Category: Wellness Articles

Every Acupuncturist has an origin story. You can ask any of us about the treatment or series of moments that led us to the big, scary thought “I want to be an Acupuncturist.” We had already asked our Acupuncturist why they look at our tongues or why some points feel spicier than others, we’d listened to podcasts about East Asian Medicine or maybe even read The Web That Has No Weaver, we’d tried some meditative practices, and stacks of books about herbalism and the energetic body threatened to topple over on our nightstands. Some of us took AIMC’s Introduction to East Asian Medicine course just to peek a little further.

And then maybe we looked up some information about …

The differences an Eastern medicine-trained herbalist can have on building your formula plan is huge. In this blog, we cover the differences between what you may find on the shelves and why finding an herbalist is so important to gain the full benefits of herbs and Eastern medicine. Learn more!

The goal of any acupuncturist is to get you out of their clinic– and hopefully shouting from the rooftops about how your pain went away or that you haven’t slept this well since you were a teenager or one of the other 10,000 benefits of treatment. In order to get you out of our clinic and back into your life (and sending all your friends and family our way), we’ll ask you to commit to a consistent course of treatment for a specific length of time, and then we’ll re-evaluate along the way. You can expect a course of treatment to involve getting acupuncture once or twice a week, some lifestyle or movement coaching, and, when appropriate, a custom herbal prescription.

Consistency is Key

When people …

“Every person who comes to a queer self-understanding knows in one way or another that her stigmatization is intricated with gender, with the family, with notions of individual freedom, the state, public speech, consumption and desire, nature and culture, maturation, reproductive politics, racial and national fantasy, class identity, truth and trust, censorship, intimate life and social display, terror and violence, health care, and deep cultural norms about the bearing of the body.[…]Queers do a kind of practical social reflection just in finding ways of being queer.”
-Michael Warner, Fear of a Queer Planet

East Asian Medicine as a liberation practice?

Acupuncturists are always fundamentally focused on the free flow of energy in the body– the “Qi”. You may have heard your acupuncturist talk about “Qi stagnation” as …

The ancient Chinese character for tea displays the radical for grasses on top, a pictogram of a mouth, and the radical for a tree1.

Believe it or not, in the Chinese Medicine conception of the seasons, we’re already in the beginning of summer! Spring’s bright yellow-green shoots have matured into full leaves and the era of flowers is giving way to a season of lush green (and yellow grasses, as is the case in California summers).

As the days get longer and hotter, and we full an internal pull toward more social and playtime and less sleep, it’s appropriate to make some changes that will protect our yin and body fluids so we can fully enjoy the warmth, abundant energy, and yang of summer. …

Learn the what, why, and how of period tracking with our student, Ally Magill. Ally recently presented a class on menstrual cycle tracking and the Chinese Medicine perspective on our Facebook live. Check out the presentation or read our blog for key takeaways!

Herbal medicine is just one way we treat the individual, not the symptom. Read our blog to learn more about how it can help those who have been affected by COVID-19!

We’ve approached the one year mark of restrictions on our day to day lives due to COVID-19. What’s more, we’ve arrived at springtime: a time known to 5 Element Theory as an era for movement, growth, and change. All things considered, you wouldn’t be alone if you find yourself experiencing wide emotional swings from hope to frustration to despair and back to hope again.

If you’re feeling a little stuck, flustered, or bored, you may have what we Acupuncturists diagnose as “Qi Stagnation”. Qi stag, as its known shorthand, can show up as depression or irritability, pain or discomfort that comes and goes, a sense of bloating in the belly, PMS, or a stifled feeling in the chest or throat.

Luckily, you don’t need …

Eating Well for Immunity

Fall is here and it’s time to support our immunity! How well we take care of ourselves in the weeks leading up to the coming cold and flu season can greatly enhance (or weaken) our resistance to illness. Once we begin to fall ill, it can be too late! Wise use and nourishment of our inner resources can help us stay healthy, and diet is one of the foundations here. Even just cutting out white sugar, which reduces white blood cell activity by almost 50% for up to 5 hours after eating it, can do marvels.

Fall is the season of the Lungs and the Metal element, and the Lungs control our Wei (Protective) Qi, which acts like a forcefield around our bodies …

As 2020 comes to a close, many of us are a lot more familiar with telehealth/virtual appointments than we were at the beginning of the year. If you’re thinking about making an appointment with us and aren’t sure what to expect, we can help. At Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine College, Berkeley, we’ve been working to perfect our telehealth services since the onset of COVID-19 in early 2020.

Telehealth has allowed us to continue to give our students the practice and training they need to become successful Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture practitioners after they graduate, while also providing care to new and current patients. Anyone who has been curious about making an appointment at our clinic can …