Medicine Health

Chi surrounds us everywhere we look and it affects all aspects of our health. It is the foundation for acupuncture and Chinese Medicine. It is what gives power to internal martial arts. It is the basis of feng shui. It is the energy of the universe yet it is completely invisible to us.

Once you learn about chi and how it affects your life you can begin to work in harmony with it. Vitality, health and happiness become possible. First, there are a few fundamentals to understand about the concept.

Chi is Real
Chi is not some theoretical concept. It is very real. Consider a fresh corpse. Apart from chi, it's practically identical to you! It requires no belief or faith to see that something truly fundamental is missing from the corpse. It contains all of necessary ingredients for life, except for energy/function. Or in other words, it lacks the chi it needs for life.

Our Food Contains Chi
We require we require food to live because it contains chi. We won't last long without this nourishment. In Chinese Medicine this type of chi is called "gu chi". You can translate this term as "cereal energy". It goes into our stomach and gets processed into the kind of chi on which our bodies run.

We can't just eat any old thing and expect to create the same quality of chi. Why does organic food taste better than conventional food? Have you ever noticed an energetic buzz after eating raw sushi? Notice how awful you feel an hour or two after eating fast food? Hey, you are what you eat! Eating a variety of quality, fresh, whole foods is key to creating vibrant chi, and therefore vibrant health.

The Air Contains Chi
We can go days without food, but how long can you hold your breath? Obviously there's another kind of chi that is missing from our food It is a kind of chi that we require a constant, steady supply of.

This kind of chi comes from the air. In Chinese the name for it is "da chi" or "heavenly chi". That is to say, chi from the air above. As with food, the quality of our breathing can vary greatly! The trick is learning how to breathe better.

For vibrant health, take up an activity that has you focus on breathing and creating quality breath. Tai chi is an excellent choice, as is yoga (especially pranayama practice), chi gong (qigong), and other any tradition of breathwork. A few minutes a day of quality breathing can have a huge effect on your life and vitality.

Nourish Your Chi Through Lifestyle
The changes talked about in this article, quality diet and quality breathing, require some modification to your lifestyle. While I am not suggesting you become a monk, people are often resistant to change.

With that said allow me to offer a perspective that may help you stay motivated. Think about what would be possible in your life with more energy, better sleep, less pain, and fewer days sick. Close your eyes and just spend thirty or sixty seconds really creating a vivid picture in your mind of what that would look and feel like. If your resolve to keep up your healthy lifestyle should ever falter, go back and recreate this image to stay grounded on why you bother to create vibrant health.

For centuries the term revolution meant a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favor of a new system. It also means a dramatic and far-reaching change. We have seen revolutions become great milestones for great systems. Take our own Revolutionary War. Now we are seeing another revolution being carried out in our health care system.

The pharmaceutical companies are inundating the airwaves with commercials extolling the benefits and the side affects of their form of health care. Most Americans seem to succumb to these advertisements. We have become a nation of pilloholics. The pursuit of health and happiness has become taking the most recent drug to give you brief relief from your symptoms. These pills can also stop your natural ability to ward off disease. Most of these medications stop your body from reacting to a pathogen, stimulus or even emotions. By stopping your body from reacting they can keep you from dealing with the cause of your disease.

Western medicine has gone down the path of treating symptoms and not the whole person. Which means as long as the cause of your symptom is not addressed you will continue to have symptoms. How many people are taking multiple medications chasing one symptom after another? Western medicine offers medications for almost any symptom. These medications often have side affects which are worse than the original symptom. Some of these medicines mask the underlying problem. The problem then continues to fester underneath the anesthesia of the drug.

We hear volumes about western medicine but only short stories about healing alternatives. There are many factors which explain why we hear less about Oriental Medicine, but the one that stands out is the fact, that this medicine refrains from advertising on such a large scale. Oriental medicine information is disseminated mostly by word of mouth.

Oriental philosophy believes you need to take an active role in your health. This means it is often not a quick fix. You are treated as a complete person so it can take time. Some things can be dealt with quickly but more complex issues can take a long time.

Acupuncture as a modality has been gaining in recognition here in the states over the past 40 years. Quietly but surely the medicine has been gaining acceptance because of the changes it has made for millions of people. Healthy changes. These healthy changes can take time. It requires a natural healing time which depends on your state of health.

You can heal if given the right stimulation and nurturing. This stimulation and nurturing can be created using many techniques. However, all of these techniques require that you change some lifestyle pattern.

The key here is that you change something in your life. The pharmaceutical companies recognize that most americans are not seeking health but looking for a quick fix or a quick relief of pain. The fact is that you get better by changing whatever it is that is making you ill.

Oriental Medicine practitioners offer an alternative to most prescription medications. We also have a different approach to you the patient. You are important. Your health is important to us. Teaching you methods and nutrition planning help you to become more aware of how to take care of yourself. We are not interested in simply treating your symptoms so you can become dependent on our services. We are not interested in you becoming dependent on our herbs so you have to take them for the remainder of your life. We are interested in teaching you how to have a better life by learning how you can do things to stay healthy.

The question is, what is healthy? We are complex in our nature. Our minds govern our body. Our body allows us to move through our environment. We have needs to understand why we are. This leads us to a spiritual consciousness. So we are spirit, mind and body.

This means in order to achieve maximum health. We have to address all three of these areas. We can pray but it is not enough. We can exercise but it is not enough. We can eat healthy but it is not enough. We can even have mental therapy but it is not enough.

Look around. How many of the people you know are trying to escape from their lives? How do they escape? People look for pain relief in many forms. Drinking alcohol, working all the time, investing all of their time in their children, taking care of others all the time, watching tv all the time, playing video games all the time or anything that takes them away from dealing with their life issues.

Holistic healing is about being aware of what is making you ill. This means your emotional state, your physical state and how you cope with your life. Western medicine has developed fantastic techniques for saving lives. Western medicine can do so many wonderful things but they do not have the time it takes to help you solve your issues. Oriental medicine takes time to do just that.

The Quiet Revolution is the revolution which can change our health care system. The combination of the two approaches to healing would springboard our humanity forward.

The loud thunder of the pharmaceutical companies and the fortunes that they have made overwhelms the quiet voice of passion raised by those of us who are not interested in profits at any cost. We alternative practitioners still want to relate to you as an individual. The desire is too create a healthier population, not only physically but mentally as well. We all benefit from healing our wounds. Masking over them is not the answer. Avoiding looking at them is not the answer. Healing them is.