Self-Care
Spring Scholarship for Free Acupuncture!
It’s that time again! As the winter term comes to a close, a friendly reminder of my quarterly offer of free weekly acupuncture sessions to any one patient who cannot otherwise afford treatment. Please let me know if you, a friend, or family member would be a good candidate to allow me to give back.
As always, stipulations include a relative lack of resources (on the honor system), plus an ability to come on Fridays in the late morning or early afternoon when I have more office space available.
I have been fortunate enough to have a patient base that is generally kind, complimentary, and forgiving of my shortcomings, but I’d also like to take this opportunity to request any constructive criticism or feedback on either my space or treatments. Even if it is something seemingly menial, such as pillow comfort or temperature in the treatment room, if you’ve thought it somebody else probably has as well, and all parties would benefit from your honesty. As clinicians, I believe it is as important to accept such reporting as it is to remain true to our fundamental philosophy and approach.
Happy upcoming spring solstice! If you have trouble waking up in the morning, ’tis the season for acrid and spicier foods to encourage the seasonally organic upward movement of blood and neuro-chemicals. If you tend to wake up too early or feel generally over-stimulated ’tis the season for more sweet foods, such as steak and rice, to mitigate their surge. Refined sugar also works in the short-term, but obviously leaves inflammation in its wake, which leads to perpetually more aggravated surges, henceforth more dependency on sugar!
My favorite bit from James Clear this week:
“The modern world is optimized for convenience, not improvement.
The default path is usually the more convenient path. And I get it. Who wants their days to be a pain in the neck? I like sitting in air-conditioned rooms and watching my favorite shows too.
But the body and mind only grow when placed under a stimulus. If you want improvement, you have to choose something different than convenience.
It can be lovely to have a day where you do not push yourself, but it rarely works out well if you have a life where you do not push yourself.”
Happy New Year, from DFA!
A quick re-cap on the year 2025 in the rearview, the “year-view,” if you will, otherwise “year in review” (clearly being a dad is impacting my jokes)!
A lot of business as usual in the way of business—my same schedule of 3 days a week in the office, plus one supervising in the school clinic at Pacific College, partially highlighted by our appearance on Ben Aaron’s PIX-11 News segment.
I also gladly welcomed my first ever part-time assistant, Kira Schneider, a great acupuncturist in her own right, with a private practice in Princeton, New Jersey.
This year’s continuing education was also more of the same, as Chinese medicine’s foundational text, the Shang Han Za Bing Lun, takes a lifetime to study and master. In addition to reading my nightly passages, I credit Genevieve Le Goff of California, with most of the knowledge I gained last year.
In the first week of this new year I’ve added to my repertoire, virtually lecturing 2 courses per week on Classical Chinese herbal medicine with the Virginia University of Integrative Medicine, which happens to have a New Jersey campus located just a few miles from my mom.
Speaking of which, Mom’s hangin’ in there, my wife, Dr. Jillian Cohen, just got the first ever fellowship at Hackensack Meridian Health’s Integrative Medicine department approved, and daughter Peyton has since turned 4 and 4 1/4, rapidly approaching 4 1/2, and has not been made aware that she’s about to have her second trip to Disney in two years (hopefully this time sans coronavirus). She remains infatuated with everything princesses and drawing (including occasional household furniture vandalism), and her bilingual Spanish abilities are improving, inevitably to surpass my own.
Curious to hear if anyone has any exciting news from last year and/or regarding the year to come—especially if it’s something I should be sharing on my newsletter to benefit fellow clients and friends.
How to Combat the Humidity
Nobody loves humidity, but many people are more perturbed by it than others, determinable of course by what the humidity is encountering at their surface—that is, what it is physically triggering for them.
Humidity is “damp heat,” so if you already suffer from an excess of systemic damp heat type inflammation at the surface of the body, pouring more of the same on top of that will surely feel awful. What can we do about it?
