Two More Simple Exercises to Solve Many Health Problems (with Video Instructions)

In my first blog, I talked about an exercise  - “Standing on one Leg” that can prevent/cure many problems like hypertension, high blood sugar, neck & back pain, diabetes, insomnia, prostatitis, arthritis, etc. However, some people, especially old people, or people with knee or foot pain, cannot stand on one leg for more than one minute. What should you do then? Here is a two-step exercise to help you channel your blood and Qi (energy) to your feet – Rub your stomach and walk on your knees.

Before we talk about the details and benefits of this exercise, let’s try to understand the principle behind this. There is a popular Chinese medical saying “Our legs age faster than ourselves.” It means “Leg fatigue is the first indication of our getting old”.   If you’re 50 + year old, do you realize that suddenly you’re reluctant to climb stairs and walk long distances? Have you suddenly realized that the way your spouse or your parents walk has changed – slow, dragging, and like old people? This indicates our blood and Qi cannot circulate well to our legs and feet any more. Our feet to our body are just like the roots to the tree. As long as the roots get enough nutrition, the tree is healthy. The same story, we’re healthy and fit as long as our feet get enough fresh blood and Qi. The feet getting fresh blood and Qi indicate that the blood and Qi is circulating well in our whole body. Fresh blood and Qi strengthens our immune system and is the natural cure to most of our diseases.

Now, step one: Rub your stomach. See the linked video clip below: (note: In the video it's Zhongli Baren - a great health specialist in China)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwhdxSencOk 

As show on the video, you can use your finger, palm or fist to rub the stomach area – starting from the upper area to the lower stomach. If you find a spot that is hard and aching, that’s an energy-blocking spot. Keep rubbing the spot until they melt away or at least melt away a bit (Note 1).  If you hear a water sound when rubbing, it suggests the movement of accumulated impure water inside. Try rubbing more to get it out through urination; otherwise it causes headache, eczema or diarrhea when it travels to other organs. If you burp or release gas while rubbing your stomach, it is a good sign of ascending clear energy and descending impure energy inside your body. (Also, Eating foods that help "soothe energy" such as turnips, daikon radish and sweet potatoes are all good choices to help get rid of impure energy in your stomach.)

How often: do this for 15 minutes at every night before sleep. If you have more time, do this in the morning too.

Benefits: Help blood and Qi circulate to our lower body while dispelling impure gas, water and accumulated excreta. These three impure, toxic items attract germs and viruses just like garbage attracts flies and cockroaches. We’ll be naturally healthy as long as we keep our body free of these three (3) impure things.

Next, step two: walk on your knees. See the linked video clip below: (The speaker in the video is my model - Michelle).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bugJvAnbaNs

Easy enough. But obviously, walk on carpet or a yoga mat, not hard floor.

How often: do this at least 15 minutes every night after rubbing your stomach.

Benefits: Channel your blood and Qi (energy) to your knees; After practicing for a few months, you may feel stronger knees and reduction or elimination of knee pain associated with arthritis. This is because your knees have been getting fresh blood and Qi; You’ll sleep better; Some people report weight loss due to the reduction of excessive hip and thigh fat. You can prove this by measuring your hip and thighs every 3 months.

Finally, Step three: Stand on one leg with your eyes closed. See my earlier blog on this topic. Again, if you have knee or foot pain, or if you’re 70+ years old and cannot stand on one leg long enough, this step can be omitted. After “rubbing your stomach” and “walking on your knee”, you can walk 10 to 15 minutes to help channel the blood and Qi all the way down to the feet. If you’re a healthy person, I encourage you practice all these 3 steps. Obviously the first two steps have additional benefits to the “stand on one leg” practice.

Disclaimer: These ideas are not from my wisdom. It’s from a wild popular health specialist and author in China – Zhongli Barren. His best selling health book “Self Help is Better Than Seeking Doctor’s Help” were reprinted 12 times within 6 months of its first publication.

Trisha Han

Mother Nature's Acupuncture of Austin

A Proven Method to Cure a Cold – Make Yourself Sneeze

Many people are getting cold these days. So, let’s talk about this again.

