Needle It

This is an obvious one - Happiness is impossible if you're in pain. All of the other 4 components of Happiness (Agency, Outlook, Gratitude & Energy) are compromised in a state of constant discomfort. Pain makes one the prisoner of one's own body - living in a separate world that other people can not see or touch. Pain is a communication device body uses to signal a need for blood, energy, attention and protection of it's part. Like appetite, pain is how body signals what it needs in orde...

Modern therapy (and medical science behind it) recognize Gratitude as a requirement for health and specifically, mental health. Common sense tells us this too - recognizing the good things we already have is a boost to the sense of wellbeing, the feeling that we are safe(er) and heading in the right direction. Gratitude is awareness that there are blessings in one's daily life, people, things or circumstances. It is not a new idea that we should "count the blessings" but it is harder to keep...

Your outlook could be positive or negative, optimistic or pessimistic (a realist is what we call a pessimist these days), Yang or Yin... Churchill observed that "if you're not a Liberal in your 20s - you have no heart and if you're not a conservative in your 40s - you have no brain". What he's describing is how our outlook is dependant on our age - how our view of the world changes with time. Fortunately, many people remain progressive for much longer in life. Outlook is a function of physic...

I add * to my post title to mark a post with practical advice you can use.... Agency means "purpose for being" and is a very undervalued component of modern human life. In Nature, every living thing serves a purpose before it becomes food for other living things. There are no exceptions to this rule... Humans in the days past, were the same as the rest of the living world. They used to practice different trades, be homemakers, organize and lead others, discover new things and new worlds for...

We're leaving the world of Chinese medicine to look at the happiness and what common sense can add to it. Happiness is a physiological state of being comfortable in one's world. It is a way station to bliss which is "complete happiness". So if happiness is "being comfortable", bliss is "loving life". We all clearly desire the later one but somehow, over time, the modern culture settled on "the pursuit of happiness" as a more realistic goal. It doesn't have to be this way but before addressi...

To stay healthy and be able to bounce back from occasional illness it is essential to "match your behavior to your design" . This is best done by using the Law of Five Elements and the Human Condition Theory. According to the Law of Five Elements, every living thing goes through five phases: Birth & unstoppable growth (Earth), Maturation (Fire), Peaking (Earth) Declining (Metal) and Dying (Water). and then life springs again from Water to Wood. So if there are five phases of our lif...

Everyone gets sick, there is no way to escape that. But there are things you can do to prevent or postpone it and once you're down, there are very efficient ways to speed up your healing. In Chinese medicine, specifically the Five Element acupuncture, each person has a set of organs that they use more than other organs. We come with this propensity and it is called the CF or: causative factor. (please look at my previous posts for more detail). Everyone has a CF but everyone also has all of t...

We all claim we need to lead a balanced life but rarely do we think what does that really mean. At the very minimum, it means that we need to equally develop and use all 5 of our "layers" or ways of being: the physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual and sexual one. It means that we need to use all of our talents and abilities because "if you don't use it - you lose it". This applies equally to your biceps, brain and sexual organs but it also means we all need to regularly exercise our...

By now you may have noticed that your health depends on things that you may be able to generate only when you're healthy. This is one of the paradoxes of Chinese medicine and (ancient) Chinese thought in general. The Law of Chi ("everything is everything" or "everything is just a form of energy"), the Law of Yin and Yang, the sharp needle that is used to bring peace and ease to a patient... there are so many other paradoxes here. But we have observed these paradoxes in the West as well. We o...

Spirituality is how we see the world and our place in it. It is easy to see how essential it is to our wellbeing - how relaxed or how happy can you be if you perceive that world is a very dangerous place or if you thing that your life is in imminent danger?... Spirituality has been with humans since the beginning of time. Across races and across all cultures people created Gods and supernatural to explain what the world is and what their place in it is. Spirituality doesn't just provide (pos...

