Everyday Acupuncture Podcast

Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order! I'm Michael max from Yong Kang, Chinese medicine clinic in St. Louis, Missouri today, with some thoughts on the question of what does acupuncture feel like? Acupuncture feels fresh baked bread, a stone perfectly skipped, an unexpected call from an old friend…. Like old photos recovered from a dusty attic, misplaced vitality from another time becomes accessible with the right stimulation from a few skillfully placed needles. Acupuncture can turn you on dime, reflect back to you your brilliance, call you to account for your habituated excuses, and slip you into a quiet so nourishing and vast you cannot help but touch on appreciation and wonder. It feels like a well-swung bat, a nicely banked shot, a satisfying sneeze. Acupuncture wiggles you through constrained emotions, it loosen the heart and expands your chest in the same deep-sigh way that forgiveness creates an extraordinary amount of space in your spirit. You can find the traces of acupuncture on an fMRI, in the cortisol count of the blood, the disappearing inflammation of a stomach lining, electrical activity of the brain, and growing life in what was a cold womb. It brings an unexplained sense of contentment and well-being. In the same way the warmth of Spring conjures flowers, acupuncture turns on the internal light and vitality. It’s not uncommon that you’ll feel better in unexpected ways.Less like mechanics and more like cooking, the selection of acupuncture points is as ever changing as your own unfolding being. What helped you last week might not be what is called for today. Like an artisan chef knows a spice in its own season is used differently than when it has been dried and preserved, so too with acupuncture we look both to the present, and the steps that lead you to this moment. All of you is invited to an acupuncture session. And because the “problem” that brought you to acupuncture is connected to everything else. You might notice your sleep improving, or mood curiously stable, even though it’s your digestion we focused on.What else does acupuncture feel like?It feels like a writer who has banished the “editor” from her mind and writes with the abandon of a sandstorm. It’s like the fire and spark prayers of a sculptor to his muse. It's the wind in the canyon, the scent of gardenia on a summer soft night. The growl of a jaguar in the night. Acupuncture touches the underwater web that connects all Life. Ties together lost loose ends and unravels the knotted constraints that have been holding their breath for release. Acupuncture is as different as every turn of a kaleidoscope. It is a compass that points toward the center. Inviting as a grandmother's apple pie, and with the potential of a hurricane's landscape changing power.What will acupuncture feel like for you? Visit your local acupuncturist and find out.Mentioned in this episode:Feel Healthier, Sleep Better and Boost Your Immune System With Real MushroomsAre you looking to improve your health? Are you tired of being tired? Prone to catching colds and the flu? We totally understand! We feel the same way! Real Mushrooms has you covered! Science backed supplemental mushrooms provide better mental clarity, deeper sleep and a strong immune system. GRAB A 25% DISCOUNT ON YOUR FIRST ORDER. Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order!

Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order! I’m Michael Max from Yong Kang clinic in St Louis, MO.It can help. But, if you think that it will magically make you do something your heart is not really set on, then you are wasting your time and money. Now it could be that I’ve just not figured out how to use acupuncture to bring about miracouse habit change. But my experience so far is that habit change is a parcipaparoty sport. And what’s more all the homeostatic balances that hold your body in balance and health are working against you because the body, and the mind for that matter, does not like change. How do you know this? Try changing your breakfast time. Or add some new foods to your diet. Immediately you’ll notice the friction that goes with change. Our habits might not be the best for us in the long run, but in the moment, our physiology is tuned more for maintaining the status quo than it is at promoting change. Your body has lived its way into it current balance and it has to live its way into a new one. And that takes time. Perhaps a season, or two for new behaviors to gain roots and old ones to wither and blow away.As a patient of mine once said. “I’d like to get better at the fastest pace that nature will allow.” Now…. There’s some wisdom for you.So back to the question, can acupuncture make you stop smoking or cause you to lose weight. I’d say not directly. But it is helpful for navigating the journey of change. It helps with the anxiety that arises when you’ve let go of someothing that previously calmed your jangled nerves. It helps with sitting with the emotions that you previously soothed with food, and it can help, again….in time…. With regulating the digestive and hormonal systems so your body runs with a slightly different metabolism. Acupuncture will not force you to do something you don’t want to do. But it is a good traveling companion for those moments when you’ve grabbed the wheel of your life and charted a new course.Mentioned in this episode:Feel Healthier, Sleep Better and Boost Your Immune System With Real MushroomsAre you looking to improve your health? Are you tired of being tired? Prone to catching colds and the flu? We totally understand! We feel the same way! Real Mushrooms has you covered! Science backed supplemental mushrooms provide better mental clarity, deeper sleep and a strong immune system. GRAB A 25% DISCOUNT ON YOUR FIRST ORDER. Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order!

Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order! My name's Stacy Whitcomb. I am a licensed acupuncturist in Bellingham, Washington, and I am also the host of the AcuSprout podcast. What to expect on your first acupuncture visit before I go into the details I just want to preface this with that.We're all. Just like any other profession, but in general, these are some things that you may expect to happen. First of all, many acupuncturists and Asian medical practitioners offer a consultation prior to your first visit. . A consultation offers you an opportunity to ask the practitioner any questions that you may have.Questions. Like how many treatments is it going to take? How often do I have to come in? Does acupuncture hurt? , consultation is my way of making sure that we are a good fit in my practice. I actually only take patients who are willing to participate in their healing, people who are ready for an individualized treatment plan, which may include anything from dietary changes and strengthening exercises to going to bed earlier. Okay. So on your first visit, your practitioner may suggest that you have eaten in the last couple hours and that you wear clothing that makes it easy for the practitioner to access your lower legs and armslike a doctor visit, you'll enter a treatment room and sit, we usually do a very thorough intake, which includes a lot of questions that seem completely unrelated to your chief complaint. That's because acupuncture and Asian medicine is holistic. We're looking for patterns which help guide our diagnosis.It may seem very weird to you and yes, we do know this, but for example, that ly and bloated stomach can definitely be related to your insomnia. After the intake, we may ask you to lie on the table or sit, and we will feel the pulses in your wrists.Like I mentioned before, this is just another piece of defining the pattern diagnosis so that we can guide our treatment properly. Then we'll look at your tongue. You will probably feel a little silly because it can feel a little silly. And then we should have a pretty good picture of your diagnosis and put together a needle sequence to treat you at this point. I usually explain that the first treatment is just us getting to know each other . I like to make sure that you're comfortable with the process. I typically only use a couple needles on the first visit with minimal stimulation.This is also a really great opportunity for me to see how your body responds to the treatment that gives me the information that guides future treatments. People's experience of acupuncture is different.Your stomach may growl. , your pain dissipates, your anxiety might melt away and relaxation may set in or. You could absolutely feel nothing. And that's okay too. It all takes time. It takes time for our bodies to heal and adapt. You. Don't go to the gym once and expect to lose 20 pounds of fat and gain 10 pounds of muscle. Lastly, after the needles are taken out, you'll pay for the visit and reschedule. I like to get all of our visits scheduled in advance. That way I can ensure that we stick with the plan and you don't fall behind because my schedule is too full later After your treatment pay attention to your body. Are you sleeping better? Is your digestion better? Do you feel more calm? Great. Now go tell your friends.Mentioned in this episode:Feel Healthier, Sleep Better and Boost Your Immune System With Real MushroomsAre you looking to improve your health? Are you tired of being tired? Prone to catching colds and the flu? We totally understand! We feel the same way! Real Mushrooms has you covered! Science backed supplemental mushrooms provide better mental clarity, deeper sleep and a strong immune system. GRAB A 25% DISCOUNT ON YOUR FIRST ORDER. Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order!

Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order! This is Stacy I'm a licensed acupuncturist and the host of the AcuSprout podcast.I don't believe in acupuncture. This one. I hear every once in a while, and sometimes even from a patient as I'm doing acupuncture and because it's not my job to convince anyone that it does work. I usually just reply. That's okay. You don't have to believe in it for it to work acupuncture. Isn't a religion.It's it's not the big bang theory. It isn't Santa Claus and it's not magic. It's a medicine. That's two to 5,000 years old. It worked back then and it works now whether you believe in it or not. So when someone tells me that they don't believe in acupuncture, I always wanna ask them if they believe in anesthesiology, because most people I know would never look an anesthetist in the eye and say, I don't believe in anesthesiology. I think the anesthesiologist would have a similar reply as mine. Mm-hmm yep. That's. 90 night, but don't you think anesthesiology is weird. Someone shoots stuff into your veins and you go to sleep and you feel no pain when you wake up and you don't remember anything. do you know how that worked?Here's the web MD's explanation of anesthesiology general anesthesia works by interrupting nerve signals in your brain and body. Prevents your brain from processing pain and from remembering what happened during the surgery. So guess what? Acupuncture affects the body similarly, and then some acupuncture needles also interrupt nerve signals in your brain and body.They help balance the body's reaction to pain and inflammation. They regulate hormones, calm the nervous system and help your body heal. But let me clarify. I would not go to an acupuncturist in lieu of anesthesiology. So that wasn't my point here, but I definitely would use it postoperatively to reduce swelling, inflammation, and pain and to speed healing.The world health organization was formed in 1948 to coordinate international health within the United nations. And they set standards for governments and large organizations in order to improve the health of global citizens.Current. The world health organization now recommends acupuncture for over 100 conditions. Acupuncture has been scientifically proven to be an effective treatment option. And that includes adverse reactions to radiotherapy and chemotherapy allergic rhinitis, biliary concolic depression, dysentery dyspenia epi Astria facial pain, headache, hypertension, hypertension, induction of labor, knee pain, leukopenia, low back pain, malposition of the fetus.Morning sickness, nausea, vomit, neck pain, pain. Inden per arthritis of the shoulder, postoperative pain, renal colic, rheumatoid arthritis, sciatica sprain stroke, and tennis elbow. Oh, and that long haul COVID that is keeping you from smelling your food. That ailment that Western medicine doesn't have a cure for.I've successfully treated that using acupuncture in a custom herbal formula. And I imagine that that patient didn't believe in acupuncture when she first came to see me, but now she does. So you may not believe in it because you don't know how it works or because it's not really part of our native social construct of medicine, but when was the last time you asked how ibuprofen knows that that pain is in your ankle or.How about that blue pill that can cause erection.Do you know how that works?Mentioned in this episode:Feel Healthier, Sleep Better and Boost Your Immune System With Real MushroomsAre you looking to improve your health? Are you tired of being tired? Prone to catching colds and the flu? We totally understand! We feel the same way! Real Mushrooms has you covered! Science backed supplemental mushrooms provide better mental clarity, deeper sleep and a strong immune system. GRAB A 25% DISCOUNT ON YOUR FIRST ORDER. Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order!

Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order! How do I know acupuncture will help me?You don’t. I don’t know either. It’s like any other process of discovery and intervention. We first strive to understand your present situation. What brought you to this point. What holds your current condition in place. Acupuncture and East Asian medicine seeks first to understand. Understand not just the mettlesome symptom that lead you to pick up the phone for an appointment, but to get a sense of how these symptoms and annoyances fit like puzzle pieces into the rest of your life. What holds them in place. What else are they connected to? Are there several seemingly unrelated issues that are in fact all connected?Unlike the currently popular “evidence-based” medicine model of lining treatments up with symptoms and letting researcher’s data or insurance company policies decide on the best treatment for you. Chinese medicine is an observation-based medicine that seeks to understand each individual, your unique situation and how all that fits into the greater context of your life. Acupuncturists don’t look to “get rid of the problem. “ We seek to understand the problem and then help to either strengthen the innate resources a person has for self-healing, or seek to alleviate symptoms so the body has an opportunity to fall into it’s own best balance. Usually we craft a treatment that both works on the root causes and the symptomatic mischief that caused you to reach out for some help. Will acupuncture help? As with so much in life you will not know until you give it an honest try. An honest try being roughly 4-6 treatments. While there are miraculous changes that sometimes occur with one treatment, by and large for most people, you’ll need a few treatments to get a sense of if the acupuncture is helping and in what ways it is helping. Remember, while acupuncture may seem exotic, it’s medicine, not magic. Just as you would give your physical therapist a month or so to correct a problem, give a surgery several months to heal, or a course of drugs 4-6 weeks to see if you respond well, so too it takes some time to understand how you respond to acupuncture. And one more thing, because in the human body everything is connected to everything else, do be surprised if your sleep or digestion improve, even though you’re being treating for a stiff neck.Mentioned in this episode:Feel Healthier, Sleep Better and Boost Your Immune System With Real MushroomsAre you looking to improve your health? Are you tired of being tired? Prone to catching colds and the flu? We totally understand! We feel the same way! Real Mushrooms has you covered! Science backed supplemental mushrooms provide better mental clarity, deeper sleep and a strong immune system. GRAB A 25% DISCOUNT ON YOUR FIRST ORDER. Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order!

Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order! My name is Stacy Whitcomb. I am in Bellingham, Washington, licensed acupuncturist, and the podcast host of the AcuSprout podcast. Did you know that acupuncture is only one of five branches of Asian medicine? That's only 20% of the big pictureThe five branches include herbal medicine, manual therapy, acupuncture, cheek, cultivation, and diet. In this three minute acupuncture point, I'm going to cover each branch and tell you how each one is an essential 20% of the big picture.Let's start with herbal medicine. Typically in the United States, practitioners who studied herbal medicine in school started by learning 365 single herbs. And about 10 key pieces of information about each herb, including, but not limited to the English name, the opinion or Chinese name. The herbs properties like bitter the temperature it's key characteristics such as does it tonify or move and its actions and indications.Once we've memorized all of the herbs, we then move on to learning how to combine them in formulas. And then we learn how to customize those formulas specifically to the patient in front of us, because we're all different. , we're also dynamic and our physiology can change, which means that our formula might change over time.Next we have manual therapy, SHSU and tuna are types of body work that help put the body back into balance, alleviate pain and stress and heal. Typically the practitioner listens to the chief complaint, completes some diagnostic tests, and then does the massage or body work acupuncture?Acupuncture is the use of tiny filiform needles, about the size of a human hair on points on the body to balance the body and help it heal. This is done using the principles of Chinese medicine to influence nerve signals to the brain and create a healing response. There are many different styles of acupuncture.So treatment styles may vary. Chi cultivation because we have no truly great translation for Chi in the west. I was actually tempted to rename this branch for simplicity. Tai Chi and Chi Kong are soft martial arts that are akin to movement meditations, which help all of.Mind body, soul, and spirit be in alignment with your true nature. Daily movements builds an awareness of balances and imbalances, , which govern our life force and health, their long game solutions practice daily to increase vitality. It's like this. Major league baseball players have been swinging at fastball since they were seven in hopes to be in complete alignment, to hit a home run on a 95 mile an hour fastball, they have been aligning their Chi for this experience, all of their lives.And then one day in one swing in one second, they are in complete alignment, but one would argue that all of that cultivation has actually provided more gifts than just that one home. Lastly diet, actually, I think I'd rather say food or nutrition here. Diet is such a loaded word, much like herbs food is also medicine.Foods also have properties like herbs. The nature of food can be salty, or sour. It has temperature and how, and when we eat food changes with the seasons, our constitution and how strong our digestion is, all food is like this. What is good for one person may not be easily assimilated by another person, eating foods at the right time to strengthen and heal are an important branch of the tree. If you wanna learn more, be sure to subscribe to the everyday acupuncture podcast. Mentioned in this episode:Feel Healthier, Sleep Better and Boost Your Immune System With Real MushroomsAre you looking to improve your health? Are you tired of being tired? Prone to catching colds and the flu? We totally understand! We feel the same way! Real Mushrooms has you covered! Science backed supplemental mushrooms provide better mental clarity, deeper sleep and a strong immune system. GRAB A 25% DISCOUNT ON YOUR FIRST ORDER. Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order!

Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order! This is Stacy Whitcomb with Shift Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine in Bellingham, Washington. Today, I'm gonna share with you the top five things to consider when choosing an acupuncturist. Number one. Let's start with qualifications. Most states in the United States require an NCCAOM certification, which is the national certification commission for acupuncture and Oriental medicine, which consists of three board exams.[00:00:23] And a fourth. If you wanna sit for the herbal medicine board. Asian medical school is much like Western medical school. In most cases, we earn a four year Bachelor's degree and then apply to medical schools where we then go on to earn a three to four year Master's degree.[00:00:36] In contrast to Western medical Docs who go on to earn a four year medical degree. Now, many practitioners continue on to pursue a doctoral degree as. So the only states currently to have no regulations are South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Alabama, and then California has their own state exam, which is rather rigorous. And I promise you no other state envies this. So now you might live in an area that legally allows other medical care providers to do what is called dry needling, which is also acupuncture or even quote acupuncture. So let me ask you this. Would you go to a dentist for a gynecological exam? Yeah, me neither. So why would you go to a physical therapist, chiropractor or Western medical doctor to get acupuncture that doesn't even make sense? Two, let's talk about referrals, how to find your forever acupuncturist. One, ask your friends seriously or other people in your social circle, who they see. Usually if your friend really likes a practitioner, then you probably will too second great way is to do a Google search with the words, acupuncture, and then whatever you seem to be ailing from. So the internet is wicked smart these days, and an equally smart acupuncturist who is in near proximity to you will have a website looking for you.So let the internet do the. Number three, check out the practitioner's website to see if they're a generalist or a specialist acupuncture treats the whole person, meaning that if you're being treated for insomnia, you might notice that like your digestion improves or your arthritis gets better, but some practitioners take a special interest in specific populations. So they may have more educational training and say something like orthopedic injuries or women's health number four insurance. So. If you have health insurance and you know that it covers acupuncture, then you might want an acupuncturist who takes your insurance. So the best way to go about this is to call your insurance and find out, and then also ask them if they cover whatever it is that you have going on, physically, that you need help with number five, a consultation, many acupuncturists offer something like a 20 minute consultation.This is a special opportunity where you can ask all of your questions and the acupuncturist can explain a little bit about what to expect with the treatment.So there you have it, the top five things to look for when choosing your acupuncturist. Mentioned in this episode:ECO-CHA AD FINALFeel Healthier, Sleep Better and Boost Your Immune System With Real MushroomsAre you looking to improve your health? Are you tired of being tired? Prone to catching colds and the flu? We totally understand! We feel the same way! Real Mushrooms has you covered! Science backed supplemental mushrooms provide better mental clarity, deeper sleep and a strong immune system. GRAB A 25% DISCOUNT ON YOUR FIRST ORDER. Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order!

Michael Max, an expert in Qi, discusses the concept of Qi and its varied expressions. They explore how acupuncture's regulation of Qi can bring surprising benefits beyond targeted treatments.

Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order! I never know what will come up in a clinic session. That’s the fun part of the job; not knowing. Not knowing and being attentive to what arises. It’s a cross between meditation and motorcycle repair.This episode is one of those rare solo shows. It’s fueled by some discussions that commonly occur in my clinic.In this short discussion I’ll cover: Do I need to be sick to get acupuncture? Hydration and fluid metabolism How does acupuncture work? Who is an acupuncturist? Mentioned in this episode:Real Mushrooms For Everyday PeopleAre you looking to improve your health? Are you tired of being tired? Prone to catching colds and the flu? We totally understand! We feel the same way! Real Mushrooms has you covered! Science backed supplemental mushrooms provide better mental clarity, deeper sleep and a strong immune system. GRAB A 25% DISCOUNT ON YOUR FIRST ORDER. Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order!

Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order! Qi gong can look deceptively simple. From the outside it looks like stillness in motion, but what is unfolding on the inside is another matter entirely.Here in the West we are used to aggressive, outward motion while being distracted with TV shows, music or magazines at the gym. But the Chinese internal arts, while from the outside does not look like much, inside there is an attentive focus that for many of us is the hardest workout of all.Listen in for a conversation on the simple, but not easy practice of tai chi and qi gong and the health benefits that can arise from slow steady attentive focus.Mentioned in this episode:Real Mushrooms For Everyday PeopleAre you looking to improve your health? Are you tired of being tired? Prone to catching colds and the flu? We totally understand! We feel the same way! Real Mushrooms has you covered! Science backed supplemental mushrooms provide better mental clarity, deeper sleep and a strong immune system. GRAB A 25% DISCOUNT ON YOUR FIRST ORDER. Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order!