What's The Right Tea For You?

In Chinese Medicine, the goal is to bring harmony and balance to the body, mind, and soul. We can accomplish this through acupuncture, food therapy, or even choosing the right teas. Your body's imbalances speak loudly in many ways, and if we are attuned to how we feel we can choose the right tea to re-balance ourselves. Green tea has become quite popular nowadays with all the research indicating green tea has high antioxidant qualities. However, green tea is considered cooling in Chinese Medicine and may not be right for everyone.

1. Peppermint Tea

If you feel cold all the time, or generally low in energy, green tea may not be the healthiest choice for you. If, however, you tend to feel hot easily, get nose bleeds, mouth sores, or are suffering from a sore throat, peppermint tea could make you feel better.Peppermint has cooling qualities that clear heat and soothe the liver, an organ which can get quite heated in a high stress environment. This makes peppermint a perfect way to rebalance after a heated discussing, or a stressful day at the office. 

2. Black Tea

On the other hand, black tea's high caffeine content, and energizing properties might be the right choice if you feel sluggish, tired, or just need a boost of energy. In fact, a common tradition which is still carried out today is to drink black tea at Dim Sum. This is because alot of food served at Dim Sum can be quite greasy, and cause some of us to feel tired, and heavy after the meal. Pu-Erh tea, served at Dim Sum, is used to help cut the grease, boost energy, and wake you up again. This tea gets its name from Pu'Er, a city in Yunnan province, China where the tea is fermented, and aged. 

3. Rose Tea & Chai Tea

Feeling cold at the office? this may be due to a lack of circulation, or a lack of warmth in the body. I have two options for you - rose tea and chai tea. More than just a romantic gesture, roses, when consumed as tea are good for gently warming the body, while promoting circulation. Its invigorating qualities help to remove stagnation, which builds up when we're constantly doing something we don't want to do. It also has medicinal properties which nourish the skin, and promote digestion. In Chinese medicine, it is occasionally used for people that have irregular menstruation, blood clots, or painful periods. Chai tea on the other hand, has its origins in India, and blends black tea with a mixture of aromatic Indian  spices and herbs. With strong invigorating, and warming properties, this makes it a great choice in the winter time if you're feeling a runny nose, or the beginning stages of a cold. It will not only warm your body up from the inside out, but could potentially cause you to break a sweat, preventing exterior pathogens from invading your body. 

4. Matcha Tea

Feeling anxious, panicky or just not well grounded? Matcha tea is known as an anticancer tea, having 137 times more antioxidants compared to regular green tea. It's interesting to note Matcha tea's cultivation, and production are closely related to the effects it has on the body. Grown in a shaded environment for up to 3 weeks, this makes Matcha tea a more cooling, and calming tea. Once picked, it is stone-ground into a fine powder - having the ability to ground your mind at times of anxiety and fear. In fact, traditionally at Japanese and Chinese ceremonies, matcha tea was prepared and served as a way of embodying a meditative spirit. A great tea to have at the end of a long work week, when you are looking to wind down, quiet the thoughts of the mind, and focus on yourself. 

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5 Habits For a Healthy Summer

Summer is the season of joy, movement, energy, and activity! Staying in harmony with the seasons is an age old tradition according to Chinese Medicine. Follow these tips to stay balanced this summer.

1. Get Outdoors

Enjoy this nice weather while we have it. For those of us that tend to spend all day in an office, hidden from the sun, it's important we get outdoors when we can to stay balanced this season. The sun offers us a good dose of vitamin D, which is important to prevent depression, and ensure good kidney function. If you're the type of person that feels cold all the time, getting more sun is one of the easiest and most natural ways to warm your body up. Just set a reminder on your phone every 2 hours to go outside and get some fresh air. It will not only keep you balanced this summer, but you may find you're more productive too!

2. Socialize 

For many of us this can can be as simple as enjoying drinks with friends, camping, having a BBQ, or a day at the beach. The one thing these activities all have in common is - more time spent with the people you love. The season of summer resonates with Fire, the elemental nature of the Heart organ, which is nurtured by the emotion of Joy in Chinese Medicine. During the summer, you will want to nourish your Heart by socializing, and experiencing more joy with the people you love. Camping is great for this, because we tend to gather in groups around a campfire - indirectly nourishing your Heart and Fire element.

