Happy Healthy Year of the Wood Snake

Hello friends! I hope you are warm and well. 2025 has already come in with such intensity and seismic shifts. What does the Wood Snake represent and forecast for us in the coming months? As always, nothing is written in stone. What lies ahead for you depends on your perception, your narrative, your beliefs, words, and actions.

Snakes represent change and transformation, shedding of skin. If we choose to face change with worry and fear, the result is constriction, stagnation, isolation and more of what we don’t want. Challenges and change can always bear growth and wisdom. Wood represents strength, flexibility, and courage. Sometimes a NYC street shows us how the roots of a tree with its quiet, slow, steady energy, can have enough force to burst through a concrete sidewalk. We also contain this resilient wood energy. The task at hand is to face all of this new year’s change with courage and expansion, continually letting go of fear. Perhaps we will wake up parts of ourselves that have been asleep and see it reflected in a stronger community around us. If we stay centered in the way of the wood snake, challenges and big change can bring about wisdom.

If you find yourself lost in uncertainty and anxiety, or if you start to get weighed down by it all, the following is a meditation you can do seated or lying down:

• start to withdraw your senses and look inward

• tune into your breath and deepen it

• picture a huge heavy metal box

• take your time and one by one put into the box every single worry, everything that is preoccupying your mind

• now close the box with a secure heavy lid and imagine it clearly clang shut

• now focus on your breath coming in and see it as a clean bright light that brings health and vitality into your body and into your head

• see it filling you

• as you exhale, picture murky toxicity leaving your body

• see all sickness in any form leaving your body

• do this for several cycles and then picture your body filled with and blanketed in light

• think to yourself ‘I believe in my strength. I believe in my courage. I believe in my light.’

Healing Your Migraines

It’s Not Just a Headache

For all of us who have suffered from migraines, there is nothing more irritating than hearing someone suggest you should just drink more water, as if you haven’t tried that. They may compare it to a their own experience of a simple headache, and not understand why you need to lay still for an entire day with the shades drawn.

Having had hundreds of migraines over more than ten years, I have finally come to understand the causes and the solutions for myself. Unfortunately it’s not a one size fits all solution, but there are general guidelines from which everyone can benefit. Think of it as unlocking a safe, and each person has their own combination that they have to figure out.

Stages of a Migraine Episode

Everyone who gets migraines has some premonitory signs of an incoming episode. In the day or hours before one, my neck begins to twist and tighten like a tree trunk, and my brain feels heavy and odd like it isn’t getting oxygen or blood flow. For others, there can be visual aura, dizziness, sudden cravings or bouts of emotion, etc. A few hours or a day after the premonitory stage, the pain stage begins, and once there, no therapy or painkiller has helped me. Soaking my feet in hot water and putting ice on my head provides temporary pain relief because it helps the vasodilation imbalance, but until the next day or the one after, the stabbing and nausea and vomiting will continue. And life still has its demands. Kids still need to be fed and paychecks still need to be earned. In the days after an episode, I would feel weak and foggy, and in the back of my mind, I knew it was a matter of time before the next one. It’s no wonder that many migraineurs are also suffering from depression. 

The Histamine Connection

Brain inflammation can be triggered by many factors including infection, neck injury or misalignment, stress, etc. I had the most severe and frequent migraine attacks the year that I unknowingly had a fungal intestinal infection. It wasn’t until I suffered a ruptured appendix and I was able to heal my gut after surgery, that my migraines diminished in severity and frequency. Because I was so sensitive to migraine triggers during that year of infection, I was able to pinpoint my migraine triggers and make the connection between histamines and migraines. Histamines trigger inflammation and vasodilation, and certain foods and additives that are high in histamines such as MSG, vinegar, alcohol, preserved meats and cheese, leftovers, canned food, etc., are to be avoided as much as possible. A low histamine diet has helped me immensely. I don’t have to avoid these foods completely, but if I look at it like a threshold, I try to avoid the tipping point, and I can stay clear headed.

Vitamins / Supplements

Data has shown that the following Vitamin deficiencies can lead to migraine: Iron, D3, Magnesium, Folate (B2), B6 and B12, and CoEnzyme Q10. Personally, I take a multivitamin that has Iron and B Vitamins in the morning, and I take Magnesium Glycinate at night. It’s important to be careful about reading the label of supplements to determine the quality. Often they can contain ingredients that are triggers (like potato starch for me) or they can have fillers or preservatives that are hard to digest.

