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Women’s Health

January 2023 Acupuncture Newsletter

Reflect on Your Health!

 

Reflection is when an image or idea returns to us, such as looking in a mirror, rethinking an event, or reviewing an idea. We can take a closer view and reconsider our original thinking.Reflection has other connotations in acupuncture. Outer appearances reflect inner health, so a well-trained practitioner of acupuncture will observe very different aspects of your appearance than you typically study when you look in the mirror. In acupuncture, bodily observation includes looking at the face, eyes, body type, demeanor, and tongue. Two thousand years ago, when acupuncture and Chinese medicine were in their infancy, there were no X-ray machines or the very sophisticated magnetic imaging of today. These healers and diagnosticians depended on their finely tuned observational skills to assess their patients. Some of those early ideas seem simplistic today, but many elements of diagnosis persist because outer appearances provide clues to a person’s health.The new year is a perfect opportunity to reflect and use that knowledge as a catalyst for change. Acupuncture can help achieve the change you seek as it assists in illness prevention, minimizes aches and pains, relieves stress, improves energy, and helps you find yourself in better balance. This calm and clarity strengthen your resolve as you start the new year with new goals.Additionally, seasonal acupuncture treatments nurture and nourish your kidney Qi, which can greatly enhance the body’s ability to thrive in times of stress and aid in healing, preventing illness, and increasing vitality.Call for your appointment today, and let us help you prepare for the year ahead!

Releasing Stress for a Healthy New Year

The start of the new year is a time of looking forward to the future, setting goals, and putting in motion the steps necessary to achieve them. Moving directly from a busy season immediately to actively working towards achieving goals can create additional stress and pressure to do well. Unchecked stress is often the cause of illness and deterioration of health. Finding a release valve for your stress can help you stay healthy. Numerous studies have demonstrated the benefits of acupuncture in treating stress, and anxiety, and lowering blood pressure. Acupuncture can help achieve the changes you seek by assisting in illness prevention, stress relief, minimizing aches and pains, improving energy, and finding balance.As a normal part of life, stress enables us to get things done. Left unmanaged, however, stress can lead to emotional, psychological, and even physical problems. Stress causes a disruption in the flow of vital energy, or Qi, through the body. This can throw off the immune system and cause new symptoms or aggravate already troublesome health conditions and, over time, more serious illnesses can develop.Stressful situations that last long can create ongoing low-level stress that puts continual pressure on the nervous system and can cause the overproduction of stress hormones such as cortisol. The extra stress hormones sustained over an extended period may wear out the body’s reserves, leading to fatigue, depression, a weakened immune system, and serious physical and psychological ailments.According to Chinese medicine, stress, frustration, and unresolved anger can play an important part in throwing the immune system off and allowing pathogens to affect the body. Through acupuncture, these energy blockages can be addressed. Acupuncture points can help energy flow smoothly and alleviate not only the symptoms of stress and anxiety but the stress and anxiety itself. Acupuncture improves blood circulation throughout the body, which oxygenates the tissues and cycles out stress hormones like cortisol and other waste chemicals. The calming nature of acupuncture also decreases heart rate, lowers blood pressure, and relaxes the muscles.While it isn’t always possible to remove the external forces causing stress, the ability to effectively deal with stress is a choice. Take time to cultivate the energy you need to handle your stress more skillfully and effectively.If you or someone you know is experiencing stress or a related condition, contact us for more information about how acupuncture can help you regain peace of mind and stay healthy!

