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Five Element acupuncture is a style or system of acupuncture in a similar way that balance method or auricular acupuncture can be thought to be styles or systems of acupuncture. In this introduction to five elements acupuncture I’ll give a short background to the system. I’ll also explain some of the main ways in which I apply it within treatments.

The system is based on the five elements of nature:

• wood;
• fire;
• earth;
• metal; and
• water.

Each element is connected to the others in a variety of different cycles, as can be seen in the diagram above. When there is an imbalance, one element may overact or underact on another, causing a disharmony. If not rebalanced, then this can potentially lead to illness.

All of the elements have different associations across a variety of phenomena. For example, each element is associated with a different:

• season (eg. wood is Spring);
• chinese medicine yin organ (eg. fire is the heart and pericardium);
• sense organ (eg. earth is the mouth);
• taste (eg. metal is pungent);
• emotion (eg. water is blue/black);

These are just a few of many.

Understanding the five elements and their associations can help me in diagnosing a pattern of disharmony (that is leading to the health condition you want help with). If someone is “stuck” within a particular emotion that they find it difficult to move on from, then this can indicate to me where their imbalance may be focussed. Or we may be transitioning from one season to another, which may be causing an imbalance where there was none previously.

Using the connections between the elements I can then choose appropriate acupuncture points or meridians to help rebalance.

If this introduction to five elements acupuncture has left you wanting to know more, then grab a cuppa and have a read of this longer article here.

Stay safe, stay well, stay home.

I mentioned Qi Gong very briefly as part of an article about managing anxiety and stress through exercise. That article included a specific routine for strengthening the lung. Today I’m back to give a little more of an introduction to Qi Gong.

What is Qi Gong?

Qi Gong means “energy work”, i.e. working with your own life energy. It is a system of treating disease and enhancing physical, spiritual and emotional health. This is achieved through physical movement that incorporates breathing exercises, or through stationary meditation.

Qi Gong exercises are relatively simple and therefore suitable for almost all levels of physical fitness. Movement however, is only a part of the exercise. Breathing and mindfulness (really focussing in what you are doing) are also key aspects. In some cases the “movement” is “breathing” (but with mindfulness).

How does Qi Gong differ from Tai Chi?

Both Qi Gong and Tai Chi are excellent ways in which to relieve stress and improve your energy levels. They are also both based on very slow movements. This can initially be difficult to achieve for beginners, especially if you’re a busy sort of person, often found rushing from task to task to get everything done.

Qi Gong is often one simple movement (though usually built up from smaller individual elements), repeated over a certain number of times or until you feel the benefit. It can be thought of as a movement you do for a certain situation (e.g. lung strengthening). Tai chi has “forms”. Each one of which, is a series of movements that work on the entire body, in a flowing sequence. The position you take in a Tai Chi form has to be precise for the proper execution of form. Qi Gong is a little more adaptive e.g. you can modify exercises to be seated, or even lying down, which can be especially helpful for those with mobility issues.

Want to know more?

If this introduction to Qi Gong has whet your appetite, then you could look for Qi Gong exercises online, or book in for a telehealth session (please email me or text me on 07865 593972) and we can discuss which specific exercises would best suit your health goals.

Stay safe, stay well, stay home.

Acupuncture is often an excellent treatment for a variety of conditions, from anxiety to vertigo. However, there is another treatment that I often recommend to my clients, as homework, in between our sessions. That treatment is simple deep breathing exercises. There are many benefits of deep breathing, both short term and longer term. I’ll address some of the key ones in this article.

Some of the benefits of deep breathing include:

• Decreased stress
• Increased calm
• Stimulation of the lymphatic system (this helps to detoxify the body)
• Improved immunity
• Increased energy
• Lower blood pressure
• Better sleep
• Pain relief
• Improved digestion
• Better posture and muscle stability

The sympathetic nervous system manages our fight-or-flight response. This increases the release of hormones that will empower us to deal with physical danger and leads to shallow breathing patterns. Deep breathing on the other hand, activates the parasympathetic nervous system, helping us to achieve a relaxed state with the rest-and-digest response.

You don’t need any special equipment to do deep breathing. You can do it anywhere, anytime. All it takes is being a little mindful and noticing the breathing process.

How to make it a habit

Many smartphones and/or smartwatches have got apps on them to provide a guide for the rate of breathing to aim for. This essentially shows you a “breath bubble” that you breathe along with. Apps can also prompt you to take a couple of minutes in the first place to do your deep breathing. I subscribe to the Calm app but there are plenty of alternatives out there. I use the premium version. This provides a large selection of meditations and sleep stories. There is also a free version though, that will get you set up and you can try out their breathe bubble here.

