Hi there!  I hope all is well with you and that you have fun at the State Fair this year, if you’re one of the zillions of people who participate every year!  I’ll be going with my family at some point, to, and I’m looking forward to it, as always.

Just a quick note that I will be out of town Friday, August 28, 2015, to visit family, so there WON’T BE KCA TREATMENTS. Sorry if this inconveniences anyone, especially since I’m just getting to this post now!

Have a great rest of the summer and watch for a new post about fall KCA schedule changes soon!

July KCA closures

Due to a scheduling conflict with my son’s final performance at the Twin Cities Bass Camp, I will not be treating clients on Wednesday, July 1. I will be treating patients on Friday July 3rd as usual.

The last week of July is my family’s annual Boundary Waters excursion, so there will also be no KCA on July 29 or 31, due to that fact.

Happy Fourth of July to you – I hope you have a fun weekend with lots of outdoor activity and family fun!

Thank you as always for your support and referrals!

Christian

10 things you can do to improve your health right now

Here is a list of some simple things you can do every day to improve your health.  Choose a couple, or follow all the suggestions – start slow and incorporate 1 per week and see how you feel after 10 weeks!

1. Eat more green, colorful, leafy vegetables – Vegetables like broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, chard and other commonly found vegetables have a multitude of antioxidant effects, minerals and other nutritive value that everyone can benefit from.  Chinese medicine dietary theory emphasizes eating slightly cooking vegetables, not raw, as the light sauteing or stir frying can make digestion and absorption easier.
2. Reduce or eliminate processed sugars from your diet – High sugar intake is now known to cause inflammation in the body, as well as lead to the well-known issues of insulin resistance and diabetes mellitus. Chinese medicine describes sugar as harming the Spleen, which helps absorb nutrients from food (basically the digestive system) as well as distribute fluids throughout the body. Keeping your Spleen system healthy is one of the main objectives in maintaining a healthy body and mind.
3. Switch from coffee to green tea– If you really need that “pick-me-up” in the morning, green tea is the way to go over coffee.  Coffee’s vasoconstrictive qualities can lead to health problems in the long run, like hypertension, and increasing anxiety and heightening our reaction to stress.  Green tea, whereas it does have some caffeine estimated at about the same amount as a similar sized cup of decaffeinated coffee, the antioxidant and other herbal effects are more beneficial to people than coffee.
4. Go for a walk with co-workers on work breaks – The benefits of work breaks and movement throughout the day have recently been shown to be very important to over all health.  I’m sure many people have seen the studies showing sitting even 1 hour per day is detrimental to health.  Help offset these effects by taking an active work break at least once daily, or more times if possible.
5. Schedule time for relaxation and time for yourself – Everyone can benefit from taking their minds off the stress of their work week, or simply taking 30 minutes to lie down and do nothing. Carve some time out of your week to nurture yourself, as often as possible.  Downtime can help you be more productive.
6. Use at least one wellness treatment to help prevent illness – A holistic health care system like Traditional Chinese Medicine, such as Kingfield Community Acupuncture offers, stresses the importance of illness prevention.  These systems often can detect and treat imbalance before there are symptoms. Treatment often involves acupuncture, herbal supplements, dietary suggestions and other self-help approaches to help you maintain your health. Treatment plans for helping maintain health vary by the individual, but can include weekly treatments during allergy season, to quarterly check-ins to help the body through the seasonal adjustments our bodies make throughout the year. Call 612-871-2288, or visit KCA as a walk-in to learn more about health prevention using acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine.
7. Try to get a good night’s sleep whenever possible – The real reasons we sleep, or how sleep affects our health, has not been well known until some recent studies have revealed sleep benefits the brain and memory, influences weight loss, and many other reasons. Some people look at sleep as a nuisance, and could supposedly get by on very little, whereas others cannot function without it.  Knowing now that the brain needs sleep to flush out wastes from an active day contributes even more to the other important reasons that sleep is very important to maintaining health. Don’t look at sleep as annoying, look at it as a way to nurture your best self and health, even as a way of extending your life!
8. Join a tai ji or similar approach like yoga that focuses on teaching breathing techniques – Breath is vital to the health of everyone, in fact the Chinese word qi (氣) is closely tied to air and breath. Approaches to regulating and benefiting the breath can help us respond in better ways to stress and help us live fuller, healthier lives. Tilopa Tai Chi Qigong Center is a great local organization where you can learn taiji.  The Faith, Health & Wellness Center’s own Yoga Sanctuary in the Solomon’s Porch building offers a wide variety of yoga approaches to fit everyone’s needs.
9. Keep laughter around you– Laughter has been shown to have many short term and long term effects on the body, from deactivating the stress response and improving relaxation, to actually improving immunity, relieving pain, and improving overall mood. Find more ways and time to laugh in your life, and be healthier as a result!
10. Massage acupuncture point Stomach 36 every day – Massaging this specificacupoint located just below the knees, is something suggested by Chinese medicine to help promote health and longevity. Contact or come in theKCA to learn more about locating this point and adding it to your daily routine.

