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[radiantgoodhealth]

Time to Plank!

Human Wellness From Enerqi!

 Welcome to Our First Annual Plank Challenge!

You’ve probably seen Plank Challenges before. Because they are fun (for the first week), then hard (weeks 2 and 3), and then impossible (week 4) for most people, we’ve made some changes.

Guidelines

1.  Have Fun!

a.  If you do 10 seconds for 28 days, THAT is excellent. If you pick Intensity Track 3 and double it by day 5,THAT is excellent.

b.  This is a participation event with no particular outcome—except try to do some planks every day in February!

2.  If you’ve never done planks before, take a look at the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvxNkmjdhMM).

a.  Safety first!

b.  Feel into your body, especially your back and shoulders.

c.   Plank on a firm surface (e.g. not your bed).

d.  Take your time moving into and out of the plank.

e.  Keep your core (your belly muscles) tight but not rigid as you plank.

f.   There’s no gain in pain!

3.  Be gentle in terms of timing. You can always go a little longer or a little shorter. Doing the challenge every day, including resting on the rest days, is the smart way to build your strength over the month.

4.  Feel free to hopscotch between the three Intensity Tracks (see below) depending on how you feel.

5.  Most people find that first thing in the morning is the best time to do this. If you put it off, you might find it’s bedtime and you’ve missed a day’s planking.

6.  BREATHE while you plank.

a.  Try counting your breaths if it’s easier than timing yourself.

b.  Cross check breaths with your timer on the first couple days, and then just rely on your breath to time duration.

7.  A little shakiness is normal. Pain is not normal.

a.  If you feel pain, stop, recheck your posture, and try again.

b.  If the pain returns, stop for the day and try again tomorrow.

c.   If the pain persists, see your acupuncturist or other healthcare provider.

8.  Have fun! Did we mention that?

Intensity Tracks

Paul’s Plank Intensity Tracks

Build With Success In Mind

A Plank Challenge has to be fun. Feel free to hop between Tracks. Try your best to do some planking every day—even if only for 15 seconds!

           Track 1                        Track 2                 Track 3            Doable!                       Pushing It!          Been Here Before

Day 1: 15 seconds     15 x2                    15 x3

2: 20                           30                         30 x2

3: 20                           30 x2                    45 x2

4: 30                           45                        1:00 x2

5: 30                           45 x2                    1:00 x3

6: Rest                        Rest                      Rest

7: 30                           1:00                     1:15

8: 40                           1:00 x2                 1:15 x2

9: 40                           1:15                     1:15 x3

10: 60                         1:15 x2                 1:30 x2

11: 60                         1:30                      1:45 x2

12: Rest                       Rest                      Rest

13: 1:10                      1:45                     2:00 x2

14: 1:10                      1:45 x2                 2:15

15: 1:20                      2:00                     2:15 x2

16: 1:30                      2:00 x2                 2:30 x2

17: 1:30                      2:15                     2:30 X3

18: Rest                     Rest                      Rest

19: 1:40                      2:15                     2:30 X2

20: 1:40                      2:15 X2                 2:45

21: 1:50                      2:30                     2:45 X2

22: 1:50                      2:30                     3:00

23: 2:00                      2:45                      3:00 X2

24: Rest                     Rest                      Rest

25: 2:00                      2:45                     3:30

26: 2:10                      3:00                     4:00

27: 2:20                      3:15                     4:30

28: 2:30                      3:30                     5:30

  Guidelines

1.  If you’ve never used planks before, take a look at the video. Safety first! Feel into your body, especially your back and shoulders. Plank on a firm surface (e.g. not your bed). Take your time moving into and out of the plank. There’s no gain in pain!

2.  Be gentle in terms of timing. You can always go a little longer or a little shorter. Doing the challenge every day, including the rest days, is the smart way to build your strength over the month.

3.  Feel free to hopscotch between the three categories of intensity depending on how you feel.

4.  Most people find that first thing in the morning is the best time to do this. If you put it off, you might find it’s bedtime and you’ve missed a day’s planking.

5.  Keep your core tight but not rigid as you plank.

6.  BREATHE while you plank. Try counting your breaths rather than timing yourself. Cross check with your timer on the first couple days, and then just rely on your breath to time duration.

7.  A little shakiness is normal. Pain is not. If you feel pain, stop, recheck your posture, and try again. If the pain returns, stop for the day and try again tomorrow. If the pain persists, see your acupuncturist or other healthcare provider.

8.  Have fun!

(c) Enerqi, Inc, 2019, all rights reserved. GIFs and Video are the property of their respective property owners.

[radiantgoodhealth]

To Live is To Age

“To wish for a long life and to fear old age is insane.” 

Attributed to the ever waggish Tibetans, this is a powerful proverb because it is so simple and accurate.

You’re alive now, you want to live longer than just the next 5 or 10 minutes (and if you don’t, please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 RIGHT NOW, because we need you and you’re not replaceable).

With rare exceptions, we’re all so busy trying to be happy or actually being happy (which is far more common than we Americans like to confess), that we are delighted to push death off as long as possible. There’s not a thing wrong with that. At the same time, Americans fight savagely against aging. It’s a little silly, really. How do we make sense of this impossible conjunction of desires?

Life is precious, in all its forms. Buddhists use an fun metaphor to describe just how precious life is. Imagine, they ask us, a world of ocean. In that ocean, there is one sea turtle. That turtle comes to the surface once every thousand years to take a breath. Imagine too that in that ocean there is one and only one old tire, floating aimlessly. Then imagine that, upon breaking the surface for its every thousand year breath, the turtle surfaces ringed by the abandoned tire. That is how rare, therefore precious, life is.

[radiantgoodhealth]

Prescription: Eat More Chocolate

Join us for our annual Winter Event. Chocolate, storytelling, soup. And a Winter Hike!

An Enerqi Event:

Prescription: Eat More Chocolate with

Enerqi Executive Director Paul Shinkle, L.Ac., MSOM  

Saturday, December 22nd, 5-7 pm, 10827 W Lincoln Ave, West Allis 

Join Paul at the Enerqi Center for a fun discussion on good chocolates, Winter foods, and smart nutritional choices.We’ll taste test several excellent chocolates! Special Add-ons! Winter is the season when we need to boost our inner burners. Let’s enjoy some hearty soups (one vegan, one meat) and some ‘Ocean Food’ (mystery intended). 

Paul will also share a short reading from Calvin Rutstrum’s “Paradise Below Zero.” Annnd then we’ll all take a walk to Greenfield Park (no matter what the weather) to feel Winter’s Life Breath!

Reservations/RSVPs are strongly recommended as seating is limited (and we need to plan the food). Paul@EnerqiAcu.com

www.EnerqiAcu.com You can RSVP via our Facebook Page, too!

[radiantgoodhealth]

Karoshi: The Enemy in the Mirror, Part 2

In Part 1 of Karoshi: The Enemy in the Mirror, I outlined the hallmarks of karoshi, the Japanese word that describes the sad phenomenon of “death by overwork.” It is an epidemic in the US and through much of what we all allege to be the “First World.”

If you read Part 1 and feel unsettled—good! Our work is half done.

Now, we ask: What do we do about karoshi, short of quitting our jobs and going on tour with our favorite band (which choice, by the way, you will likely not regret when you are 80 years old—if you don’t die at your desk before then).

The Five Antidotes to Karoshi

Here are 5 direct, actionable, relevant steps to preventing karoshi. You can start them now, today.

1.    Take one hour today—your life depends on this, so don’t put it into your calendar, put it into your life—go somewhere away from work by yourself.

·         For 10 minutes of that hour, look at the last month of your stress-life.

·         For the next 10 minutes, have a good cry; you earned it, dammit. Just turn on the waterworks and cry-rage at the simple fact that this hell storm is part of your life.

·         For the third 10 minutes breathe. That’s all. Breathe—from before the cord is cut until you exhale your last, your life involves breathing. Not sex, not job, not relationship, debt, wealth, steak, cats and dogs and kids. Breath. So just breathe. Feel it. Wordlessly.

·         For the rest of the time let your eyes rest on your environment, just rest, look, observe, just be—until the last 5 minutes of this one measly hour you are investing in your life. During the last 5 minutes…

2.    …resolve this, promise this, stand up and say it out loud until you believe it: My Job Is Not Going to Kill Me.

You can shout this if you like or whisper it, sing it or wail it, dance it or stand stock still and incant it--whatever it takes for you to hear it. 

My Job Is Not Going To Kill Me.

3.    Take one, just one bit of toxic, lifeless, hideous food out of your diet, for good.

It doesn’t matter which food you ditch. Pick one and do it.

·         Resolve to skip fast food just ONE day a week.

·         Declare Wednesday “No Crap Hump Day.”

·         Disinvite Little Debbie from your home.

·         Send the Cheetos Cheetah packing.

·         Tell the hot dogs they’re turning you into cold meat.

·         Then,

o   supplant that sludge with some high quality chocolate,

o   Or the best green tea you can afford,

o   Or both.

o   Get rid of one thing, one thing only (as the submarine captain once said).

·         Then add one food thing that moves you incrementally toward a new, longer life. Just one.

4.    Turn all your electronics OFF (that’s O-F-F) 2 hours before bed.

Ban them from the boudoir.

No offense, but you just aren’t so important that you need a handheld computer humming by your head all night long. The smoke detector will rouse you if there’s an emergency.

That game app? You know the one, your favorite one, the reeeeally stupid one you brag to your friends about because It’s Just So Addictive (or hide from everyone for the same reason)? That one.

It isn’t more important than your health. That Muy Importante Facebook argument (you aren’t going to win anyway) isn’t worth the anxiety and insomnia it will cause. Nothing battery operated in your life (mmmhrmm, not even that one) is worth your stroke, your heart attack, your cancer.

Not worth your life.

Fundamentally, admit to yourself that you are more valuable than that piece of tech. You are.

Affirm it. Live it.

5.    Learn to meditate and then meditate for 10 minutes a day, every day, for the rest of your life.

OK, OK, you can take your birthday and Christmas off; maybe skip a couple other days. But the other 360 days? Pop your fanny into a seat and rest your mind on your breath. At Enerqi, we offer no-cost meditation instruction to any individual who asks for it.

Some days meditation will be your refuge. Others, your Prime Irritant. You will love it, hate it, be bored by it, dismiss it, and embrace it— because all of these experiences are how we experience our own mind. In a short time, you will feel a stabilized mind, stabilized emotions, and a clearer vision than you’ve ever had. You’ll still bounce a check, gripe about your Boss, and argue with people you love — it’s a real practice of meditation not a Hogwarts fantasy, after all.

 The Long Term View

We have to work. We need to make money and earn our insurance coverage. More importantly, our work matters to our society--because WE matter to society. Our working lives are one of the keys to our success as human beings.

But we do not need to die in the trying. If our workspaces kill us, they destroy our chances of success in any part of our lives. 

Become an active participant in rehumanizing and detoxifying your workspace. Our “Human Wellness from Enerqi” (t) program for micro-businesses helps workspaces become healthier through meditation and good stress harvesting.

If you’re a micro-business owner, recognize that overwork is a widow-maker, a business-breaker, a profit-faker. At Enerqi, we work with you and your workers to create the conditions for a humanized workspace, co- building healthy and life-sustaining success culture that carries everyone forward…at fees that don’t empty the coffers.

