The trial is to examine how well acupuncture treats pain. It will last for three years and is funded by Government funding body the National Health and Medical Research Council. The funding is $400,000: chicken feed in this writers opinion.

This signals I hope the inclusion of acupuncture into Western medicine in Australia. (It also leads me to worry about doctors wanting to take over acupuncture – but that is another battle). For me this is an important and encouraging step forward.

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The “five spirits” are part of Traditional Chinese Medicine. (Sorry to disappoint those of you who are Scotch drinkers – like me.)

This is a link to a post by my good and long-standing friend Geoff Wilson. One of the remarkable things about Geoff is that the content of his posts and products is always good. He maintains consistently high standards for the quality of his content.

First up the post about the five spirits. These are sometimes known as the ‘five elements’. They are: earth, metal, water, wood and fire. Each of the spirits exists in our bodies as well as in the environment. They manifest in various ways in our bodies.
Earth – digestion (stomach and ‘spleen’)
Metal – elimination (elimination – lung and colon)
Water – vitality (kidney and bladder)
Wood – initiation (liver and gall bladder)
Fire – serenity and compassion (heart and small intestine)

As you can see, this is a very different approach to our health. This post gives a more comprehensive introduction to the five spirits. In outline, it gives a good overview of the whole of our health (physical, emotional and mental). Geoff lays it out clearly – he writes well and always has an eye on the practical application. For a good introduction to Traditional Chinese Medicine or a simple way to have an overview of your health, this post is a good place to start.

Geoff has also produced a more extensive introduction to our psychology from the point of view of the five spirits. It is a two DVD set called Your Mind Your Medicine: Change Your Thinking; Change Your Life.
Initial impression: a great introduction to the mind and its influence on our health.

In detail
This is Geoff delivering a series of presentations on the role of our mind in our health from the perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine (with the emphasis on the Buddhist and Taoist perspectives).

It is a video of him delivering the seminars. This could become boring, but Geoff’s material is good and he has spark when he is presenting – so it isn’t a problem. To cover the material in depth takes quite a while, these DVD’s I think represent value for money. There is about 2.5hrs of content which cover the five spirits of our health as well as the symptoms that show which spirit is troubled. Geoff also covers the emotions that indicate which spirit is troubled.

Any drawbacks? If you get bored by watching a presentation this style may be a problem. It would be worth viewing it in bite size chunks. I think the content is good enough to make it worth persevering with.

In summary: this is a great introduction to a simple and comprehensive way to view our health and a great introduction to the psychological aspect of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

If you liked this post you might also like:
Meditation for Relaxation
Qi Gong Basics
A Simple Guide to Health Eating

The answer is living authentically. Buy the book or sign up for the course now from my Living Authentically website.

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Image by  sarcozona

It’s been a while since I talked about Traditional Chinese Medicine, so maybe it’s time I did.

There are various disciplines within Traditional Chinese Medicine.  Most famously acupuncture.  It also includes herbs and food and other things.  But today I’d like to talk about exercise.

There is a whole universe of health exercises in the chinese tradition – these are called “qi gong”.  Translating “qi gong” is difficult; it means something like ‘energy work’ the energy being connected with the air, so perhaps ‘breath work’ or, at a stretch, ‘aerobics’.  qi gong is slowly gaining acceptance in the West and is beginning to be studied.  tai chi – a chinese martial art – is also being studied.  When qi gong and tai chi are done slowly and with attention to the breath they can be very effective at reducing stress – which has huge health benefits.  So here’s some good news on the benefits of exercising in the traditional Chinese way.

1. It helps with diabetes.
After a 12 week programme of tai chi it was found that tai chi may prompt a fall in blood glucose levels, or improve blood glucose metabolism. Alternatively it may boost fitness levels and the feeling of wellbeing, which may then boost the health of the immune system.

Strenuous physical activity depresses the immune system response, but moderate exercise seems to have the opposite effect, say the authors. Tai Chi is classified as moderate exercise.