Hormonal Migraines

Women are three times more likely than men to suffer from migraines. Hormonal fluctuations like ovulation and menstruation are histamine releasing processes, so we will be more sensitive to our histamine threshold when we are ovulating or menstruating. Women who suffer from hormonal migraines are usually having trouble with the metabolism of hormones. so things like epsom salt baths, green juices, liquid chlorophyll, dandelion tea, and fibrous food are extra helpful to let the body eliminate waste that includes hormones. Stay hydrated with not only enough water, but enough minerals (like magnesium, potassium, and sodium) to help the body incorporate water into the cells.

Phases of the Menstrual Cycle

It’s an Eastern medical tenet that for lasting health balance, we must live in accordance with the seasons. We should rest and be insular in the winter time, and we should be active and most productive in the Spring and Summer. Similarly, women will feel more balanced if they live in accordance with their cycles. During menstruation, we feel more lethargic, and so we should respect the instinct to be more restful, insular, and restorative. Our lives and work may not allow for the kind of rest we need, but if we can carve out a half an hour to lie horizontal, deepen our breathing, it can make all the difference. Every living being needs to rest its battery. Sometimes we have to stop and mentally say to ourselves ‘my only task for the next ____ amount of time is to rest.’

After menstruation, we are more deficient in blood, body fluids, and minerals. It’s a good idea at this phase to eat healthy fats to support estrogen with omega rich foods like seeds, nuts, yams, and fish. Both very low and high levels of body fat are associated with low estradiol levels. My teacher used to say ‘fat is the house of estrogen.’ As estrogen increases and we feel more creative and productive, it will be less of a struggle to get out there and do our thing. We can focus at this time on building up the blood. Red meat is the quickest way to do that. But dark red foods like beets and cherries are also beneficial if red meat is not your thing.

Stress Disrupts Hormones

Here’s the thing - even if our diet is perfectly balanced to support healthy hormones, life stressors can disrupt hormone balance. If we are living a life of constant fight or flight mode, or we are constantly allowing our mental dialogue to be full of angry or anxious thoughts, our pituitary gland is listening, and will respond in accordance. If your body receives the message that you are too stressed out for pregnancy, you will not ovulate, and healthy levels of progesterone won’t be produced. So, not only does physical health require attention to diet, it demands that we pay attention to our mental well being. One thing I learned is how negatively I’m affected by watching the news. Listening to experts discuss the uncertainty, anxiety, and mess of the current world while I feel hopeless to change it stopped making sense to me. Instead, I spend a little time catching up on reading the news but I don’t let myself dive into rabbit holes with it. Also, I carve out time every day, even if it’s ten minutes, to do a breathing exercise or a restorative pose so my nervous system can restore. We cannot control all stressors of life, but we can pay attention to the ways that we can limit them or the ways we might exacerbate them.

I realize that this unlocking of the migraine solution is complicated and an arduous task. But if you are like me and you want a lasting solution that gets to the root cause and doesn’t burden you with other health problems as a side effect, it is worth our best effort. It’s a gift to get to know your body well and understanding what keeps it balanced - a varied diet that supports gut health, watching and limiting triggers, finding good supplements if you are deficient in vitamins and minerals, and making time to relax the nervous system or get some movement therapy, and rest without guilt as much as possible. Sometimes life doesn’t allow for all of this, but It can be a very empowering experience to get healthy and I wish it for everyone.

Eastern Medicine, CoVid Anxiety, and Immune Health

by Nancy Allen, LAc.

Every person I have treated since the pandemic, whether a teenager or an octogenarian, has significant levels of daily anxiety. It manifests through restless sleep or lack thereof, agitation, palpitations, headaches, chest tightness, etc. Along with this anxiety comes a sense of helplessness. Understandable, as there has been an ongoing storm of uncertainties. Official guidelines have consistently been unclear and changing week to week. The most clear message has been just to wash hands often and to stay home. As hospitals were overwhelmed, people were told to only seek treatment for Covid infection if there was shortness of breath. By the time patients were admitted to hospitals, their infection had progressed to critical levels. In New York City, nearly 90% of patients put on ventilators died. The public watched in horror and with crippling anxiety with no guidance from epidemiologists nor MD’s about how to strengthen our immune systems for prevention. 