If you’re a worker, talk to your Bosses about how a healthier workspace isn’t just good for the workers—including the workers who carry Boss titles. Healthy workspaces are great for businesses. And there’s a very good chance that your competition knows this, too.

·         Healthy workspaces are more profitable.

·         They have lower healthcare costs.

·         They have better productivity.

·         They have better worker and customer loyalty.

·         They thrive—and they change the communities in which they exist for the better.

At the end of the day, you want to live. You can say that out loud if you like. You’re not disposable. You’re not replaceable. And chances are you’re going to live a long life. Whether it’s a long and miserable life or a long and healthy life is up to you—starting today. With a little help from Enerqi. By implementing the Five

And a day off, more often than not, to celebrate Your Radiant Good Health.

© Paul E Shinkle, 2018, all rights assigned to Enerqi, Inc. Images herein are provided by tumblr; those copyrights are held by their respective owners.

[radiantgoodhealth]

Karoshi: The Enemy in the Mirror

Karoshi: The Enemy in the Mirror

 It is 4.30 am, winter 1995, in Hiram Ohio. I am finishing hand rolling brioche dough, hoping to get the full batch into and out of the ovens before the doors open in 2 short hours. I am 60 hours into a 70 or 80-hour work week. After 60, there’s no sense in counting anymore.

My hands are racing over the dough—each shape must be perfect. My mind is racing over the day—money, no money, not enough money, and breads of all kinds. The business is failing but I will not give up on it. Everything hurts. I think for a moment about seeing my little kids in an hour as they pop in for pain au chocolate before school—joy for a few short minutes. Tears fill my ears—of frustration, fatigue, worry, shame. “If I had a heart attack right now, at least I’d get some rest,” I say aloud in the empty patisserie. I begin to laugh. “No such luck.”

Karoshi. Leave it to the harsh elegance of the Japanese language to coin the term: Death from Overwork. Leave it to global and local economic hells to need to coin such a word. What in the world are we doing to ourselves? And why?

The “why” is for you to work with. Good luck. If you need some coaching, some acupuncture, or some medicinal herbs. You can make an appointment this week; meditation instruction is always joyously offered at no cost at Enerqi.

I’d be happy to help keep you going while you sort out the “what.”

What’s really going on with karoshi, psycho-socio-physiologically speaking? In “Long working hours and health,” Canadian researcher Margot Shields outlines the high speed rail of overwork, the last stop of which is karoshi.

Karoshi isn’t an accidental death. How do we get there?

Step One toward Karoshi: Work Long Hours.

How do you go from being “a good employee” to the star attraction of the funeral? As it turns out, the pathophysiology of this is pretty simple.

First, we Americans work fiendishly long hours. US Bureau of Labor Statistics says we average 43 hours a week. https://www.bls.gov/charts/american-time-use/emp-by-ftpt-job-edu-h.htm

But Gallup reports far higher hours worked based on their surveys. Americans report 47, with many US workers reporting more than 50 hours per week. https://news.gallup.com/poll/175286/hour-workweek-actually-longer-seven-hours.aspx

In some areas, particularly in manufacturing, the workweek number climbs even more. A lot more. Bloomberg reports 12 hour days, 7 days a week, for 6 months at a time is not unusual in manufacturing, particularly in right-to-work states with poor Union protections for workers. That’s 84 hours a week—and their pay is not great. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-03-23/inside-alabama-s-auto-jobs-boom-cheap-wages-little-training-crushed-limbs

The better-paid/better-educated US professionals aren’t immune to excessively long hours either. The American College of Surgeons tells wannabe colleagues to prepare to work 50-60 hours per week (not including time available for ‘on-call’ cases). https://www.facs.org/education/resources/medical-students/lifestyle

Your attorney may be working toward an early death, according to The Atlantic. “At many large firms, lawyers often bill 40 or 50 hours a week even if they are actually working 60 to 70.” https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/work-life-balance-law/404530/

In his recent book Dying for a Paycheck, Stanford business professor Jeffrey Pfeffer lists three ways that our jobs are killing us, and leading to real harm to US businesses along the way. “(First)…a large fraction — some estimates are 75 percent — of the disease burden in the U.S. is from chronic diseases.

“Second, there is a tremendous amount of epidemiological literature that suggests that diabetes, cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome — and many health-relevant individual behaviors such as overeating and underexercising and drug and alcohol abuse — come from stress.

“And third, there is a large amount of data that suggests the biggest source of stress is the workplace.” https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/workplace-killing-people-nobody-cares

Our workspaces are dirty in many ways—to clean them of stressors and the infection of karoshi, Goh and others recommend addressing ten primary stress points.

·         Unemployment,

·         Lack of health insurance,

·         Exposure to shift work,

·         Long working hours,

·         Job insecurity,

·         Work–family conflict,

·         Low job control,

·         High job demands,

·         Low social support at work,

·         Low organizational justice.

Our program “Human Wellness from Enerqi” directly engages workers and workspaces with these—as a preventive medicine function, no different than protecting workers with OSHA rules. More on this in Part 2.

Step Two toward Karoshi: Deny care to yourself.

Long work hours contribute to and correlate with other lifestyle choices that erode longevity. Cigarette smoking, overuse of alcohol, a sedentary (aka, “sit on your keester 10+ a day”) lifestyle, and high-fat/high-sugar/high carbohydrate diets are closely associated with overall bad health and shortened lifespans, according to researchers.

There are two other areas that matter very much: Sleeplessness/insomnia and skipping preventive health care. Skipping your routine physical exams means the small, preventable things get big. Fast. Like that funny mole on your arm—the one that might be nothing or might be Stage 1 skin cancer. At Stage 1, your dermatologist takes it off in the office and you’re good to go. Ignore it until Stage 2 because you’re too damned busy to make an appointment? Your life expectancy is under direct threat—the 7 year survival rates of skin cancer between Stages 2 and 4 are not very different—you’re likely going to die.

The same holds for that colonoscopy you’ve been putting off until the quarterly earnings report, or the elevated A1C you haven’t time to monitor or manage with better food and regular movement.

Skipping ongoing wellness care with your acupuncturist also downbears on your longevity. Acupuncture, along with carefully selected herbal medicines and excellent meditation instruction, are part of our very effective care for insomnia. Physically, mentally, and emotionally, sleep isn’t an optional part of our lives; it is essential to good health. There’s a reason that sleep deprivation is a kind of torture, forbidden by human rights advocates worldwide because it is so devastating. But when it’s self-inflicted or expected by your employer, it’s suddenly A-OK? When you skip your monthly or seasonal wellness treatment at Enerqi, you set the stage for future, unnecessary grief. Stress mitigation, nutritional coaching, insomnia care, meditation instruction, and pain management—these help prevent future health issues. Beyond that, aren’t you allowed to feel good?

Long hours affect our psycho-emotional states: anxiety, irritability, and frequent (ever more frequent) freak-outs build cortisol levels, disrupting our core family and friend networks and attacking our health at the biochemical level. One day, if you won’t work with your overwork, you will find yourself sick. Really sick. Unless you’re dead from karoshi.

Step 3 toward Karoshi: Never Ask “Why?”

(Foreshadow: Step 4 toward Karoshi is: You Die)

It’s one of the hardest conversations I have with patients in my clinical practice: Why are you working this way? The answers are heartbreaking. “Because I care for my aging father/mother in my home.” “Because if I don’t, I’ll lose my job—then my house, my insurance, and probably my spouse.” “Because there are no other jobs.” “Because it’s all I have.”

Now what? What do we do about this?

The simple truth is this, you cannot work harder and longer than a feudal serf and expect a healthy life. Ultimately, you’ve got to reconstruct your lifestyle to conserve your health.

In Part 2, I’ll offer 5 quick preventive medicine-antidotes to karoshi. References: https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/04/is-your-work-killing-you.html

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20180502-how-your-workplace-is-killing-you

https://www.stress.org/workplace-stress/

https://behavioralpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/BSP_vol1is1_Goh.pdf

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/relationship-between-workplace-stressors-mortality-health-costs-united

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50305

[radiantgoodhealth]

The Yes and No of CBD

Every week, at least once, someone asks me about CBD. CBD oil. CBD lotion. CBD for this. CBD for that.

I give the best answers I can. Mostly, I think, they go unheard. Why?

Because CBD is complicated.

On the one hand, there is good clinical evidence that it is an effective, extremely low side effect, affordable medicinal option for some, not all patients. On the other hand, it’s the latest in an unending, sad cascade of “get-well-quick” medicine fads. Right now, as a highly lucrative fad market, the information, some of the production, the propagation, the distribution, and the sale of CBD have largely fallen into the hands of greedheads. They don’t care about your health. They care about getting rich. When the money people take over, even good things tank fast. Think: antibiotics moving from physicians to corporate farming—and the explosion of resistant superbugs.

That’s why, if you want to buy CBD from a licensed practitioner, someone who holds and pays for medical malpractice insurance, we can talk.

If you want a get-well-quick fad thing, go talk to Larry at the c-store. Has he got a product to sell you!

Let’s instead take an informed and smart look at the YES and the NO of CBD.

Question 1: Is CBD legal? No.

At the Federal level, any cannabis product, whether you buy it over the counter as a CBD cream or buy it by the baggie from Leonard down the street or buy it from a licensed practitioner, all of it is classified as a Schedule 1 substance by federal drugs law, and enforced by DEA and any other federal law enforcement officer. By the law, it’s classified as equivalent to heroin. If you don’t like this (and you shouldn’t) stop voting for people who won’t change the law. 

This means that mere possession is a felony, just like with heroin or ecstasy, punishable by a “not less than $1000” fine and “up to 1 year” of federal prison. By law, this includes, at the time of this writing, all/any CBD products, including those that have less than 0.3% THC (including, in fact, products that contain 0.00% THC). Check out the law here.

Question 1: Is CBD legal? Yes, but no, or maybe…well, who knows what the status is in Wisconsin; is it an even or an odd day?

The current (10/18) Wisconsin law that authorizes the distribution of CBD for medicinal purposes is very, very restrictive and does not specifically permit OTC sales nor prevent prosecution for distribution or possession for selling or possession, except under two very narrow conditions (both of which must be met). Known as Act 4 (2017), possession is permitted only (1) with certification by a WI licenses MD and (2) only in the case of treating persistent seizures in pediatric patients.

Quoting

: “…the Act provides that an individual may possess CBD in a form without a psychoactive effect if: (1) the individual has certification stating that the individual possesses CBD to treat a medical condition; (2) the certification has an issue date that is no more than one year prior to the possession; and (3) any expiration date provided by the physician in the certification has not passed…Under the Act, a physician who is licensed by the Medical Examining Board may issue an individual a certification stating that the individual possesses CBD to treat a medical condition if the CBD is in a form without a psychoactive effect…Under the Act, an approved pharmacy or physician may dispense CBD without a psychoactive effect as a treatment for a medical condition.”

Your chiropractor or yoga instructor is no more permitted by law to sell you CBD products than Larry the c-store clerk. Same for your Chiro.

Same for your acupuncturist. There is no current provision for permitting sale or possession of CBD in any form absent the 2 criteria above.

To make matters more confusing, if you can believe it can get more confusing, the application of the law varies from WI county to county.

