Eye Floaters

In TCM your eyes, and eye health, are connected to your liver. If your organ chi declines, vision becomes blurry and floaters form. But, as chi levels increase, your vision and floaters clear. So eye floaters can be viewed as a sign of a deficiency pattern. It’s like a warning light for low chi levels […]

Agitation

Agitation is a physical reaction to emotional and mental tension. I’ve noticed that a lot of my clients think agitation is the same as irritability but these are very different and involve different organs. Irritability doesn’t need a stimulus, you could be on a great holiday or surrounded by people being nice to you and […]

Frequent Urination

How often is too often? In TCM there are no hard and fast rules. We treat the person not the symptom. So it depends on your fluid intake, but also on whether you are a more yang type (who burn more fluids) or a yin type (burn less fluids and need to urinate more often). […]

Amenorrhea

Amenorrhea is always associated with an overly yang lifestyle that depletes the yin. Yin is the basis for blood and the depletion of yin interferes with menstrual blood production. Blood is a vital substance and if the body can’t afford to lose any more of it, amenorrhea becomes a safety mechanism to prevent burn-out. Amenorrhea […]

Acid Reflux

Acid reflux is the outcome of a valve malfunction (your lower oesophageal sphincter or LOS) and stomach acid flowing upwards rather than downwards. The solution is simple; fix the valve and enable your stomach chi to descend so that stomach acid flows downwards. Lifestyle is what causes the valve malfunction and the reversal of stomach […]

Anxiety

I suffered badly from anxiety for years and I know that lifestyle is the best way to treat it. I describe anxiety as the feeling you get if your mind is not anchored. The things make you feel solid and safe make chi descend. The things that make you feel anxious are things that make […]

Arthritis

I hammered my body in the past, especially during skiing training sessions by jogging in ski boots, doing over 100 km per hour and jumping over moguls using my knees as shock absorbers, and breaking my leg a couple of times. When I was young I didn’t feel the impact of any of that but […]

Bad Breath

Your lifestyle can create bad breath, regardless of what you eat. Bad breath might seem relatively insignificant but (unless it is from pungent foods you have just eaten) it can be seen as a stage in a progression that, if not addressed, can eventually develop into a lifestyle disease. It is a sign that your […]

Barking Cough

Barking cough in adults is often a result of a high-stress lifestyle (especially financial and deadline induced stress); relentless pressure, overwork and the associated time-deprivation diet (fast foods, sugar hits, or raw and cold foods); smoking for stress management, and sleep deprivation. This creates internal imbalances leading to the formation of ‘phlegm’. The pressure and […]

Bleeding Gums

Plenty of people put heaps of time and effort into cleaning their teeth and dental hygiene to deal with bleeding gums, but it doesn’t always resolve the problem. In these cases lifestyle factors that cause ‘heat’ (which rises) are involved. Here are some behaviours that create heat: stress and strong emotions; excessive consumption of hot […]