[New to acupuncture?  Get to know its benefits by reading 10 Things about Acupuncture that work.]

To be, or not to be…. Well.

What are your days like this winter?  Do you get up each day, tired and wondering if today you are going to get the office plague, have you spent the entire (albeit beautiful) Portland rainy winter hoping you don’t get H1N1?  Do you spend a good portion of your time working out various ways to avoid being ill and tired, avoiding digestive problems and other maladies?  How many of these problems do you have on a regular basis?

Here’s the real question:

How many of these health problems give you that niggly, squicky feeling in your head that there’s really something more serious going on?

Do you move toward health or away from illness?

Avoiding sickness holds a certain mindset.  It means expecting the illness and seeking only to move away from the pain and suffering it causes you. We continually worry that we may become sick and this worry undermines our immune systems.  We have to take time off of work to make emergency trips to our physician so that they can provide us with medications to alleviate our pain and problems, which again, undermine our purposes and goals.  Lost time at work and not being at our best, not to mention over use of antibiotics can really keep us from fully succeeding and living our lives to the fullest!

Your ideal health

What would it be like to seek health?  To continually look to the future and obtain a healthy body? A body that, in its natural state seeks homeostasis and ease?  What if you could lose the swings of good/bad and simply be amazing? What if the glass wasn’t half full or empty, but filled from a constant source of renewed health?

How would you think differently?  How would you act differently?  How would your life’s plans and goals change?

A winter full of health with no colds.  A life without the seasonal blah-blahs, no missed work, missed deadlines or missed goals.  A life where you are out of pain and have time to achieve your goals and still have time  for intimacy in your relationships.  What would happen then?

Your plans will change, your relationships will change, your life will change.  You’ll do something new, you will move toward and engage in, health.

All alternative medicine is based on seeking health, rather than running way from illness.  There is no glass half full or half empty, it is always being filled by a renewable source of life force and energy.  Chinese Medicine embraces and treats the  the whole body.  It succeeds in motivating you toward a whole new state of health.

Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, Tuina, cupping and nutritional counseling can all help you to start to look for and move toward ways to make your life better.  Acupuncture has been shown to boost immunity, relieve depression, relieve chronic pain, help you lose weight and give you an over all sense of well being.

To seek or to avoid?  One is open, full of possibility and future, one is reactive, constricting and full of fear.  Which are you?  Which will you choose for yourself this year?

Not sure about acupuncture just yet?  Read 5 Myths about Acupuncture

Picture is Marc Forrest’s via flickr

Friday news!  What is the world saying about Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine?

H1N1 virus.  Everyone this week is talking about it as Flu season hits across the globe.

Traditional Chinese Medicine can be helpful in keeping the immune system strong and fighting off of the flu if you have it.

Read on:

• Bejing Schools provide free Herbal treatment to students to ward away H1N1 virus
• China issues 1st warrant for H1N1 vaccination, will use Traditional Chinese Medicine in addition to vaccinations
• Herbal Tea treats H1N1

The Chinese have a long history of working with epidemic diseases and learning the best natural ways to combat them.  Those of us in the West have access to this information via our education, community of acupuncturists and our contacts with those in China. If you are concerned about the H1N1 virus, talk to your acupuncturist today.