Give it a go over the next week and notice which benefits happen for you.

Stay safe, stay well, stay home.

One of the items in my Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) toolbox is moxa. As many people haven’t heard of it and I only use it in my clinic infrequently, I thought I’d share a short introduction to moxa today.

Moxa is a herb more commonly known as mugwort. Moxibustion is a form of heat therapy involving burning moxa, on or very near the surface of the skin. It helps to smooth the flow of Qi and blood and is a warming herb. This is one of the reasons that I tend to use it less frequently. More of my clients tend to have heat conditions already and would not benefit from the application of more heat.

The smell is moxa is very distinct, it does smell rather like marijuana, though it’s very definitely not the same thing. It can be extremely therapeutic and relaxing but it’s one of those marmite type items. Those people that dislike it, really hate it. It is possible however, to get smokeless moxa that doesn’t smell as strong.

Application

Moxa is applied to specific acupuncture points on the body, with different points resulting in different outcomes. This is why it is important to have moxa applied, or be guided in it’s application, by a qualified acupuncturist.

There are a number of different ways to apply moxa to the points including:

• cones – these can be burned direct on the body, on top of a buffer such as salt or ginger, or on the top of a needle;
• stick – holding it like a pen, move it over the point either in a circular motion or “sparrow pecking”;
• tiger warmer – a metal holder that contains the burning moxa stick, monitoring the heat, it can be used direct on the skin;
• box – for burning loose moxa (punk) or a moxa stick over an area of the body.

Please do not attempt to use moxa without qualified guidance. Incorrect use of moxa can result in burns, infection and other side effects. It is especially important to know which points to use and which to avoid, if you are pregnant or trying to conceive.

Research into the effectiveness of moxibustion is still in its early stages. It also cannot easily be separated from an assessment of the effectiveness of TCM more generally. The effectiveness of moxibustion has been demonstrated for several conditions however, and you can read more here.

If after reading this introduction to moxa, you would like to know whether it can help your health condition, then please  email me or text me on 07865 593972. You can book a free 15min telehealth consultation at which we can discuss how TCM can help you.

Stay safe, stay well, stay home.

You’ve probably seen me refer to telehealth in a number of blogposts recently. For example, this one about food energetics and this one about ear seeds. You may be wondering, well okay, but what is telehealth? Telehealth (which may also be referred to as telemedicine) is the provision of health-related services and information via electronic information and telecommunication technologies. It allows long distance and/or remote healthcare.

It may seem like a new thing but it’s actually been around for many years. The World Health Organisation traces it back to the mid to late 19th century. It started to really grow around five years ago. This was due to the cost of technology and high speed communication links coming down and making it more accessible. So far it’s primarily been used to connect people in rural and remote areas with healthcare services or to allow greater access to healthcare specialists who can’t spend all their time travelling around. The very recent social distancing has created an absolute necessity for it, even over local distances, over the last few weeks.

Local telehealth

My own doctor’s surgery have increased their telehealth options recently as a way to maintain social distancing. An example of this, is if you find you have a new mole or an older one changes shape (both of which should be checked out), you can email a photo of the mole to the surgery using a secure link that they’ll give you. They will then assess and decide whether they need to see you to investigate further, or they can give you quick reassurance if they believe the mole to be safe . If you do need to see your doctor for any reason, then please phone first to check how they are currently managing appointments. This can change from week to week right now and they may be implementing their own telehealth options.

How good is telehealth?

So just how good is telehealth as an option? This systematic review (the gold standard of research) of patient and caregiver’s satisfaction indicates that “there is consistent evidence that telehealth has an overall positive impact on patient and caregivers’ satisfaction”. A systematic review summarises the results of a number of healthcare studies, in this case 36 of them.

The outcomes of satisfaction with telehealth were categorised into system experience, information sharing, consumer focus and overall satisfaction. There were high levels of satisfaction across all of these. Respondents of questionnaires scored greater than 80% agreement in overall satisfaction. In the semi-structured interviews, 81% of participants reported being satisfied with the telehealth experience. The studies were based on people living in rural and remote areas so their experience may not be ours, but the focus on videoconferencing as the method used, can be directly compared to what we have planned at the clinic.

