Back to Basics

Welcome to another issue of AcuNut's Health Watch.  I had the good fortune last night after work to go for a walk out in the canyons near my home. It was a cooler than usual fall day, and it felt like fall for the first time.  (Living in San Diego, sometimes we have to hunt for changes of season).    While pondering the onset of winter, aka the loss of my flip flops, I started to think more specifically about yin-yang balance and how that changes the treatment principle for my patients. 

Yin and Yang are the basis of Oriental medicine, a fundamental subdivision that the early Chinese scholars used to try and describe the nature of the universe.  Yin is everything that is cool, and moist, water, black, night, winter, nourishing, calm, and immobile. Yang, on the other hand, is the pure fire element: warm, moving, summer, upward, vibrant, and energetic. Everything in the universe breaks down into the balance between yin and yang. Nothing is firmly one or the other - there is always a small element of yin within the yang, and a small element of yang within the yin.

While Oriental medicine can seem foreign in the beginning, the basis of the medicine is really about restoring this intrinsic balance within the body.  For those who suffer from chronic pain or illness, the change of seasons is a great time to work on resolving their conditions. Spring and summer are about nature's increasing yang: flowers begin to bloom, gardens grow, and there are more daylight hours. The yang energy is moving up and out as growth and development. In winter, the yang energy dives deep into the body, the plants go to sleep (hopefully not in our winter garden though), and there is a hunkering down, a turning inward to rest and rejuvenate.  We are not separate from this process - this eb and flow happens in us as well, and a skilled practitioner knows how to use this flow to reinforce the healing process.


What is the Flow?
In my practice, it seems like returning patient to the flow includes a lot of the basics, things like your breath, sleep, food, poop (OK no laughing matter when you have a client who has been constipated for 10 years, or diarrhea for 20).   The flow is simple, simple, simple.

For many of us, going "back to basics"  is too simple. We like things complex and multi-layered. Our lifestyles move at a hectic pace, supported by technology so fast we can barely keep up. We are used to having the world at our fingertips - all the answers to our problems merely a "Google-click" away, even on the phone.  Somehow, it feels like we have lost touch with the process, the quality of the journey itself.  Something to consider:  Perhaps that techonology that allows us to blast off to the moon via our smartphones isn't so great if we are constipated when we get there. 

We want medicine to be magical.  Our over-reliance on pharmaceuticals and technology has created a false picture about the body and the healing process in general. Everything should be quick and easily diagnosed.  Hollywood shows like ER and Grey's have only reinforced this notion, luring us to think everything should be neatly resolved in a one-hour segment, (and that we should look good while doing it).

Interesting that no one on these shows ever has a chronic degenerative problem that is difficult to diagnose or smelly - intractable diarrhea or bloating. It's always the cool flashy stuff, multiple organ transplants, racing with the little refrigerated lunchbox through the hospital in the nick of time…

But the advances in science and medicine have not translated to better health or a better quality of life; in fact, many of us feel worse than ever before. We are a nation struggling with obesity. Endocrine, autoimmune, and cardiovascular disorders are widespread. Chronic degenerative conditions like Alzheimer's are on the rise, and almost 10% of our children have been diagnosed with attention deficit or behavioral disorders.  The US ranks 30th in the world for infant mortality, largely due to high rates of pre-term babies.  MAny many people drowning under the weight of poly-pharmacy, taking meds that supress a symptom but do nothing to cure them.  Why has science failed us?

What if it hasn't?   What if we have just forgotten the basics, the abc's of good health?  I think the dazzling power of emergency medicine has blinded us to the subtle (and even obvious) signs of a body moving out of balance, of impending illness or injury.  Then, when we fail to overcome that bad cold, or the back pain becomes chronic,  it's a mystery.  


Stay tuned as we start to explore the Basics of Preventive Medicine and good health.  Yours in health, Jen