Author: Singing Dragon

Acupuncture for Treating Shock and Trauma

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Ross Rosen is a licensed practitioner and Master of Chinese medicine, as well as the author of Heart Shock – Diagnosis and Treatment of Trauma with Shen-Hammer and Classical Chinese Medicine. In this article, he writes about unravelling the past to create a happy present and future, and the rising practice of treating trauma with acupuncture.

The prevalence of those who have encountered trauma in their lives is staggering. If my medical practice is any indication, roughly 75% of those I treat have signs and/or symptoms of past traumatic events. And whilst most patients seeking treatment (and most medical providers for that matter) don’t recognise the connection of their symptoms to traumas that may have occurred even decades prior, not addressing the traumas can create a major roadblock to successful treatments, handcuffing the practitioner and frustrating the patient who does not fully find relief.

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The Many and Diverse Benefits of Acupuncture for Children

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Rebecca Avern is a traditional acupuncturist and founder of The Panda Clinic, a children’s acupuncture centre in Oxford. She is also a senior lecturer and clinical supervisor at the College of Integrated Medicine, Reading, UK. In this piece, the author of Acupuncture for Babies, Children and Teenagers discusses the values of acupuncture for children and the diverse range of conditions it can help treat.

Acupuncture is used all around the world to treat children. In the developing world, where antibiotics and vaccinations may not be available or affordable to many families, acupuncture may be used to help children through acute illnesses. Treatment during, for example, a severe febrile disease may reduce the chances of the child being left with significant morbidity, such as breathing problems or even paralysis. Some of my colleagues in the wonderful World Medicine charity (www.worldmedicine.org.uk) treat children hit by poverty, trauma and natural disasters all around the world. Acupuncture’s ability to treat both the body and the spirit means it is of great value to these children, who may have suffered huge amounts of trauma, as well as coping with enormous physical hardships.

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An Early European Acu-moxa Encounter

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Charles Buck is widely respected as a practitioner, educator and author in the field of acupuncture and Chinese medicine. Originally from a medical science background he became one of the first to practise and teach Chinese herbal medicine in the UK over thirty years ago. He has since gained respect for his knowledge and insight and has made significant contributions to its development in the UK and Europe. In this article, he gives a short overview on how  traditional Chinese therapies, such as acupuncture and moxibustion, first made their way to Europe, based on his book, Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine.

Between 1580 and 1680 Jesuit missionaries, traders and diplomats brought a slow trickle of hearsay medical knowledge to the West from China. Trade with China introduced Europeans to Ming and Qing dynasty ideas and aesthetics through fine commodities such as porcelain, silk and tea. Information on acu-moxa treatment filtered into Europe on the back of the wider romances with Chinoiserie that occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries. Around the same time the Chinese purgative herb da huang (Rheum palmatum) was supplied as a medicinal product to apothecaries across Europe – coming along the Silk Route it was distributed via Istanbul and known as ‘Turkey Rhubarb’.

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How narrative influenced form in What the Hell Just Happened?!

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For National Stress Awareness Day 2018, Richy K. Chandler shares the story behind his latest picture book, What the Hell Just Happened?!. This inspirational gift book helps readers overcome troubling times in their lives, through vivid illustrations and positive affirmations.

The author provides thoughtful tips to remind us of what we can be at our emotionally strongest and smartest, showing how to face the past and embrace the future.

 

There are many reasons for creating a book, a comic or any work of art.

My latest book – What the Hell Just Happened?! – came from a place of needing to try to make sense of where I was in my life. At the start of developing it, I was going through a difficult separation, with my life circumstances drastically changing, seemingly out of control. I sought the release and comfort of expressing myself through creativity.

My assumption was that my anxiety and fear would come out naturally in tune. I’ve written hundreds of songs in the past and I always feel better for clarifying my feelings in verse. This time, however, that didn’t seem to be happening.

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Treating modern conditions with paediatric acupuncture

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Before embarking on the enormous task of writing my book – Acupuncture for Babies, Children and Teenagers – I had to ask myself some searching questions. Does the acupuncture world really need another hefty textbook? And do I really want to devote every second of free time over the next two years to this project? It didn’t take long for me to answer with a resounding ‘yes’ to both. Here is my thinking behind my decision to do it.

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What is Heart Shock?

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“Heart Shock refers to a systemic instability, and to some degree, chaos, resulting from life insults or traumas (…) Not all shocks are created equal. Some are more significant than others, and individual constitutions vary considerably, creating the need to weigh all the variables as we interpret our findings”. 

In this extract from Heart Shock, Ross Rosen explains how physical and emotional trauma can affect the body, and how an understanding of ‘heart shocks’ can improve treatment with Chinese Medicine.

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Implications for Pain Guesses to Yoga Therapy

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In this extract from Matthew J. Taylor’s latest book, Yoga Therapy as a Creative Response to Pain, Taylor discusses how yoga therapy can be used to decrease pain and the perception of pain. 

How does one teach from the wisdom of pain? And how could yoga therapy be a creative response? My hope is you are starting to see some answers emerge. (Pun intentional and literal.) In this section I will offer some direct implications to make some of this what they used to call “lieutenant-proof” in the army when I was a lieutenant. (Do note later, though, Nora’s caution around giving “direct” instructions.)

We “know,” taken together, the above findings are important because they demonstrate that the neural mechanisms involved in mindfulness- based pain relief are consistent with greater processing of sensory experience and at the same time decreases in pain appraisal (Zeidan et al. 2015). Our familiar practices of paying attention inward and editing narratives. Pain reduction may also occur by fine-tuning the amplification of nociceptive sensory events through top-down control processes of inhibition of incoming nociceptive information and that such pain relief does not reduce pain through one avenue, but rather multiple, unique neural mechanisms. Ah, CDSR. Zeidan and Vago (2016) also cite evidence that mindfulness meditation engages mechanisms that are distinct from placebo to reduce pain and that this could be of critical importance to the millions of chronic pain sufferers seeking a fast-acting non-opioid pain therapy. See the marketing section coming up next for how to use this information. There is a decoupling between “sensory and appraisal-related brain regions,” and similarly, between “sensory and affective pain” to increase coping with the pain that does improve. An alleviation of suffering even if pain is unchanged in intensity? This is the frequently reported decrease in the unpleasantness dimension of pain with respect to pain intensity (Zeidan et al. 2015) plus what we already discussed about yoga also altering the meaning, interpretation, and appraisal of nociceptive information, all of which could be important tools for producing more stable and long-lasting improvements in chronic pain symptoms. Wow! How do we do that?

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Feng Shui: From Science to Oversimplification

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Taken from her new book, Looking Up, Looking Down, Reni Alexsandra Hagen discusses how to keep Feng Shui’s true meaning alive as it becomes increasingly commercialized in the West. 

The most important reason for me taking up the serious study of feng shui was my growing frustration with all the peculiar things I encountered under the name of feng shui. After translating two feng shui books, reading a dozen others and attending various weekend courses, I had a strong feeling that there was something quite crazy about the claims being made in popular presentations. I had to make a decision: either that was the end of the whole business as far as I was concerned or I had to take up feng shui seriously. I did the latter, of course, because I sensed that there must be truth and understanding somewhere and that real feng shui was concerned with very different things to those I had been involved with so far.

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