UPDATE: I am fully vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19, because protecting you matters.

I will continue to wear a mask and ask that you do the same, regardless of vaccination status.

Please put on a mask before you enter the building. To protect yourself the most, choose an N-95 respirator and be sure to fit check it. Not every style fits every face. You must have a tight seal with no air leaking around the mask for it to be effective in protecting you. Here is a link to a useful video about how to wear and fit test an N-95 properly: https://youtu.be/CoSb-HJJ5tk

As usual, I will be sanitizing all frequent touch-surfaces in the office after every patient.

There will be a minimum 15 minute buffer between each patient appointment.

Thank your for your consideration in following these guidelines.

Keep staying safe and well.

Looking out the window of my acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine clinic in Dallas, Texas, it is clear that it is November: the leaves are turning and the sky is overcast. I felt like this was a good time for this article, as we are in the midst of a holiday season which is known for the food!

One thing to keep at the forefront of mind is that the food industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. There is a lot of money being spent to convince you that a certain processed food product is better for you than another food – and it may not be true.

If you have studied western nutrition (in my Masters Degree program – a Masters of Traditional Oriental Medicine - we were required to complete both western and Chinese medical nutrition classes), you will know that western medical ideas about healthy eating can change every couple of years – it’s no wonder it can be confusing.

There are a handful of overarching ideas that can be really helpful when you’re trying to figure out how and what to eat.

1. Avoid highly processed or “ultra-processed” foods. Check out the ingredients label. If the food doesn’t have a label at all, it’s probably not highly processed. For instance, a raw head of broccoli is not highly processed, but a can of soup may be. Take a look at the ingredients. If there are things in there that you won’t commonly find in someone’s kitchen pantry, it’s probably highly processed, and best avoided. Make sure you check out any non-dairy “creamers” you use in your daily coffee! Here’s a helpful article from Harvard: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/what-are-ultra-processed-foods-and-are-they-bad-for-our-health-2020010918605

2. Eat the widest variety of whole foods you can. This means rather that eating the same foods everyday, mix it up. Try new things. Even adding a pinch of an herb or spice to your dish can benefit your gut microbiome, and thus your overall health.

3. Get the minimum requirement of fiber – from foods, not supplements. The recommended amounts are 35 grams per day for men, and 25 grams per day for women.

Very few people I see in my Dallas acupuncture clinic are getting enough fiber regularly, and fiber can have a big impact on your health. From helping to reduce unhealthy cholesterol levels to stabilizing blood sugar to helping you feel more full while eating less, fiber is a powerhouse. A great tool to help you track your fiber is an online food journal app. You’ll start to learn which foods are higher in fiber than others, and you can then incorporate more of those in your diet. Admittedly, using a food logging app can be labor intensive, but my favorite one, MyFitnessPal (it’s free! www.myfitnesspal.com) saves your foods, meals, and even recipes, so the more you use it the easier it is to log foods. As an aside, I would not recommend using the calorie estimator on this app for weight loss goals. It tends to estimate fewer calories than people need to be healthy. Please only use the app to log your foods, track your fiber, and maybe track your water!

4. Make your diet vegetable heavy. Always have the largest portion on your plate be the veggies.

5. Include seeds, nuts, legumes, whole grains, lots of veggies, some fruit, and a little fish, meat and egg if you choose to eat those foods.

6. Make sure you are drinking plenty of pure water. A nice way to ballpark a good amount for yourself is to divide your weight in half, and drink that number in ounces of water. For example, someone who weighs 120 pounds could drink 60 ounces of pure water per day. I say pure water because this number does not include other beverages like coffee, tea, sodas, etc. I suggest people keep their maximum water intake to 100 ounces per day, so if you are over 200 pounds, just stick to 100 ounces of water per day.

7. Here in Dallas, in part because of the “southern diet” (heavy on dairy, margarine or butter, sauces, white flours, fried foods, red meat, sugar, sodas and sometimes alcohol) and in part because our weather is somewhat humid, we can have the tendency to accumulate what acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine calls a Pathogenic Dampness. Because of this, for many locals, limiting sugar and sweets, greasy fried foods, alcohol and dairy products can be beneficial (especially if you have chronic nasal congestion, cough, and phlegm). If you’re curious, try eliminating these foods and see how you feel after a couple of weeks.

Fun fact: Did you know that acupuncture can help with sugar cravings? And that acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine can be helpful in resolving congestion and coughs?

I hope you have a wonderful fall here in Dallas – and let acupuncture and Chinese Medicine support you in achieving your wellness goals!

Hello and happy weird Dallas, Texas fall!

Who knew it would suddenly be winter and then warm again! Thankfully my confused plants seem to have survived it so far.

One important note for this season: don’t lose your FSA/HSA funds! There are less than two months to use them for this year – and remember that you can use them for acupuncture! Schedule an appointment for a seasonal tune up (get your qi ready for fall), a stress-relief session (as some holidays approach), or to treat any minor ailments (before they become major).