Nutritionally the ideal foods to combat the damp heat of summer are unfortunately not very fun or exciting, but let’s try to all be grown-ups.
Bitter foods like dandelion greens are great for clearing inflammatory heat, while bland foods, such as unseasoned (or very mildly seasoned) potatoes, barley or barley tea, and plain, steamed vegetables are ideal for leaching damp fluid retention. If this sounds too inconceivable for you, I’d recommend entertaining such discipline just once a day.
Additionally, the bitterness of a good quality, hot green tea and its diuretic effect an aid in draining dampness. Then again, if green tea is unsettling for your stomach you are probably too “cold” for it internally, which unfortunately is not mutually exclusive to having damp heat externally. The former refers to pancreatic and gastrointestinal hypofunction, whereas the latter is part of the inflammation as its logical outcome. See also, eczema due to food allergy.
Instead of over-complicating, over-analyzing, and arguably over-prescribing, all of which I have been more than prone to, for this time of year I recommend at the least “dui yao” (dway-yow) teas, or pairings of 2 simple herbs to drink daily to combat the humidity we’re experiencing, mitigate our unique genetic responses to it, and ensure as productive digestion as possible for the upcoming transition to Fall, when we need our immune system firing on all cylinders!
Examples: Pearl barley and raw ginger if you have a weak stomach, Pearl barley and red dates if you get heart palpitations or dizziness or are on your cycle, Pearl barley and tangerine peel for lack of appetite, or pearl barley and adzuki bean for hemorrhoids, sweaty feet and groin. Are you seeing a trend? This is barley season!
What are everyone’s favorite cinematic depictions of gut-wrenching NYC summer humidity? I vote Do the Right Thing and Weekend at Bernie’s
Spring Wind!
Did anyone else notice how many times in the past week the weather said something like 52 but felt more like 32? Spring wind! In the lunar calendar we are already well into spring, the season the ancient Chinese correlated with pathologies of “wind.” What does that mean?
“Wind pathologies,” in Classical Chinese, basically refers to anything that moves within the body. Think joint pains or almost any pains, also neurological tics, from Restless Leg to Parkinson’s disease, finally many dermatological conditions that traverse different body parts and seem to constantly change in shape or surface area covered. Where does it come from?
The pathology of autumn is dryness, hence all the foliage drying up and sinus issues it commonly brings. Following is the bitter cold of winter, which consolidates said climate of dryness, constricts our blood vessels, thereby offering fewer pathways for lubrication, whether to our skin, orifices, or otherwise.
Dryness, in Chinese medicine, whether manifesting as a lack of blood, lack of healthy blood, mucosal metabolic fluids, or parasympathetic neurotransmitters, can give rise to physiological symptoms that might be metaphorically described as “wind.”
Another cause can be literal wind, as it gusts down the avenues and seemingly even turns corners to blow hats off our heads and make 52 degrees feel like 32. This causes a local constrictive response in the head, which contains our autonomic nervous system, which manages a great part of vital organ function. Am I suggesting the entire body is connected and that which accosts the head can in turn accost our entire physiology? Yes. Ask anyone who’s suffered a concussion. What can we do?
Wear a scarf. Wear a hat or a hood. Wear a hood over your hat. Wear a mask beneath the hat beneath the hood above your scarf. You don’t have to be sick or paranoid to wear a mask in the cold and/or windy months of the northeast. You can simply be protecting your many cranial nerves that traverse the face and have far-reaching physiological implications. Modern fashion is such that there are many stylish options for these accessories. With all we have already working against us—modern stress, western diet, the simple biology of aging—doesn’t it make sense to do the simple, little things to prevent or prolong the scale from tipping into Parkinson’s?
As for “wind prevention” by way of treating the root, which is to say nourishing blood and vital fluids, I have mostly the same old boring, science-based advice: Animal protein, eggs, cooked vegetables, small portions of rice or pasta, meditation, and going to sleep before 11pm. As for accessible, food-grade Chinese medicine, tea made from red dates, licorice, and/or pearl barley can also be helpful. For the spring we also recommend more sour foods, kraut, lemon, and/or vinegar with the intention of “astringing” as many of our good fluids as possible.
