Let’s face it: We practice an ancient medicine in a modern world. You are not only a healer but also a business owner in a rapidly changing world that seems to gravitate more and more towards marketing online. Getting a website up and running in order to attract new patients may feel like a daunting task. It doesn’t have to be. Below are 12 good reasons for not letting this apprehension stop you from taking the next step for practice success.

1) It is targeted

If you’ve never been exposed to traditional Chinese medicine before, you may not even know what acupuncture is…and that’s OK! But why not know about all the healthcare options available to you? Acupuncture has been in use for over 2,000 years. It follows the Chinese medicine belief that no issue in the body is isolated. Everything is connected, whether it’s a connection between various body parts and organs or between the mind, body, and spirit, a person’s wellbeing is always considered as a total picture and not one segment.

The root of this belief is that each person, each living thing, has qi—a life energy. Qi flows through the body in energy streams known as meridians, which are related to hundreds of points on the skin. When blockages exist in the meridians and the flow of qi is inhibited, health is compromised and pain or illness can result. Acupuncture is the strategic placement of ultra-thin (think a hair’s width) needles in the acupoints that correspond to the meridians of the issue at hand. The goal is to renew the healthy flow of qi and to restore the body to balance.

According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), the eyes relate to the internal organs. In Chinese medicine, each part of the eye is associated with a particular element and corresponding zang organ. The iris is represented by the liver zang. The heart zang relates to the corners of the eyes or the canthi, the upper and lower eyelids correspond to the spleen, the conjunctiva the lung, and the pupil the kidney.

Chinese medicine recognizes six environmental, or external, pathogens that can lead to vision loss. A person's resistance to environmental pathogenic factors is based on how healthy their immune system is, which, in turn, is a function of qi (a person’s energy, similar to a life force). Basically, if a person has strong qi and good resistance, he or she can ward off potential hazards associated with these external factors. According to TCM, a person with poor qi flow or imbalances in qi in any of the zang organs relating to the parts of the eye will have decreased resistance to the six specific environmental pathogens that can influence vision.

The Journal of Chinese Medicine has been the foremost English language journal dedicated to professional and student level information on the entire field of Chinese medicine for over 30 years. Pacific College of Oriental Medicine is pleased to be a partner with the prestigious Journal of Chinese Medicine as a co-publisher and U.S. distributor of the publication.

The Journal of Chinese Medicine was founded in 1979 at a time when information on acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine was hard to come by. Early issues focused on presenting clear, detailed information on basic Chinese medicine theory on a level unavailable elsewhere in English. Since then, the Journal - like the Chinese medicine profession in the West - has come a long way, and The Journal of Chinese Medicine is now recognized as the premier English language journal on all aspects of Chinese medicine. The Journal of Chinese Medicine is published three times a year: February, June, and October.

Volunteer Oriental medicine practitioners and students are increasingly joining traditional health delivery assistance programs, reaching out to people around the world who have little or no available health care. Like the Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that have gone before them, the ultimate goal of these new outreach health volunteers is to engage local groups as proactive health care participants, not as mere passive patients. However, such commendable goals don’t always work as expected. A recent startup NGO, Healer2Healer, is developing a different approach, working with local groups in Guatemala and elsewhere to foster self-reliance from the very beginning of each project, rather than hoping to transition at some later date.

    Doing More with Less

Ever since I first found out that the kidneys take part in the breathing process, I couldn’t help but wondering: How did the ancient Chinese figure that out? Whenever I could, I ran various experiments with breathing on myself, and I came across several rather curious observations that may shine some light on the kidneys’ part in the breathing process. Of course, there is no way of knowing whether or not my experiments resemble the ones that contributed to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), but considering that the philosophy of TCM is not based on faith but observation, these experiments shouldn’t be too far off.

Whenever you run to the point of being out of breath, you can witness the following: As you are trying to catch your breath, you are inhaling a lot of air, much more than you actually need. Yet, you feel that whatever you are inhaling is insufficient. Apparently, we judge whether or not we’ve inhaled enough air by the feeling of satisfaction that normally comes with every regular inhalation, and you find yourself gasping when the air that you draw in doesn’t bring you that satisfaction. In a minute or two, you start catching your breath, and this is when things become interesting. At this point, you can feel something tightening in your back, grasping an inhalation every time its movement reaches the inferior portions of your kidneys. And once that happens, every breath from that point on begins to bring the sense of relief (that is, satisfaction) as you continue catching your breath more and more. While this phenomenon is easier to observe after you run for a while, it also occurs in all other activities you do, because they all require breathing.

Cupping is a very effective but under-utilized healing technique. It is quick and simple to administer (once you get the hang of it), promotes detoxification, invigorates qi and blood, clears wind/damp/cold/heat stagnation in local skin and muscle tissue, regulates various aspects of the autonomic nervous system…and patients usually enjoy the experience of tension melting away under warm cups!

                  BENEFITS OF CUPPING THERAPY