Emotional health can be described as a emotional stability and absence of extreme emotions. In Chinese medicine, the five main emotions are each connected to one of the five elements. These are the pairings: Anger - Wood Joy (or lack of joy) - Fire Worry - Earth Sadness - Metal Fear - Water These emotions and their extremes are addressed successfully by removing weaknesses of organs that are associated with each element. So to address anger and irritability, we start adjusting our lifestyl...

So your health and "rebuilding your health" start from the physical level. In case of your intellectual abilities, it is clear that your brain can not function without the steady stream of glucose and oxygen that your body can provide only if it is healthy. But just like your physical body, your intellect needs stimulation and exercise. Your brain is just like any muscle, if you don't use it - you lose it. In Chinese medical theory "Heart opens to the mind". This means that to have a healthy m...

Going back to the definition of health. It says that health is not an absence of symptoms. A person is healthy if they are healthy on all five levels: physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual and sexual. The physical health shows ability to perform well in the physical domain. It starts with good, restful 8 hours of daily sleep, continues with a good appetite and natural foods, daily physical activity that provides good circulation and lots of oxygen and low levels of stress. This is al...

As mentioned before, human body could be seen as a machine for generating energy because that is exactly what it does. When there's a deficit, we say "today I feel like I have no energy", when that deficit grows, our sex drive lowers, our metabolic rate slows down and that produces a downward spiral of rapid aging. So what are the things your body needs in order to thrive, slow down the aging process and allow you to peak in physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual and sexual level? Befo...

Taking the Needleit health test (post: Heal it yourself (HIY) - Test *) and having identified your CF will give you a view into your health issues and tools to address them. Since 2006 and the research done at Karolinska Institute by Dr. Jonas Frisen, we know that most of the cells in the human body are regularly renewed. So fast in fact that every 7-10 years most of our tissues have been completely replaced by the new ones. What this discovery confirms is that: (a) if your body ever had g...

Identifying one's CF is easier later in life as weakness and diseases usually form around the pair of organs connected to the CF. For a Fire person it could be issues with connection to others, anxiety or diseases of the heart or Small Intestine. A Wood CF person could display issues connected to Liver and/or Gallbladder, etc. The process of identification starts with the first meeting - how punctual is this person? What are the colors they wear -is this a color they often choose?... What is t...

Organs: Kidney and Bladder Time of day: 3pm - 7pm Yin/Yang: Yin Purpose: Wisdom Archetype: Philosopher Color: blue or black Emotion: Fear Taste: Salty Season: Winter Sound: Groan Conflict response: negotiation Tissue: bones Water CF is the most adaptable of the five elements. Just like H²O instantly takes the shape of it's vessel, the Water type person is easy to adapt and accommodate any situation. Perhaps morally, as well. Water Element closes the five element circle: we are born from Wate...

Organs: Lung and Large Intestine Time of day: 3am - 7am Yin/Yang: Yin Purpose: Analyzing/Understanding Archetype: Alchemist Color: white Emotion: Sadness Taste: Spicy Season: Fall Sound: Weeping Conflict response: letting go Tissue: skin Metal and Water are the two Yin CFs. Unlike the Yang CFs (Wood and Fire) Metal and Water like and need some solitude, at least some days - the Yin CFs are Yin: passive, dark, mysterious, feminine as opposed to the Yang: aggressive, loud, bright, masculine. ...

Organs: Spleen and Stomach Time of day: 7am - 11am Yin/Yang: Center, balance Purpose: Caretaking Archetype: Mother Color: yellow Emotion: Worry Taste: Sweet Season: Late (Indian) summer Sound: Singing Conflict response: engaging other side's feelings Tissue: muscles The Earth CF type of person likes to be of help. They enjoy talking about your problems, feel sympathy and usually offer help. This CF is all about human capacity to assist others, to feel, to engage empathy and find purpose in cr...

Organs: Heart & Small Intestine and Pericardium & Triple Heater Time of day: 11am - 3pm and 7pm - 11pm Yin/Yang: Yang Purpose: Connection Archetype: Court Jester Color: red Emotion: Joy or lack of Joy Taste: Bitter Season: Summer Sound: Laughing Conflict response: turning to humor Tissue: brain and nervous system While a Yang type like Wood, the Fire CF type of person is happy to be where they are and posseses joy instead of being driven. Humor and entertainment come easy to the Fire...