“This week in a prepared statement, Racine County District Attorney Tricia Hanson said that outlets selling CBD products have all been advised by the distributor that the products are, in fact, legal to sell and possess in Wisconsin. Hanson reaffirmed Tuesday that CBD products can only be sold under limited circumstances, and under the supervision of a physician (emphasis added).

So c-store Larry can sell you CBD, but ONLY “under the supervision of a physician.” If you’ve tried to get in to see your Doc lately, you might be reasonably skeptical that she does not have time to visit with Larry about CBD lotion.

Further, “Law Enforcement across Racine County have been told that when they see these products in stores, they are to make contact with the store owner to determine if the product is being sold lawfully. If it is not, law enforcement would remove the product from the store shelves and ask for consent to search the store for other unlawful CBD products.” (emphasis added). You can read the whole story here...if you dare. That looks more NO than YES to me.

Yes, yes, yes, but! (you want to say to me)…I’m not actually going to get arrested, am I? 

Depends. If you’re affluent, not a racial minority, and not stiffing the State on sales taxes you must declare, collect, and submit (even if you’re selling illegal items), you’re probably OK. On the other hand, if you’re a licensed practitioner (unless you’re an MD) you could very quickly lose your license to practice even without a criminal prosecution. Defending yourself, either in criminal court or before the relevant accrediting board, could cost thousands.

Question 2: Is CBD safe? No. (Please Keep Reading)

This “no” takes a bit of nuance to understand and “Yes” is the better answer. Here’s why.

If you go to the c-store and buy a lovely package of “CBD Gummi Bears” from Larry, almost certainly the only unsafe experience you’ll get is a stomach ache after you race home and eat them all hoping that you’ll get a little buzz from the 0.3% or less THC that might be in them. (You won’t get a buzz; no sense trying). The “danger” in buying any medicinal product OTC is twofold. First, OTC CBD products are not regulated by anyone, so there is no way for a consumer (and you are just a “consumer” when you buy OTC medicinals of any kind—our modern day snake oils) to confirm that there is any CBD in the product whatsoever.

The risk is to your debit card, maybe tangentially to your health (if you’re wasting time and healthcare dollars on things that aren’t what they say they are).

Recently, I looked at a national purveyor of some CBD topical (lotion) products. In one case, CBD was the 7th ingredient listed on the product label. That’s really expensive arnica and peppermint cream. Worse still, there was no indication of either the percentage of CBD in the container, nor whether it was a full spectrum CBD (which has good medicinal value [see below]) or the cheap cannabinoid-alphas (which don’t have as much medicinal value).

There are at least 7 other cannabinoids in medicinal hemp—they are more rare and more expensive. So they are far less likely to be in “Jamaica Bob’s Monster CBD Motion Lotion.” Because neither C-Store Larry nor Jamaica Bob care a flying fig about your health, so they have no obligation to truly sell you what you think you are buying. Caveat Emptor.

Question 2: Is CBD safe?

Yes.

Unless you have a specific allergy to hemp or hemp products, and absent the psychoactive THC, CBD should be safe to use, orally or topically for any adult.

Even the presence of THC (which makes the product not CBD) is not particularly harmful, but obviously something to avoid if you’re driving. When recommended by a licensed practitioner, CBD can be a safe, side effect free, efficacious medicinal product for a variety of conditions—and not for “whatever ails you.” See the discussion of “X is good for Y” below.

Additionally, medical practitioners should only be purchasing and offering CBD products sold exclusively to licensed practitioners. These products tend to be more expensive than OTC products because they are tested by independent labs to guarantee specific milligrams of full spectrum cannabinoids. In other words, what is on the label is in the bottle.

Question 3: Does CBD Work? No. (Again, Please Keep Reading)

Again, we need to look at the nuance of this answer. There are two ways in which CBD does not work. First, as I noted above, if you’re buying it OTC, there is no regulation of what is inside the bottle or container. It may be 0% CBD or a sub-therapeutic percentage. It may be full of cannabinoid-a, which is the least effective of the 7+ cannabinoids in hemp. In short, if it’s crap, it isn’t going to work. In this case, the best answer is: “CBD” doesn’t work, but CBD does (and not in every case nor for every condition). Second, if you’re buying CBD based on your Aunt Lucy’s ever-offered “Oh honey, X is good for Y” theory, then whatever positive effect you experience is entirely random. 

Hey, we all love Aunt Lucy, but unless she’s a licensed practitioner, she might not know anything about CBD, much less what your particular diagnosis is.

Let’s just say your Aunt Lucy tells you “Jamaica Bob’s CBD Motion Lotion cleared up my hand arthritis overnight. It’s great for arthritis.” OK, so it ought to work on your shoulder pain from yesterday’s workout, right?

No, because for Aunt Lucy “Y = arthritis of the hands” and for you “Y = sore muscles” or “Y = joint capsule injury” or “Y = qi and blood stagnation with wind-cold invasion.” The situations aren’t the same, so the treatment might not be either. So “Y” does not equal “Y”, not because we don’t all love Aunt Lucy, but because she, quite literally, doesn’t know what she’s talking about, bless her heart. Maybe CBD will work for you, maybe not. Maybe acupuncture and fire cupping is best. Maybe massage or a day’s rest is best. 

Maybe you need a referral to your family doctor. You need a proper exam from some practitioner (including your acupuncturist) and a solid diagnosis first.

Only they can give you an accurate assessment and herbal medicine (including CBD or not) recommendation.

Finally, there isn’t evidence that CBD applied topically is particularly helpful for anything. Most research has been with oral CBD oils, which are far more expensive than Jamaica Bob’s goop. This isn’t to say that topical CBD is not effective. It means the evidence doesn’t support that particular claim right now, subject to change.

Question 3: Does CBD Work? 

Yes.

CBD oil (taken orally), without and with THC, has been often studied (almost entirely outside of the US, where hemp is not listed as a Schedule 1 drug). There is strong evidence that oral CBD, full spectrum, at doses at least 500mg daily can reduce spasticity and urinary tract infections in patients suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, for example. There are dozens of studies supporting many other uses.

Conclusion. Offered by a practitioner, to treat a correctly diagnosed situation, whether biomedicine or traditional medicine, CBD oil (taken orally) can be a safe, side effect free treatment option. It is safer and better controlled than simply smoking marijuana.

Its legal status is a complete mess because medicine in the US is generally not controlled by practitioners; it’s controlled by lobbyists through our legislators.

Aside on marijuana in particular and illegal drugs overall.

From a practitioner’s viewpoint, I do not encourage patients to smoke marijuana. This isn’t due to any moral stance. It is because smoked products inherently include carbon monoxide and other carcinogens. I don’t encourage smoking anything.

It is also because—given that marijuana is illegal at the federal level in every US state and illegal at the state level in most other states—it is an industry run by criminals, who do not need to ensure the safety of the product. In short, you don’t know what’s in your weed bag, what’s been sprayed on it, or how it might be contaminated. I recommend that patients do not smoke any product (especially “vape”) unless it is an integral part of a faith tradition. At the same time, because health care in prisons is sub-optimum, I strongly advocate for complete legalization for all drugs, regardless of schedule, and full funding for addiction and abuse services at the local level—at the medical practitioner level. Worldwide, every country that has moved drugs abuse from law enforcement to medical care has seen a huge drop in abuse and addiction…and a healthier society, one better aligned with... 

...Your Radiant Good Health. (c) Paul E Shinkle, 2018, all rights assigned to Enerqi, Inc.

[radiantgoodhealth]

Autumn: Cider, Football, and Your Lung Health

Friend: I can feel autumn coming. Me: I know. How are your lungs? How is your sadness, your depression?

Friend: Pardon me?

Now, those are weird questions to come up when you hear “I can feel autumn coming,” ain’a?

Autumn is, in fact, coming and with it the body-mind changes that acupuncture and traditional medicine treat with every seasonal change. We are organic beings after all, made up of the stuff of this precious Earth, living in the ecosphere of our little blue ball, and necessarily responding to, adapting to the cycles she offers us.

Sometimes, we ain’t all that good about adapting to these changes. In Traditional Medicine, autumn is the driest season of all.

Even the sun’s rays begin to dry up, so to speak, as our daylight hours suddenly shorten, and we move toward the Winter Solstice.

Let’s look at the Lung River and it’s qi. Most acupuncturists use the terms ‘channel’ or ‘meridian’ to describe the discrete pathways our vital energies—our qi—flow through in our body-mind. For me, those are meh terms. I use “river”. Qi flows through 14 different and discrete rivers inside you, me, and all living beings. Acupuncture helps to keep those rivers contained in their banks when they are too exuberant, full of qi in times of depletion, and flowing smoothly always, from their wellspring to the sea. When those are all balance, we are healthy. And then, there’s autumn.

The Lung River is associated with autumn and autumn is associated with dryness. A dry Lung River is an unhappy one; lungs like to be wet (but not too wet). Since the lungs are the most exterior of all the qi-organs, the harvest season can give us problems if we are not full of care for them.

Every season has its own emotion as does every qi River. Autumn and the Lung River are associated with the emotions of grief and sadness—particularly things that have arisen more recently. For example, a child trauma will more like settle in the Heart River but may arise acutely in autumn. A loss within the last few months or year will probably damage the Lung River now.

Think of what it feels like to sob—the Lung qi is moving erratically up and down, the River is in turmoil, tossing in any direction; breathing is hard, there may be pain in the chest and shoulders, there is constriction and anxiety.

In our medicine, each River is associated with one of the elements of our planet. The Lung River is associated with the element of metal (ore, minerals). Metal can generate good body fluids (think of a metal cup full of cool water and the condensation that forms on its outside). Metal can also hold heat such that good body fluids evaporate or become scorched. Think about that time your very wet cough (cold, damp, and phlegmy) turned into a persistent dry, scratchy, hoarse cough (heat and dry), your sputum changed from white and liquid to yellow or green and thick—heat and dryness cook fluids and cooked fluids are a problem for the Lung River.

Another fascinating aspect of the Lung River is that it regulates the cou li, that space between the skin and the musculature. The cou li is the space where our defensive qi (we call it the wei qi) moves to protect us from exterior pathogens. Or, if you like, we can rename all these components as “lymph and immune systems.” Functionally, we are using different words to describe the same phenomena, although the traditional medicine terms also include more subtle effects. For example, grief is very often followed by sudden illness related to breathing or opportunistic infection.

Autumn Precautions

We need to take smart care of our Lung River for the next three months. We do this in three ways: Good cover, good emotions, and good food.

Good Cover: Our upper back and neck, from the base of our skull, across our shoulders, and extending a down the paraspinals is called the “wind gate.” This is the original source of infectious coughs and colds that are so common in the cold, damp weather of autumn. It is important to keep this area impeccably protected from wind, cold, and dampness during this season—especially so on warm days when the pernicious qualities are masked by the sun’s warmth. Pull up your collar, wear a hoodie, toss a scarf or a sweatshirt over your shoulders. 

Protect your wind gate and you protect your Lung qi. Protect your Lung qi and you prevent related diseases.

