Winter flu in spring? Why you get sick in the change of season

Why are flu’s and cold just as common, sometimes more common in spring as they are in winter? 

Why do we get winter colds in warmer weather like spring and summer? 

Chinese medicine has some answers.

As one season ends, another comes. Yin into yang, yang into yin.

While it’s normal around this time of year to rain periodically, its certainly alot colder than it should be for the end of the first month of spring.

The transition between hot and cold seasons is always variable.

The change of season time is when we are the most vulnerable to get sick with cold and flus. One reason could be because lessen our vigilance as the warmer weather approaches. The longer daylight hours, the warmer nights tell us spring is on it’s way and our body can loosen up a bit, which might then open the door to pathogens more easily.

Learn about how Chinese medicine views cold and flu’s in more detail here.

Tips to help lessen your risk of getting sick:

1. Wear a scarf – this will protect your neck from wind and cold invasion.
2. Wear lots of layered clothing. Getting caught out without enough clothes exposes your body to the cold environment. Layers means you won’t be overdressed and get too hot, but you can feel comfortable by not getting unnecessarily too cold either.
3. Have warm clothes ready – Resist the urge to wear lighter clothing just yet, and remember to bring your jacket if your day is likely to turn to evening.
4. Treat symptoms early – herbs and acupuncture are much more effective, and less treatment is needed, when you get to symptoms early on. Marie practices a style of Chinese herbal medicine that has specific formulas for various stages of the common cold and influenza. Even allowing time for rest and recovery instead of “soldiering on” at early stages can often lessen symptoms.

5. Careful when sweating
As spring actually approaches, its the time to do more exercise. Exercise opens our pores, allows sweating so if you’ve already started revving up your exercise and you do come out of the gym on a cold or wet evening (like tonight as I write this email) be extra careful not to expose your hot, wet (sweaty) skin to the environment. Have a shower and change clothes or ensure you have a jacket to protect you as you get to the car. Be careful of running around, getting hot and sweaty in the cold weather.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This information is provided in public interest of keeping people as healthy as possible. Common sense should always be applied. Too much of anything can be hazardous to health. This information is not intended as a substitute for medical advice or diagnosis by a health practitioner. If you have a health condition, you should check with your health care practitioner before using foods as medicine treatments, if you are in any way unsure about the suitability of the food agents, herbs or recipies for your body. In an medical emergency always contact emergency services, call 000 in Australia.

Chinese medicine organs and some words are capitalised to indicate they are different to the biomedical understanding of the organ. In Chinese medicine each organ represents the system of function according to ancient principals of understanding, including the channel system, spiritual, mental and physical functions. The traditional understanding of Chinese medicine organs is actually a functional system often encompass many now biomedically defined aspects such as lymphatic and endocrine (hormone) functions that are attributed to that organ. A lower case letter of an organ will indicate it’s reference to the biomedical organ. EG Kidney  (the Kidney functions of CM) and kidney (biomedical/physical kidney).

This article is written by Marie Hopkinson, the Chinese Herbalist & Acupuncturist at Metro Health and Medicine in North Perth. Marie is available for consultation by calling 1300 132 830 or email info@metrohealth.com.au or http://www.metrohealth.com.au/new2/make-an-appointment/ 

(C) Marie Hopkinson 2016 Reproduction permissible only with express permission of author.

Chinese Medicine's Study Stress Tips

Study Stress is normal when you've got end of year final exam time, assignments deadline looming...not to mention the normal life pressure like work, relationships, kids, family and health.

The good news is that Chinese Medicine can help you get through the end of semester season.

Herbalist and Acupuncturist Marie Hopkinson gives some study tips:

• Study overworks the EARTH element according to Chinese Medicine (CM). The Earth element relates to digestion of food as well as thoughts.
• Eating regular meals, even though things can be busy is a good idea in your study periond. Try to keep the "meals" smaller and lighter during the lunch time. Have a good breakfast, lighter lunch and a moderate dinner. making vege or vege/bone broth soup is a good way to have something pre-organised for lunch.
• Nuts are a great snack for students. Nuts are high in protien as well as in Chinese Medicine they benefit the Earth element. The best nuts for study are roasted WALNUTS (looks like a little brain!) then roasted almonds, and then any other nuts other than cashews and peanuts.
• Take light walks on your breaks. Moving around clears energy stagnation, gets blood flow to your limbs.
• During exam time start each day with some kind of exercise in the morning.
• The body and particularly the EARTH element likes regularity.
• Mix up study time between sitting and standing, read more about the benefits of creating a standing work station here.

