As summer draws to a close and we enter into autumn, it’s a good opportunity to pay closer attention to our own health. In Traditional Oriental Medicine, the transitions between seasons are seen as an important period of time in which a person’s body is trying to re-calibrate and stay in harmony and balance with their natural environment.
In Traditional Oriental Medicine, all of the practitioner’s senses are used during diagnosis in order to help determine patterns of imbalance which may be causing sickness and symptoms in a person’s health.
As previously seen in Part 1, visual diagnosis was the first of four diagnostic examination methods described in the earliest textbooks of acupuncture written 2,000 years ago.
Traditional Oriental Medicine is unique in that it is not just disease or sickness which is looked at during diagnosis, but also the underlying imbalances within a person’s body which may have contributed to the symptoms in the first place.
Looking, or visual diagnosis, is the first of four main diagnostic methods described in the earliest textbooks. For example, the Huang Di Nei Jing (The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine), written over 2,000 years ago, mentions about observing both the patient’s colour as well as their Shin, or spirit.
Many of the diagnostic methods used in Traditional Japanese acupuncture are based on the practitioner using their physical sensory organs to detect changes and imbalances in their patients.
For example, diagnosis by smelling body odours is a fundamental technique and was recorded in medical textbooks over 2,000 years ago.
As summer draws to a close and September begins, it’s a busy time as the children head back to their regular school schedules and our work life returns to normal too.
For kids, this can often be an exciting time as new school teachers and classrooms are introduced, old friends are seen again, and regular routines and activities are re-established. However, for some it can also be a time of worry and anxiety in trying to cope with all of these new stressors.
In Traditional Oriental Medicine, a close connection can be seen between the physical body and the emotional state of a person.
As was previously seen in Part 1, Eastern medicine has long observed that our emotional states can have a significant impact on our health.
However, which comes first? Is it an imbalance in the body that produces negative emotions, or is it the emotions having an effect on the body?
As part of the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC), a recent study found a significant increase in asthma and allergy symptoms among children who ate fast food meals several times per week.
Although a link between respiratory problems and food may be surprising to some, this is a relationship that has already been recognized in Eastern Medicine for thousands of years.
“So what caused the health problem?” This is a common question asked by patients in my acupuncture clinic.
For Western minds, we’re used to explaining and understanding things in a direct linear cause-and-effect manner. However, Eastern medicine has observed that natural phenomena in the real world, including our own health, is not always simple or black and white; many factors can contribute and interact with each other to create imbalance and disease pathology in our lives.
Love it or hate it, Daylight Savings Time (DST) is here upon us. However, as critics point out, there seems to be some evidence that this sudden change in time can create various health problems associated with a disruption and stress to our natural circadian rhythm, including fatigue, sleeping difficulties, mood changes, and even an increase in traffic accidents.
With an ever increasing reliance on diagnostic technology for medical imaging and testing, some Western medical doctors are realizing that an important part of their medicine is missing: human touch.
Fortunately, these practitioners are promoting a return to a more hands on approach for diagnosis and treatment, skills that have long been valued in the Eastern systems of healthcare.