Telehealth at South Scarborough Acupuncture

Your health, privacy and data security are key concerns for me here at South Scarborough Acupuncture, as we move to embrace telehealth. I’ve been selecting an IT system that can provide end to end encryption of data and meet current GDPR (data protection) regulations as they apply in the UK. There are still some new processes that I need to develop to support the IT but I hope to be opening up telehealth appointments for booking towards the end of next week. In the meantime, if you have any questions about telehealth generally, or about the security of our systems then please feel free to contact me.

I look forward to once again helping you back to better health very soon.

Stay safe, stay well, stay home.

I recently mentioned ear seeds as one the tools in my TCM toolbox. I often use ear seeds to provide auriculotherapy to my clients. This helps to extend their treatment beyond the session in the clinic. Auriculotherapy is the stimulation of pressure points within the ear. This can be done with acupuncture needles but it can also be a needle-free treatment using the seeds. Ear seeds are exactly that. They are small seeds taken from the vaccaria plant, that are used to stimulate the pressure points in your ear.

Why the ear?

The ear is used because, similar to reflexology, it is believed to represent a micro-system of the body. Dr Paul Nogier studied the correspondences between ear points and the organs. He also observed how the external ear anatomically corresponds to an inverted foetus. From this he developed a detailed ear chart. This was built partly on experimentation but was also based on embryology and neuroanatomy. If you would like to read more about the history of ear acupuncture, there is an interesting article here.

How do you use ear seeds?

The optimal location of the ear seeds to help your particular health needs are best determined in consultation with a qualified acupuncturist who has also studied auriculotherapy. Ear seeds are held in place with tiny adhesive plaster. As the ear contains a lot of natural oils, it is important to thoroughly clean the ear before attaching the ear seed. If you don’t, then it may fall off very quickly.

The great thing about ear seeds is that they can be posted to you. I can advise you about placement through a videoconferencing telehealth appointment and we can still maintain safe social distancing. If you’d like to try auriculotherapy and ear seeds to improve your health, then please get in touch (email or text 07865 593972) to book a telehealth appointment with me.

Stay safe, stay well, stay home.

A few weeks ago I shared some basic principles around managing stress and anxiety through healthy eating. In that article I mentioned that it is difficult to give advice about diet because it is so individual. What can help one person could be detrimental to another. To explain this further I’ll give a brief introduction to food energetics as we understand them in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

In TCM, foods can heating or cooling, totally separate to the temperature that the food is on our tongue. An example of this from our herbs and spice selection, is that chilli is a hot food and mint is a cool food. You can see how this makes sense in how we add chilli to spice a meal up and add heat to it, quite apart from temperature. Mint added to summer drinks eg. mint lemonade or a mojito give a cooling effect, even after the ice has melted.

The manner in which we prepare and/or cook a food can also affect how heating or cooling. Raw food such as salad is generally cooling while stewing would be warming and grilling adds yet more heat.

Why is heating or cooling important?

We all tend to have imbalances in ourselves to a greater or lesser degree. In TCM these imbalances are called patterns of disharmony. If your pattern of disharmony includes something that indicates that you have too much internal heat (which can also be a deficiency in cooling) e.g. hot flushes, then adding further heat through your food, could make your symptoms worse.

Food energetics is about much more than just heat and cold though. In TCM we look at certain Organs of the body as being a set of functions that support our physical and mental health. Different foods can support or inhibit different Organs, thereby allowing us to attain better balance in our overall health.

If you’d like to go deeper than just an introduction to food energetics and start to understand which foods can specifically improve your health and which you may be better to avoid, then please get in touch (email me or text me on 07865 593972) to book a telehealth appointment.

Stay safe, stay well, stay home.

Although I primarily think of myself as an Acupuncturist, my Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) studies trained me in a whole toolbox of complementary techniques. I am able to choose and use these, either with, or instead of, acupuncture alone. I have in the past, shared some basic information about some of these (eg. cupping) here on my website as a possible alternative for anyone who may wish to avoid needles. Now, as the prospect of an extended Stay At Home policy looks possible, I’ve been revisiting my toolkit.

The health and safety of my clients is my top priority at all times. I know that many of my clients are disappointed to be missing their treatments, even though they appreciate the need to stay safe. I’ve therefore been investigating ways that I can continue to support and progress their health journey, without breaking social distancing guidelines.

The most pragmatic way appears to be a telehealth consultation. Telehealth, simply put, is technology enabled healthcare management and delivery eg. a web based, virtual, consultation.