3. Eat Fruit

Fruit is naturally "in-season" during the summer months. Of course in North America we can get fruit all year around but Summer offers fruit which has been picked ripe, and grown locally, improving the health of the fruit and its benefits to our bodies. Summer in general is the season when the amount of energy we receive from the sun is strongest, warming our bodies up, and boosting our energy as we experience more daytime. Given this increase in warmth in our bodies, this makes eating raw fruit a viable option as our bodies have more warming "Yang" energy to transform the raw fruit into vital nutrients. It's also a great way to stay hydrated if you're spending much of your time outdoors. BBQ tends to create toxic heat in the body. You may experience more nose bleeds this time of the year, mild afternoon fever, sweating more easily, or a desire for cold drinks. These are all signs that there could be excess heat in the body. Good fruit options for clearing heat are pears, cantaloupe, watermelon, and bananas. Caution to those who are pregnant, and individuals who feel cold all the time, or have a weak digestive system as these foods may be contraindicated.

4. Exercise

It's important that we exercise throughout the year, but Summer is the season we should be most active according to Chinese Medicine. If you're finding it difficult to exercise at the end of a long day, try waking up earlier to go for a quick run. The sun rises earlier this time of year, which shortens our natural sleeping patterns, and makes it easier to be an early bird.

5. Realize Your Potential 

Summer being the most expansive, and energetic of all, is the season when our goals, visions, and dreams should be realized. Whatever dreams you've been holding onto for the past year, or visions you have for your life's potential, don't hold them back anymore, put them into action. The joy and satisfaction from making your vision or dream a reality, will boost your spirit and nourish your Heart. Ultimately, making you realize that any dream you have, big or small, can come true. Summer is the season to live your life with joy, happiness, and love. Go out, and do that which satisfies you deep within your heart. Make your dreams a reality this summer.

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5 Reasons To Try Acupuncture

1. Reconnect With Yourself

Acupuncture is a way for you to take time out of your busy life, and tend to your body's needs, which may or may not have been neglected for weeks, months, or years. By taking an hour out of your day to re-balance the body through acupuncture, this allows you to leave your anxiety, stress, and tension behind and really focus on you. Bringing you back into the present moment and reconnecting your mind and body.

2. Get To The Root Cause

Acupuncture gets right down to the root of your health imbalances. By inspecting the tongue, and palpating the wrist pulse, your practitioner can see and feel any imbalances in your life, whether chronic or acute. The tongue's qualities such as colour, moisture, and size reveal the overall health of each organ. Using a system of points which are mapped out throughout your body, acupuncturists are able to promote healing from the root.

3. Experience Positive Side Effects

The side effects of acupuncture are many, yet all positive. After an acupuncture treatment you may notice an overall improvement in your sleep, digestion, and stress levels.

4. Find Out Your Imbalances

Many of us visit the doctor only to find that there's "nothing wrong". We may not be dieing of a chronic disease, however, many of us still feel something is "off". These are the types of problems you want to bring to your acupuncturist. They specialize in taking into consideration all aspects of your health history, including current signs and symptoms you may be experiencing, and are able to explain to you what they all mean from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective.

5. Tried, Tested & True

Acupuncture has been around for over 2000 years. It is one of the oldest forms of Traditional Chinese Medicine and in fact predates the use of herbal medicine. If it were not an effective form of treatment, why has it continued to survive throughout the ages? The clinical experience of patients and practitioners over thousands of years offers clear evidence that acupuncture works.

For a list of illnesses acupuncture has been proven to treat according to the World Health Organization(WHO) click here.

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Soup For Preventive Health

Soup is one of the traditions that have survived throughout Chinese culture as a way of maintaining good health, and is probably one of the ways that Asians remain looking so young even as they age. In fact, many homemade soups share similar herbal ingredients to those used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). I recall growing up as a child, and my mother would make soup once a week. In our family, this was a form of preventive medicine we used to keep our bodies nourished and healthy. My mother would always tell me to drink the soup, and she placed such a high importance on it, I think this is one of the reasons I find it easy to accept Chinese Medicine as a lifestyle.

