Spring is here now in full swing, with Nature coming alive after her winter sleep. Tree buds and blossoms on display, green seedlings poking their way up out of the garden soil, birds and other animals scurrying around tending to their nests – springtime is a period of vigorous growth and activity.
We’ve probably all been told to eat a healthy and varied diet but what does that actually mean?
In a recent review of research articles about nutrition and health, one of the clues was that eating a larger variety of vegetables and fruits can lead to a reduced risk of a number of common diseases, including type 2 diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.
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.
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.
What do martial arts have in common with the healing arts? In the traditional Japanese practice of KoKoDo (roughly translated as “Royal Pathway of Light”), they are in fact regarded as opposite sides of the same coin.
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.
A downside with playing sports or engaging in other physical activities can be the occasional injury, whether it’s spraining your ankle while out hiking, separating your shoulder making that diving catch, or finally getting out and playing that round of golf only to feel pain in your sprained lower back the next day.
Fortunately, the Eastern medical approach can be very useful in the treatment of these kinds of injuries and pain, allowing us to recover faster and get back to our activities.
Heart disease, including high blood pressure, heart attacks, and stroke, is one of the leading causes of illness and death in North America and is a major focus in Western Medicine.
Eastern Medicine also places great emphasis on the Heart system and in fact describes it as being like the Emperor of the body – all of the other organ systems are there to work for and support the health of the Heart, as without healthy blood and energy circulation disease soon follows.
Traditional Oriental Medicine views the Lung system as being part of the respiratory process, bringing in fresh air and energy from our surroundings and distributing this throughout the entire body. Besides the actual lung organ, Eastern medicine also includes the throat and vocal cords, nasal passages, and sinuses.
In addition, the skin and mucous membranes are also regarded as an extension of the Lung system. This connection is commonly seen in children who suffer from asthma or allergies and may later on develop skin conditions such as eczema or psoriasis. Treatment is aimed at strengthening the health and functioning of the lungs, resulting in improvement of both the asthma and the skin.
