Sun Simiao was a celebrated Daoist priest and a Chinese medical doctor in 7th century China who wrote a treatise on Nourishing Life. In this work, he outlined the practices vital to living a long and healthy life.

The four pillars for nourishing life according to the wisdom of Sun Simiao are:

1. Maintaining a calm mind or emotional state
2. Eating a healthy diet
3. Getting appropriate rest
4. Getting regular exercise

Of course, this is a very modern interpretation of Sun Simiao’s words based mainly on two lectures given at the University of Lincoln by Peter Deadman who is currently writing a book on Chinese health preservation methods.

Today I will briefly outline each of these pillars and then follow on in the next few weeks with a more in-depth treatment of each of them in turn.

The first pillar is peace of mind.

The power of our mind is truly astonishing. We only have to think back to the last time we were angry or upset to see how our mental state affects our body. We are the only beings on earth that can recreate an event mentally and feel the effects physically, lucky us, eh? You don’t see dogs stressing out about the last time you told them off, do you?

Chinese wisdom tells us that we should avoid excesses of emotion on either side of the scale – both positive and negative emotions in excess are equally damaging to our mental, as well as physical health.

There is a long Daoist tradition of mental training focused on developing the ability to maintain a consistently balanced state of mind whatever the situation. This training consists of meditation and chi kung exercises used by those seeking greater mental discipline. Taming the monkey mind that swings from one thought to the next in a never-ending mental jungle is no casual endeavor.

The second pillar is eating a healthy diet.

Let food be your medicine is a well-known proverb, but for many of us food is our poison. Sun Simiao was an advocate of good nutrition, having noted that many diseases were curable by consuming the proper foods and that diseases could be caused by eating food that was uncooked, unclean, or poisonous, or by overeating or not chewing one’s food well.

Chinese medicine also has a whole area devoted to the energetic properties of food. And much of it is based on the common sense premise that our stomach is like a cooking pot designed to make a stew of what we eat and break it down until it is easily accessed by our system. Understanding some basics of the way food operates in our system will help us to make better choices in how and what we eat. I recommend Daverick Leggett’s book Recipes in Self-Healing for those with a deep interest in this subject of food energetics.

The third pillar is getting sufficient rest

I am very often amazed at the level of activity that some of my friends and acquaintances maintain with punishing work schedules and extensive social commitments. Often people just need more rest and then they would feel so much better. A good night’s sleep is powerful medicine.

And yet it is the high levels of activity that often makes sleep elusive as the mind cannot relax and turn off after being wound so tightly all day for days or months or even years on end. Insomnia is a terrible curse and blights many people’s lives as they are denied the sleep they so desperately need.

Equally unhealthy is too much rest, we are meant to be up in the morning when the sun is up and sleep with the drawing in of the night. Following the rhythms of nature is a basic primer for nourishing life in the Chinese tradition.

The fourth pillar is getting regular exercise

Sun Simiao said, “running water is never stale and a door hinge does not become worm-eaten because they never stop moving.” Regular exercise is something we all know is important for maintaining our health. “Use it or lose it” is a favorite saying of mine. I often do cartwheels just to make sure I haven’t lost that particularly joyful ability. And I know the next day if my level of exercise is not currently up to snuff if I am sore in odd places from my cartwheel, it is kind of my fitness litmus test.

Exercise and moving these wonderful bodies of ours should be a joy, not a pain. I think it is the REGULAR bit of the regular exercise, that is the hardest part, but anyone who does stick at his or her chosen exercise is richly rewarded. Exercise doesn’t have to be hard or sweat inducing (we’ll address that in the longer post) but it does have to be regular and take your joints through a good level of movement. Tai chi is a particular passion of mine and it has been the subject of no small amount of recent research, which shows that even gentle exercise is sufficient for maintaining muscular strength, flexibility and also, somewhat surprisingly, cardiovascular fitness. The no pain equals no gain mentality towards exercise is often inappropriate, especially as we age.

