Facial Rejuvenation, or Cosmetic Acupuncture is tremendously popular among movie stars, models and other “players” in the entertainment industry. Madonna and Cher, who have regular Acupuncture treatments, look decades younger than their calendar age. Sandra Bullock is one of the newest additions to the ever growing list of Stars going for Facial Rejuvenation Acupuncture.

So, why are the Stars crazy about this natural therapy? There are several simple reasons — the foremost is because they can look and feel younger than their actual age, without having to resort to surgery or potentially harmful drugs.

Facial rejuvenation acupuncture is not only less risky; it has very little (or no) recovery time as well. And though the treatments are less costly than plastic surgery, I’m sure that looking younger and staying healthy is not a cost most of the Stars are prepared to quibble about!

In addition to being helpful in reducing aging effects, acupuncture also helps to improve your overall health at the same time. You will feel less stressed and more energetic.

Cosmetic Acupuncture gives your skin a natural glow. This is done by invigorating the blood circulation, which is also helpful in balancing skin tone and discolorations. The treatments help tighten your skin and give you a supple and natural appearance. It treats the core constituents of your facial skin and provides you with a natural anti-aging effect.

Curious?  Come in and talk to us about what a Facial Rejuvenation Series of treatments can do for you.

Summer season is again here with long days and loads of sunshine. Thought there are many ways of staying healthy and taking care of ourselves, let’s have a look at the ancient Chinese traditions for staying fit and healthy throughout the summer.

According to Chinese traditions, this is the most yang time of year. Yang energy that inspires development, expansion, actions and creativity.

During summer season, our body undergoes vigorous metabolic processes. The Chinese tradition teaches us that this season belongs to fire, which represents maximum activity or supreme yang. The heart, mind and spirit in human anatomy are ruled by the fire element. Thus in summers, Chinese medicine systems give top priority to the heart, mind and spirit in order to stay healthy throughout the hot summer months

We all know that our heart’s key task is to circulate oxygen-rich blood throughout the body. In Chinese medicine, all types of mental activities such as our memory, thought process, emotional security, and consciousness – all associated with the heart and hence the fire element.

Ancient Chinese physicians have established that when the fire element is balanced, our heart is healthy, our mind is peaceful and we sleep soundly. But when it is imbalanced, we may lack joy in life and feel depressed. Sometimes we may even have an excess of joy and feel maniac. The symptoms of imbalance in the fire element are indicated by anxiety, uneasiness, heartburn, and sleeplessness.
To prevent summer-time ailments to create havoc in your life, you should follow the advices of ancient Chinese physicians which revolve around the principles of remaining in harmony with the summer environment.

Here are a few things you can do throughout the summer:

• Get up earlier in the morning
• Go to bed later in the evening
• Take a short nap, or be lazy at midday
• Drink plenty of fluids, water is the best
• Add spicy flavors to your food
• Look for moments of joy, bliss and happiness
• focus on changes in your life, on person and spiritual growth

Haven’t had much time to post with the hustle and bustle of the Olympic Games being in Vancouver, but I saw this great article in the Georgia Straight. It’s a bit long so I’ve just taken out some excerpts.

By Gail Johnson

Although group rhythmic gymnastics wasn’t an Olympic sport back when Sonia Tan was competing, the Vancouver resident represented Canada at a number of international events in the early ’90s. Tan knows firsthand about the grueling physical and mental demands that high-stakes competitions like the Olympics place on athletes. She can also attest to the price athletes pay when they’re not in top health.

Growing up in Toronto, she and her family mostly turned to western medical treatments, even though her grandfather used traditional Chinese medicine with great success. But with an international competition fast approaching, Tan was frustrated by the lack of relief she was getting from conventional approaches.

Out of desperation she tried acupuncture and Chinese herbs. She couldn’t believe how much better she felt so fast.

“I was ready for that competition, and I did fine,” she says. “After about six months, I didn’t need my medication anymore at all. I was completely symptom-free. It was really eye-opening.…I credit it for giving me the gift of my health back.”