You won’t need to be an IT wizard to take part in a telehealth virtual consultation, but you will need access to a computer/tablet or smartphone and a reasonable speed internet connection. 

Through telehealth consultations (think of it as a type of online videoconference) I can still offer the following services:

• Traditional Chinese Medicine diagnosis (I identify which “patterns of disharmony” are unique to you and how we can work towards internal balance);
• tongue diagnosis;
• face diagnosis;
• diet advice;
• lifestyle advice;
• exercise advice.

By guiding you through demonstrations and observing you try it for yourself, together as a team we can also use:

• acupressure massage;
• breathing techniques;
• meditation techniques;
• qi gong exercises;
• gua sha.

If you wish to additionally invest in some inexpensive TCM tools, then I can also guide you in the safe and effective ways to use the following*:

• acupressure magnets;
• ear seeds;
• cupping;
• moxa.

* please do not use these without instruction, as they could cause harm if used incorrectly.

I may even include some of these tools (by post) for returning clients so I advise holding off purchasing them initially.

I am currently setting up the IT systems I need in order to provide secure telehealth consultations. Once in place, these telehealth consultations will use combinations of tools and techniques taken from the above to create tailored solutions to your health needs. If you are interested in booking a telehealth virtual consultation and dipping into my TCM toolbox, then please email me or text me on 07865 593972. I’ll contact you as soon as appointments are available.

Stay safe, stay well, stay home.

A key safety message currently, is to avoid touching your face. Although not enough is yet known about the coronavirus, we do know that it can travel in the large droplets generated by an infected person’s cough or sneeze. When those droplets land on a hard surface the virus can survive on those surfaces for some time. Touching a contaminated surface followed by hand-to-face contact, transfers that live virus to us.

Given that we typically touch our faces around 20 times each hour it is clear why regular hand washing is so important.

So why do we touch our faces so often? This video explains that we tend to touch certain pressure points (acupressure anybody?) on our face to calm ourselves.

So besides reforming our habits so that we keep hands clasped, what else can we do to help calm ourselves and avoid touching our face?

An acupressure alternative

A great acupressure point for calming the mind and reducing anxiety is Pericardium 6 (PC6). This point not only helps to calm us but also relieves tightness in the chest and reduces palpitations. Additionally it helps alleviate nausea. In fact travel sickness bands work by placing a magnet or small button of some kind over the PC6 point.

Instead of letting your hands fly to your face, move them to your inner arm and use your thumb or a couple of fingers to gently massage this PC6 acupressure point.

Pericardium 6 is located on the inside of the wrist, a short way toward the body and in between the two tendons that run approximately down the centre of the forearm.   An easy way to find the point is to place three fingers across your wrist starting at the wrist crease, then massage the point where this line crosses between the two tendons.  (Note: some people only have one of the two tendons, if this is you, locate PC6 just to the little finger side of the tendon). 

So now is a great time to form a new healthy habit. As often as you can over the next few days, keep your hands clasped, avoid touching your face and instead replace that calming activity by gently massaging PC6.

Stay safe, stay well, stay home.

One of the very first lessons we had when I started studying acupuncture, was how to wash our hands. It may seem basic but any medical or healthcare professional will tell you that it’s a cornerstone to proper infection prevention and control. An effective hand washing routine covers every aspect of the hands and wrists.

We’ve all been washing our hands for years and because it’s such a daily activity we tend to do it on automatic pilot. A quick hand wash however can still leave portions of hand improperly washed and therefore potentially able to spread infection.

Now more than ever, we need to be mindful of our hand washing technique and make sure that we take enough time to do it effectively. This short video walks you through this.

As part of our hand washing training, we were also instructed to keep our nails short and polish free. There were additional reasons for this, but the primary one was again infection prevention and control. Longer nails and gel or polish (especially if it becomes chipped) can harbour bacteria.

In clinic I use paper towels to dry my hands and these can be used to clean off taps before the towel is disposed of. At home, I use our usual cotton towels to dry my hands but with increased hand washing, I’m also putting those cotton towels through the wash more often too.

Avoid excessive handwashing

Although it’s important to wash your hands frequently it is actually counterproductive to wash them excessively. When you do this, you can remove the essential oils and good bacteria that protect your skin. Over further time the skin can become cracked, actually giving the wrong bacteria an even easier way in.

We should all be mindful of our hand washing habits at the moment but if you are worried that your hand washing (or that of a loved one) is becoming compulsive, you can check for the symptoms and sources of help with this, on this NHS site.

Stay safe, stay well, stay home.