Create Lasting Resolve to Reach Your Goals with Acupuncture

Acupuncture can help achieve some common changes people seek as it assists in illness prevention and stress relief, minimizes aches and pains, improves energy, and nurtures balance. This calm and clarity strengthen your resolve as you take the next step in achieving your goals.Here are a few ways that Acupuncture can help you achieve your goals:Improved Quality of LifeIf pain is keeping you from living life to the fullest, acupuncture can help as it has no side effects and can be helpful for all types of pain, regardless of the cause or where it is located. Increasingly, people are looking for more natural approaches to help relieve painful conditions instead of relying on medication. In addition to reducing pain, acupuncture also hastens the healing process by increasing circulation and attracting white blood cells to an injured area.Eliminate StressStress reduction is always on the top ten list for New Year’s resolutions, and for good reason; it is often the cause of illness and deterioration of health. Numerous studies have demonstrated the substantial benefits of acupuncture in treating stress and anxiety and lowering blood pressure. In addition to acupuncture, Chinese medicine offers a whole range of tools that can be integrated into your life to keep stress in check.Get in ShapeRenewed enthusiasm to exercise to enhance fitness levels, train for a competition, or lose weight can come at a painful price for those who try to do too much too quickly. Recent studies show that acupuncture effectively treats sports injuries such as strains, sprains, musculoskeletal pain, swollen muscles, and shin splints.Lose WeightLosing weight is the most common New Year’s resolution. Acupuncture and Chinese medicine can help you reach your goal weight and maintain it by promoting better digestion, smoothing emotions, reducing appetite, improving metabolism, and eliminating food cravings–all of which can help energize the body, maximize absorption of nutrients, regulate elimination, control overeating, suppress the appetite and reduce anxiety.Call today to see how Acupuncture can help you keep your resolutions and prepare for the year ahead!

In This Issue

  • Reflect on Your Health!
  • Releasing Stress for a Healthy New Year
  • Create Lasting Resolve to Reach Your Goals with Acupuncture
  • The Willpower Connection
  • Stick Out Your Tongue
  • Energy Renewing Ear Massage
  • Https://www.east2westmedicine.com

The Willpower Connection

Is there a body/mind connection to willpower?According to the principles of acupuncture and Chinese medicine, there is. Willpower, or “Zhi,” is said to reside in the kidneys, and the state of the Kidney Qi directly correlates to the fortitude of our willpower.In Chinese medicine, disease prevention begins with a protective layer around the body’s exterior called Wei Qi, or defensive energy. If you catch colds easily, have low energy, and require a long time to recuperate from an illness, your Wei Qi may be deficient.Nourishing Qi can help greatly enhance the body’s ability to thrive in times of stress, aid in healing, prevent illness and increase vitality. According to Chinese medicine, recharging your battery and regenerating vital energy, Qi, will help you live, look and feel your best!

Stick Out Your Tongue

Chinese medicine has used tongue diagnosis for thousands of years. An experienced practitioner can look at your tongue and begin to understand your internal problems, but you can also be aware of the information that your tongue provides.Look for changes in the color of your tongue, teeth marks, shape, and coating. These changes may indicate that something is amiss. A healthy tongue is naturally the same pink-red color as your lips. Note any changes in the shape of your tongue. If it’s too pale, puffy, or red, it may indicate an imbalance.Healthy tongues have a thin white coating. If you see a thicker coating developing, you may be catching a cold or the flu. So if you see changes take precautions, rest, sleep more, keep warm, and call us!

Energy Renewing Ear Massage

Ear massage is an extremely relaxing and effective therapy aimed at reducing stress, promoting well-being, and addressing various health issues.Here is a great ear massage that you can do for yourself or your loved ones:1. Rub, in small circular motions with your thumbs, inside the widest upper part of the ears, holding them from outside with the index and middle fingers.2. Use your index finger to massage inside the smaller crevices if your thumbs don’t fit and along the front of your ear where it attaches to the head.3. Lastly, massage the earlobes by gently pulling them down and making circles with your thumb and index fing

Benefits of Acupuncture during Pregnancy

Benefits of Acupuncture during Pregnancy_Jean Donati Acupuncture_Towson MD

Bringing a child into the world is one of life’s greatest gifts. But, along with the anticipation of that little bundle of joy, often comes some physical challenges and discomfort that can make for a long nine months. Did you know that acupuncture has been shown to address several issues that come up during pregnancy? Here’s what to know about the benefits of acupuncture during pregnancy and what the research actually says is true. continue reading »

Gratitude’s Link with Love & Happiness

Morning sunriseA glass half full – grateful people have a particular view of the world and themselves. They choose to notice the positive things in the world and their own lives and have an appreciation for things that other people may take for granted. In a growing body of research, the importance of gratitude suggests that it is a cornerstone of positive psychology.