Cold is generally caused by wind cold (A terminology of Traditional Chinese Medicine) entering our body. It has two stages. At the first stage, symptoms are likely sneezing, chills, running nose with clear mucus, etc; The 2^nd stage symptoms may include sore throat, fever, headache, deep cough with dense mucus, etc. The 1^st stage usually last only a few hours to a day. At this stage, the cold stays at our body surface and it’s easy to repel.

When we get a cold, most of us will first grab some medicines like Tylenol, Motrin, Advil, etc and hope they’ll be effective before going to see a doctor and take antibiotics. However, most of these medicines are designed to stop you from sneezing. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), sneezing is a natural reaction of our body trying to repel the wind cold with the heat generated during the sneezing process.  Therefore, why not sneeze more? This is the reason behind our method today – Make yourself sneeze.

Method:

Take a small piece of napkin paper (about 2 inches x 2 inches). Roll it between your hands until it has a definite tip at end. Lightly insert it into one of your nasal cavities and probe around. Soon you’ll feel a tickling sensation and a sneeze coming on. If it doesn’t work immediately or you feel the paper is losing its strength because of the dampness, use a new piece of paper. Repeat until you cannot sneeze any more no matter how hard you try. You may end up sneezing 10 to 30 times depending on how much wind cold is in your body. After that you’ll feel your body warmed up and comfortable because a lot of the cold has been repelled out of your body.

This method is very effective for Stage One symptoms. I.e., if you have sneezing, chills, running nose with clear mucus, you maybe find the cold is gone after practicing this only one time. After the sneezing, if you can drink of cup of warm ginger tea, it’ll help you get better faster. Remember, the Stage One only last a few hours to half day or so, do this as soon as you feel the cold symptoms.

It’s the 2^nd stage cold that gives us the most trouble. Our purpose is to prevent it from happening. But after it happens, is the “sneezing” method still helpful? The answer is yes, but we have to combine it with other treatments like herbal tea, acupuncture, scrapes, cupping, etc.  An acupuncturist will be able to help you figure out the right treatments for you. See my earlier blog for some good herbal teas - “How to Stay Healthy During Cold Season” published on December 6, 2010.

Other Benefits: Allergies, sinus infection, constipation. Allergies have been caused by build-up of coldness in our body over time. Sneezing generates heat in your body. That’s why sneezing can help alleviate allergies. So, when you have allergies, try sneeze more instead of less. I personally have family related sinus infection. Each time it comes back, I do two things to drive it away quickly and easily. First, I apply mashed garlic to the bottom of my feet (to channel the toxic heat down); Secondly, I keep myself sneezing. I tried so many different things and there is no other ways that’s more helpful than this. We’ll talk about garlic more in a future blog; Why is it helpful for constipation? That because our large intestine is interconnected with our lung. Sneezing can help the lung to help the large intestine to move and alleviate constipation. Some men reported that this sneezing practice accidently solved their pre-ejaculation problem. How is that related? That’s too complicated to explain in this short blog.

Disclaimer: This idea was not made up by me or some folk doctors. It’s originally described 2,500 years ago in <The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine>. The only difference is that it used a kind of soft grass instead of napkin paper.

When I’m writing this blog, I cannot help having a strong feeling of gratitude toward our older generations for passing such natural and healthy knowledge to us. My whole family, including my 15-year old daughter and 8-year old son, haven’t needed to take medicine for years (except for natural herbs). With this gratitude, I feel the obligation to share this with others.

Trisha Han

Mother Nature's Acupuncture of Austin

How To Stay Healthy During Cold Season

Fall is a beautiful season with colorful leaves, deep blue sky and crispy cool air. With all the good things, there is also dramatic temperature change from day to night. Our body will find it hard to adjust to the change. If we happen to have stressful life and low immunity at this time (also called low defensive Qi in Chinese medicine), we start to catch a cold: sneezing, runny nose, body ache, chills and fever, and headache.

This is the first stage of catching cold. In Chinese medicine we regard cold, wind, heat, dampness, dryness as external pathogens. When we catch a cold, we think these external pathogens are affecting our immune system. If we are able to expel the wind and cold before they invade further into our body, then we can dramatically relieve the symptoms and reduce the length of sickness. Use ginger, scallion, and Perilya (Asian basil) leaves tea at the first sign of cold to promote energy circulation on the surface of the body and open the pores. While drinking the tea, or right after the tea, we can also soak our feet in the tea (with the same formula) in order for our body to warm up and sweat out the cold pathogen.

