For the past couple weeks, I’ve been writing about the “Chinese Clock” – a principle from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) whereby each of twelve internal organs has a two-hour period in the day when it’s considered to be strongest. By following this clock, we can…
Last week I introduced the Chinese Clock – a principle from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) that states that each organ has a two hour period in the day when it has an abundance of energy and does its best work. I also explained that the roles…
It’s been about a decade since I wrote a series of articles about the “Chinese clock,” and I’ve been asked about it recently by several students and patients, so I decided it was time to revisit the topic. The “Chinese clock” is a concept of…
This Saturday is the beginning of the Chinese New Year. One year ago, I remember thinking about the approaching Year of the Fire Monkey and wondering how it would play out. The monkey, much like Curious George, is known for causing havoc. And given the…
After so many newsletters about pretty deep topics, I thought I’d get really superficial this week and talk about skin. Winter’s dryness and cold plus extra clothing, obsessive handwashing, and indoor heating form a combination that can be very hard on our skin. My whole…
As long as I’ve been studying health, there’s been an ongoing argument about the role of dairy products in human nutrition. If you do a quick Google search for inflammatory foods you’ll find that most of the web “experts” out there put milk and cheese…
A few weeks ago, my wife and I were discussing the differences between the two sides of the fracking issue in our county. On the oil side, there were corporations spending millions on ads to convince voters to side with them and allow minimally-regulated fracking…
During a particularly hard break-up in my 20s, a friend advised me, “The more present you are during this process, the bigger the present you’ll get out of it.” And though I barely understood what that meant, I gave it a try and an odd…
I’ve been treating people for only 17 years, but in that small period of time there has been a change in the prevalence of certain problems. Every year, I see more people with anxiety, depression, poor mental focus, and difficulty sleeping. It’s possible that the…
Since at least several hundred years B.C., people in Greece, India, China, and elsewhere have used a technique of applying friction to the skin in order to resolve pain and treat deeper medical disorders, and it’s recently attracted the attention of mainstream medicine. The Greeks…
Yesterday was the 4th of July, which, for those of you who aren’t from the U.S., was the day we declared our independence from England 240 years ago. Our Declaration of Independence is one of those historical documents you learn about repeatedly in school but…
Statistics show that women go to the doctor, the spa, and partake in self-care activities more than men do. For their part, men are better at dying young than women. I’m not saying there’s any connection, but I think it’s important that men care for…
For anyone who’s been reading my cleansing series (you can find the first five articles on our site), sorry for leaving you hanging without this final article. The good news is: I’ve been on vacation. You may wish to do a brief happy dance on…
We’ve been covering cleansing over the past few weeks. Our discussion started with guidelines for when cleansing is and isn’t appropriate, and from there we moved on to stronger and milder ways to encourage detoxification and decongestion of the body (There are links to the…
Over the past few weeks, I’ve written on the very popular, sometimes faddish topic of cleansing and when it is and isn’t appropriate. We’ve looked at fasting, sweating, and skin brushing as means of stimulating detoxification. This week, I’m going to cover some dietary interventions…
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been writing about the practice of cleansing, what benefits it might have and when it might be appropriate. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Ayurvedic medicine see patterns of human health as being closely tied to the fluctuations of the…
Last week, I wrote about “cleansing” and who it might be appropriate for. We established that it’s often difficult to know whether your symptoms are the result of depletion (being worn out or deficient in some manner) or accumulation (carrying around something “extra” – infection,…
As our world sheds the chill of winter, your pets shed their fur all over your clothes and furniture, and you shed your coat and long johns, you might feel moved to facilitate the shedding of some of the gunk you acquired through the past…
As a healthcare practitioner, I feel an obligation to keep up with health-related research. Luckily, I’m a total science geek, so it isn’t a burden at all. It seems the majority of our news today is negative, medical news included, so my intention is to…
Over the past few centuries, while we’ve made some advances in understanding the vastness of our universe, the prevailing trend in science and medicine has been to understand the world on a smaller and smaller scale. We’ve come to accept that our bodies are composed…
Last week I introduced the three elements of a balanced life – sweetness, structure, and space – which we discuss in our upcoming book, The Well Life. My previous article was titled, “Why Sweet Stuff is Actually Good for You.” To everyone who excitedly emailed…