This is a good opportunity to consider the relationship between traditional energy medicine and contemporary biomedicine. We know that the common cold and influenza are caused by viruses. No dispute. What’s with this “wind gate” chatter then? The wind gate is an exposed area of the cou li, This is our immune system, energetically speaking. Sweep it away with damp, cold, wind and you’re left exposed to viral and bacterial lung infections. Nothing “wu-wu” here—just different words to pick out the same phenomena. Cover your shoulders, rest appropriately, boost your wei qi, and don’t let opportunistic infections get a foothold.

Good Emotions: It’s fair to say that all illness, from the perspective of traditional medicine, is entangled with some emotion or other. Even happiness can go into deficiency (a kind of depression—there are many of these in traditional medicine) or excess (difficulties ranging from insomnia to mania). Each of the qi rivers are associated with a different emotion. We live, unhappily, in a culture were all emotions are either suspect, commodified, or devalued…except warrantless anger which seems to be permitted in every circumstance. So, we learn young to squash them down. Wall out sadness. Crush grief under the weight of a mountain of feel-good. Deny love. Deny them all if we can.

When the sadness of autumn arises, don’t look away. You needn’t let current sadness or old grief mow you down. Khalil Gibran said in The Prophet “to suppress a truth is to give it power beyond endurance.” Our emotional state is one of many true states. 

So, if you’re truly sad, that emotion must have its day, either by you permitting it (even encouraging it) or by the emotion simply taking over because it is unbearable to wall it off another minute.

At the same time, we must surely not allow emotions to pretend to a permanence and power they don’t truly have. Emotions are soap bubbles. They arise, catch our attention, then pop and fall away, only to be replaced by another emotion—maybe the same one or a related one or an opposing one—each of which will arise, pop, and disappear like all the others. Our emotions only gain strength over us if we forever deny them their voice—and then they gain power ‘beyond endurance’. At that point, they manifest as illness, psycho-emotional, mental, physical diseases, or combinations of these. Deep breath.

If you need to, want to, or must, just have a good cry, especially if one arises naturally, spontaneously. Then “pop” it’ll be gone...for now or forever, who knows? Take a deep breath (directing your Lung River qi downward) and take the next step of your life. Humans have emotions. Be a human. Good Food: Autumn allows us to access the excess of the harvest with an eye to preserving techniques for the next season. It is, in this sense, a season of conservation, of storage and preserving, anticipating the beginning of drawing within in winter.

Sour and fermented foods are especially helpful in this season since they nourish the yin and the jin ye (the body fluids, including those on the intima of interior lung tissue).

Grains: One good choice for the season is sourdough bread. It takes a bit to get a starter going, but so very worth the time and effort. The best sourdough starter I know of involves a pound of organic grapes, locally grown if you can get them. Wrap them in a cheesecloth and give them some gentle bonks with a pastry pin—enough to break the skins without creating jam. Squeeze the juice into a suitable container, add enough water to make 2 cups, and add 2 cups of (preferably organic) flour (white or wheat seem to work well; feel free to experiment with rye or buckwheat). For the first week, you’ll need to add water and flour every day to keep the grape yeast-beasties well fed and stimulate fermentation. Once the concoction bubbles, you can use it as the base for your favorite bread recipe. Keep it fed!

Aduki (adzuki) beans, barley, millet, almonds, sesame seeds, and pinenuts stimulate yin fluids. Add them into soups. Millet is a wonderful warm breakfast cereal or savory side dish.

Meat, fish, and proteins: Tofu, clams, crabs, oysters, mussels, oily fish, pork, and lamb—these are the go-to yin nourishing fluids and especially beneficial to the Lung River.

Veggies: Generally speaking, you probably can’t eat too many vegetables, so long as they are a dominant part of an overall balanced diet. Leeks, cukes, pears, loquat, mushrooms—these are the roots, the sours, and the fungi of good Lung River health.

Foods: Pickles of all kinds, sauerkraut (and other fermented veggies), rose hip tea, citrus fruits, and “the sour varieties of apples, plums, and grapes.”

Welcome to autumn! It’s a grand season, full of richness (and dryness), harvests (including the inadvertent one of lung harmful bacteria or viruses), and the opportunities to both store the goodness of our lives and let go of the dead leaves of it. As a wise woman once said, ‘The trees drop their leaves when they are dead; that is good advice to follow.’ If you’d like a Lung River nourishing preventive care treatment—or if the season overtakes you and you fall ill—please consider visiting us at the Enerqi Center. Prevention may be worth more than cure, but if you’re sick, the curative effects of good acupuncture, good herbal medicinals, and the ever popular TDP heat lamp-liquid moxa combo are beyond compare, and key components of your Radiant Good Health.

  Works Cited

Gibran, K. (n.d.). The Prophet.

Maciocia, G. (2005). The Foundations of Chinese medicine. Churchill Livingstone.

Pitchford, P. (1993). Healing with whole foods: oriental traditions and modern nutrition. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.

[radiantgoodhealth]

Food Healthy Kids, Food Healthy Adults

 “Food is medicine,” the old adage goes.

In medicine, it is good to remember that the most important difference between a medicine and a poison is the dosage. This applies to food. We’ve certainly seen the poor health outcomes directly and indirectly related to the US Cult of Food Overdose.

Cases in point:

US incidence of adult and childhood obesity: Epidemic. US incidence of colorectal cancer: Epidemic. US incidence of Type 2 Diabetes (T2D): Epidemic.

Each of these diseases is directly correlated to food overdose.  Worse, our sedentary lifestyles are co-conspirators. Imagine if a foreign power caused the disease and death that our sick food systems contribute to.

Bad food corporations spending millions on very effective marketing is one external villain. Our own willingness to trade our health for a mouthful of temporary feel-good is the internal villain. That means ultimately, the fix is in the mirror.

How did we get into this food-disease mess? In July 2018, the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) offered one strong answer: 

According to the AAP, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) got us into this mess. Wait. What?

Referring to a GAO assessment of FDA practices, the AAP supported the conclusion that “…the FDA is not able to ensure the safety of existing or new (food) additives through (their) approval mechanisms.” (emphasis added). Read the full statement here.

In the case of foodstuffs intended for (and heavily marketed toward) US kids, the FDA is doing a miserable job of protecting kids. Why would we expect otherwise? Regardless of political party in power, the FDA is led, managed, and run by the very food-for-profit and drug-for-profit businesses it is supposed to regulate. FDA appointees aren’t Moms or Dads looking out for kids, or kids looking out for their aging Moms or Dads, or everyday folks like you and me trying to make smart food choices. The FDA is run by a constant flow of people racing through the revolving door between government and industry, cashing in on your health and that of the nation with every turn of the door.

That sick mix of bad practice and corporate policy is killing us. It’s killing our kids and their parents.

America’s pediatricians are increasingly concerned for a reason. Not only are there bad chemical preservatives in foods marketed to kids, the packaging leaches harmful chemicals that leach into food. Keep in mind this is FDA permitted/approved packaging the stuff that agribusinesses use to convey convenient (aka “dead” and “processed”) food to us…and to our babies and kids.

These chemicals, AAP says, “may interfere with the body’s natural hormones in ways that may affect long-term growth and development (NYT July 24, 2018, A14).

Cans, cardboard, even the “waxed” paper used—all leach chemicals into our foodstuffs.

Let’s give the pediatricians their say: “Our purposes with this policy statement and its accompanying technical report are to review and highlight emerging child health concerns related to the use of colorings, flavorings, and chemicals deliberately added to food during processing (direct food additives) as well as substances in food contact materials, including adhesives, dyes, coatings, paper, paperboard, plastic, and other polymers, which may contaminate food as part of packaging or manufacturing equipment (indirect food additives); to make reasonable recommendations that the pediatrician might be able to adopt into the guidance provided during pediatric visits; and to propose urgently needed reforms to the current regulatory process at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for food additives.” These authors aren’t political hacks or corporate sharks. These are the applied scientists, the physicians, the men and women who spend 10 to 15 years of their lives just learning how to care for babies and kids…before they begin to invest the rest of their working lives doing more of that. Keywords: scientists, physicians, invest.

More from the Docs: “Substantial improvements to the food additives regulatory system are urgently needed, including greatly strengthening or replacing the “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) determination process, updating the scientific foundation of the FDA’s safety assessment program, retesting all previously approved chemicals, and labeling direct additives with limited or no toxicity data.” What’s all this have to do with acupuncture, especially since Enerqi is not primarily a pediatric practice? Food as medicine, food as poison, including food that has been poisoned by food additives and toxic packaging.

Nearly every patient contact at Enerqi involves some discussion of diet, eating habits, quantity of food, and most of all quality of food. You probably don’t truly need a keto diet, or an Atkins diet, or a paleo diet. But you certainly need a diet free of unregulated, untested, and harmful food additives stuffed into toxic wrappers. You can’t base your nutritional safety on a Facebook post, a YouTube video, or an advertisement, even if it comes with a coupon. You base your diet on safe, sane, simple, and sustainable food principles. Here are the ones we offer to every patient at Enerqi.

Look at your plate, every single meal.

1.    About half of that plate (bowl, slab—whatever you eat out of or off of) should be covered with fresh vegetables, fruits, green leafy goodness, with small amounts of best quality fats—like organic olive oil, coconut oil, or butter. Yes, butter. Real food. Good fats are good.

2.    Of the other half, you should have a piece of protein about the size of your own palm. Fish, meat, tofu, beans—doesn’t really matter…with these exceptions:

a.    In a very large World Health Organization (WHO) study you can read here, processed meats (bacon, sausage, deli meats) were found to be correlated with increases in colorectal cancer at amounts greater than 4 ounces per week. A good analysis of the WHO study is here.

b.    Factory farm meats feed you antibiotics, growth hormones, and poo. Buy local and organic meats, preferably from farmers you can make eye contact with. Meat protein is not essential to health although it does strike the Happy Zone for many of us. There is no reason whatsoever to eat meat every day, certainly not at every meal.

3.    With rare exception, whatever the amount of carbohydrates you normally eat, start putting one spoonful back. Unfortunately, beer is a carb (talking to you, Wisconsin); mind your suds. 

4.    Anything you eat out of a paper bag, a can, or a cardboard box will be unnecessarily high in some combination of salt, sugar, carcinogenic additives, calories, and/or chemicals, including chemicals that the bought-and-paid-for FDA declares are “generally regarded as safe”—whatever the actual heck that toss-off bit of government-business codswollop means.

The pediatricians, bless them, are watching out for our kids, the next generation, the tiniest among us, whom we will all desperately need—every one of them—in 15 or 20 years. As it turns out, they’re watching out for all of us, too.

Let’s apply the same scientific rigor to our own grocery shopping, our own refrigerators, and our own plates, kids or no kids. Food is medicine. Good medicine. A necessary component to Your Radiant Good Health.

[radiantgoodhealth]

Whadda Waddamelon!

There are five—count ‘em!—FIVE seasons in traditional medicine. In addition to the usual four, there is a Second Summer.

You may be cheering “Yay for Second Summer!” Careful. It’s not as wonderful as you might think.

 First, let’s think about First Summer, the one we love. Spring erupts and fades, the days are longer, deliciously warmer, skies are clear, and starshine rests on our brows in the evening. Temperatures climb, even into the 80s, maybe a day or two of 90s. But mostly it’s t-shirt weather (as the song goes) and life is definitely good. We like that summer.