Lastly, happy Mercury Retrograde, an admittedly somewhat ironic salutation to those who “observe.” Remember to expect delays in transit and traffic and problems in technology and communication. Double check who you’re sending that text or email to. Accept that things will go wrong. Try to breathe. Ask people to clarify before shouting back at them. Breathe again.
(photo from a fun shoot back in 2007, one year pre-Chinese medical school!)
How Can You Help (the World)?
As we embark on this first socio-political year of a potentially frightening four, I occasionally reflect on what I can do, as someone who has little time or direct involvement, to protect our world and/or make it a better place.
The first and most obvious is to be charitable whenever possible. Be kind to others. This is easy on our good days when we feel good. Any jerk can do that. The challenge I pose to myself and others is to do so when we feel angry or wronged, exhausted or unwell. This doesn’t mean to not take care of oneself. It just means to still be kind when someone cuts you off on the road or wrongs you. My wife, for example, likes to give reckless drivers the benefit of the doubt: “Maybe he has diarrhea.” You can use that one. Then again, maybe she doesn’t have diarrhea. Maybe she’s just perpetually miserable and rushed, which one might argue is even worse than diarrhea!
The second is to use the app 5CALL, to call your local congresspeople, make requests and take stands against some of the unethical proposals presently in motion in Washington.
The environment is perpetually and obviously a consideration. Recycling, composting, carpooling, electric cars, or public transportation are all helpful, but I think if everyone just did the thoughtful little things, over time it would make a big difference. For example:
- Bring a tote bag when you shop. When you do get a plastic bag be sure to hold onto it to recycle later. Lots of places like Staples or Target recycle any and all plastic bags.
- If you’re out and get a coffee, tea, or matcha or whatever, hold on to the empty cup whenever possible, with the same intention to recycle later. It is time we stop taking such luxuries as something we are entitled to. Take out and to-go cups are a modern privilege, extremely recent in human history, and should be treated as such. Almost every cafe’s cups are biodegradable.
- Just like we shouldn’t take anything for granted, nor should we overlook the small things within the actions. If you get food delivery be sure to recycle, not just the big paper bags and plastic containers, but also the little condiment cups and even most plasticware. It can be tedious to rinse these things out—especially the tops—but again, being able to receive delicious condiments by delivery should be viewed as a luxury and treated as such.
- Same principle applies to plastic trash bags, in my opinion. The kitchen garbage where food and coffee grounds and all kinds of funk goes clearly needs a bag. But what about your recycling bins, or even your bathroom trash? Does something that will be filled mostly with just tissues really need to repeatedly expend plastic, or can the bin itself simply be cleaned once in a while?
- Batteries: I understand there are conflicting opinions on this, but it might be worth looking into recyclable batteries. If you don’t, at least be sure to recycle your used.
- Buy small. Don’t support Amazon, as much as possible. Much like electric cars, it’s more expensive and less convenient, but good karma for you!
Circling back, to self-care and kindness, I believe it is all peoples’ responsibility to have some meditation practice, as well as either yoga or qi gong, and I believe even the busiest of us can take 10-20 minutes for each on most days.
- For Buddhist dharma talks I recommend either Won Buddhism on the east side or The Tibet Center on the west.
- If it’s just meditation you prefer, I enjoy Sam Harris’ Waking Up app, though I know there are many good ones. Personally, I require weekly dharma talk meetings to serve as a reminder to continuously intend to reshape my own harmful mental conditionings.
- For yoga I love Shri Yoga or NY Loves on the Upper West.
- For Qi Gong, as always I highly recommend working with Jonathan Breshin, William Kaplanidis, or Henry McCann.
Stay warm everyone! Wear hats, hoods, scarves, and warm socks. Eat ramen and bone broths and limit sugar as much as possible.