In the spirit of helpfulness, early in the pandemic, I posted some herbal tips to boost immune strength on social media and someone commented that I was recklessly sharing dangerous ideas unless I could prove myself with links to studies. I had not anticipated that people would doubt our bodies’ ability to prevent sickness though nutrition and herbs. Well, here is one study showing the immunomodulating effects of twelve herbs. Here is another that showed Eastern Medicine is effective in reducing the progression of mild and moderate COVID-19 to severe disease. There are many more, and even biomedicine is now suggesting that Vitamin D plays a role in preventing severe viral infection.

At the beginning of March, as Italy was experiencing its first wave of the CoVid pandemic, I remember wishing that Eastern medicine would finally become more available and more respected. After all, it has thousands of years of history in treating viral pandemics. Certain herbs have been proven to have immunomodulating effects. For example, Jin Yin Hua, or Flos Lonicerae Japonicae and Lian Xiao or Fructus Forsythiae have been shown to block the binding of Ace 2 receptors. There are herbs for prevention that strengthen the lung, anti-viral herbs that speed up healing and prevent viral replication and disease progression, herbs that prevent cytokine storms, and there are herbs that speed up and boost recovery. Biomedicine has not yet embraced herbal treatment, media portrayal of Eastern herbal medicine is often negative, and the public remains largely unaware of its benefits.

My aim is not to try to claim one lineage of medicine is superior to another. My wish is that Western and Eastern Medicine would join forces. However, it is difficult for Eastern medicine (which tailors and modifies treatment to each individual) to fit into a double blind model to prove efficacy. Five people with the same Western disease diagnosis would get five different treatments of acupuncture and herbs by an Eastern medical practitioner because each person presents with their own individual pattern which influences the way that a disease manifests. How do we fit such tailored treatment strategy into an evidence-based model with a control group? This is an ongoing challenge for Eastern medicine, but in the meantime, its practitioners are aware of its efficacy and have been helping patients prevent, treat, and recover.

The antidote to CoVid anxiety is to get empowered about our own well-being. If our immune systems are strong, disease will likely not progress to critical stages. We have more choices besides only keeping our hands sanitized and wearing masks (which of course we should do when the evidence undeniably points to aerosol transmission). Prevention of Covid or any viral infection should also include ways to strengthen immune function, and there are practical ways to do so through the food we choose (less sugar and more nutrients), the lifestyle we live (regular sleep, rest, and exercise), and the supplements/ vitamins/ herbs we can take. Vitamins A, C, and D are important for healthy immune function. Talk to an Eastern medicine practitioner about herbs for prevention, treatment, and recovery.

How to Beat Cold and Flu Season Naturally

Two winters ago, I got the dreaded strep throat - painful swallowing, white goop in the back of the throat, vomiting and headache. The predominant message concerning strep bacteria is that it is dangerous, can lead to rheumatic fever and heart valve complications, and that one should quickly take antibiotics. 

I did go straight away to the doctor and took what was prescribed - Amoxicillin - the most widely used treatment for strep. By day three, my entire body broke out in unbearably itchy welts. I went straight to the ER where the doctor looked at me cross eyed when I suggested it was a drug reaction. She prescribed me steroids for the hives, which did nothing except keep me awake half the night. 

I threw out the pills and turned to Eastern Medicine, which offers many formulas that can kill viruses and bacteria effectively at specific stages of disease, and have been used for centuries. I found, through a certified herbalist, a modification of a centuries old formula called Chuan Xin Lian. Within hours, I was feeling better. Sore throat diminished immediately and hives dissipated. This story is not to say Eastern Medicine trumps Western. It is also not to say that one should never take antibiotics. If I were diagnosed with early stage Lyme’s Disease, I would probably take Doxycycline. What this story is meant to illustrate is that sometimes you can find better solutions than antibiotics. 

By now, most people are aware that antibiotics should only be taken when necessary and that overprescription has led to antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. But most people are not aware of just how many alternatives there are in the form of whole foods, herbs, and tinctures.