If only every day could be like those days! (Well, there is such a place, it’s called the Bay Area, and rent costs you $300,000 a year, shared bathroom). About August, give or take 2 weeks, summer bares its fangs. Oppressive, often dangerous heat. Cloying humidity. Unsettled weather—sudden thunderstorms followed by even more humidity, sleepless nights, powerful thunderstorms, even tornadoes.

Then, the dog days of Second Summer arrive. 

You’d love to lay down on the porch with your pooch and beg for a breeze, but maybe lolling around in the AC is a better plan—forget about the energy bill—“I may die if I don’t cool off.” The heat and humidity of Second Summer can be dangerous and deadly. This year (2018) people across the northern hemisphere are indeed perishing under record high temperatures and humidity readings, not to mention massive forest fires. Second Summer, unlike its light-hearted opening act, is more than a little overheated. Cue: Watermelon, the antidote to Second Summer’s bite. But I’m not referring to the luscious red. I want to talk about the rind. Yes, the white of the watermelon! 

In traditional medicine, watermelon—no surprise--is considered a "very cooling" food. But not just for summer. It has a positive effect on heat of any kind--from heavy flow menses to joint pain, even some forms of insomnia.

Watermelon rind builds the jin ye--the body fluids of the joints, mucosa, and gut—so benefits joints, as well as constipation, and urinary tract infections. While the red is a great belly cooler, the rind is a deep coolant for body and mind.

I won’t talk about the seeds today, since I don't think anyone would eat them, but they're considered to be very beneficial to kidney function and are reported to regulate high blood pressure--in both cases, probably due to their diuretic effect. Dried, they make a nice tea regardless of your medical history. Not recommended for use by folks who have polyuria or on a prescription diuretic. Your physician probably won’t tell you that—but I’m happy to watch out for you.

During Second Summer, the white rind is the jewel of the watermelon. Kidney tonic, balances blood sugar. I use it like water chestnuts--fast stir fry. You can even pickle it.

Because it is thought to nourish the jin ye, I recommend eating it mostly for sticky joints, but also to nourish your kidney river (KD), (this is traditional medicine—I am not talking about your kidney organ here).

The KD River is responsible for mentation, all things nervous system including spinal column and brain, and all things reproductive. KD River also has two aspects--it's both yin and yang—so it is both fire and water. In cases of frequent joint pain with internal heat (a common traditional medicine diagnosis), by increasing the function of the yin (water) KD, the yang (fire) KD function is tempered. And balance arises.

During Second Summer, this yin nourishing aspect of the white rind helps balance our bodies in two ways. First, by balance the yin fluids and the jin ye, the rind counters the heat changes to body fluids due to increased sweating and increased (i.e., unrelenting) ambient heat. Secondly, by balancing KD yang fire in our bodies, it helps prevent the development of substantial and insubstantial phlegm—which manifests as everything from “summer colds,” sudden onset diarrhea, brain fog/summer fatigue, dull headaches, disturbed sleep, and levels of irritation that arise to 5 Star Freak Out level.

So enjoy watermelon this Second Summer—a lot of it. And incorporate the white rind into your salads, your stir fries, even eat it right off the watermelon skin. Come see us at the Enerqi Center for Acupuncture and Traditional Medicine if things get out of whack. We’d be happy to help you quench your fires, and prepare for a glorious fall—when things go dry…more on that in 6 weeks.

Unrelated, but still important, keep an eye out for unusual skin eruptions. Fewer clothes mean more skin exposed. While that increases our sun exposure, it also offers us opportunities to check ourselves and our family members for odd looking moles and related blemishes. Take a look at the American Academy of Dermatologist website here. Skin cancer is common—and early detection is the key to a full recovery.

To Your Radiant Good Health!

[radiantgoodhealth]

Spring, Irritation, and 4 Ways to Thrive Between Snow Seasons

It’s been a late start Spring in West Allis and Milwaukee, but the qi-energies of the season and our bodies take little notice of a stray (and irritating) late snowstorm…or two or three. 

Are we done yet?

Irritating. In traditional medicine, we recognize and treat 6 environmental pathogens (cold, heat, damp, wind, etc.). More importantly, we also recognize 7 emotional pathogens—one of these is irritation.

Balanced, the root qi-energy that manifests as irritation helps us to correctly sort out our world, determine what to accept and what to reject, and guides our productive exertion.

In excess, that same qi-energy arises as irritability—a very yang feeling that things aren’t right and we’re going to smite the world into compliance. 

“The beatings will continue until morale improves” is the motto of the Irritated Soul.

If that qi-energy is deficient, we can become uncaring or suffer a sense of emotional paralysis, a feeling of being insurmountably overwhelmed.

Because I know that all our emotions can manifest as deficient, excess, or balanced, when a patient sits down with me either for an initial intake interview or the routine case review we do before every acupuncture treatment, I listen for what emotions are playing in their life. This traditional medicine approach allows me to recognize, appreciate, and accept that emotional-spiritual health is directly and necessarily co-related to our physical health in particular and our Human Health overall. That’s why we call this a holistic medicine. You (and I) are necessarily BOTH body and mind, physical and emotional, cold-hot-damp and joyous-sad-pensive all the time.

We’re often irritable. Especially in spring. Why?

In traditional medicine, Spring is the season of Wood. There are 5 elemental forces which every one of us lives within and which we contain within. Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood. It doesn’t take much imagination to identify each of these. Fire is nothing other than the biochemical sparks of our neurons and the generation of ATP in our mitochondria. Earth is a little more obvious: EVERYTHING we are arises from the Earth. Our bodies are naturally rich with Metals and minerals. That we’re mostly Water is common knowledge; our First Nation friends remind us “water is life.” But what of Wood? Think of the qualities of our sinews, tendons, ligaments, connective tissues of all kinds.

Those are our Wood. Strong but flexible. Moving in the wind, but rooted in the earth.

Energetically speaking, the qi-energy of our Liver channel and our Gallbladder channel are Wood. All acupuncture channels are the internal rivers of the particular and discrete qi-energies that are integral to life itself. Any of these rivers can be balanced, in excess, or deficient. And they are all prone to being obstructed—by either climatic or emotional pathogens. Hey, presto! You’re almost ready to take acupuncture Boards now!

The Liver channel and its related qi-energy nourish all of the connective tissues of our body. If this qi-energy is deficient or stagnant, we get muscle cramps, numbness and tingling, stiffness and rigidity, and pain. We become more prone to joint injuries (sprains, strains, fractures, and pain), the most common of which are low back pain, knee aches, and shoulder/neck pain.

The Liver channel also directs other kinds of qi-energy. In this role, it tends toward exuberance and excess. It behaves a bit like your loud Uncle Bill after a couple of beers and a football game. Liver is particularly good at helping us plan and coordinate. When liver qi-energy becomes stagnated, we can experience “brain fog” or “hitting the wall.” When exuberant this energy often rises to our heads, where it manifests as irritation, even anger or rage.

In the Spring, Wood is still sleepy from winter (inattentive and distracted), not yet well-watered (under-nourished, under-rested, and under-cared-for), and dry (stale, uninvigorated, bored).

If Liver flares, then we are prone to Fire, this can manifest as mania, but more commonly as irritation.

The Gallbladder channel is the external expression of Wood energetics. It is the close cousin of the Liver channel.

At its best, this Gallbladder qi-energy helps us to be decisive, to be courageous, and to initiate new projects. Gallbladder qi-energy also helps direct Liver qi-energy to where it ought to go and not allow it to flare upwardly into irritation, especially into rage and mania.

Since in the Spring, Wood is not yet at its most flexible and the wind is blowing like crazy, both Liver and Gallbladder can get out of balance. So if you’ve been oscillating between irritation and indecisiveness lately, you’re in good (and universal) company. If you’re joints and muscles have been exceptionally stiff and your nocturnal leg cramps have you up (and irritated) more often, now you know why

How do we better manage these Wood elements? Here are four smart answers to that question—and four ways to see Spring as an opportunity for growth, renewal, and rejuvenation.

One, see your acupuncturist for a Spring tune up.

We are always living in an environment which means that our bodies and spirits are always adapting and changing to that and within that environment. An ounce of prevention (via acupuncture) is far better, and far less expensive, than a pound of ordinary medical cure.

Two, renew your daily meditation practice. 

When I teach meditation, I suggest that students meditate 6 or 7 days a week. We all know, of course, that 7 days is the better answer. But I like to leave a little wriggle room—if you miss a day, you’re still fine. Practice tomorrow—twice if you can.

Three, take a hike. Seriously. 

Cover your neck and face to protect from the wind and get OUT into the Spring. In Bavaria, people say, “There is no bad weather; only bad clothing.” So pull on the right clothes and go outside to play. Take a walk, a stroll, a hike, a run. Practice yoga in the backyard. Dance down the sidewalk. Head to the nearest park and see how fast you can jog/walk/run a lap. Whatever you do, do it with gentleness—you’re stiff as a board, after all, and nothing is going to irritate you like a muscle strain or an ankle sprain.

Fourth, add these foods to your regular diet (with an eye to eliminating some of that junk you’ve been thinking about ditching for months).

Fresh organic greens (especially baby spinach) and sprouts. 

Mint tea can help disperse some of the wind that leads to the end-of-winter colds and the stiff necks of April and May. 

Add some pungent herbs to your salads, meats, or starches like basil, fennel or caraway. 

Early season roots like beets and carrots can add just right touch of Earth sweetness. 

Replace your potatoes with herbed barley or lentils.

Take good care of your Wood qi-energy channels—the Liver and Gallbladder. Keep your sinews slippery and snappy. And put some Spring into your steps as you step into Spring.

All of these, to support what you deserve most in life: Your Radiant Good Health.

[radiantgoodhealth]

The Endless Stream of Presents

“Your patient presents to you, as a gift to you. Respond to her with gratitude.”

It was another morning in an interminably long series of Saturday classes, each of which stretched for 9 hours, season after season. Nearly all medical education, including acupuncture and traditional medicine education, is dense, often brutal, repetitive, and all-too-rarely inspired. On this particular morning the instructor was driving home the need for good documentation. Every visit with an acupuncturist should begin with good observation and inquiry. How is it going? What is working? What is not? What is your primary treatment goal today?

What distinguishes acupuncture, at its best, from the typical US medical experience is that we are still not beholden to the cattle chute cult of the 7 minute patient experience. That is good. 

It is our culture. It is our strength. Our care extends beyond the treatment room. It begins before you cross the threshold and it continues as you drive home.

I think it’s true that in any philosophy that involves the primacy of ever-oppositional, ever co-dependent yin and yang (and the associated empty-pure-potential of the circle of wu qi), what looks like weakness (“How long are you going to listen to this patient go on and on?”) is in fact a great strength (“Until she tells me what I need to know in order to help her find her innate healthiness”). It takes time. This is good. On that dreary Saturday morning, the instructor encouraged us to begin our patient care documentation with the phrase “The patient presents with…” and from there to describe the Chief Complaint, which is the hallmark of the usual medical approach—the mechanic’s approach of “wahl, thar’s yer prollum right thar,” kick the tires, and declare a cure. Then into the SOAP note polka, at the end of which is Perfect Health we think, or at least an ICD billing code, and money enough to keep the lights on in the clinic for one more month.

“The patient presents with…” she said. But then she paused, for a moment overwhelmed by the clear viewing she experienced. Then everything shifted.

