November 6, 2018

Dear Acupuncture Patients and Friends, 

Happy Election Day. Don't forget to vote.

There is an interesting article in the paper today about the heart and how the physical organ cannot be divorced from the emotional aspect. Chinese medicine has long worked with this view. 

"But while these (technological) cardiac innovations have been transformative, Dr. Jauhar argues that the field of cardiology needs to devote more attention to the emotional factors that can influence heart disease, like unhappy relationships, poverty, income inequality and work stress."

And since you know I have many Japanese interests I have to point out that in the third paragraph there is a Japanese word "Takotsubo" which the article doesn't translate but literally means "octopus pot". It's kind of a fun word for a medical issue. Here it is illustrated:



But back to acupuncture...   In TCM we term the more physcial aspects of the heart the "Pericardium" and the more emotional aspects simply "Heart". We have stategies/ different points to address each.  For cardiac arrhythmias or angina-like symptoms we might use the point Pericardium 6. For emotional tension built up in the evening making it hard to get to sleep we might use the point Heart 7. 

So that's another acupuncture teaser. Do some googling on your own if you want to explore these ideas more. Or come in for an actual treatment and ask about your favorite TCM organ or meridian be it Spleen, Liver, Lung or Triple Heater.

Did I say "Don't Forget to Vote" yet?  It's a big day...

I will have regular office hours this week. If you're ever wondering what they are, scroll down on my web site page:  Aiki Acupuncture