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Yoga and Acupuncture Intersect

By Sara Calabro

Yoga and acupuncture have a lot in common.

The most outward similarity between yoga and acupuncture is the clientele. An extremely high percentage of yogis seem to have at least some experience with acupuncture, and vice versa. A common sensibility pervades both practices, attracting people who are curious about the intersection of physical, emotional and spiritual healing.

However, dedicated yogis and those who receive regular acupuncture understand that this intersection is as mysterious as it is a reality. Yoga and acupuncture, in helping cultivate awareness, ultimately help us conclude that there’s always more to learn. Keep reading

Knee-Pain Triggers in Runners

By Sara Calabro

Runners are famous for investigating their injuries. Is it the surface? The shoes? The stride?

Answers to these questions don’t change the reality that runners endure a lot of pain, with the knees often bearing the brunt. And yet despite the high percentage of runners who are plagued by recurrent knee pain, effective treatment options are scarce within mainstream medicine.

Acupuncturists can assist runners with a new kind of investigation—identifying trigger points that cause runner’s knee. Keep reading

Memory Is In the Blood

By Sara Calabro

Two separate studies released last week looked at why we sometimes have a hard time remembering things. One said internet use plays a role, as we make less effort to retain information we know can be retrieved later; the other exposed the damaging effects of binge drinking, for its ability to trigger a steroid that interferes with memory.

As anyone who has attempted to recite a phone number in the past 10 years can confirm, technology certainly has dwindled our recall abilities. And drinking need not be of the binge variety to remind us that alcohol clouds the memory.

But what about memory lapses that are unrelated (or in addition) to the deficiencies created by computers and alcohol? What underlying issues make us susceptible to these kinds of external factors that contribute to poor memory?

This is where acupuncturists focus their attention. Keep reading

Officially Kicking the Habit

By Sara Calabro

Addiction officially is becoming a recognized medical specialty.

Yesterday The New York Times reported that 10 medical institutions, in reaction to a growing awareness that addiction physically alters the brain, are now offering accredited residency programs in addiction medicine. The programs seek to establish alcohol, drug and/or nicotine addiction “as a medical disease rather than a strictly psychological one,” says the Times.

The move to broaden addiction beyond the realm of psychiatry indicates that mainstream medicine may be inching closer to understanding the multifaceted nature of recovery. However, it also highlights the need for non-biomedical perspectives to be represented in discussions about the future of addiction treatment. Keep reading

More Than Meets the Eye

By Sara Calabro

The Fourth of July tuckers out the senses. All weekend, we smell wafting barbecues and taste the food they cook; we touch ocean waves and hear them crash ashore. But the epitome of Fourth of July rituals, watching fireworks, calls most heavily on our sense of sight. Weak eyesight or degenerative vision loss can put a big damper on this stimulating summer weekend.

In acupuncture theory, each sense has a corresponding organ. The organ associated with sight is Liver, so a Liver imbalance often is suspected in people who seek acupuncture for poor vision. However, although the Liver is at least partially implicated in the majority of eye-related cases, it doesn’t always tell the whole story. Keep reading

The Rise of Summer

By Sara Calabro

Last Tuesday, June 21, marked the official beginning of summer. With the warmest of seasons comes a palpable sense of eagerness and freedom, of expanding beyond limits to connect with the things and people that bring us joy.

Conventional Western thinking attributes this heightened vibrancy to circumstance: school’s out, vacation’s in, and the days are longer. But acupuncture offers a different theory.

Acupuncturists view humans as microcosms of the natural world that surrounds them. Weather and climate, particularly during the transition from one season to another, factor significantly into diagnoses and treatment plans. Each season is associated with a natural element, emotion and organ. Keep reading

Stroke Expert Realizes Dream

By Sara Calabro

A lot of acupuncturists were enthusiastic about the release of 9000 Needles, but perhaps none more than Atsuki Maeda. The documentary follows an American stroke victim to China, where he receives acupuncture from a team of doctors led by Shi Xue Min—Maeda’s teacher.

After completing acupuncture school in Japan, Maeda participated in an exchange program that sent recent graduates to China’s renowned First Teaching Hospital of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. While there, he became one of the first students to get certified in Xing Nao Kai Qiao Fa (known as XNKQ), a form of stroke therapy developed by Dr. Shi. It has been Maeda’s dream ever since to expand awareness and accessibility of this powerful treatment. Keep reading

Quest for an Acupuncturist

By Sara Calabro

What is the most common reason that people give for never having tried acupuncture? Too expensive? Don’t think it’ll help their condition? Afraid of needles? None of the above.

According to an AcuTake reader survey, the number-one reason people haven’t tried acupuncture is because they’re not sure how to find an acupuncturist.

Whether you’re wanting to try acupuncture for the first time or looking to get treated by someone new, here are some suggestions for how to find an acupuncturist. Keep reading

Antidote for Digital Overload

By Sara Calabro

We’ve arrived at a point of tension. Technology has enabled possibilities that just 10 years ago seemed unthinkable. And yet these same advancements have deprived us of some of our most basic abilities, instincts and pleasures.

This conflict has spurred an ongoing and at-times-heated debate that’s being played out everywhere from the publishing industry to the classroom to the boardroom. However, one area where the topic is being discussed much less than it should be is in healthcare. Keep reading

Scalp Acupuncture for Stroke

By Sara Calabro

New research from the Netherlands suggests that coffee, nose blowing, and sex can potentially trigger strokes in people with untreated brain aneurysms. The findings, while a little nerve wracking—apparently, one in 15 people develop brain aneurysms at some point in their life—are far from definitive. Just two months ago, TIME wrote about another study that said coffee may decrease stroke risk.

Whether coffee is leading us down a path of peril or prevention remains unknown. However, regardless of the cause, unfortunately, strokes happen.

Stroke symptoms vary widely in type and severity, but some signature problems include difficulty speaking and walking, one-sided numbness and paralysis, and mental confusion and anguish. 

Acupuncture can decrease these symptoms and help stroke victims cope with their new disabilities. Keep reading