“Your patient is a present to you, as a gift to you. Respond to her with gratitude,” she said. Frankly, I remember little of the remaining 3 hours of the lecture that opened that Saturday morning except “Your patient presents to you, as a gift to you.”

Each day I sit down with patients with the idea that they are a great gift to me. I feel a debtor’s relationship with them. There is always a small tension—can I possibly offer to my patient as much as she offers to me? 

The challenges she presents are in fact gifts to me. The pushing of me to the edge of my current knowledge opens the opportunity for my own growth as a practitioner. The challenge to my capacity for compassion is a universe opening to more compassion. 

The pain that won’t leave, or the pain freshly arrived, or the pain that alternates between agony and malicious but comfortable old friend—those create for me a bigger, better understanding of the permanence and the impermanence of suffering; of the suddenness, the immediacy of life as it is good, as it is bad, and in its pure, inherent goodness; and the capricious life-foundational experiences of pain and pleasure as they dance in circles around us, clinging to/warding off/accepting the swirl of it as we can. As we do.

We all suffer and we all thrive, in our own ways, whether we’re on the pointy end of an acupuncture needle or the handle. This is how patients are gifts to me.

I have tried to craft Enerqi in general and my practice in particular to see each patient—especially the difficult ones—as a great gift, an opportunity to serve, not to pontificate. As a learning experience, more than a teaching moment. As a contribution opportunity not as an appointment booked, a treatment given, income generated.

Mostly, as an offering of gratitude as much as a practice of medicine. That is always and ever a work in progress, a practitioner learning to practice rather than a master bestowing.

I am forever grateful for the great gifts that are my patients. May I always be grateful to them.

As Eric Allen wrote, “Everyone is my teacher. Some I seek. Some I subconsciously attract. Often I learn simply by observing others. Some may be completely unaware that I’m learning from them, yet I bow deeply in gratitude.” 

Exactly right. He expresses perfectly my intention that you will enjoy Radiant Good Health, as you deserve, for no other reason than the extraordinary gift that you are.

[radiantgoodhealth]

Resolution Revolution

As your once, current, and/or future acupuncturist, I want to give you a New Year’s gift of great value.

I hereby grant you full permission to ditch your New Year’s “resolution” to do some drastic diet or exercise thing. Toss it. Control-alt-delete it. Be free of it. Fuhgeddabowdit.

If you haven’t already. As you well know, lifestyle (what we eat and how often we move) is the single biggest predictor of health. That means our state of health—current and future—is in our own hands.

We underappreciate is how deeply woven our lifestyle habits and practices are in our lives. So deeply woven that mere will power, sheer force of need, or best new trendy fad promised by the Latest Greatest Fon App (no, THIS ONE is THE ONE)—none of that works. None of that works because it is all superficial.

Deep change is hard and lasting change is harder. Hard is the opposite of easy—which is why all resolutions fail. But hard does not mean impossible. Lifestyle changes are always possible, if you approach them with a plan and endless kind-gentleness to yourself. There are two things that do work when it comes to lifestyle changes; and one of them you don’t ever want…that day the physician sits down with you, pauses, looks at her chart, and says, “I have your tests results here…”. And then she tells you that you’re the latest in a long line of 100,000,000 US Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) cases, that you have colorectal cancer, that your weight has caused back or knee or hip disease, or that your heart disease warrants surgery.

These are—all of them--primarily lifestyle diseases. “Lifestyle disease” is another way of saying “preventable disease.” Often that means “reversible or curable disease.” Here’s the lifestyle change thing that does work, will work, always works, and is a lot more fun than getting The Diagnosis: Change your lifestyle—how much you move and how much you eat--in very small ways, but very diligently. Beginning right now. A little bit of change every single day for the next year (except for your birthday—you get to do whatever you want on your birthday). Make the small, incremental, but huge changes with care. With gentleness in your approach. With forgiveness for the days your miss the mark. With confidence that each small change adds days, weeks, years of healthy life to your precious life. With care for your health. All of it.

At Enerqi, we can help you build a SAFE, SANE, and EFFECTIVE daily plan to make steady, diligent, and painless lifestyle changes.

The principles are simple: Move a little more. Eat a little less.

At the same time, they’re hard—our US culture insists that happiness comes when we sit on our keesters as much as possible and eat everything we can while we’re there. This nonsense is killing us. The simple truth is that you CAN make effective lifestyle changes, small adjustments, day by diligent day. And in 6 months’ time from Right Now, you will feel better, more alive, more flexible, and enjoying the health you richly deserve. Along the way, you have to give up three things—ready? Oh no, you’re thinking. I KNEW I’d have to give something up. Yes, you do. And here they are: 1. Methamphetamines. You have to give up meth. It’s expensive and it’s bad for your teeth. 2. Cigarettes. They’re more dangerous than meth. And more expensive. This is your year. Acupuncture and meditation can help you put them down for good. 3. Guilt. Obviously. It’s more dangerous than the first two. Here are the two things you need to do: Move More. Eat Less. Move More: “But Paul, I hate exercise and a gym is far too expensive. I think I have some of those rubber bands in the attic…somewhere.” Don’t fret kinds of exercise. In one sense, ALL movement is exercise. Walking, taking the stairs, making love. When you move more, you change your health for the better. Eventually, especially if your job is sedentary, you’ll need to add some formal and exercise—but in a way that works for you. Because if it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work at all.

Eat Less: “What about chocolate? I’m not giving up chocolate. Or tacos. Or beer.” If you like chocolate, you should eat chocolate every day. I’ll coach you on how to do that as a part of a Big View nutrition plan. We’ll talk more about tacos and beer when we meet—but we’re not ruling them out yet. Probably not ever. Let’s talk “portion size.”

Acupuncture, meditation, and nutritional coaching.

Acupuncture is clinically proven to help manage stress. Stress is the major source of over-eating, binge-eating, and panic-eating. Managed stress leads to managed eating. And that leads to gradual, safe, and sane weight change. Meditation not only helps with stress management, it balances you serum cortisol levels, improves your sleep quality, and stabilizes a frantic mind. At Enerqi we say, “Meditation is the Medication.” Nutritional Coaching at Enerqi means finding a safe, sane, workable plan for you to put your health on a gradually improving, lifelong long life sustaining trajectory. 

We’ll do a careful analysis of what and when you’re eating right now. Generally, I never ask a patient to give up any food—in fact, I’ll encourage you to add foods to your diet. By adjusting the proportions of foodstuffs, we can navigate a path that fits your needs, your lifestyle, and most of all promotes...

...your Radiant Good Health.

[radiantgoodhealth]

An Interview with the Enerqi Executive Director.

As a 501c3 non-profit, Enerqi, Inc. requires an Executive Director. Paul Shinkle, LAc. MSOM fills that role. In this wide ranging interview, he shares his view for Enerqi and US Healthcare in general.

How did you get into acupuncture? Unemployment! (Laughs) I was teaching philosophy at a for-profit university. And one sunny Friday afternoon, they told me that they were transferring all my duties to the more profitable on-line campus, gave me a non-disparaging agreement to sign, and a one month severance package. Escorted me to my car like a criminal. 

And there I was in the worst US economy in decades, over 50 years old, an unemployed philosopher. Not a lot of job prospects and 40 plus years of contributions yet to make. 

Traditional medicine allowed me to blend my three previous careers—Firefighter/Paramedic/Fire Lieutenant, Chef, and Philosopher. 

What do you mean by “Traditional Medicine”? Good question. Most acupuncturists use the term Traditional Chinese Medicine—that’s descriptive and accurate. But the medicine is even bigger than China. Japanese and Korean practitioners have been crucial in preserving, modifying, and improving Chinese medicine. So have US practitioners.  

Second, TM is the term the World Health Organization uses—to remove any nationalism or ethnicity from considering what is and what is not good medicine. They’re working very hard to preserve these traditional modalities worldwide, in part to protect them from the commodification of medicine, the patenting of traditional practices by for-profit multinational corporations. We’ve seen this with foodstuffs throughout the impoverished world.

Finally, although the history of this medicine is distinctly Chinese, the contemporary governmental policies of modern China—especially as regards human rights and ethical conduct suggest that a little distance between the medicine and the governmental body that shares the name is wise. Another important part of this is that acupuncture and the other components of TM are distinctly American. I don’t practice “eastern medicine” or “western medicine.” I practice good medicine, good traditional medicine.   Why establish a non-profit clinic? Several reasons. First, it’s important to reclaim healthcare as a right, not as a commodity. Declining to play the profit game defines a better ethos. Second, personally, since I’m on what I call the good side of 50, I’m not going to invest the last third of my life in chasing money.

A non-profit ethos allows me to be pristinely mission focused—excellence in TM patient care and excellence in TM education.

What do you mean by “TM” education? 

Unfortunately, we Americans have been taught to expect Magical Fixes from our Medical Doctors, Chiropractors, and Physical Therapists.

The overall approach in TM is not to fix problems or to practice magic.

“I’m broken; fix me now, please.” It’s very paternalistic and it doesn’t ask the patient to have skin in the game, to take self-responsibility for her long-term health.

So I spend a lot of time with patients teaching them the basics of TM care, and weaving that ethos into practical lifestyle changes that help them take charge of their own health. A good example is this: the CDC says that 1/3 of all Americans have pre-diabetes or Type 2 Diabetes. A third! A hundred million people. Predictably, the primary treatment for this is prescription metformin. Billions of pills.  But both pre-diabetes and T2D are primary lifestyle diseases—this is what CDC says. So “the fix,” if you will, isn’t a pill! 

The fix is to teach and support patients to accomplish two wildly simple lifestyle changes. One, move more. Two, eat less. More specifically, reasonable, accessible, easy increases in movement and exercise. And tackle a two-pronged approach to diet: lots more vegetables, far fewer carbs. 

Now those seem to be hard things—certainly harder than popping a pill. But you know what? They work. They cure. They empower. And guess what? They’re inexpensive, free really.

The second area of TM education we’re working on very hard at Enerqi is our Human Wellness Programs for microbusinesses. What happens to a company of 5 or 6 employees if one or two of its workers are out for a week? It’s a catastrophe. Since we can trace most workplace absences to some form of stress—bad diet, bad sleep, chronic pain, T2D, substance abuse, anxiety—by learning how to work with stress as a team, we can help microbusiness workers to become profitable more quickly, stave off catastrophe, and most of all become healthy enough to enjoy the fruits of all that hard work. Ultimately, we are not born to work. We are born to live and to be happy. We help workers regain that life.  You advocate for Universal/Single-Payer healthcare in America. Why? To paraphrase Canadian PM Trudeau: Because it’s 2017, almost 2018. 

Look, our healthcare system in the US is going to crash. Is going to—not “might,” not “looks a little wobbly right now.” It is going to crash.

In fact, we are already seeing the ground coming up fast. Physician and health care provider suicide rates are climbing. In Wisconsin, we are coming up on a 2000 physician shortage. There are some WI counties that have no practicing physicians at all. We spend more money on healthcare than any nation on earth and we have among the poorest patient outcomes. One metric predicts that rising healthcare costs will match family income—100% of your labor going to pay for medical insurance—by 2020. It’s a disaster! One bad pandemic, a ravaging influenza epidemic and we’ll really be in a crisis. 

