Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.

—Chinese Proverb

CHAPTER 2

Point Me in the Right Direction

You might be thinking, Acupuncture? I don’t want some old Asian guy sticking five-inch needles all over my body! No thanks. Yes, there are many misconceptions about acupuncture. Even though more and more people are using it in the West every year, it’s still considered pretty weird, and only for Californians like myself. Some consider it New Age or only for hippie types. But that’s not the case at all.

Most people assume that acupuncture has to hurt. They typically equate the size of a syringe used for drawing blood to an acupuncture needle. Yet acupuncture needles can be less than one-quarter the width of a syringe. Their thinness has been likened to a strand of hair. Acupuncture needles are so fine that a majority of the time my patients don’t feel them going in, and once the needles are inserted, you shouldn’t feel them at all. My new patients are always shocked by how easy and painless acupuncture is. In fact, the process of getting acupuncture is so relaxing that virtually all my patients fall asleep for at least a portion of their thirty-minute sessions.

Even if you’ve had a treatment, you might not know much about it. Many of my patients, who have been coming to me for years and are total believers, don’t know about acupuncture’s long history or that its effectiveness has been proven through both years of anecdotal evidence and modern scientific studies.

There are several theories on how acupoints—the points on the body where needles are inserted—were discovered. The most popular and widely accepted is that their locations and functions were divinely inspired. In China five thousand years ago, it was considered the norm for people to meditate for years, decades, and even entire lifetimes in remote caves and forests. These long periods of meditation were attempts to find the answers to life’s questions: how to live life, why we are here, and how to end suffering. The answers were passed on orally from teachers to their students. Some ancient traditions and teachings are still only passed down orally.

Another theory posits that points are based on astronomy, suggesting that there is a direct correlation between the stars and planets and the placement of needles on our bodies. There are acupoints that go along each side of the spine and are located by each of the various vertebrae. These points, discovered thousands of years ago, are used to treat the various internal organs and emotions (depending on location). For example, a point to treat the kidneys and anxiety is level with the lumbar 3 vertebrae and about an inch away from either side of the spine, depending on a person’s size. It is now known in Western medicine that there is a nerve at this exact location that stimulates the function of the kidneys. The same can be said for all of the points related to organs along each side of the spine. What’s so amazing is that nerve pathways and functions weren’t found until centuries after these acupoints were initially used, yet the ancient Greeks, who are known for their medical advances and had only a slight understanding of what nerves were and their role in physiology, somehow knew these precise points were important.

The Power of Qi

To understand TCM you must also become acquainted with the concept of qi. Qi is a word you might have heard before in a yoga or martial arts class; it’s become a part of our vocabulary and is even accepted as a word in Scrabble. But what is it exactly? Qi is the energy or life force of the body. It flows through what are called energy channels, pathways, or meridians, as explained below.

Even modern science now agrees that qi/energy does exist and flows in particular patterns throughout the body; bioenergetics is an area of biochemistry that studies the flow of energy in living things. All living beings have an electromagnetic energy current. These electrical and magnetic fields are related to lymph and blood flow, nerve conduction, heart and brain function, and many more biological roles.

Without enough qi your organs can’t function to their full potential, and your energy levels will be greatly reduced. Qi facilitates moving, protecting, rising, and transforming. When flowing smoothly and unobstructed, qi is in charge of supporting your immune system, keeping organs and body parts operating to their potential, and giving you energy. You can’t really have too much qi, but it can become stagnant, perhaps by injury. When qi is stagnant, it can cause a blockage in an organ or area, causing pain, masses, or tumors.

What do I mean by moving, protecting, rising, and transforming? By “moving,” I mean literally moving: getting your muscles working, the synapses in your brain connecting, your heart pumping, and blood flowing. Qi gives you energy and the ability to think, jump, run, and even smile.

The qi in your lungs is the main source of support for your immune system. It is in charge of protecting you from illness or pathogens that might enter your body and make you sick. If your lung qi is strong, you’ll rarely get sick. When you do get sick, you won’t be bedridden and will recover quickly. So qi protects you from harm.

Without enough qi, things begin to sag—sagging being the opposite of rising. Your skin, eyelids, colon (e.g., hemorrhoids), veins (e.g., spider and varicose veins), muscles (e.g., hernias), and uterus can droop or protrude.

The spleen and stomach need adequate amounts of qi from food and drink to transform nutrients into healthy blood and more qi. Someone who doesn’t have enough spleen qi may be anemic or experience fatigue. They complain about being exhausted, even if they sat on the couch all day or slept ten hours.

Qi has several origins. An important source of qi is passed from your parents at conception and stored in your kidneys. If your parents have weak qi, they will pass this on to you, making you predisposed to certain illnesses. The quality of their qi can be due to age, lifestyle, eating habits, medications, and the qi passed down by their parents and ancestors. This qi is known as the source qi, or jing qi in Chinese. In Western terms, jing qi is your genes. Congenital diseases or a predisposition to certain illnesses would be said to come from this qi; for example, if your parents or grandparents had a heart condition or premature gray hair, they might pass that on to you through their jing qi.

You can increase your jing qi with healthy living. It’s definitely not etched in stone that you’ll get certain illnesses. All the tips you learn in this book will support and strengthen your source qi.