The ingredients would be different depending on the season, but in general there is usually meat with bone as a base. Pork bone, or chicken bone is commonly combined with herbs, and vegetables. The bone is very nourishing according to TCM and should not be omitted in making soup. As you boil bone, it releases vital nutrients and minerals our bodies can use to build blood, bone, and connective tissue. This can be beneficial for people suffering from blood deficiency anemia, osteoporosis, and arthritis - or even as a way to prevent these illnesses altogether. In addition to this, the bone marrow within bone is said to be produced by the kidneys in TCM, which are the root of our bodies. Consuming soup containing bone marrow can supplement our bodies and nourish our kidneys - an organ that may need boosting in infertility cases.

There was always a noticeable difference in how I felt after drinking soup. When your body has everything it needs, your energy level goes up, you become less irritable, more calm, and yet focused. In making soup, all the nutrients from the ingredients are extracted into the broth and the hot temperature of soup makes it easier for your digestive system to absorb everything. Soup is a great way to nourish our bodies, moisten dryness, and stay in harmony with the seasons.

In the winter, it makes sense to consume soups with warming properties as this keeps our immune system strong, ensuring we are able to ward off colds during the frigid winter months. Examples of foods with warming qualities include ginger, cinnamon, chicken, lamb, onions, and coconut meat.

As for the summer months, we spend a lot of time in the sun, either working on the garden, sitting on the beach, or BBQ'ing which adds an element of fire to the food we eat. This can cause us to lose our body fluids through sweating, while creating excess heat in the body leading to irritability, thirst which cannot be quenched by water, restlessness, fever, mouth sores, and constipation. A good soup to balance the body during the summer is watercress soup. A simple recipe involves boiling watercress, and adding salt. Watercress contains heat clearing and fluid nourishing qualities to replenish our bodies. If you want to take it a step further try adding pork bone, and herbs like barley, lotus root, dried shiitake mushrooms, and lotus seeds.

Feel free to search through the "Food As Medicine" page for more summer cooling foods.

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Food As Medicine - Weight Loss

Author: Justin Lee

Each food has the potential to influence your health in the right or wrong direction. Whether you suffer from being overweight, low in energy, or have a general sluggish feeling all the time, there are foods that are right for you. By understanding our imbalances from a Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM) perspective, we can then use a TCM food therapy approach to eating healthy and rebalancing the body. 

Food therapy is all about eating according to your body's needs. If you are trying to lose weight or boost your overall energy, it's important that the digestive system - the Spleen/Stomach - is supported for optimal digestion. People who tend to crave sweets tend to have a weakness in their Spleen/Stomach. The Stomach is responsible for taking in food, and rotting and ripening it. It's important that we chew our foods so that this process can flow smoothly. The Spleen's job is to then take the digested food, and transform it into vital nutrients. However, foods that damage these organs are refined sugars, greasy/oily foods, and foods that are cold in temperature. Refined sugars have been stripped of all nutrients and fiber, and actually overload the Spleen, making it unable to transform and transport. Cold foods tend to slow down digestion to a hault, making you feel heavy, sluggish, tired, and bloated as these foods sit in your body unable to be processed. You want to think of your digestive system like a furnace that needs to be kept warm all the time. Cold foods put out your digestive flames making it harder for you to process the foods you eat. Cold drinks do the same thing, except in the form of liquids - leading to water retention or what we call "dampness".

Another big issue with trying to lose weight is eating at the right times. 7-9AM is the optimal time for the Stomach to receive food, and so breakfast should be your biggest meal, while dinner should be a smaller meal as 7-9PM is when your Stomach is weakest according to TCM. Being mindful of your eating habits can help improve how much your body is going to absorb from the foods you eat. We always recommend in TCM to eat in a calm environment, where you can focus on your food alone without distraction. Eating in a hurry, or while working on the computer or checking your phone actually divides your energy and makes it more difficult for your Spleen/Stomach to do its job efficiently.

In TCM, people with weak spleens should eat everything cooked. By doing so, this optimizes nutrient absorption and the elimination of dampness. Earth vegetables are great for boosting the Spleen - carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, turnips, beets & more. These foods give us energy, eliminate waste, and ultimately help your body to drop the excess weight.

It's interesting to note that the element of the stomach/spleen in TCM is Earth - hence why "earthy" vegetables help boost our spleen. Organic makes it even better as these vegetables are grown in a healthy, nutrient rich "earth" environment. Feel free to follow Justin on Instagram @acu_soul for more health tips on food from a TCM perspective.

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