Love:  Research from Psychologists Dr. Robert Emmons from UC Davis and Dr. Michael McCullough from the University of Miami go so far as to say that not only does gratitude promote feelings of happiness and love but that it is also a form of love itself. Open communication is necessary for healthy relationships. People who focus on the positive qualities of their partners experience more feelings of closeness and are often more aware of their partner’s needs and wishes, resulting in healthier, happier, more intimate relationships.

In 2010, Dr. Sara Algoe of UC Berkley sampled 67 heterosexual couples who had been together for at least 3 months. The partners wrote in a diary every night for 2 weeks and recorded both their own and their partner’s thoughtful actions, their feelings toward the actions and how they felt about the relationship that day. This research found that gratitude reminds romantic partners of the quality of the relationship, the quality of the individual’s partner and enhanced feelings of closeness.

Other studies, like one by Kubacka, Finkenauer, Rusbult and Keijsers in 2011 showed that gratitude begets gratitude. Kind gestures toward a spouse led to feelings of gratitude (of course!) and that gratitude motivated the other spouse to reciprocate with kind gestures. None of that should be too surprising but the ultimate result was a positive cycle of gratitude and caring behavior that continued to increase.

5 Proven Health Benefits of Gratitude:

  • Improved sleep
  • Can strengthen your physiological well-being
  • Longevity
  • Increased Energy Levels
  • Increased likelihood of physical activity

Life Satisfaction:

Ever wonder how some people continue to stay genuinely happy, even though they get hit with hardship after hardship and other people seem miserable even though they have everything anyone could ever want. Studies show it may come down to gratitude. “A key determining factor of well-being is the ability to notice, appreciate and savor the elements of one’s life”, say Dr. Emmons and Dr. McCullough. Three studies conducted by the pair looked into whether focusing on negative or neutral life events versus focusing on positive ones can lead to improved psychological and physical function. All three studies concluded that “an effective way to produce reliably higher

Is practicing gratitude a cure-all? Of course not! But research demonstrates its many benefits with no drawbacks. It is a powerful tool that can be utilized to live a good, meaningful life.
One thing to consider is being gracious with yourself. Show some gratitude to YOU, and treat yourself to an acupuncture treatment. Give us a call today!

Three Ways Acupuncture Can Help with Menopause

Three Ways Acupuncture Can Help with Menopause

For many women, the journey through menopause can be fraught with various symptoms that can range in severity from mild at one end of the spectrum to debilitating at the other. The menopausal transition is different for every woman and tailored treatments offered by acupuncture can provide significant benefits. Although studies outline more, let’s look at just three of the benefits of using acupuncture to treat menopausal symptoms.  continue reading »

Helping You Through Menopause

acupuncture menopause towson maryland jean donati

Many women, especially in Asian cultures, do not experience the symptoms associated with menopause, such as hot flashes, mood swings and fatigue. Some women even experience more energy at menopause. This is because menopause is actually a homeostatic mechanism that slows down the aging process in women. It is designed to conserve energy and blood, as the body can stop expending it on the menstrual cycle and reproduction. It is in this sense that we can think of it as a healthy transition, one just in time to slow down, then stop our reproductive function to conserve our essence and energy to allow us to get the most out of the final season of our lives.

Regular acupuncture can help with all kinds of life transitions, including menopause, and help you cash in on the benefits of those important shifts! Get in ASAP to set up an appropriate treatment plan!

Read More about Acupuncture and Menopause here…

Menopause and Acupuncture and You

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