For goodness sake, one third of us are already suffering some form of diabetes, while our cancer death rates are falling, our addiction, suicide, and gun death rates are climbing—what more evidence of a failing system does an intelligent person need? Bodies in the streets?

Healthcare is wrongly, savagely really, seen as a commodity for the sellers and as a cost by the buyers. It’s a market; frankly, it’s more a racket than a market because the “consumer” has no choice but to buy—most people will fall ill in their lives. Universal/Single-Payer (U/S-P) says that healthcare is a human right. A right, not a commodity. And a non-profit configuration reaffirms that right, by the way. That doesn’t mean that it’s free—that’s a silly misrepresentation of what U/S-P is. It means that if you’re sick, you’ll get care. And it vests the entire nation in prevention, first and foremost. We use the term “healthcare” for our system, but really it’s just sick-care—and pretty poor-sick care at that. The second most important thing about U/S-P in the United States today is this: It would be great for business. Fixed and predictable costs. More efficient application of benefits. Most of all, healthy workers are more profitable, more engaged, more valuable. What we have now is simple insanity…which also isn’t covered by our current system. The most important thing is that it makes for better patient outcomes. 

What is it about acupuncture that engages you? A patient presents with a set of difficulties. In TM, we look for the underlying patterns that are involved in those difficulties—those patterns are what we actually treat, not the specific symptoms. The better a practitioner is at working out those pattern puzzles, the more effective he is at resolving the symptoms. 

Basically, I love working out the puzzles. I’m intensely curious about most everything. And a patient who shows up with X, secondary Y, and unrelated Z just captures the entirety of my mind. The medicine is fascinating and that compels me to practice it. Telling a patient after 4 or 8 treatments “I think we should transfer you into monthly or seasonal wellness care” is just thrilling. Puzzle solved!

Is there a downside to being an acupuncturist? As a business, the better you are as a practitioner, the harder the business environment becomes. Essentially, you’re doing your best to get rid of your “customer.” It’s a strange way to earn grocery money. But a great way to be a human being.

You’re a Shambhala Buddhist. How does this work with acupuncture? Perfectly integrated. Part of Buddhist practice is to work to alleviate suffering, of any kind, in any quanta, for every person, every moment of your life. That’s what I do for a living. Pretty good set-up, no?

I offer meditation instruction to every patient at no-cost. Ultimately, that’s the best care I offer. Mediation is practical, portable, and powerful. Once learned—and it takes about an hour to learn it—it’s yours forever. If I only had one TM modality to apply to a patient, it would be meditation instruction. 

Do you have any hobbies? I love to read and to cook. I’m pretty much an omnivore, although dedicated to my CSA. That gives me some insight into coaching patients to build a life of cooking, not eating out of a paper bag until they’re hospitalized. Living in WI, I get a chance to enjoy incredibly good goat’s milk cheese; we have a little fermented food cult in the Milwaukee area, which is fun. I’m such a food nut, I even love to grocery shop. 

What are you reading? Ha! I have a stack of at least 6 books on my bedside table right now. I’m reading one about the life of the bodhisattva Yeshe Tsogyal—it’s a true epic style. “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television,” by Jerry Mander. “Spirit: Transformation and Development in Organizations” by Harrison Owen. I’m going to restart Neal Stephenson’s “The Baroque Cycle.” I started it before I got fired—beautiful writer—an historical novel trilogy on the role of coffee in the transformation of Europe.  And I hope to re-read Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” this winter. I’ve also finally completed my own novella that I’m publishing this winter.

What’s a typical day for you? Good heavens. A typical day! Wouldn’t that be nice? I don’t even quite know what that would be like anymore. Mostly, I spend each day working with patients, doing the necessary current and future business related work, studying TM—that’s never ending. Doing some cooking and reading. Playing with my cat. Meditating. Generally, I’m up at 5 or 6 and back in bed between 10 and midnight, six days a week. It’s a big schedule; fortunately, I have a lot of energy. Can you recommend a book on “Typical Days”? I’d like to learn about that (laughs). Number 7 on my book table! What’s next?

I have a business plan for 3 Enerqi clinics. I think any business owner has a moral obligation to grow their business. People—especially acupuncturists—need jobs. Their jobs pay taxes that help build our society. And there’s no end to the suffering we can work with. 

I’d like to cut back to 40 hours by the time I’m 70. And I intend to work until I die—that, to me, would be a great life.

Mostly, I want to practice what I teach--to live a life of Radiant Good Health

[radiantgoodhealth]

Acupuncture and Diabetes: New Research

A third of all Americans today either have diabetes or pre-diabetes. (Centers for Disesase Control, 2017) Metformin, the primary drug for treating Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) and pre-diabetes worldwide is so prevalent that it is routinely found in tap water. (Scudellari, 2015)

Recent clinical research indicates that acupuncture can be an effective treatment for both T2D and pre-diabetes, thereby reducing the need for Metformin (and its side effects) as well as protecting our drinking water from contamination.

Despite their prevalence and the “take a pill” (or “pay for a pill”) ethos of corporate medicine, T2D and pre-diabetes are first and foremost lifestyle diseases. This means that they are not only preventable but better managed with two simple lifestyle changes.

Here it comes. You’ve heard them before. They form the pillars of nutritional coaching at Enerqi and the safest, soundest, smartest guidelines for preventing dozens of diseases, including diabetes: Move more. Eat Less.

In the "CDC Pre-Diabetes Screening Test" (the pdf is linked here), researchers identify exercise and diet as the keys to both prevention and treatment. “Type 2 diabetes can be delayed or prevented in people with prediabetes through effective lifestyle programs.” (Centers for Disease Control)

Answering “yes” to these two questions alone tips you into the “high risk” category.

1. Are you younger than 65 years of age and get little or no exercise in a typical day?

2. Do you weigh as much as or more than the weight listed for your height? In other words, you can be at high risk regardless of age or other medical history.

If you’re unsettled by this information, good! Prevention is the goal in any healthcare effort, especially in the case of acupuncture and TM. Come see us at Enerqi for smart, safe, sane, personalized, and doable nutritional coaching. (Yes, you can continue to eat chocolate—I said it was “sane” right?)

Where does acupuncture fit in? Recent clinical research concludes “…acupuncture, which, when combined with metformin, showed a loss in weight and increase in insulin sensitivity.” (Diabetes in Control, 2016) (link here)

These researchers also discovered that “the changes in body weight and BMI in this study prove that acupuncture-combined therapy is efficient in achieving weight loss.” (Diabetes in Control, 2016)

Further, although the study group was small, the researchers discovered that “participants in the acupuncture group also saw reduced free fatty acids, plasma triglycerides, LDL cholesterol and an increase in HDL cholesterol, as well as reduced ceramide levels. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin-6, glucagon-like peptide-1 and leptin levels all were reduced in the acupuncture group.” (Diabetes in Control, 2016)

Their conclusion: “metformin and acupuncture combined therapy is more effective than metformin only, proving that acupuncture is an insulin sensitizer and is able to improve insulin sensitivity possibly by reducing body weight and inflammation, while improving lipid metabolism and adipokines. As a result, electro-acupuncture (EA) might be useful in controlling the ongoing epidemics in obesity and T2DM.” If you’re in the CDC’s “HIGH RISK” category for pre-diabetes or T2D and your physician has prescribed or recommended metformin, please come see us at the Enerqi Center. We can help you prevent both diseases—according to the research! And if you’ve been diagnosed, we can help you reduce the effects of the disease. The long-term effects of T2D are horrendous:

§  Diabetes was the seventh leading cause of death in the United States in 2013 (and may be underreported).

§  ♦ Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, lower-limb amputations, and adult-onset blindness.

§  ♦ More than 20% of health care spending is for people with diagnosed diabetes. (Centers for Disease Control, 2016)

There is good news, too! You’re in control. “People with prediabetes who take part in a structured lifestyle change program can cut their risk of developing type 2 diabetes by as much as 58%.” (Centers for Disease Control, 2016)

Let’s do just that. Together. At Enerqi.

[radiantgoodhealth]

Food As Poison

In a previous post, we looked at the notion of “food as medicine.” That’s a good way to look at food. But, just as every medicine can also be a poison, it’s appropriate to look at how food can also be a pathogen—one we can decide to leave aside if we want to.

One of the caveats of healthy food thinking is “Don’t Become a Fanatic About Food.” 

(Patrick Martinez’s “High Fructose Corn Loca” (c) the artist) Food fanaticism applies equally to foods we want to eat and foods we want to avoid. You could, if you want to fail at changing your food commitments, go into your kitchen right now and throw everything away. Start fresh. Not only is that kind of radical approach expensive, it does nothing to make the core changes in eating that contribute to your Radiant Good Health. Nevertheless, we can sanely and gently look at “food as pathogenic” so that we can make better food choices. If we won’t look at a problem with intelligence and inquisitiveness, we cannot skillfully work with it. Let’s start with the simple truth: Bad food causes illnesses. The CDC has been very clear about this. The news from CDC about the American diet, to be frank, stinks. “An estimated 33.9% of U.S. adults aged 18 years or older (84.1 million people) had pre-diabetes in 2015, based on their fasting glucose or A1C level. Nearly half (48.3%) of adults aged 65 years or older had prediabetes.” You can read the whole, sad report here. Look at that quotation again. More than one third of the population of the United States of America is pre-diabetic as are HALF of our seniors. 

Millions of them are being treated for this preventable, lifestyle caused illness with medicines that can be dangerous. There is early and troubling research on the relationship between Metformin and Alzheimer’s incidence. Chen, et alia, reports “Although insulin and metformin display opposing effects on Aβ generation, in combined use, metformin enhances insulin's effect in reducing Aβ levels. Our findings suggest a potentially harmful consequence of this widely prescribed antidiabetic drug when used as a monotherapy in elderly diabetic patients.” You can read the study here.  Meanwhile, with upwards of 50,000,000 Metformin prescriptions, some are claiming that it is so prevalent, it’s in our water supply (excreted by the users). See Drugging the Environment in The Scientist.

America is awash in counties where the incidence of actual diabetes (not pre-diabetes) is more than 11%. 

In Milwaukee (WI) County where Enerqi is located, the rate is 10%.

See the map here. Warning: It’s going to make you cry. Or rage. Or at least put down those carbs and go for a walk.

But the bad news is also the good news: LIFESTYLE is the primary culprit—a self-inflicted wound for 100,000,000 Americans. Nevertheless, DM-2 is almost completely preventable.

Here’s what we know about behaviors (food, exercise, and smoking) that yield DM-2 for one out of three Americans:

Risk factor data for 2011–2014 for U.S. adults aged 18 years or older with diagnosed diabetes indicated the following (from the CDC):

Smoking • 15.9% Overweight and Obesity • 87.5% Physical Inactivity • 40.8% High Blood Pressure • 73.6% Cholesterol (Hyperlipidemia) • 58.2%

The evidence for the direct correlation between the kinds and amount of food that typify the American diet and colorectal cancer, Diabetes Type 2 (DM-2), and psychosocial disorders is strong. In a recent Nature article, Knuppel and others conclude, “Our research confirms an adverse effect of sugar intake from sweet food/beverage on long-term psychological health and suggests that lower intake of sugar may be associated with better psychological health.” You can read that article here.