Reference. Regular Tai Chi Chuan exercise improves T cell helper function of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus with an increase in T-bet transcription factor and IL-12 production

First Br J Sports Med 2008; doi 10.1136/bjsm.2007.043562

In a separate study, a 12 week programme of Tai Chi and Qigong prompted a significant fall in blood glucose levels and significant improvements in other indicators of the metabolic syndrome (Insulin resistance-whereby cells stop responding to insulin, a condition preceding full diabetes-also improved significantly.) in 11 middle aged to older adults.

At the end of the 12 weeks the program participants had lost an average of 3 kg in weight and their waist size had dropped by an average of almost 3 cm. Their blood pressure also fell significantly, and by more than would have been expected from the weight loss alone.  Participants said they slept better, had more energy, felt less pain and had fewer food cravings while on the programme.

Reference. Preliminary study of the effect of Tai Chi and Qigong medical exercise on indicators of metabolic syndrome and glycaemic control in adults with raised blood glucose

First Br J Sports Med 2008; doi 10.1136/bjsm.2007.0454

2. It gives a boost to flu vaccination (benefits immunity)
A team of kinesiologists at the University of Illinois suggest that older adults who adopt an exercise regimen combining Taiji and Qigong may get an extra boost from their annual flu shot.

“We have found that 20 weeks of Taiji can increase the antibody response to influenza vaccine in older adults,” said the study’s lead author Yang Yang, an adjunct professor of kinesiology and community health, and a Taiji master with 30-plus years of experience as a practitioner and instructor.

Those in the exercise intervention group participated in three one-hour classes for 20 weeks, while the control group was directed to continue their regular activities for the same time period.

On average, he said, the Taiji group had much higher antibody responses to the vaccination than the control group.  However, because of the small sample size, the percentage of persons from the Taiji group that achieved protective levels was not statistically different from the control.

 “Our results . . . suggest that there needs to be a larger dedicated intervention trial with Taiji to definitively determine whether this type of behavioral intervention can improve influenza vaccine efficacy in older adults.”

3. Many Other Benefits
Other recent research, including work by Yang and Rosengren, has demonstrated improvements in quality of life, flexibility, strength, cardiovascular function, pain, balance and kinesthetic strength.

Reference:  August 2007 issue of the American Journal of Chinese Medicine

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Why do I like it so much? Firstly because Sarah deals with significant issues. Recent topics are happiness, mindfulness and projections. She has also dealt with topics such as parenting, self-harm and personal questions in therapy. One of my favourites is on listening as a whole body process. There is a huge range of topics that have been covered so you will probably find something related to the topics you are interested in.

Sarah also writes well. Clear and focused Sarah writes to the point. This doesn’t mean that she seeks to be argumentative – sometimes her point is that different views are complementary. It does mean that you are clear about what she is saying. This is writing the way I like it.

I think this is a blog well worth checking out and subscribing too (I do). Once again here is the link to Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life.

Update May 08. Sarah is having a break from blogging at the moment for personal reasons.  Update June 08, Sarah is back in the blogosphere, a welcome return.

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 [Background Information: Sydney Uni was the first University in Australia.  Its medical faculty was the first medical school in Australia.  Sydney Uni is one of the group of universities referred to as the 'sandstone universities' - equivalent to America's Ivy League they are often regarded as more prestigious than other uni's: though not necessarily by the students who have studied at them.]

The plan is to include information on TCM so that doctors can speak intelligently to their patients who may be using alternative therapies.  They are not offering training in TCM as such.

However, the acceptance of ‘alternative’ health by the medical profession seems to be rapidly changing.  The same article reports research that 80% of GP’s have referred patients to meditation and 90% of GP’s have referred patients to acupuncturists.  Even twenty years ago this would have been unthinkable in Australia.

The uni faculty also plans to do clinical trials, in collaboration with others, on herbal medicine and ‘alternative’ therapies.  The professor of the faculty claimed that trials like this had not been done before because they were expensive.  Which seems to me to be nothing but a whitewash for prejudice.  ‘We don’t have any evidence that these things work’ is often the reason given.  Why is there no evidence?  Because there have been no studies done.  And so ‘responsibility’ is used as a cover for small minded prejudice.  As if the whole panoply of medical technology wasn’t horrendously expensive!  But still it is a very encouraging step forward.