With the Olympics in full swing, she’s hoping that, just as she did during her intense days of gymnastics training, other athletes will reap the benefits of traditional therapies. Tan is volunteering as an acupuncturist at one of the Olympic and Paralympic Games’ Polyclinics—multidisciplinary health-care centres in Vancouver and Whistler.

Acupuncture as a treatment for sports ailments gained widespread recognition during the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, when the service was offered for free to athletes and officials in the Olympic Village. Canadian speed skater Kevin Overland has reportedly used it to beneficial effect, as have hockey great Jaromír Jágr and former NFL player Marcellus Wiley.

The treatment involves the insertion of tiny needles along the body’s meridians, which practitioners believe conduct qi, or energy, which regulates physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional harmony. The theory is that illness results when qi is “blocked” or imbalanced. By stimulating certain points in the body, acupuncture seeks to unblock and balance a person’s energy.

Acupuncture’s benefits for athletes and people who are physically active are many, Tan claims, particularly if they’re dealing with musculoskeletal problems. It helps reduce pain and inflammation and increase circulation. Combined, these effects boost the body’s ability to heal from injury and enhance the overall feeling of well-being.

“Acupuncture restores people’s energy to an optimal state of balance,” Tan says. “For me, I had weekly treatments of acupuncture, and my body felt completely different after. I was on so much medication that I felt like I was in a fog; with acupuncture, I felt more strong, more natural.”

That brings up another point about the benefit of the technique for Olympic athletes: it doesn’t involve ingesting any potentially harmful or banned substances. “When it comes to anyone who’s active and who’s conscious about what they’re taking, acupuncture gives them natural relief for pain and inflammation.”

She says it can also help reduce stress and alleviate insomnia, two things that are common among men and women preparing for the race of their lives.

“The mental preparation and stress is huge,” Tan says. “It’s a whole different psyche.”

According to a 2005 medical review of the effectiveness of acupuncture on sports injuries by the U.K.–based Acupuncture Research Resource Centre, acupuncture has been shown to successfully treat ankle sprains, plantar fasciitis pain, and patellofemoral pain syndrome, among other conditions. However, the review noted that more research is needed because there have been few studies to date, and these have varied in quality.

Local acupuncturist Ian Dunsmuir, manager of acupuncture services at the Games’ Polyclinics, explains that this is the first time in the history of the Olympics that such fully integrated health care has been offered. That speaks to the effectiveness and acceptance of techniques like acupuncture.

“Having it during the Olympics is building acupuncture’s integrity and popularity,” Dunsmuir says in a phone interview. “It will create more awareness.”

Whether a person is aiming for a gold medal in alpine skiing or simply running a few times a week, acupuncture can help improve range of motion, loosen tight muscles, align the pelvis, and improve balance, he adds.

Dunsmuir notes that a lot of people don’t like the idea of acupuncture because they’re scared of needles.

“That’s really a myth,” he explains. “The needles are very, very thin, nowhere near as big as ones used when you get a vaccination or have blood taken.

“Most people are very relaxed during a treatment,” he says. “Some people fall asleep.”

Read full article here

While completely eliminating stress in your life is easier said than done, what can be done is reducing the impact of stress on your organs using acupuncture. Acupuncture is able to move the energy within the meridians in your body to achieve balance. You may not be able to avoid stress completely, but you can minimize the damage it does to your health.

Wishing you a low stress week,

Wendy

I am so pleased to be one of the first clinics in Canada to introduce a new acupuncture therapy sans needles! Biostimulation is a low-level laser therapy (LLLT) that stimulates acupuncture points so that needle penetration is unnecessary. Immune boosts, weight loss, smoking cessation, injuries, aches and pains, digestion problems, skin aliments, and allergies can all be treated successfully with this laser. Most importantly, this German technology is safe and effective.