Organs: Liver & Gallbladder Time of day: 11pm - 3am Yin/Yang: Yang Purpose: Action Archetype: Pioneer Color: green Emotion: Anger Taste: Sour Season: Spring Sound: Shouting Conflict response: fight Tissue: ligaments & tendons The Wood CF type of person is self motivated and outgoing. They are curious, adventurous and tend to be on the aggressive (Yang) side. Often impatient, they wonder why a thing wasn't already completed. They are inventors, innovators that look for connection and in...

One of the main differences between the Eight Principle and the Five Element acupuncture is the before mentioned CF (constitutional or causative factor). The goal of the Five Element acupuncture is to assist the body in it's repair and operation by building up it's weaknesses. The fundamental weakness is the CF as it is considered our greatest strength that over a lot of use transforms into our greatest weakness. The CF is one of the five elements and the organs associated with that elemen...

Chinese acupuncture comes in two flavors: the Eight Principle Acupuncture, also known as TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) and the Five Element Acupuncture. Both of them use the core theory, anatomy and needle technique developed thousands of years ago but the Eight Principle branch was put through a revolution and re-organization in 1949. This method was reorganized for efficiency and providing comfort by treating a symptom. Since then, the a Eight Principle Acupuncture became very similar t...

The modern life style took away our physical activity but also added more life complexity then ever before. It is a double whammy because we have no more reason to be physically active and even no time to exercise. It is no surprise that with modern lifestyle we don't just sacrifice the movement, we also sacrifice the amount of sleep we get every day. And because we are always on the go, we compromise our diet by eating fast(er prepared) foods. Most people aren't even aware of this "trade", t...

The fourth Rider of Apocalypse is our sedatery lifestyle. Our bodies were designed to move, you can tell so just by looking at the long legs we were given. Statistics tell us that runners live longer that people who don't run and this is something that should not be the case considering the increased wear and tare their bodies have to deal with. What we see with runners and other people who do regular aerobic exercise is that their cardiovascular system is pushed to remain fit but almost as ...

Processed and ultra processed foods are consumed by everyone in the developed world . It is very difficult to avoid them as our culture normalized them and the corporate interests protect the profits they make from these items. (Coffee is known to be one of the highest profit commodities, "served fresh and delicious" all over the world) Coffee needs to be roasted, grinded and cooked in order to be consumed - a great example of a processed food. As most people know, coffee is a stimulant but m...

So what is it that we should eat to have optimal energy and health? What are the necessary ingredients of a good diet? As I mentioned in the previous post, the way to avoid fads and confusion generously served by modern media, is to turn to what has worked over the centuries to make human race so successful. The Human Condition Theory says that in order to be healthy, we should do what humans did across races, across cultures and across time. In terms of food, this means eating a big varie...

The third Rider of Apocalypse is poor diet. Our bodies were designed to consume natural (whole) foods and have evolved to efficiently break them down and extract just the right amount of nutrients and energy from it. Nowadays there is a lot of confusion over what, when and how to consume and at best it could leave you malnourished. At the worst, modern food trends will slow down your metabolism, damage your small intestine and pancreas and cause all sorts of elimination issues. When employin...

It may be difficult to see that every other living thing sleeps when it is "time to sleep", only humans struggle to maintain a healthy rhythm. Our choices are at fault and the busy brain that is easily distracted and always curious. But if you really value yourself and your health, you will value your sleep over other things. So in case you're struggling with sleep, look at your daily schedule and ask yourself how much of your behavior matches what your body needs? Our days don't just need...

If a human body needs 8 hours of sleep, why is it so difficult to get that much? Sleep is a consequence of a routine, often called sleep hygiene. Sleep requires regularity and good sleeping conditions. Regularity means going to sleep at similar times and waking up at similar times. In nature, there is no Friday night or Monday morning but many people interrupt their sleep routine several times every week. It is not surprising many can not fall asleep when they want to... Sleep requires good co...