The healing art of KoKoDo Shiatsu, like other methods of Traditional Oriental Medicine such as acupuncture and moxibustion, seeks to regulate and correct imbalances within the body, helping to restore a person to a healthier state of balance.
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.
“Like the calm still surface water that reflects the moon and a flying bird, true living calmness is the condition of our mind that reflects all things clearly.”
Tohei Koichi – Ki Sayings
A frequently heard comment from people coming in for acupuncture and shiatsu treatment is that they struggle with “over-thinking”, finding it difficult to quiet the mind as a thousand thoughts constantly race through their head.
This problem seems to be common for most people in our modern society and not just in cases such as anxiety, depression, or insomnia.
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.
Acupuncture can be a valuable treatment for helping to deal with stress… unless you’re this guy and having a REALLY bad day!
Although stress seems to be just an accepted part of everyday living in our modern society, it certainly is nothing new. In fact, one of the oldest Chinese medical textbooks, written over 2,000 years ago, was advising people on how to lower their stress levels so that they could live healthier and better lives.
In Eastern medicine, stress can be roughly categorized into 2 types – physical and emotional – although there is quite a bit of overlap between them because Traditional Oriental Medicine views the body, mind, and spirit as being inter-related to each other.
For those of us looking to make our health a higher priority in our lives, one of Traditional Chinese Medicine’s oldest books, compiled in approximately 200 B.C. and titled Huang Di Nei Jing (The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine), continues to provide us with a wealth of information for improving our health.
In a particular section of this acupuncture textbook, the Emperor was asking his court physician why people of their day weren’t living as long, compared to those of ancient China.