Antibiotic medications wipe out harmful as well as beneficial gut bacteria. Not only do we need beneficial gut bacteria for digestive function, it is the foundation of a healthy immune function. Many times I have treated patients who complain of frequent colds, bronchitis, and other infections, and discover that as a child they were given many rounds of antibiotics and their immune systems have never quite recovered. 

So how can we heal our gut from past antibiotic use and how can we build a healthy gut so that it is optimal for all functions, including immunity? 

1.  Eat mostly warm nourishing food.         

Eat a varied diet of foods, full of colors, and avoid too much cold and raw foods, iced drinks, juices, and cold smoothies that weaken digestive energy. Monkeys have much longer large intestinal tracts than humans because eating raw fruits requires a lot of digestive tract. We do not have the intestinal capacity to deal with excessive raw cold food. Your stomach appreciates warmth, and cooking food even a little bit will make it way more easy to absorb. Juicing may seem to give a boost of energy, but that is due to the glycemic spike in blood. The byproduct of juicing is a weakened digestive fire, and phlegm accumulation. Sometimes that manifests as allergies, skin problems, aching joints, and tendency toward bacterial infections.

2. Eat prebiotic foods.

Prebiotics are undigestible plant fibers that probiotics consume in your intestinal tract. They increase the population of friendly bacteria and block the growth of harmful bacteria. There is basically a perpetual battle going on in your body between good and bad bacteria. You feel better when the good guys are winning. Here are some examples of prebiotic foods to consume:

Garlic, onions, dandelion greens, asparagus, jicama root, oats, barley, jerusalem artichoke, leeks, apples, cocoa, burdock root, flax seeds, seaweed, radishes, coconut meat.

3. Eat foods or make teas that are naturally antibiotic.

These include oregano, thyme, garlic, ginger, pau d'arco (can find in tea form at any health store), echinacea, manuka honey, horseradish, cinnamon, onions, grapefruit seed extract, eucalyptus, cumin, olive leaf, apple cider vinegar, turmeric, cabbage, fermented foods (not including beer and wine, unfortunately).

4. Avoid these mucous forming foods that aid harmful bacteria:

The following are foods that are hospitable to bad bacteria like E. Coli, and that create phlegm and mucous throughout the respiratory tract and the joints. They make you foggy, fatigued, and prone to runny noses or skin irritations or an achy body:

Sugar, Alcohol, Dairy (including yogurt), Processed / chemical foods, Fried and greasy food

5. Cook at home often. 

I know you’re busy, but try to get into the habit of making your own fresh food. Who knows what is hiding in your take out food. Unless you eat at a restaurant that carefully sources their food, what you will get is low quality mass produced food with a long shelf life, high sodium, preservatives, and lots of sugar.

6. Stock up on immune supporting remedies.

At the first sign of a pathogen, try some immune strengthening herbs. Here are the ones I use and combine, and they often keep a virus away or shorten its duration. If you can find a Chinese herb shop, these formulas are always stocked.

Sore throat or post nasal drip - Standard Process Throat Spray or Chuan Xin Lian 

Feverishness and sore throat - Yin Qiao San

At first sign of a cold (sneezing, lethargy, runny nose, scratchy throat) - Olive Leaf Extract, Echinacea / Goldenseal tincture

Chills or upset stomach - Ginger tincture or fresh ginger root tea

Stomach Flu - Huo Xiang Zheng Qi Tang

May you have a healthy Fall and Winter.

What Should I Feed My Kids?

What Should I Feed My Kids?  Eastern Medicine’s Perspective

by Nancy Allen, LAc.

About a week ago, I sat on the subway with my six year old boy and watched in agony as a little girl about his age sat across from us and vacuumed an entire roll of bubble gum tape into her mouth in one continuous chomp. The adult next to her didn’t seem to notice. Here is what her poor little organs had to deal with in that two minutes: 42 grams of sugar (!), Gum Base, Corn Syrup, Glycerol, Artificial Flavors, Corn Starch, Acesulfame K, Aspartame, BHT, Red number 40 (a known carcinogen), and last but not least - Phenylalanine (associated with seizures, anxiety, and sleep disorders). Hopefully, she consumed some water and some real food that day to help her body deal with all of that, although I assume it wasn’t the only ‘treat’ she had that day.