Qi and Diet

For centuries Chinese medicine has recognized the connection between nutrition and health. Your diet has a large influence on each organ’s qi levels, which is one reason why eating the right foods is so important for overall fitness. Some qi comes from food and is created by the spleen. (The Western equivalent would be the idea that vitamins, minerals, and the other nutrients in what you eat become a part of you—“you are what you eat.”) Each food has its own function as to which organs it nourishes and how. Oats, dates, kidney beans, apples, cherries, spirulina, and soybeans are all terrific for increasing qi. You will learn more about specific foods and their functions in Chinese terms in Part II. Fast food, processed food, refined sugar, nonorganic food, genetically modified food, extreme diets, soda, alcohol, eating disorders, and binging will all limit and/or deplete the amount of qi you have. Some medications deplete qi by weakening your spleen’s ability to make qi as well.

You can also receive qi through certain meditations and exercises. Tai chi, qi gong, and meditation are three traditional ways to gain qi. They help you tap into the abundant qi of the universe. These exercises, common in the East, are becoming increasingly popular in the West as people see the many benefits. Even places like the YMCA offer tai chi classes now.

The Pathways of Qi

To fully understand the theory behind acupuncture and qi, you must learn about the body’s pathways, also known as meridians or channels. The meridians are where the body’s energy or qi flows in specific patterns. There are twelve main meridians, ten of which are named after the organs, and two that are related to the yin (Ren or Governing Channel), and yang (Du or Directing Channel) of the body. (You’ll learn more about yin and yang in chapter 3.) The ten pathways named after organs are exactly the same on both sides of the body—left and right. There are 362 acupuncture points along these twelve channels. All of them have different functions; some of them have several healing properties. The simplest way to explain this is that acupoints stimulate the flow of qi through the meridians. Don’t worry. I won’t be quizzing you on this later in the book.

How exactly does qi move through the meridians? Qi flows continually from one meridian to the next in a circuit. This movement initially starts with the first point on the lung channel, then goes to the large intestine channel, and eventually ends up at the liver channel. From there, your qi will then arrive back at the first acupoint along the lung meridian. This is the exact same order shown in the circadian clock mentioned in chapter 1. The process of qi moving through each of the twelve meridians takes twenty-four minutes—two minutes per major channel. Qi flowing through each of the organs takes about twenty-four hours. So receiving acupuncture on the point Large Intestine 4 (LI)—He Gu in Chinese, meaning “joining valley”—will stimulate qi from that point until it eventually ends up back at He Gu twenty-four minutes later. It is vital that qi constantly flows smoothly for health and well-being. Any obstruction or weakening of the pathways negatively affects your constitution, leading to illness, pain, and/or emotional imbalance.

Those of you who have experienced acupuncture or understand a little bit about it might know about the point Large Intestine 4, located between the thumb and index finger in the meaty part of the hand. This point is tender to the touch on most of my patients due a blockage of qi there.

People often tell me that they’ve heard pressing this area is helpful to relieve headaches, and it is. But acupuncture to this point also treats anything to do with the face: nasal congestion, skin disorders, toothaches, Bell’s palsy, and muscle twitching. It also helps with pain anywhere in the body, and can help relieve a cold, alleviate constipation, and reduce stress. So this point can help pretty much everyone. Because He Gu has so many functions, it’s probably the most frequently used point. The only time it should not be used is when a woman is pregnant.

Another point that is used quite a lot is called Yin Tang. It’s located between your eyebrows. Accessing Yin Tang is incredibly powerful for calming and reducing anxiety. You can rub it lightly yourself with a fingertip or anoint it with some lavender oil if you’re having a tough day or difficulty falling asleep. This point is wonderful for babies who are crying a lot or refusing to go to sleep. They usually respond immediately to the calming effect of Yin Tang. Since most of my patients experience high levels of stress, I use Yin Tang in a majority of treatments.

Yin Tang is also known as the third eye. This means it helps tap into your intuition. If you’ve ever taken a yoga or tai chi class, the instructor may have mentioned it as there are a few yoga poses that stimulate this point as well. An example is the child’s pose, a resting pose that also encourages circulation in your internal organs.

There’s scientific evidence that proves acupoints really do something. It’s not just a weird concept thought up by hermits thousands of years ago. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain shows that acupuncture points have an effect on brain function: When a needle is inserted into a specific point, the brain lights up in the exact place where the brain controls that function.

I’ll give you a couple of examples. A point on the foot called Liver 3, or Tai Chong (“great rushing”), is used to treat eye disorders. When Liver 3 was needled in a study, the middle occipital gyrus, an area related to the visual cortex or your vision and eyes, was activated and lit up in MRIs. So Western medicine agrees that a point on your foot stimulates the part of your brain in charge of vision. Three points used in combination to treat migraines and headaches—Gallbladder 34, or Yang Ling Quan (“yang hill spring”), Gallbladder 20, or Feng Qi (“wind pool”), and San Jiao 5, or Wai Guan (“outer pass”)—have likewise been proven to stimulate specific brain regions associated with reducing pain. Pretty amazing, right?

As you review the suggestions in Part II, it is important to remember that you can nourish your qi and increase the effectiveness of acupuncture by making smart dietary choices. The different elements of TCM are interdependent, just like the systems and parts of the human body, and they also affect your mood.