In 140 pages Michael Pollan has laid out “64 (gentle) rules” for how to avoid the manipulations of the ‘food industrial complex’ by reminding us of much that we already know about healthy eating, but have lost touch with.
This book is on our ‘give-as-a-gift’ list, and is a ‘gift-of-a-lifetime’ for the children in your life who have been born into the (somewhat) sick food culture we’re all contending with today.
Reading “Food Rules” feels like snacking on healthy bits of easily digestible information that are readily absorbed into your diet planning as you read it.
Rules and Reminders
Here’s a quick taste of what you’ll find in “Food Rules”:
A Few Rules:
- “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”
- “Avoid food products containing ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce.”
- “Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does.”
A Few Reminders:
- “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper.”
- “After lunch, rest a while; after dinner, walk a mile.”
- “Put down your fork between bites.”
A Good Read
“Food Rules” is a pleasant read that doesn’t make you feel guilty or anxious about what you’re not doing right in your life.
Pollan does not come off sounding like the ‘Food Police’ ... as he makes clear in “Rule 64: Break the rules once in a while” when he reminds us: “All things in moderation … including moderation.”
Bon Appétit!
Read & Watch More
Food Rules: Your Dietary Dos and Don’ts