TIPS FOR DEALING WITH STRESS.

Scents for study:

Research shows 2 scents you should be aware of when committing things to memory  Cinnamon & Lavender, one study was done with 3 groups of people doing memory puzzles in rooms with room one - no smell, room two cinnamon and room three lavender essential oils. They found Cinnamon better than no smell, and lavender worse than no smell for memory recall.

Other studies show peppermint to be positively associated with memory. Read some of the research on odours and scents here.

Essential oils are a good way to use scent for study, as they are pure and you can regulate the scent volume yourself. At metro health, we have also made one of our fragrant earth incenses called MINDFUL that helps with memory and study - it's based on Cinnamon, aniseed and ginger (which is good for the Will-Power in Chinese medicine).

If you have trouble getting motivated, you might want to listen to marie's podcast on energy stagnation.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This information is provided in public interest of keeping people as healthy as possible. Common sense should always be applied. Too much of anything can be hazardous to health. This information is not intended as a substitute for medical advice or diagnosis by a health practitioner. If you have a health condition, you should check with your health care practitioner before using foods as medicine treatments, if you are in any way unsure about the suitability of the food agents, herbs or recipies for your body. In an medical emergency always contact emergency services, call 000 in Australia.

Chinese medicine organs and some words are capitalised to indicate they are different to the biomedical understanding of the organ. In Chinese medicine each organ represents the system of function according to ancient principals of understanding, including the channel system, spiritual, mental and physical functions. The traditional understanding of Chinese medicine organs is actually a functional system often encompass many now biomedically defined aspects such as lymphatic and endocrine (hormone) functions that are attributed to that organ. A lower case letter of an organ will indicate it’s reference to the biomedical organ. EG Kidney  (the Kidney functions of CM) and kidney (biomedical/physical kidney).

This article is written by Marie Hopkinson, the Chinese Herbalist & Acupuncturist at Metro Health and Medicine in North Perth. Marie is available for consultation by calling 1300 132 830 or email info@metrohealth.com.au

(C) Marie Hopkinson 2016 Reproduction permissible only with express permission of author.

Stress, getting through and going beyond to better health and a better life

Stress 

Just reading this word can raise some people's blood pressure a few points...but actually stress is a normal part of life. We needn't be afraid of it. We even need certain types of stress to be healthy. However stress can affect individuals in different ways. Why do some people seem to be able to handle more stress than others? When is stress a good or bad thing? And what about when we can't necessarily get away from the stressful things in our life, what then?

Chinese Medicine can help. Thats the good news. The flip side is inevitably we have to help ourselves too - lifestyle, diet and other interventions can help you live a healthy life even with challenges that you may have found stressful before. By making changes to our body and mind we can do more, be more and live a more fulfilled life.

This a a massive, topic so today's blog covers a some of the complexity of this issue, as always I focus on bringing the Chinese medicine understanding of Stress.

3 Ways a Chinese Medicine Practitioner like Marie can help when you feel stressed:

1) IMMEDIATE RELIEF 

When you feel stressed, it can cause lots of health problems and symptoms. No matter the cause of the problem, sometimes immediate relief is needed.

Feelings of anxiety, annoyance, frustration, getting unnecessarily angry or having a short temper, Back pain - especially in the upper back, neck and shoulders, headaches and sleep problems - waking up and not able to fall back to sleep again or trouble getting to sleep at all can all be treated with Chinese medicine - Chinese herbs and acupuncture provide a targeted approach to symptom relief and often immediate relief of pain can be found which can reduce the need to use pain killers.

For immediate stress relief, self-acupressure can also be used.

Reducing the impact of symptoms of stress, can provide some mental clarity, which can then help empower you to move onto the second phase of stress treatment.