Kids love sugar and they always ask for it. It’s a wonderful feeling to give them a treat, but often we give them poison without a second thought. When I was a kid, I ate buckets and buckets of sugar and fake stuff - Kool Aid, Tang (mysterious orange powder drink), M&M’s, Snickers, Nerds, vending machine pastries that may have been shelved for months. I could fill this whole page with examples. The result was that I constantly had a runny nose. You could never find me without a tissue in my hand. My friends had a phrase, “bless you infinity” so they wouldn’t have to keep blessing my sneezes, and hives popped up all over my body on select lucky days. 

At age 9, I went for an allergy test where the nurse injected three rows of six allergens into my arm to see what I would react to. All of the bumps swelled up into one mass of red itchiness. I was allergic to everything, they concluded. After two months of weekly shots and no improvement, I asked the nurse how long I would have to continue. No joke, she frankly replied, “forever" and I never went back.

It was not until decades later, when I studied Eastern Medicine’s understanding of nutrition, I finally realized that the milk with my cereal, and the sugary cold orange juice I was having every morning were exactly the worst breakfast I could have had and that my diet of sugary, toxic, mucous causing food was the reason I felt lousy all the time. When I changed my diet, my allergies vanished.

According to Eastern Medicine, children’s digestive systems are naturally deficient. When the digestive energy is weak, then phlegm and dampness form as a byproduct. What does the digestive system find hard to process? Cold, sweet food and drinks, and processed food. Cold food includes raw food. Yes, raw food contains more enzymes, but our digestive energy has to take everything we consume, bring it to temperature, and then convert it into nutrients. Think of it as a fire pit in your belly. Pouring juice onto the fire pit may give you an energy boost from the sugar and vitamins, but it puts out the fire and your body will have less energy to process what you consume. 

Sugar and dairy readily create mucous even in adult bodies, but more so in a developing digestive system. What do we feed our kids? Ice cream, candy, pizza, juice, and highly processed food like hot dogs and boxed macaroni and cheese. The result is not only phlegm forming in their body and often taking up residence in the respiratory system, it is an overall compromised immune system, since the immune system gets its strength from the health of the gut. The lining of the digestive tract contains immune cells. Kids with a weakened gut will end up suffering from frequent colds, asthma, allergies, skin conditions like eczema, and when they get sick, their mucous sticks around for weeks. 

Countless times I have heard parents complain, “Well the cold is gone, but the phlegm will not go away” as the child munches on a cupcake and juice. The food we give them is almost always sweet, sugary, milky and cold. It’s what they enjoy and crave, but it’s what damages their digestive and respiratory health the most.

So what should I feed my kid, you ask? Number one - feed them real food. You never need to go to the canned food aisle or the frozen food section. If you’re busy and you don’t have a lot to spend, you can still make it work. Eating healthy doesn’t have to be expensive. Cooking black beans from scratch costs about $5 to feed four people. For some healthy, kid friendly recipes, Wellness Mama has great ideas. 

To counterbalance a kid’s weak digestive system, feed them mostly warm, tasty, easy to digest foods. Soups and stews will keep them strong. The following foods are especially good at dispelling mucous: onion, cinnamon, ginger, scallion, basil, rosemary, dill, oregano, sage, parsley, cardamom, nutmeg, fennel, anise, clove, coriander, leek, chives, aduki beans, rye, celery, lettuce, alfalfa, turnips, and raw honey.

If they have been exposed to antibiotics and have a weakened immune system, try giving them a daily children’s probiotic, or if they will eat fermented food like sauerkraut, that will be even more effective to boost gut flora. When I look at pictures of myself from childhood, I almost always see a grumpy little face. Kids are grumpy when they don’t feel well. Healthy kids make a happier family.

Does Acupuncture Work?