    

    

Here is a KCA schedule update for you- my wife’s class schedule has changed again, so:

I will be changing KCA evening sessions to Wednesday evenings starting June 10th.

Thanks for your understanding and maybe see you Wednesday – I will try to post a sign on the door to remind everyone.

Thank you so much for trusting me with your health! Feel free to pass the word on to your friends and family!

Happy June!

Christian

Top 5 acupuncture websites

I have many patients ask where to go online for more detailed information about how acupuncture works and for some further details on what is actually going on when acupuncturists choose points. Here are my top 5 acupuncture website picks for more information on the huge topic of acupuncture.

1. Acufinder.com – This website is a great resource for finding practitioners across the country, but I especially like their informational resources for the public to research how specific conditions are treated and other more specific information on acupuncture.  There are also some great articles on herbal medicine.
2. Aaaomonline.org– This patient resources section of the American Association of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine website lists a variety of links and other information, including links to current research studies being conducted by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.
3. Acupuncturetoday.com– Another resource for a basic introduction to acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, as well as detailed information on acupuncture terms, including many articles on treatment of specific conditions and a comprehensive list of links to state organizations and information regarding acupuncture.
4. ITMonline.org– ITM, based in Protland, Oregon,  was founded by and is directed by Subhuti Dharmananda, Ph.D.” Here is an informative article, written by him, describing acupuncture and its effects on the body described in both the traditional Chinese medicine terms and from the modern Western medical approach.
5. Acupuncture.org – This site lists studies and other information related to acupuncture treatment and its efficacy.  This tends to take a populist approach, but can be helpful in searching for specific information on what acupuncture can treat, through recent studies and many celebrity quotes.

This list may be helpful for further information, but please contact KCA directly or stop in or schedule a treatment to learn more about how acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine may help you!

Well, I’ve been trying to keep up with a lot of things, and one that’s been put on the wayside for a while is updating patient testimonials.

Here is a link to the Patient Fusion review page for both the Kingfield Community Acupuncture and Natural Health & Fertility Center patient experiences. This page is constantly updated with reviews as patients respond to the treatments they receive.

Patient Fusion review page

My hope is that anyone interested in experiencing acupuncture in either setting might find the reviews helpful!

As always, feel free to contact me at the contact information on this website for further information.

Best wishes to you!

Hello, and Happy Year of the Sheep/Goat!  Now that we’re fully into this new year, I wanted to wish everyone a happy spring!

For those of you interested in more information on Chinese astrology, click this link to find out how this new year is predicted to shape up for you. I think it’s fun to see how these predictions are arrived at!

Sorry to have to close KCA again, but now I am sick with the stomach flu! I’ve been taking care of everyone else in my family up to now, so I guess it’s my turn! Yucky!

So sorry to everyone who was planning on coming in…

KCA should be back up and running next Tuesday and Friday at the regularly scheduled times.

Have a great weekend!

Christian

KCA will be open tonight from 5:30-8:30pm as usual.  It seems like the snow hasn’t been as bad as predicted (at least up to the time of this post!!!)

Of course, if conditions deteriorate, I wouldn’t want anyone to venture out- as it looks now, though, it shouldn’t be bad at all!

Have a great afternoon, and maybe see you tonight!