Traditional Chinese Medicine

Let’s talk about late summer – from an acupuncturist’s view.

The season of the late summer is the time of the stomach and spleen. The summer season actually belongs to the heart, heart and small intestine, the late summer which is that hazy time between summer and autumn. It’s that time when yin and yang feel really balanced. When it’s not too hot, it’s not cold yet, there’s a slight crispness in the air early morning and late evening. It’s a time of perfect balance at the end of summer, and it’s also the harvest time, suggesting that there’s a sense of abundance. You’ll notice, there’s an abundance of food ripening, quite literally one the vine. This is when the earth element is at its peak.

The fascinating thing about the earth element is that it also has a season in between every other season. There’s a little window in between every season where we have ‘late summer’ again, even in-between winter and spring, in between spring and summer, definitely in-between summer and autumn and in between autumn and winter as well. These are little windows in-between every season which are known as late summer, or earth season are times of balance.

This time between seasons is a time of everything coming back to the core – all of your energies coming back into the center, grounding, rebalancing and then ready to go again into a new season which has new opportunities and new challenges. At the time of writing we’re in the earth element now, we’re crossing over from spring into summer. So this is a perfect opportunity for you to come back to your center, spend a little bit of time regrouping, grounding and preparing for what’s coming next in the summer months. When we do this, we give our body an abundance of energy again to work with and do whatever it needs to do to balance itself in the next season. There’s nothing for you to do, just come back to ground zero and give your body a rest. Get grounded in nature, rest up and your body does what it knows it needs to do with the energy. Your acupuncturist will also be able to treat these organs and maximise your ability to recharge these organs in their horary time.

If you are an Earth element constitutional type you can also receive treatment on the Stomach and spleen during their horary time of day. Receiving treatment between 7am and 11 am is the best time to treat these organs. Each organ has its own time of day where it’s at its strongest. The time of day for the Earth element, Stomach and Spleen, is 7-9am, and 9-11am. The old housewife tale says eat breakfast like a king, eat lunch like a prince and eat dinner like a pauper. This is true because the chi is the strongest in the digestive system in the stomach between 7:00 and 9:00AM, and in the spleen between 9:00 and 11:00AM. Eating your biggest meal of the day between these times means you’re going to have optimum digestion, and your body is going to be able to take the most chi from the food and transform it to give your body the most energy available. Eating your biggest meals at the opposite times will have the opposite effect, as there’s the least amount of chi in the digestive system 12 hours later. So between 7:00AM and 11:00AM is when we’ve got the most chi in the digestive system, and then 12 hours later, between 7:00PM and 11:00PM we’ve got the least.

If you want to learn what your element constitutional type is, come on in to my office on W. 2nd Street in Duluth, MN! I may be able to shed some light on this for you.

Western medicine is catching up now on the fact that there’s a link between the gut and the brain. Chinese medicine has known this for thousands of years. Western thinking can actually complement Chinese medicine and vice versa. Patients with a lot of anxiety and worry can be treated with vitamins, particularly B vitamins. When the Earth element organs of the Stomach and Spleen are weak we crave sugar more. Sugar will compound this problem causing further weakness and an accumulation of dampness. Sugar can interfere with the absorption of certain vitamins – especially B-vitamins which are important for cognitive function and mental health.

Yi, or thought, is the spirit of the spleen. This is why overthinking can weaken the spleen and a weakened spleen can lead to overthinking. As an acupuncturist and meditation teacher I hear patients telling me every day, “I can’t meditate because I can’t switch my mind off or I’ve got too many thoughts.” No amount of trying to control your thinking is going to work. Strengthening the Spleen will help and there are some ways you can:

• Eat your biggest meal between 7 and 11am.
• avoid damp, sugary, cold, raw and greasy foods.
• eat more warming foods, herbs like ginger, plenty of warming soups, cooked vegetables – particularly orange vegetables are really, really, really nourishing for the spleen. And barley, rice and ginger tea etc.
• Acupuncture
• Meditation

Overthinking is the mental aspect and worry is the emotional aspect of a weakened spleen. Worry actually knots the chi of the stomach and spleen. So if you’re suffering right now from overthinking and worry, it’s a reflection of the state of your body, the way the chi is moving in your body, in your digestive system and the way your digestive system is transforming energy for other systems. If the emotions are not being heard then that can cause a lot of issues, physically and mentally as well. 90% of what I see coming into the treatment room is emotional in nature, compounded stuck emotion and then all the overthinking and the stories on top that have come from trying to work out why you are feeling that way. Having acupuncture and giving yourself space and time to process your emotions in a healthy way is the best treatment for this. The earth element also thrives on a good routine, eating at regular times, going to bed, getting up at regular times is important. Ideally you want to be going to bed as early as possible, waking up as early as possible and eating your main meal as early as possible for energy, for immunity, for lifelong strong earth element and clarity of mind.

When you consider that acupuncture is part of a medical system that has been around for over 2500 years, you have to understand that this medicine has a vast track record for treating a plethora of conditions, including those related to male the reproductive system.

Infertility has become more prevalent in our society over the last few decades. This comes to no surprise, when you consider all the challenges in our agricultural, environmental, social, ecological, economic and therefore overall well-being. Current statistics show that 1 in 6 couples trying to conceive are actually facing fertility issues. And while most people consider infertility to be a female issue, nearly half of all fertility issues are contributed to the male. Nearly 10 percent of all men in the United States trying to conceive are actually suffering from infertility.

Male infertility can be caused by a man’s inability to produce sperm, a medical term known as Azoospermia, or simply decreased number of living sperm Oligozoospermia. Male infertility can also be due to the production of poor quality sperm, Asthenozoospermia, that may be malformed or do not live long enough to make it to the egg for fertilization. We must also take into account genetic factors that can contribute to male infertility.

That’s a lot right? Well, good news! Most cases of male infertility can be treated.

Conventional medicine has come a long way in treating these issues, but the downside can be the costly treatments that often render unsuccessful. This is where Traditional Chinese Medicine, and specifically acupuncture, can be very beneficial and may help without adverse side effects. One study from the Department of Clinical Korean Medicine, Kyung Hee University Graduate School, set out to evaluate the efficacy of acupuncture as a treatment for male infertility. This study was able to conclude that YES regular acupuncture treatments can “significantly improve sperm motility and sperm concentration”.

If you are experiencing fertility problems, acupuncture may hold the key to help you conceive.

Sources:
Couples & Infertility
A pilot study on infertile men