The first stage usually last very short. If we didn’t give any proper intervention by using the method introduced above then the coldness will go deeper into our body and turn into toxic heat and cause inflammation. At this time, we need to use herbs like dandelion, honeysuckle for detoxifying. Most of the time we combine with herbs like Perilya leaves to boost defensive energy.

In cold season we would like to keep us as healthy as possible.  Prevention should be the best solution. We certainly can use an ancient Chinese formula called Jade Screen to help boost our immune system. Children tend to be easier to be affected by the change of the weather. Boost their immune system by having regular sleeping schedule and nutritious food. If a child is easily agitated and screaming a lot, it is a sign that he is possibly having some pain (ear pain or sore throat) and that he is possibly getting sick. Please take action by giving a cup of tea. Children can also greatly benefit from ear seeds. For adults, you can certainly use acupuncture to keep your stress under control and maintain your immune system.

. Here is the tea recipe:

•         Grated fresh ginger (warm pungent)

•         Hibiscus (sour) peppermint (cool pungent) tea bag (HEB)

•         Lemon (sour and rich in Vitamin C)

•         Regular local honey

•         Tangerine peel (fresh or dry)

Wish everybody a healthy and giving winter season. Keep warm!

Trisha Han

A Simple Exercise to Keep You Fit

Today it’s my first time to blog and I’m very excited. Let me introduce a very simple exercise to solve many health problems.

After passing our middle age, many of us start to develop the following problems: hypertension, high blood sugar, heart problem, neck and back pain, insomnia, diabetes, prostatitis, arthritis, cold feet, etc. Many seniors will get dementia eventually. Is there any way to prevent/solve all these problems? The answer is yes and very simple, because all these issues share the same root causes: the various internal organs have developed coordination problems; the body loses its balance; Blood and Qi get stuck in the upper body and head and cannot circulate well to the feet.

The exercise is called “Jin Ji Du Li”. It’s translated to “Standing on one leg with your eyes closed” in English. It was first introduced by ZhongLi Baren - the author of the best selling health book “Self Help is Better Than Seeking Doctor’s Help”. The book has been the best selling health book in China since it was first published in 2007. It has been reprinted 12 times within 6 months.

Method: stand on one leg with your eyes closed for two to three minutes, do this for each leg and practice daily. See the linked video clip below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC5BS-3fuXI

The key is "Eyes Must be Closed". This way you’re using your brain and nerve system to help the organs balance with one another. There are 6 important meridians passing through our legs – liver, gallbladder, spleen, stomach, kidney and bladder meridians. Standing with a single leg, the weak meridian will feel sore while getting the required exercise. The corresponding organs of these meridians and their path ways will get the necessary tuning. This method can also help concentrate the awareness, and channel the body's qi and blood to the feet.

As a beginner, you may find that you’re not able to stand on one leg for 2 to 3 minutes. This doesn’t mean you’re not healthy. Keep practicing and after a few days or weeks, you should be able to do it. However, after practicing daily for weeks and you’re still unable to stand for less than 10 seconds, it means you may have a 70+ year old body even though your real age may be younger than that.

In addition to the benefits mentioned at the beginning of this blog, this exercise can help improve our immune system and prevent dementia and accident fall. How many times do we hear some old people fall and break bones and have to live with a wheelchair for the rest of the life? If you don’t want this happen to you, start practicing “Standing on one leg”. (By the way, dementia means “severe impairment or loss of intellectual capacity and personal integration, due to the loss of or damage to neurons in the brain”).

Disclaimer: Rome was not built in one day. Don’t expect all your problems to be solved after practicing for one week or one month. But if you practice daily for up to 6 to 12 months, you’ll feel the difference. Many of you will feel so good that you want to practice this for the rest of your life and you want to share this with your families and friends.

Warning: If you’re 70+ years old or have bad knee or foot pain, you may not want to practice this as you may fall or overburden your knee and feet. In my next blog, we’ll talk about some other ways to help you – “walking on your knees” and “rub your stomach”.

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Trisha Han, M.S., L. Ac.

Mother Nature's Acupuncture

(512) 217-3855