TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE (TCM)
The essence of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is the emphasis on prevention of disease rather than the treatment. In ancient China, patients saw the doctor on a regular basis because if an imbalance existed the doctor could take action to correct it.
Today TCM is not just one of the oldest forms of medical therapy it is the most popular form of medical therapy in the world (except here in the US.).
Treatment Strategies:
The treatment strategies focus on enhancing the energy and the nutrition of the body to bring the body back to balanced.
Yin & Yang is a foundation of Oriental Philosophy and also a symbol for balance and harmony. If one has just the right amount of Yin & Yang, one has harmony. Imbalance occurs with an excess or deficiency of either. For example: You are in a shower with just the right water temperature - how can you make the water too hot? You could turn the hot water up; that would be in “excess” of Yang. The hot water overpowers the cold. You could also make the water too hot by turning the cold water down. This is viewed as not true heat but a “deficiency” of Yang. You do not want to balance the water temperature by turning the hot water down. If you do there will be very little water coming out of the shower head. The solution is to strengthen the Yin, the cold water. When an imbalance occurs, in TCM we fortify our body up or down to achieve proper balance of our energy. Energy | Qi Qi, or energy, is a force that travels through our electrical lines, it is also the vital force in the air around us, breath. It is most often thought of as the energy that makes us alive, some call it vital energy, prana, our life force. At the heart of the Chinese | Japanese original character for Qi (氣) was the symbol for rice (米), steaming cooked rice. The idea then is that our life is sustained through the energy one gets from food, and mixing with the energy of clean air, water and spiritual nourishment (which includes love.) Let’s pick an inflammatory example like arthritis...it isn't something that just happens one day, it takes years to develop arthritis. The rivers of Qi within the body gets polluted perhaps from consumption of the wrong foods, alcohol, and insufficient exercise. Now the vital flow of energy has become stagnant. Western | allopathic medication treats the “symptoms” of swelling and pain via altering the performance function - studies have shown that nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs used over an extended period of time actually makes it worse. The different approach TCM would take is to get to the root of the problem by understanding the individual‘s body constitution, what and where the imbalance is. Then creating a protocol based on diagnosis using proper nutrition, via food and herbs and circulation of energy (with movement, massage, acupuncture.)
I find it fascinating to look at how Allopathic medicine and TCM approach chronic disease or let's say health for TCM. TCM gets to the root cause of a dis-ease to get to back to health versus maintenance of disease with Allopathic.
Herbs: One of the tools TCM uses are herbs, a herb is a therapeutic agent or anything with medicinal properties. It can be a plant, animal or mineral. It is just nature’s medicine. Herbs have a temperature, not physical temperature but the herb's effect energetically or physiologically on the body. Herbs can be spicy, sweet, bitter, sour, salty and bland. Each taste can have different effects on the body, such as sweet herbs affect the spleen which includes the pancreas that makes insulin and controls blood sugar.
“Shen” defined in TCM includes the mind, the emotions and the spirit. To prevent illness, both the mind and the body must be nurtured. Our Shen is the radiance of our spirit. TCM teaches nothing is absolute, imbalance occurs when there is too much or too little energy in the body and that the surrounding air holds a vital spiritual energy needed for health.
Natural healing takes time. For every year the problem has existed, at least one month of treatment may be needed. However, it does not take months for the body to start feeling better - a noticeable change each month can be expected!
Good health results from a healthy lifestyle and prevention, not synthetic medication.
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