2)SHORT TERM STRATEGIES & TREATMENT of SYMPTOMS 
This stage may still include symptom relief of above, but should now take into account the CAUSE of the problem and ways that can be stopped or lessened. Sometimes the cause can't be helped, in that case strengthening the body through diet, herbs and acupuncture will help lessen the impact of stress.

Sometimes the cause of the health problems from "stress" is not from the stress at all but the stuff we do to cope with stress. For instance getting a gastric ulcer can occur from drinking too much alcohol to cope with stress. Stress didn't directly cause the ulcer, the alcohol most likely did.
There are different kinds of stress - Stress can be caused by just being too busy for a period of time, and until that period has passes - perhaps a student's exam time, the sickness of a loved one, a death in the family, a business busy period (like EOFY, peak sales times or financial difficulty), unemployment, unexpected redundancy or personal health problems themselves. Everyone's situation is different, sometimes emotional attachments, the ability to focus and make decisions and other people involved can make situations complicated. Unfortunately there is not one "stress relief" acupuncture point that can sort out our complicated lives.

Doing things like having a healthy diet, regular exercise, acupuncture and or/ massage therapy during stressful periods like the above can lessen the need to reach for quick fix solutions like overeating, sweet food indulgences, alcohol and smoking too much.

In this phase life might not be a the optimal, it might not be what you planned it would be, but the toll stress takes on your life does not have to take you out of the game.

Long term 
Once coping strategies and overcoming strategies have been put in place, when the body and mind are dealing better with stress, or the stressful situation has been removed people are generally in a better frame of mind to look to a plan for the future. These changes can often be big ones. Perhaps a change of career, moving away from negative people, finding better support systems long term. It's not a good idea to make drastic life changes in crisis time.

This is one example of how stress can be good for us. I've heard many patients reflect on past circumstance that was tragedy, disappointment and a huge source of stress at the time, only to look back a year later and realise it was that exact thing that triggered a change for the better.

Chinese medicine is essentially about promoting health, and strengthening the body so you don't get easily sick. Part of this prevention strategy might be lifestyle, diet or other longevity promoting strategies. Marie can help you work out the most optimal way to incorporate a lifestyle that promotes 100-Years life as well as achieving the goals you want in life.

Chinese medicine looks at everyone through the lense of the FIVE ELEMENTS, and these provide an understanding of the various strengths and weakness we have in both our body and mental states. You can even take the 5 Element Personality Test here.

Promoting health means when unforeseen circumstances happen your body is better able to cope. Healthy mental attitude, weight range, fitness as well as having health promoting routines means you can cope with the ups and downs of life and manage much better in when the storms of life hit.

If you feel stressed to the point that life is on top of you right now, and you can't cope there is immediate help available. You can always call Lifeline 13 11 14 to speak to someone 24hrs a day. If you have a medical emergency you should call 000 for an ambulance or your local GP as appropriate.

To make an appointment with Marie and get started on your stress-busting strategy call go to www.metrohealth.com.au and  click on CONTACT US. 

Autumn Recipies - Huang Qi Hotpot

This simple, Autumn Huang Qi Hotpot can be made as a soup or chowder-type casserole dish and can transition the body through the Autumn to winter seasons. Also It’s Paleo, Vegetarian and Vegan friendly, and gluten free.  

Season: Autumn, Winter

Flavours: Sweet

Element: EARTH

Purpose: Nourish the Spleen and Stomach,

Can be modified for Liver Energy (Qi) Stagnation, Dampness and Blood Deficency (xu).

Cooking style: slow cooking – moistening.

Prep Time: 15-20mins

Cooking Time: 3 to 8 hours in slow cooker.

The Sweet herb of Huang Qi (Astragalus) is a tonic to the Earth Element – the Spleen and Stomach Organs. Here, I’ve combined it with another similar herb that can be used in cooking called Dang Shen or Codonopsis. Dang Shen is similar to (Ren Shen) Ginseing, but much cheaper which makes it suitable for cooking. These two herbs are a tonic to the Spleen organ / Earth Element and are moisturising to your body which is great for the season of Autumn (associated with Dryness). Because these herbs are essentially bits of wood, you don’t want to eat them, so you can pick out of the mixture before serving or place in a muslin bag during the cooking process.

