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Menopause Is Like A Car Engine

Menopause is like a car engine?  What can this possibly mean?  In Chinese Medicine, menopause is commonly thought of as a natural progression of life.  A woman goes from child-bearing into more of a state of inner wisdom. Our metabolism controls yang (warming) and yin (cooling) aspects throughout our whole life. In menopause, there are more warming aspects that are unchecked by the cooling aspects, so symptoms of heat, and dryness occur. This is like a car engine in many ways. Think of a car engine (warm) and the radiator fluid (cooling).

In a woman’s life, once she begins her menstrual cycle, she loses a small bit of blood every month. Blood is a yin, cooling substance. On a car, this can be likened to a small leak in the radiator hose. Over a lifetime, this small leak depletes the reservoir of antifreeze, thus there is less cooling liquid to control the engine heat. The result is that your engine runs hot. The heat from the engine is not properly cooled.

This is the same thing with our bodies. How we handle this in Chinese Medicine is to provide herbs and acupuncture to help the body stimulate the production of more cooling within the body. The result is the reduction or elimination of most of the symptoms associated with menopause. We help make a woman’s transition through this stage as easy as possible.

Chinese Medicine, Balance and the Tai Qi symbol

How To View Balance In Your Life – Look To The Tai Qi Symbol

The Tai Qi symbol. The circular black and white symbol associated with Tai Chi has many meanings.  The basic meaning is one of balance existing in all things, as exhibited by the black (yang) side and opposite white (yin) side.  Also, within the black side is a white dot, and within the white side is a black dot.  This shows that even within all yang, there is some yin and visa versa. What this means is that yin and yang mean nothing in themselves – they only exist to give a label to compare things in life, compare opposites which exist in all aspects of living.  For example, without hot you would not know what cold was, there would be nothing to compare it to.  Without up, there would be no conception of down, as you would have nothing to compare it to.  The yin yang sympol only serves to show us that we need opposites to compare and contrast things in our life.

 

Another way to look at the Tai Qi diagram is the dividing line down the middle of the symbol.  This can be thought of as a moving barometer.  Moving up or down means moving to an extreme and the natural tendency is to move back into the middle.  Traditional Chinese Philosophy likens this to the “Middle Way”.  Avoiding extremes when possible, and sticking to the middle, is the way to go.

 

Here is one example:  Suppose you are really hungry –  you are uncomfortable.  In this situation you are more yin or empty.  You see a sign for your favorite buffet.  You enter the restaurant and eat, eat, eat.  As you stuff yourself, you move up the yin/yang line so at some point if you keep on eating, you are now more yang (full).  In this case, you are also uncomfortable, have an upset stomach and need to lie down.  The body senses this and helps you relieve some of the pressure by ensuring you use the restroom, or by having you throw up.  Once this happens, you relieve some of the excess and move back down to the middle of the yin/yang line.  This example can be used over and over again as a reminder to try to “walk the middle path” and avoid extremes whenever possible in life.

Is Your Yard Full of Weeds? Acupuncture and Health Maintenance

The best healthcare is preventative.  There is an old saying that almost all problems once start out small. This can be likened to your backyard.  It is easier to maintain your backyard and pick the one or two weeds that occasionally sprout up, thus keeping things ordered  and making your life much easier to enjoy.  If you let the weeds grow, soon you have a yard full of weeds that then becomes a significant problem, not to mention an eyesore.

Regarding your health, it is much easier to resolve problems when they first arise, versus letting them linger on and become big problems.  When problems are small, it is easy to use lifestyle changes to resolve the problems quickly and easily.  Once the problems get large, it may be necessary to resort to pharmaceutical drugs, surgery and/or accept lifestyle limitations just to function at a basic level.

Don’t worry, however, as there may still be choices available.  Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine was best designed for health maintenance and wellness.  At  Acupuncture Healthcare Specialists, we can tailor an individualized program to “get rid of the weeds”, “clean up your yard”,  and get you back on track to better health.  I firmly believe that the body was designed to try to stay in a state of good health.  Listen to your body and make the changes you need to make to ensure your health and well-being are at their best.

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