I have been asked this question countless times. What I would often like to do is give a sarcastic response. 'Well I don't know but I figure since I spent all that time and money getting my degree and license, I just keep at it.' Instead I say something like, "In my clinical experience, yes, it works." People usually try acupuncture after they have tried everything else. And they almost always leave pleasantly surprised.
Acupuncture has been around for thousands of years. Teachers have passed on their skill, their lineage, and their clinical wisdom to their students. If it didn't work, I imagine somewhere in all those years, clinicians would have realized it didn't work and they would have tried something else. People everywhere exclaim yes, acupuncture works, despite biomedicine's scientific double-blind tests' inability to grant acupuncture the clinical respect it deserves. 
How does it work? It moves stagnation out of excess areas of your body, and directs energy to places that are deficient, and it stimulates your body to heal itself. (fMRI study of how acupuncture stimulates the limbic system of the brain). Therefore, it can treat just about anything. People often come to acupuncture for one major complaint and find that a handful of other complaints improve.

Western medical language doesn't deal with Qi and meridians. In order to get a picture of how acupuncture works, one has to be open to learning a whole new view of the body. Our Western view of the body is as a machine with disparate parts. There are systems that work independently and there are layers of muscle, tissue, bone, fluids, and blood. 

Acupuncture's view of the body takes all of that into account but also sees the subtle levels. It sees the body less as a machine and more like a network of rivers, channels, estuaries of flowing and stagnating energy. Each part is connected to another and to the whole. The individual is also connected and influenced by nature and the world - microcosm and macrocosm. Bringing a person to health means balancing all of these influences as they exist uniquely in each body.

A couple weeks ago, I was treating an MD and he remarked that he would never have given acupuncture a try if his wife hadn't forced him. I replied with a laugh that it was funny because I avoid western docs unless I feel like I'm dying. Luckily, he laughed too. I certainly respect Western Medicine, but taking a pill to mask a pain while causing a host of other problems doesn't appeal to me or many other folks. I would rather get to the root of the illness, if I can.

A good acupuncturist will not only needle you, they will give you a diagnosis that you can understand and advise you on how to best nurture yourself. If we incorporate acupuncture and the wisdom of Eastern medicine into our lives, we can certainly keep the doctor away. :)
 

Cupping

If you're afraid of needles but curious about Eastern Medicine, perhaps you should try cupping. Practitioners use glass cups to create a suctioning effect by lighting the inside of the cups with fire and quickly applying the cup to acu points. The cups can either remain on the points or can be applied on lubricated skin and moved along the skin gently (sliding cupping) which is particularly effective for loosening painful muscles. The vacuum effect that is created by the fire draws pathogens from deep in the body out to the surface to be more readily circulated and eliminated. 

The earliest known records of cupping come from an Egyptian text in hieroglyphics in the Ebers Papyrus, the oldest medical textbook known, from 1550 BC. In it, cupping is used for treating fever, pain, vertigo, and menstrual imbalances. The history of Chinese cupping dates back to the year 281 AD, where it was described in a medical text called The Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies. The text was written by Ge Hong, a renowned herbalist and accomplished healer. During the Tang Dynasty, cupping was used as the main treatment for tuberculosis, and still today acupuncturists often use cupping to treat coughs and colds. 
 

Stay Strong in the Cold Months

In Classical Eastern Medicine, living healthfully meant harmonizing with the seasons. The cold months signaled time to slow down and rest. But New Yorkers tend to work even more in the winter months and pile on top of it holiday stress and sugar binging amidst a flourishing of cold and flu viruses.
Here are some helpful suggestions for keeping your body healthy and strong between acupuncture treatments:

1. Warm Foods
Putting cold drinks, smoothies, juices and salads into your belly, although they may be nutrient dense, will deplete your digestive energy, just like pouring cold water onto a fire. Depending on your constitution, this either immediately or eventually leads to more sluggish energy overall and more internal dampness in the form of weight gain or respiratory mucous. 
Besides cooking your food, choose foods that are warming. In general, the longer a vegetable takes to grow, the more warming it is internally. This is why root vegetables are such a good winter and fall choice.

2. Supplement
This is a good time to regularly boost your immune system. Some helpful daily immune supplements are Vitamin D, probiotics, Reishi Mushroom, and Elderberry.

3. Restore
Even if you are working a 14 hour day, you can find ten to fifteen minutes to lie down in a restorative pose and breathe mindfully to let your body realign and get out of fight or flight mode.
Try lying down on your back with your calves resting on a chair or couch or low bed. Stay there breathing slowly and fully until you have completely relaxed. 

4. Acupuncture
Research shows that acupuncture helps regulate the autonomic nervous system and is effective in boosting immunity.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17265549