To finish I will add this quote:

“It is man himself, not Heaven, who governs his life, and he who abuses himself dies young, while he who takes good care of himself enjoys a long life”. Gao Lian, Ming dynasty. Quoted in Preservation and Rehabilitation, Zhang Enqin ed., Publishing House of Shanghai College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 1998.

I was sitting quietly awaiting my next client with the window open when I overheard someone obviously reading my sign at street level exclaim “ What the **** is ear candling?”

Fair enough, it is an odd sort of thing, the idea of sticking a candle in someone’s ear. So I thought I would explain what ear candling is and what it is not.

Ear candling is also referred to as thermo-auricular therapy or Hopi ear candling. It is a folk medicine remedy with its roots as an ancient American Indian rite used for spiritual purification. It involves a pair of hollow candles made from a cylinder of wax-coated fabric. The candles are then placed into the ear canals and burned down to suck out impurities.

When I did my certification course I was taught to open the candle to see how it had burned. Clients would then be shown the inside of the candle, which would be full of dark wax, an impressive thing if all that disgusting stuff had been in your ear. But I once burned an ear candle firmly held to my palm, just to see what I felt and what the candle looked like inside afterwards. When placed on my clean hand, the candle insides looked just like they did when placed in someone’s ear. That is when I stopped showing my clients the inside of the candles.

Ear candling does NOT remove wax from the ear canal. And it can be dangerous if cheap candles are used which have no filter and/or are too crudely made with too much beeswax. ENT specialists tell tales of wax from candles burning and puncturing eardrums, so they are not fans of this procedure.

But it is not dangerous IF the therapist uses Otosan candles, which are a certified medical device (which, of course, are what I use). They do not drip wax and are self-extinguishing. They have a small filter in the base that allows air, but nothing else in and out of the ear canal. In the hands of a professional, ear candling is perfectly safe, but now we must ask is it effective?

All the therapies in my clinic are preventative medicine and maintenance. If you go for a swim or a plane ride and get that bunged up feeling that just won’t go away then ear candling is just the ticket. If you have a raging ear infection, then please see your GP.

Ear candling stimulates the wax producing glands of the ear canal with gentle heat, which also softens existing wax. This supports your body’s natural ear cleansing mechanics to do their job. Excess dampness which can become a breeding ground for infection is cleared. And it creates a very gentle vacuum that vibrates the eardrum, like a massage for the inner ear.

As part of this treatment, I do a sinus drainage massage which covers the outer ear, around the ear and down the neck. Together with the candling this treatment brings a deep sense of relaxation and ease to this often neglected area of the body. It feels wonderful and does leave you feeling quite clear-headed, so perhaps those Hopi Indians were onto something after all.

And although it pains me to point it out, please do not try this on yourself as there is one recorded death as the result of ear candling. The relaxing nature of the therapy was deadly for the sorry person who fell asleep with the candle in her ear and set the bed on fire. A Darwin award….

Hooray!  Here it is the blog I’ve been intending to start for ages. I am a natural enthusiast,  so here is my forum to share my passion for holistic health practices from Ahhh! to Zhixing.

As an acupuncturist in my last year of a BSc at the University of Lincoln, I find myself in an exciting period of discovery.  My work as a complementary therapist has changed dramatically as I have found a satisfactory context for what had been up until recently a fairly fragmented clinical practice doing various massage modalities, reflexology, EFT, and ear candling. The breathtaking elegance of the Traditional Chinese medicine practice connects the dots between the diverse complementary therapies that I have studied and practiced over the years.

I have travelled the world and experienced massages in Thailand, acupuncture in Japan, reflexology in San Franciso’s Chinatown, qigong in a Taoist temple and tai chi chuan with Master Yang in Seattle. I love to learn and experience new techniques, treatments and exercises, so now I’ll have an even better excuse to try them. It’s for my blog readership, you see…

I have watched from the sidelines for years admiring Steve Pavlina and Eric Grey whose well-written blogs are the gold standard to which I aspire. I’m feeling courageous, but slightly hesitant about putting my views forward. I have nothing new or particularly interesting to say, but I just want to be part of the conversation and this is my hat in the ring, albeit a very tiny hat in a very large ring.