Health Well News

Spring is a season of awakening and of new beginnings. Making healthy choices that will carry you through the seasons is important this time of year. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

1. Embrace yourself honestly.

Assess the various aspects of your life, see where the stressors and weaknesses exist. Are they in your diet, exercise program, work or relationships? Focus on the ones that need improvement, and begin moving away from the ones that detract from your life.

2. Examine personal relationships.

Include your significant other, friends, or relatives. Think about how you effect each other and what you can do to make each relationship more meaningful.

3. Choose to change habits.

Perhaps you want to be more positive, exercise more, or give up junk food. Do you need help or can you do this on your own? It may be easier to make changes with support from others.

4. Clean and organize.

Clear out the old and bring in the new. Take a look at your possessions and give away or recycle anything that doesn’t serve a good purpose. You may be surprised at how much lighter and happier you feel when you’ve cleaned and freshened up each area of your home.

5. Get active.

Work more exercise into your day to improve your health and reduce stress. Walk around your neighborhood, try a yoga class, go dancing, or ride your bike someplace new.

6. Make positive choices.

Think about what you take in every day with your eyes, ears, and heart. Consider the things that make you feel your best such as beautiful music, energetic friends, and inspirational art. Consider taking a break from TV, news, violent movies, and stressful people.

7. Feel your best.

Assess your emotional well-being. Take an honest look at your moods and emotions. Find the cause of the disharmony, and make a conscious choice to change. Many factors, from diet and digestive health to learned behavior, can have an influence on mood and energy level.

8. Try a Detox Program.

You may want to try a 1 to 3 week detox program during the spring. Choose a program that works for you whether it’s a juice cleansing, fasting, cutting out dairy or refined sugars, or a more in-depth detox diet. Talk to me, I may be able to give you helpful information about how to approach the detoxification process.

9. Consider nutritional supplements.

You might find supplements helpful for boosting your immunity and overall health. Consider taking an age and gender appropriate multivitamin and mineral daily, as well as additional antioxidants such as Vitamins C and E. Also remember to drink plenty of water and green tea.

10. Commit to a plan.

Consider what you want out of life, from your health, habits and relationships to your career and work. Create a plan to achieve these goals. Most importantly, remember to be nurturing and kind to yourself as you commit to making positive changes in your life.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, Spring represents the season of the Wood element, the Liver and Gallbladder. TCM believes that eye diseases are related to deficiencies in the liver and kidney organs and result from an imbalance in the body. Spring is a great time to focus on eye health for the new season. There are many ways to improve eye health and prevent damage down the road. Finding the root of the problem and taking preventative measures is important when it comes to eye health. Below are simple ways for healthier, stronger vision.

Eat right. Certain foods are great for eye health. A diet rich in fruits and vegetables has been known to improve eye health. Specifically, try adding in more spinach, kale or collard greens into your diet. Fish such as salmon, tuna and halibut are filled with omega-3 fatty acids, which are also great for eye health.

Give it a rest. If you’re like most working adults and spend hours on the computer every day, make sure you’re taking breaks from screen time to reduce eye strain.  The best strategy is the 20-20-20 rule. Every 20 minutes look 20 feet away from your computer for 20 seconds.

Protect your eyes. Protect your eyes just like you would your skin when in the sun. Make sure to wear sunglasses to protect your eyes from damaging UV rays. Make sure to find sunglasses that offer both UVA and UVB protection.

Quit smoking. There are many health reasons to quit smoking. A lot of people aren’t aware that smoking can expose your eyes to high levels of oxidative stress, which damages blood vessels. Smoking can increase your risk for many health problems that affect the eye. Contact a doctor to discuss ways to quit.

Know your history. Many eye problems can be genetic. See if family members have any eye conditions and make sure to get regular check ups if this is the case to help maintain healthy vision.

Take care of your contacts. It is easy to get into bad habits when it comes to contact wearing. Make sure to replace your contacts at the recommended time. Wash your hands before touching your contacts and take them out at night to give your eyes the rest and oxygen it needs.

Acupuncture. A number of studies found that acupuncture may have positive effects on people who suffer from chronic dry eye. One study showed that acupuncture could help reduce tear loss that those with dry eye usually experience. Common eye problems that acupuncture can treat include glaucoma, cataracts, chronic dry eyes, macular degeneration, optic neuritis, optic atrophy.

Improve Eye Health

Improving eye health can be as simple as switching up your diet and adding some healthier choices. Certain foods can have a great impact on not only overall health but vision as well. Below are some natural foods that are great to eat on a daily basis.

• Carrots: Carrots are filled with beta-carotene, a vitamin A that is good for retina health and overall eye function.
• Leafy greens: Spinach, kale, arugula and other similar greens are full of the antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin that have been shown to lower the risk of macular degeneration and cataracts. Bottom line, up your salad intake!
• Fish: Fatty fish such as salmon, tuna and trout are packed with the omega-3 fatty acid DHA. DHA is known to help chronic dry eyes. Those with dry eye syndrome tend to have a lower level of DHA than average. Another option can be fish oil supplements with DHA.
• Eggs: Eggs are overall a great health food, filled with calcium, iron, zinc and folate. Eggs also have lutein and vitamin A, which helps night blindness and dry eyes.

Allergies, seasonal or year round, are an ongoing problem for many individuals.  Seasonal allergies typically affect people during a particular season or time of year, most commonly in the spring. They are also referred to as outdoor allergies and are generally triggered by tree, grass and weed pollens or outdoor mold spores. Year round allergies also known as indoor allergies are typically brought on by animal dander, dust mites, mold spores or insect allergens. There are also food allergies, which occur as a result of eating a culprit food, and can also create physical and/or emotional symptoms such as body hives, swelling, itching or redness of the skin, depression and/or moodiness.

No matter what kind of allergy you suffer from, environmental or food related, acupuncture can provide needed relief. While medications (over-the-counter or prescribed) often come with unwanted side-effects, acupuncture does not. This makes acupuncture an appealing option for people looking for a new way to combat their allergies.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, the symptoms and signs that indicate a Western diagnosis of allergies relate to imbalances in the meridian and Organ Systems of the body. These imbalances may stem from a variety of causes, including stress, poor diet, foods that don’t agree with your body, constitutional weakness, pollutants and environmental toxins.
Over time, if imbalances remain within the body, they will affect the functions of the Organ Systems. Some of these Organ Systems are involved in the production of Wei Qi (pronounced “way chee”). According to the theories of acupuncture and Chinese medicine, it is important to have the correct quality and quantity of Wei Qi circulating around the body in order to stay healthy.

What is Wei Qi? The Chinese concept of Wei Qi is similar to the Western concept of the immune system. Wei Qi functions to protect and defend the body against foreign substances, that if not caught can lead to allergies. When Wei Qi is strong and abundant, we remain healthy. When the supply of Wei Qi becomes deficient, health is compromised and we become vulnerable to foreign invaders such as dust, mold, animal dander, bacteria, viruses and pollen. People who have a Wei Qi deficiency are prone to allergies and frequent colds.

Acupuncture and Chinese medicine support and strengthen the systems of the body that are involved in the production of Wei Qi. By building up the supply of Wei Qi, and facilitating the smooth and free flow of it through the body, symptoms and signs related to allergies could be greatly reduced or eliminated.

Acupuncture treatments may be combined with herbs, dietary changes, massage (tuina), or exercise. These therapies accelerate the healing process in order to balance, build, and support the health and functioning of your body’s systems.