INGREDIENTS:

Root vegetables:

1 Sweet potato

1 small or half a big purple sweet potato

2-3 carrots*

1 onion, or purple onion*

1 small turnip*

1 small parsnip*

*alternately, buy a “soup pack” of veges from the fruit and vege store and use that plus the sweet potatoes.

METHOD.

Cut all vegies into chunks and place into the slow cooker.

2) Add a handful of Dang Shen and 3 strips of Huang Qi

3) cover with water, so water is almost covering the vegetables. Ensure the dry herbs are fully immersed in the water

4) Place on low heat overnight (for 6-8 hours) or high heat for 3-4 hours until vegetables are cooked.

5) Remove bits of Huang Qi and Dang Shen before eating.

Modifications:

Without moderation, this food is a bland, spleen tonic, It’s not intended to be too flavoursome. It’s perfect for someone who has the weak spleen energy or earth element. There is a little bit of pungent flavour coming from the onion and

For more flavour, ½ to 1 cup of chicken stock can be added and the same amount of water removed.

• For deficiency of WOOD ELEMENT or Blood (Xue), add the chicken stock as above and change the carrots to purple carrots if available.
• For Dampness, take out 1 of the sweet potatoes and add ½ cup of barley.
• For (Liver) Qi Stagnation, add more pungent flavours, Upon serving whilst piping hot, add fresh coriander and/or lots of fresh spring onions.

Marie Hopkinson, Metro Health and Medicine©

How would you rate your health right now?

If you said  “I feel fine”, your probably in the great majority of people. Fine is ok, it’s liveable. Often we don’t know what great or fantastic can be because we settle with fine. Not just our in health, but in lots of areas in life.

When my phone contract ended in October last year, I didn’t get a new iPhone, cause the one I have is fine. It’s doing the job I want it to, despite dropping it numerous times it didn’t get a crack screen, and I did not think it was worth the expense of getting a new one. In marketing they say “fine is the enemy”. If the thing you have already is fine then we, as customers, settle for that. We often don’t see the need for a new one, an upgrade or something different.

Over the years of treating hundreds of people with Chinese Medicine, I often see people come in with all kinds of health problems they describe as “fine”. In the course of the consultation you find out they have aches and pains, digestive and bowel problems, and symptoms that they did not class as a problem or think was bad enough for them to book an appointment for. “Oh I’ve always had this old shoulder pain” or “that chronic back pain (they have had for 5 years)… that’s just a 3/10, I just have to live with that”.

Just because you’ve had constipation for as long as you can remember, doesn’t make it normal!

It’s not that we chose or want these lingering health problems, but if it’s not terrible, sometimes we just live with them, telling ourselves it’s fine.

One of the things I love about my job is seeing the changes that Chinese Medicine can do. I love to see people the week after a treatment, that has dramatically changed their life…when people go from fine to fantastic. Now that doesn’t happen with every patient, but when it does, they are literally jumping for joy.

Sometimes we live with things that are fine, and don’t even realise that we could be fantastic.

When was the last time you discovered something and said to yourself “why didn’t I do this earlier?” I do that in business all the time. When you stumble upon something so fantastic, you couldn’t believe it would change your life so much, and then you think back to how you settled with “fine” before.

If you think your health could be better than fine why not check out my website for my free, self help ideas, and as always, we welcome you to make an appointment where we can work together towards your health goals.

More about Marie, and making an appointment for Chinese Medicine can be found on  the Metro Health website: www.metrohealth.com.au

Acupuncture just as good as Placebo - what does this mean?

This is a comment by Acupuncturist, Marie Hopkinson on Today's news reporting on a recent study for Acupuncture in the treatment of hot flushes.

Reported by ABC  "Real and fake acupuncture both ease the symptoms of menopausal hot flushes: study"

and even in a very limited "article" in the West Australian today:

The current published report (1) is a conference abstract, so we can only see they used a placebo, but not exactly what it was. In this study, the placebo used was called "noninvasive sham acupuncture" - this can be a number of things as I will describe below.

