“When a person is sick the doctor should first regulate the person’s diet and lifestyle” – Sun Si Miao

Many patients present with some kinds of digestive issues, even if only loose stools, bloating after eating, indigestion or food sensitivity. This tells us that the Earth element needs to be addressed for these patients.

The Earth element (Spleen and Stomach) is vital for our health and well-being. It is responsible for extracting the Gu Qi (‘grain qi’) from food, which is then turned into Qi and Blood for the whole body. The post-heaven Jing is also derived from our food. Because the Shen resides in the Blood, and requires strong Qi and Jing in order to flourish, it also depends on a healthy and strong Earth element. Dampness and Phlegm, so often seen in clinical practice, are also produced by the Spleen. All aspects of our health therefore rely on the process of digestion.

A ‘Spleen friendly’ diet is helpful in a wide range of digestive imbalances.

For instance – The ‘healthy diet’ of Chinese medicine consists of a number of basic points which make digestion as easy as possible, in order to extract maximum goodness (in the form of Gu Qi) from our food:

• Always eat breakfast

• Don’t eat late at night (the weak time for the Spleen and Stomach is 7-11pm)

• Favour warm and cooked food over cold and raw food

• Chew well

• Don’t “flood the Spleen” by drinking too much fluid with meals

• Eat a varied diet, and avoid extremes

• Don’t eat ‘on the go’ or when emotionally agitated

• Avoid too much Damp producing food (dairy products, sugar, wheat etc.)

• Avoid unnatural, processed and refined food

• Don’t overeat

The most common kinds of digestive issues is as follows:

• Too much meat in the diet, leading to Heat and Stagnation

• Too many spicy or rich foods, leading to Heat, Dampness and Phlegm

• Too few vegetables, or a lack of good quality food leading to Qi and Blood deficiency

• Too many Damp foods (especially dairy products and sugar) leading to Dampness and Phlegm

• Too much coffee, leading to Yin deficiency and Heat

Each food has an energetic temperature that effects the Qi of the stomach and spleen. For every patient with internal Heat avoiding Hot foods will help, and for every patient with Cold avoiding Cold foods will help. This is a simple but powerful way of starting to work with food, without getting too complex.

Almost everyone thinks that salads and raw foods are good for them, but easily see the sense in sticking to mainly warm and cooked foods because much extra effort by the stomach is required to process the cold raw food.

Drinking ginger tea or chai is very simple for Yang deficient people, cabbage or beetroot soup for Blood deficiency, and lemon juice in hot water for Damp-Heat or Qi Stagnation.

Eating a “Spleen friendly” diet can improve the success of almost any acupuncture treatment, and in some cases can be the missing element which is preventing an acupuncture treatment from working. All cases of Spleen disharmony or any patient that presents with digestive issues will benefit from the basic ‘Spleen friendly’ healthy eating advice, and for deficiency cases, this alone can make a huge difference to a person’s health.

Supporting patients with basic cooking ideas or recipes and working with diet and lifestyle as Sun Si Miao recommended, can get to the root of many problems, and help patients to truly heal.

Further Reading

Leggett, Daverick. Recipes For Self Healing (Totnes, Meridian Press, 1999)
Flaws, Bob. The Tao of Healthy Eating (Boulder, Blue Poppy Press, 1998)
Ni, Maoshing and McNease, Cathy. The Tao of Nutrition (California, Severn Star Communications, 1987)
Pitchford, Paul. Healing with Whole Foods (North Atlantic Books, 2002)
For using Chinese herbs in cooking
Liu, Jilin. Chinese Dietary Therapy (Churchill Livingstone, 1995)
Flaws, Bob. The Book Of Jook (Boulder, Blue Poppy Press, 1995)
In addition, basic advice for the main imbalances can be quite straightforward. For example, for Yang deficiency we should avoid energetically Cold foods (mango, bananas, tofu etc), use hot cooking methods such as baking, and eat more Warming foods such as Lamb, Trout, and most spices.

When I meet a new patient, I wonder, “Who is this person? How is she feeling? What does she need to become whole on all levels — physical, emotional and spiritual?” To find out, I ask deeper questions about her well-being in order to find the symptom’s cause and treat it.

Any symptom a patient reports can be the result of an imbalance in one of the five elements — Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal. Once this happens, the imbalance can spread throughout the body, because all five elements are connected like members of a family. When one member is sick, unable or unwilling to do his tasks, the rest of the family suffers. In time, they all become symptomatic, too.

Because symptoms and imbalances are interrelated in this way, I need to know more than just that my patient has migraines, arthritis or insomnia. Those symptoms can be the result of imbalances in any organ or function, so I have to find the elemental cause.

In classical five-element acupuncture, this is done through the senses — perceiving the odor (yes, odor!), color, sound, and emotion that identifies which element is out of balance. Then I work empathetically — feeling what the patient feels in order to understand the level of disease.

If a roof gutter fills with leaves, water may stagnate rather than drain, encouraging clogging and the growth of unwanted seedlings. In the same way, when the body’s gutters and drains stop flowing, manipulation of an acupuncture point opens and clears out stagnation, encourages flow and returns the body to a balanced state so that it can heal itself.

Symptoms are the body’s distress signals, clues to what’s going on inside. When symptoms are suppressed by prescription drugs, the body is being told to “shut up!” But centuries of Chinese medicine have demonstrated the wisdom of listening.