For patients, biostimulation also means shorter treatment periods with all of the positive end results of traditional acupuncture.
Some treatment plans will always require the use of a few needles including facial rejuvenation and other situations of deficiency. I am a big believer in the magic of acupuncture needles, but I am well aware that many people are squeamish around needles. Despite my best efforts, some people still picture vaccination needles rather than hair-thin ones when they hear about acupuncture! With biostimulation, I can share the benefits of acupuncture therapy and of Traditional Chinese Medicine with everyone! Biostimulation combines the wisdom and effectiveness of a 6000 year-old therapy with modern laser technology.

Laser therapy, in fact, is not new to acupuncture, but we’ve never had such advanced technology as we do with the RJ Laser machine used in my clinic. This technology is fully approved in Canada.

How does it work?
The laser beam produces a low-heat and is an electromagnetic wave which can stimulate the acupuncture points of the human body. It also puts energy into the body to excite the channels, regulate the function of organs, and increase metabolism. This oscillating energy field makes it very suitable and effective for acupuncture and the meridian system as a whole. One of the major benefits of biostimulation is the ability to treat injuries and promote the healing of tissue.

For you, this means an effective holistic therapy with faster treatment periods and no need for needles. It’s the best of both worlds I say!

Here’s to a wonderful 2010!

Wendy

Please also feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Wendy

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the following Table of Five Elements shows the inter-connectivity of different elements in nature. This model has been used by medical practitioners for thousands of years.

In addition to Chinese medicine, other disciplines also reference Five Elements, including Tai Chi (a martial art), Feng Shui, and cosmology.

Table of Five Elements

The health of your lungs is vital to your overall health. Lungs are most sensitive during autumn because the seasonal air brings dryness to the lungs. This may also cause damage to your digestion so it is important to eat foods that build the health of your lungs in order to strengthen your immune system and prepare for winter.

HOW TO HELP YOURSELF:
1. Avoid drafts – keep neck, ears, wrists, and ankles from being exposed to drafts. This is likely where
pathogens will invade your body.
2. Be aware of dryness – In Autumn, there is a slow increase of wind and cold which create dry air.
3. Avoid spicy foods. Because the lungs are sensitive, you need to minimize spicy food intake. Spicy foods
irritate the lungs, making them more vulnerable to pathogens

Wendy

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), autumn is associated with the element Metal and with the lungs and the colon. The lung is a tender organ as it is the uppermost organ and is susceptible to wind and cold, which may lead to a sore throat, a cold etc.

Switching to a diet of Autumn foods
Adjusting your eating habits with each new season has a tremendous effect on your health.

Autumn foods are white in color and pungent in flavour. Choosing white foods will help relieve cough, nourish skin, and relieve constipation by promoting body fluid production. Move away from eating summer fruits and vegetables into eating more autumn produce.

White foods include:

Turnips, almonds, potatoes, cauliflower, yams, soybean milk, garlic, onion, etc.

So give it a try and let me know how this autumn diet works out for you!

Whether you suffer from allergies seasonally or perennially, life can become very miserable. Itching of the eyes, roof of the mouth, or throat, runny nose, headache, sneezing, cough, wheezing…the list goes on.

It is up to our immune systems to defend us against foreign substances such as pollen, dust, pets, etc., however, our immune system can overreact to certain antigens (allergens) which are harmless to most people. The result is an allergic reaction. In other words, it isn’t the allergy itself that is the problem, but the person’s reaction to the allergen.

Acupuncture has been proven to help alleviate the symptoms of allergies when they are active and more importantly, can help to correct the immune system imbalance that causes the allergic response in the first place.

Acupuncture treats allergies in 4 main ways:

1. Stabilizes the immune system to moderate its response to allergens;

2. decreases swelling and inflammation of local tissues to stop itching;

3. decreases secretions of mucus membranes to reduce nasal discharge and watery eyes; and

4. strengthens your natural resistance to antigens.

Acupuncture not only helps with the active symptoms, but also in the prevention of them. Acupuncture can enhance the immune system’s performance in the off-season to prevent the on-set of your allergy symptoms. In other words, acupuncture strengthens the immune system so that your body will not create an overreaction or allergic reaction to elements in nature.