In the sham (placebo) acupuncture, blinding is essential. This means the participant doesn’t know if they are getting the placebo or not. In Acupuncture studies, the patient lies down, having a curtain partioning their head and body, obstructing the participants ability to see their body. The acupuncturists starts the treatment process as if they were doing everything like the real acupuncture treatment, except when it comes to actually inserting the needle itself. A non-invasive sham acupuncture is usually a retractable needle so it feels like it's touching the skin but does not penetrate into the person.

Sometimes a non-invasive sham acupuncture is tapping the points with the outside of the guide tube, along with the practitioner pretending to do the acupuncture itself, gives the participants brain the understanding that they are having acupuncture when in fact they are just lying down.

Compared with a drug trial, It's much more difficult to simulate a proper placebo with Acupuncture, for obvious reasons. Often the process of the placebo is already doing similar things to the body that acupuncture would be doing. For instance - it can stimulate the skin in an acupressure-like way that gives off a therapeutic response. After all, there are many treatments in acupuncture where the needles are not retained at all, only stimulated for a moment and then removed. This can be just as effective as a treatment where needles are retained for 20 minutes.

In the Acupuncture for Hot Flushes trial report(1) the authors used a ‘non-invasive’ sham, which means the needles would not be inserted at all. However, there are other placebo type acupuncture treatments used like needling the body in random place that is not an acupuncture point, or needling points that are not supposed to treat the condition being studied. These can have a lot more therapeutic effects than the non-invasive sham acupuncture.

SO WHY DOES PLACEBO ACUPUNCTURE HAVE SUCH GREAT RESULTS?

In the study we are focusing on here, the results were on par in both groups, so much so that the authors concluded “An eight-week course of Chinese medicine acupuncture was not superior to non-invasive sham acupuncture for menopausal hot flushes”(1)

One major difference of placebo acupuncture compared with a placebo in a drug or herbs trial for instance, is that the person doesn’t just take the placebo and get on with their daily life, they actually do something different – usually lying down for the 20 or so minutes. So we could say that relaxing for the same time and thinking you are having acupuncture for this complaint – that’s visualising having acupuncture is just as effective to treat the symptoms.

Then we have to think what are the causes of the symptoms…from a Chinese Medicine perspective. Even thought the patients selected had a diagnosis of Kidney Yin Deficiency. So we have to think what is Kidney Yin and how would lying down help this if at all? In Chinese Medicine, lying down in the day (usually associated with a post-lunch afternoon nap) means more blood goes from your extremities (arms and legs) and circulates around your vital organs. In Chinese Medicine, 20 minutes of lying down flat is considered therapeutic exercise for your Liver Blood (Xue). This is directly linked to Kidney Yin, although not all Kidney yin deficiency patients will have Liver Blood deficiency, it is commonly seen affecting one another.

On an experiential level, as a practitioner over the past 14 years of practice I would say a common comment patients make is that they “never feel more relaxed” and I’ve even had a few patients that say “wow, this is the only time I can relax when I come here and have acupuncture” If you have had acupuncture yourself, you will likely be familiar with the side effect of relaxation that it brings. Part of this is the lying down part. Trust me, as a busy entrepreneur as well as a practitioner, if I get sick with a headache or some pain or symptom I’ll often put needles in my head, legs or wherever I can to fix it, and the symptoms might go away but I don’t feel relaxed walking around the house with needles in my head!

What is this high placebo effect telling us? Does it mean acupuncture isn’t effective and we should all just lie down for 20 minutes once a week? No, I still think there is value in the skill of a Chinese Medicine practitioner – but what I give to my patients is not just sticking in the needles. There is usually diet advice, herbs and home treatments like exercises or even non-Chinese medicine things like helping patients to make a plan for dealing with stress.

Not all studies of acupuncture using the same kind of placebo as this hot flushes study have such an equal placebo-treatment outcome. This is just one study on one kind of symptom – Hot Flushes in menopause.

Secondly, if people wanted to try healing themselves at home, this study adds evidence to the concept that visualising having acupuncture is just as powerful as having it. I encourage my patients to do that as much as possible, in between their acupuncture treatments. Your brain can be an amazing resource to heal your body.

1. Ee C, Xue C, Chondros P, Myers S, French S, Teede H, et al. Acupuncture for menopausal hot flushes: A randomised sham-controlled trial. Advances in Integrative Medicine. 2015;2(2):115-6.

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