I tell my patients that acupuncture has a cumulative effect and that scheduling a series of treatments is the most effective way to help resolve imbalances. Why is this so? The endorphin theory.

Bruce Pomeranz, M.D., PhD., a neurophysiology professor at the University of Toronto School of Medicine and one of the world’s foremost acupuncture researchers, has reviewed more than a dozen studies on the effectiveness of acupuncture.

To challenge the belief of many conventional doctors that acupuncture simply produces a placebo effect, Dr. Pomeranz spent 20 years trying to disprove his hypothesis that acupuncture blocks pain pathways in the brain. Put another way, the question was, does acupuncture stimulate peripheral nerves that send messages to the brain to release endorphins (morphine-like compounds)?

A Chinese student working in his lab studied acupuncture as anesthesia on animals. If it was a placebo, then it should not work, he reasoned, because  placebos only work if the patient is conscious. The student had previously observed that acupuncture worked on farm animals and infants, who cannot experience the placebo effect. His experiments on anesthetized animals demonstrated that what acupuncture actually does is block pain pathways.

In testing the acupuncture-endorphin theory, Dr. Pomeranz tested 16 lines of evidence with 16 different kinds of experiments based on 16 different assumptions—all supporting his hypothesis. He concluded that there was more evidence in favor of the acupuncture-endorphin hypothesis than there is for 95% of conventional medical treatments.

Dr. Pomeranz says the advantage of the endorphin theory is that you can improve acupuncture treatment. Endorphins have a cumulative effect. The first treatment is mildly effective, the second, if given within hours or days, is even more potent. Endorphins have a memory. If you give an acupuncture treatment a third time in close succession, it’s going to be even stronger.

Fire is reflected in the Summer season. Summer’s special gift – the energy of fire – allows us to give and receive warmth, supporting the functioning of our hearts. We enhance our health by understanding the correlations between the Fire Element and Summer.

Summer is a time of activity and interaction with the outside world; a time to re-charge our batteries during the high point of the year’s own peak.

Summer is the season of the Heart and its partner organ, the Small Intestine. Although the Heart’s main function is to pump oxygen-rich blood through the arteries into all parts of the body, it also determines the state and strength of our constitution.  The Heart is also connected with the “Shen” or spirit while also being associated with the mind. In Chinese Medicine mental activity resides in the Heart, which affects our emotional health, memory, thinking and sleeping.  A strong healthy Heart results in a  mind that can balance our emotions is peaceful and happy, and is able to sleep undisturbed.

Summer is about  becoming more expansive and connecting with others through hiking, trips to the ocean and mountains, gardening, and summer gatherings. Recharging our Fire Element during the active, summer season will carry us through out the year. Connection with the Fire Element can be a source of great joy that embews us with renewed energy and enthusiasm and lightens our tasks.   When we have the strength of the Fire Element within us there is fun to be had in all that we do. When love and joy are alive in us we naturally reach out to others to share our warmth and friendship.

Here are some tips to stoke your Fire Element:

Plan to have fun regularly.  Schedule your fun and PLAY!!!  Adult playgrounds include retreat centers such as www.kripalu.org & www.omega-inst.org

Volunteer…give of yourself and the love will be returned three-fold. You’ll feel apperciated and yes….LOVED and that does your heart good. There is no shortage of non-profits that could use your particular talents.

I volunteer at www.youcanthrive.org and Acupuncturists without Borders: www.acuwithoutborders.org which are great organizations.

Live your passion. It can be as simple as whisteling or taking a walk through the woods.  If you sing in the shower and always wanted to sing with others, join a choir.   Take up painting, throwing pots (as in pottery), calligraphy, dancing, drumming….you get the idea.

Move, Move, Move…. There’s nothing like physical activity to get into your body and out of your head.  Leave your computers and blackberries behind and walk, dance, swim, bicycle, hike, kayack….or make up an activity.  Get your circulation going in any way that suits you.

Whataya know?  Summer is here.  June 20th to be exact.   In the Chinese 5 Element tradition that means you need to receive treatment that brings the Fire element into balance.

Is your temperature fluctuating?  Feeling tired, manic, moody, sleep deprived, unrested? Perhaps you need a summer solstice acupuncture treatment. With a balanced fire element you can transition joyously into the Summer season without that burnt out feeling.   How exactly is this done you ask?  Your energies can be aligned with the simple use of Horary acupuncture points near the time of the solstice.  Summer horary’s help maintain balance because they are associated with the Fire energies of the  heart, small intestine, pericardium and triple Heater channels or meridians.

The Fire Horary points are on the fire channels as outlined below.

Heart 8 – Lesser Mansion-  Is the fire point of the heart channel. The heart’s job is to sort the spirit, command the blood and distribute nourishment throughout the body, mind and spirit.

Small Intestine 5 – Yang Valley – is the fire point on this channel responsible for sorting on a physical and emotional level.

Triple Heater 6 – Branch Ditch:  Just as water ditches are used to irrigate fields, the triple heater channel helps to irrigate the body and helps to moisten the intestines.

Pericardium 8 – Palace of Toil:  The pericardium’s task is to protect the heart and is used in treatment of fatigue.

So get yourself to a 5 Element Practitioner and have your Horary’s tweaked.

You’ll feel a lot better and you’ll be ready to take on the fullness of summer.