It should be in the “needless to say” category, but it isn’t, so I’ll say it: fizzy drinks of all kinds are not consistent with a long and healthy life. 

Most importantly, artificial sweeteners are not only unnecessary, they actually cause you to gain weight. 

I’m going to type that again and ask you to read it again—artificial sweeteners cause you to gain weight. Business Insider reports that “Artificial sweeteners combined with a low carbohydrate diet increases overall food consumed, according to a study published in the journal Cell Metabolism.” Read more here.  The original study concludes, “ ‘After chronic exposure to a diet that contained the artificial sweetener sucralose, we saw that animals began eating a lot more,’ said lead researcher Neely from the University of Sydney's Faculty of Science.”

"Through systematic investigation of this effect, we found that inside the brain's reward centres, sweet sensation is integrated with energy content. When sweetness versus energy is out of balance for a period of time, the brain recalibrates and increases total calories consumed." You can read the original study here.

Added sugars—by our own hands or because of processed (boxed, frozen, canned) foods are full of hidden sugars—are an easy source to eliminate from our diet. In 2015, the World Health Organization recommended “...adults and children reduce their daily intake of free sugars to less than 10% of their total energy intake. A further reduction to below 5% or roughly 25 grams (6 teaspoons) per day would provide additional health benefits. Much of the sugars consumed today are “hidden” in processed foods that are not usually seen as sweets. For example, 1 tablespoon of ketchup contains around 4 grams (around 1 teaspoon) of free sugars. A single can of sugar-sweetened soda contains up to 40 grams (around 10 teaspoons) of free sugars.” Moreover, “We have solid evidence that keeping intake of free sugars to less than 10% of total energy intake reduces the risk of overweight, obesity and tooth decay,” says Dr. Francesco Branca, Director of WHO’s Department of Nutrition for Health and Development. “Making policy changes to support this will be key if countries are to live up to their commitments to reduce the burden of noncommunicable diseases.” The original report is linked here.

The WHO guideline does not refer to the sugars in fresh fruits and vegetables, and sugars naturally present in milk, because there is no reported evidence of adverse effects of consuming these sugars.

Now let’s round all this off a bit. Fresh vegetables and fruits, particularly when organic, should be the largest part of your diet. Carbohydrates, especially white rice, white flour, and white sugar, make you fat, stupid, and sick. That’s a very harsh claim. But the truth doesn’t have to be tender, especially if it saves your life.

Move more, eat less and better. Our poor food choices are like the smoke detector we ignore. You can unplug the battery and stop the noise—but the house is still burning.

Let me paint a picture of food nirvana.

You and all the people you love sit down at a common table. Vegetables and fruits are plentiful. Whole grain make up the carb side dish. There’s a succulent piece of protein—about the size of your palm or smaller. All the fons are off. The TeeVee is off. You make eye contact.  You begin to talk about how happy you all are to be together. You begin to plan what you’ll do after dinner. There’s a fun debate about whether you’ll take a hike in the park or have a Plank Competition. Dinner takes an hour. You get up, energized not in a carb coma. The sun is just beginning to set and as you clear the dishes together, you wonder what phase of the moon you’ll see in a few minutes. That is normal. That is how you live a long and healthy life. Move more, eat less. And you can still come back and have chocolate, because that too is a part of your Radiant Good Health.

[radiantgoodhealth]

Food Is Medicine--and More

The Japanese famously assert “Food IS Medicine.” This is one valuable way to think about food. In my view it is too thin to account for just how important food is to all of us.

Nutritional coaching is a core practice at the Enerqi Center for Acupuncture and Traditional Medicine. How do we together—patient and provider—work with ‘food as medicine’ to promote Radiant Good Health? And not give up chocolate?

Here are the key components of nutrition and food coaching I practice at Enerqi:

A. Food is medicine, but it’s far more than that.

B. Food rules should be as simple as possible and followed with sanity and gentleness. If your food choices are mostly good; “cheating” kills more good food efforts than State Fair. In fact, favorite food rewards are good incentives.

C. Don’t become a fanatic about food. As Aristotle said, ‘In all things, moderation.’ That applies to your foodstuffs as well as your food mentality about them.

D. Weight management, in almost every case, is mostly a case of “move more, eat less.” Even if your physician attributes excess weight to a hormonal imbalance, you can still eat healthily and manage your weight well. Acupuncture can help support your physician’s care, too.

E. Meditation heals stress eating fast. Let’s sample this buffet in a little more detail.

More than this.

Is food medicine or isn’t it? The answer is “yes.”

Food is both restorative and curative, depending on the disease. Medicine, after all, is generally offered once one has become sick. Food certainly has medicinal value. From bone broth for common cold, kale for better vision, to congee for a variety of ailments, the correct food can heal. In many cases, the only difference between medicinal herbs and culinary herbs is the amount used.

On the other hand, food is so much more than medicine. It is culture supporting and memory invoking. It is familial and communal. It gives us a reason to gather, a cause to celebrate, permission to grieve, a call to come together and another to part. It is deeply woven into our ideas of normal, expected, and demanded. Changing a diet is far, far more than buying, preparing, and eating something different.

More than ever, keep it simple.

My approach to nutritional coaching rests on three core principles. They are simple. They are teachable. They work.

First: Do not become a fanatic about food. I do not support fad dieting of any kind. If you’re getting your health advice from Facebook (“New! Ancient Secret!! Don’t Be Left Out!!!) you’re getting poor health advice. Please stop. Talk face to face with a licensed provider, like me, who actually cares about you.

I urge extreme caution for patients who undertake any extreme diet path (e.g., Paleo, Keto, and Vegan). Go very slow, be very gentle, and never exchange good health for ideological purity. I’ve seen too many people go hog wild (pun intended, you Paleos) on The Brand Spanking New Diet one week, only to fall ill the next, and gain all that weight back, plus 5 more in the one after.

Second: With very rare exceptions, there is no good reason to completely eliminate any particular food. This is especially important for foods that are part of your culture or current (less than healthy) lifestyle. In fact, I only coach patients to eliminate THREE things from their lives give up three things: cigarettes, meth, and guilt. All three kill you. Quit them now.

However, I do urge patients to dramatically cut back on fizzy drinks/sodas, especially those with artificial sweeteners (see the related ‘Food As Pathogen’ post for more on how “diet” sodas actually help MAKE you fat). The Three Whites (white sugar, white flour, and white rice)—in fact, all carbohydrates--are primary contributors to ill health. Generally, any of us can cut our consumption of these in half and get immediate health benefits.

On the other hand, I might be the only acupuncturist/nutritionist in America who advises patients, “If you like chocolate, you should eat chocolate.”

Every single day. Eat it, enjoy it. Bring me some. So long as it is 75% cacao or more, preferably organic.” Why not? Good chocolate is high in anti-oxidants, iron, and magnesium. Eat chocolate, so long as it is great chocolate.

Third, I am sharing with you right now my Super-Secret Success Strategy for weight management. Ready?

Move more, eat less.

Build more activity into your life.

Walk whenever you can. Park a distance from your destination. Take the stairs. Add yoga, Tai ji, and even more walking into your day. Carry your luggage in the airport rather than rolling it. Dance while you vacuum. Jog-walk to the bus stop. Look for ways to be more active, not for ways to be more sedentary. How far can you go in a 30 minute roundtrip walk from your house or workplace? Everything within that radius is an exercise opportunity. Coffee shop, dry cleaners, library, job, restaurant—why plop your fanny in a car and complain you’ve no time to exercise when you can layer exercise into your ordinary, daily tasks?

In the ‘eat less’ category, I’m a little more specific, but equally practical.

First, stop eating out of paper bags. Fast food is not food; it’s the single most heath hideous product there is. It is driving you to Diabetes Type 2. It is making you fat, depressed, and broke. Fast food can easily cost $15 a pound. If it wasn’t so profitable, we’d declare fast food a human rights violation.

If fast food wasn’t so profitable, we’d declare it a human rights violation.

Second, before you begin eating, look at your plate. At least 50% of the plate should be covered by fresh, preferably organic vegetables and fruits. Whatever protein you choose (meat, tofu, or fish), the portion should be about the size of a deck of cards. Whatever the portion of carbohydrate you normally eat should be reduced by half. Less bread, less pasta, less rice, less sugar. More vegetables and fruits. Easy. Do that. Live long. Pick good fats: extra virgin olive oil, butter, whole organic milk—even lard is better for you than synthetic factory fats. These are the foundations of nutritional coaching at the Enerqi Center: 1. Don’t become a fanatic about food. 2. Don’t give up any food. But begin to rebalance the portions of kinds of foods. A vegetable/fruit dominated diet, with smaller portions of protein, good fats, and a steep reduction in carbs are the smart ways to eat. Of course, when most of your diet looks like this, you can enjoy everything (in moderation and less frequently than now).

In the related post, I look at food as the opposite of medicine—food as pathogen.

Good food is a necessary part of a good life. By making some gentle, smart, resilient, and small changes, you practice “an ounce of prevention” and help to support your Radiant Good Health for decades to come.

[radiantgoodhealth]

Gesundheit!

How many times have you sneezed so far this summer? If you’re like me, living in Wisconsin, the last few weeks have really pushed on your seasonal allergies. The Noble Sneeze, so perfect at trying to clear out the pollen and mold invasions can cause back strain. The body’s response--by coating every mucosal surface with thick, gelatinous goo (encapsulate and eject)--helps to clear the invasion, but the cost is too great.

Red eyes, pouring nose, and more sneezing.

Recommendations:

1. Start drinking stinging nettles tea immediately. It is cheap, effective, and generally side effects free (save one--see below). I had a patient who was at and beyond the recommended dosage of a popular OTC allergy med. She felt jittery all the time, irritable, and worst of all, the medication wasn’t working anymore. On top of that, this particular medicine is associated with severe itching when you quit it cold turkey (OTC FDA? Truly?)

We started a program of twice daily cups of stinging nettles tea and a gradual decrease in the dosage of the OTC medication. A month later, despite the all-body itching, she was “Z” free, mostly sneeze-free, and wasn’t spending her summer with a tissue on her face.

The only downside is that some patients report that their stools become sticky which makes clean up a bit work. Pick up a package of those “bidet in a box” wipes. Better to clean up your bottom end once a day than your top end every 10 minutes.

You’re sticking a needle in my face?

2. Better than that. I’m going to stick TWO needles in your face, on either side of your nose: the classic Bitong for clearing slop out of your head. With several other heat-clearing, phlegm-transforming, and yang calming points, you’ll be well on your way to enjoying summer without a thin haze of slime between you and the fun.

3. Ask me about a nutraceutical or medicinal herb product. This year at Enerqi we are really impressed with the effectiveness of a Standard Process product called Allerplex. Inexpensive, effective, no side effects (although some patients experience a noticeable but temporary diueretic effect for the first couple days). 

When I say no side effects I mean no drowsy, no dry mouth, no itching.

Allerplex acts very quickly in my experience. Most patients are able to manage their everyday allergies with a 1/3 or 1/2 daily dose--Allerplex is that good! And your health care dollars can go a little further (Note: this is how we do it in the non-profit healthcare universe--we help you maximize your healthcare investments). If you’re ready for summer, make sure your sinuses are on board. And come see us at Enerqi to help make this another radiant season, from the beach and the BBQ To Your Radiant Good Health.