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I found out about this study from a blog edshealthtips.com. It is one of my favourite blogs – he writes clearly, provides good information and has a gentle style. The article about this study is in the acupuncture category and can be read here.

This is an exciting finding because the study was large and rigorous. Due to many factors (such as funding constraints) there isn’t a whole lot of research on acupuncture – compared to other modalities researched.

This is unfortunate because acupuncture technology (the acupuncture needle) is cheap.
And one of the major components of the health funding crisis is the cost of technology.

If acupuncture was routinely used for health problems before they became serious the cost of health care would plummet. This would benefit all of us by reducing the cost of health care. Also the trauma and inconvenience of hospital treatment would be avoided and so the patient would benefit from avoiding this – as well as the health problem getting worse.

If this sounds like I’m partisan you are probably right. I think that because the technology is cheap acupuncture can be make a major contribution to making health care affordable for everyone. I also think (contrary to those with a vested interest in making acupuncture more expensive) that acupuncture is simple and easy to learn, but that is the topic for another post.

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Firstly, this means getting enough sleep. Secondly it means injecting a little more yin into our day. The worlds most popular way of doing this is meditation.

This is a brief introduction to meditation for the purpose of relaxation. There are many purposes for doing and different ways of doing meditation. Famously, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who popularised Transcendental Meditation, when he saw an article praising meditation as a way of relaxation, said, “How cruel”. However, for relaxation, for getting more yin in to our day, meditation is a simple and accessible.

Perhaps the simplest method of meditation is to count your breath. To not think about anything other than what you are doing – just counting your breath. It will help to have an even breathing rate, and the way to do this is to have a straight spine (either sitting in a chair with your spine straight and legs at a right angle to your hips and your feet flat on the floor, or you can do it standing (which is trickier), or sitting on the floor (if you are flexible enough)).

You will find that you will think about things other than counting your breath. When this happens you have a choice about what to do. Either just go back to counting your breath, or note what is happening by saying to yourself “thinking” and go back to counting your breath, or make a note of your thought, or – if it is a plan or something you need to do – get up and do it.

How long to aim for? Probably around 20 minutes (Herbert Benson, the author of The Relaxation Response, found that it takes about 20 minutes for the relaxation response to kick in.). With twenty minutes of counting your breath in your day you will find you are more relaxed and receptive throughout the day. You will have some balance to all the demands of yang activity which our society puts on us.

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So we need to find out what is good for us. We also need a way to do this that we can do ourselves, without relying on the latest finding from the laboratories and researchers (margarine used to be better than butter, now its the reverse).

The simplest way to find out what food is good for us is to keep a food diary. This just means writing down everything you eat and how you feel. But you must put down everything. Every sip of water, every little nibble.

Doing this has two advantages.

• Firstly it is a way of paying attention to what you eat – you will probably find you become much more aware of what you eat and how much of it you eat.
• Secondly it is a way of finding out what you like, what is healthy for you as an individual – once you know this you don’t need to rely on others telling you what to do.

There are traditional health systems which were invented before laboratories and so use our own senses to choose our food.

The one I know best is Traditional Chinese Medicine. There is a vast storehouse of wisdom on healthy eating in this tradition. And there are many books that explain it.

For an encyclopedic reference there is Paul Pitchford’s “Healing With Wholefoods“ which uses both western and eastern approaches.

For a basic introduction there is “The Tao of Healthy Eating“ by Bob Flaws.

For a good book that gives more specific guidance there is “Food for the Seasons” by Lun Wong and Kath Knapsey. All are excellent and readable.

The approach of Traditional Chinese Medicine is that the different tastes effect us in different ways. And so we can adjust our eating according to how we want to be.

• There are foods for strengthening different aspects of body and for adjusting for different conditions.

• There are foods to warm us up, cool us down and so on.

Once we know this we can take control of our own diet and shape it to fit where we are and what is happening for us. It does take some work to learn, but once you know it you have control over your own diet.

With a food diary and Traditional Chinese Medicine we have a sophisticated approach to diet that we shape to suit ourselves. No more searching for that miracle food – just enjoying a wide variety of what is good for us. And, as important as laboratory research is (and it is very important) we don’t need to adjust our diet after every fresh discovery. We will know how to have our own healthy diet.

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