In the theory of acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, fall is associated with the Metal element, including the organ system of the Lung - which encompasses many things other than how the “lung” is defined in modern biomedicine (this is why one is written capitalized and one is lower-case). Some related aspects of this element are the skin, the nose, and the emotion of grief.

Not surprising, then, are some symptoms that often show up in this season like drier skin, allergies, sinus headaches and colds! Traditional Chinese Medicine can be very effective for treating allergies, headaches, and preventing colds, so if you tend to suffer from them, consider addressing them with acupuncture and a customized Chinese herbal formula. Earlier is better, for prevention!

As the trees wither and leaves fall, it is not surprising that we may be closer to any feelings of loss. Know that acupuncture can be very supportive in helping our emotions and moods move smoothly and appropriately – helping us respond well and keeping us from getting stuck in one feeling or mood.

Another aspect of the Metal element is the part of the system called the Po, which includes the ability to perform good self-care. Maybe part of your self-care this season is including acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine?

To support your skin and overall health, make sure you are drinking plenty of water. Often when the weather changes from hot to cool, we tend to consume less water, so remember to be intentional about holding steady or increasing the amount we’re taking in.

You might also consider adding a breathing exercise into your routine this season. Acupuncture/Traditional Chinese Medicine has incorporated breath work in its system for thousands of years, and it is exciting to see Western biomedical thought and research starting to catch up with what ancient people knew all along! If you are not too congested, try to focus on breathing mainly through your nose throughout the day. One practice I like to recommend is the following:

This practice calls for filling your lungs about halfway. Unlike many breathing exercises, this one does not ask you to fill your lungs fully, using all the accessory breathing muscles, but just going to about halfway full. To do this exercise, inhale to a count of six full seconds (the time it takes to mentally count “one-one thousand” is about one second), filling the lungs about halfway, and then immediately exhale to a count of six full seconds. You don’t need to hold the breath at all – just let the out-breath come right after the in-breath, and vise versa. If your sinuses are clear, breathe in and out through your nose. If you are congested or cannot breathe freely through your nose, then it is fine to breathe through your mouth. Consider practicing this for 5 minutes twice per day for two weeks, and noting any differences you notice. Maybe you’re responding to stressors better. Maybe you fall asleep a little faster. Maybe you just have an increased sense of ease in your day, and you note yourself breathing more smoothly. Just observe and note your experience. If you want, you can increase your practice time up to 20 minutes twice per day - but remember - some is always better than none, so if you only can fit five minutes of practice into your day, you are still doing something wonderful for yourself!

I hope these suggestions help you move through this season feeling contented and well.

Wishing you all the best,

Elijah

covers acupuncture for the treatment of chronic lower back pain.

While this is true, there are still some major hurdles standing
between you, your Medicare coverage, and your Licensed Acupuncturist.

Here’s a brief explanation:

The ruling, as it stands, means that Licensed Acupuncturists
can deliver acupuncture services, but that the services can only be billed to
Medicare through another professional who is already recognized as a “Provider”
by Medicare, such as a Medical Doctor (MD). While Medicare recognizes Licensed
Acupuncturists - such as yours truly - as fully trained and qualified to
deliver acupuncture to patients, we (Licensed Acupuncturists) are not yet
recognized as “Providers” by Medicare. So in simple terms, unless you are
seeing a Licensed Acupuncturist who works in a large healthcare system where
services can be billed under the license of a Medical Doctor (such as the
Integrated Pain Healing Center at Parkland Health in Dallas, Texas, where I
helped to set up the acupuncture program), the services cannot, at this time,
be covered by Medicare.

As I am learning in my Doctoral program (I have one more
week in Healthcare Systems class) changes in healthcare happen incrementally in
this country, and the law that passed allowing Medicare to cover acupuncture
for chronic low back pain was only the first step in the long journey to ensure
that Medicare patients can actually get their acupuncture services covered.

However, there is good news on the horizon!

Earlier in 2023, a bipartisan bill was introduced into
Congress that would specifically achieve the goal of granting Licensed
Acupuncturists the status of Medicare Providers. If this bill passes, it would
mean that Licensed Acupuncturists in private practice (which, to be honest, is
most of us) would be able to become credentialed with Medicare and bill them
for acupuncture services. It would increase access to acupuncture treatments for
a large swath of older Americans. This bill is called the Acupuncture for Our
Seniors Act of 2023 (HR 3133).

You may be asking (I hope you are asking!), “What can I do
to help insure older Americans have access to acupuncture through Medicare?”
I’m so glad you asked! You can call or email your Congressperson today and ask
them to co-sponsor and support the Acupuncture for Our Seniors Act, which is HR
3133.

Don’t know who your Congressional representative is? You can
go to https://www.house.gov/ and look in
the upper right hand corner of the page; you’ll see “Find Your Representative”
and a text box in which to enter your zip code. You may need to enter your complete zip code
including the 4 digit add-on, for a total of 9 numbers. Once you find your
representative, their contact information will be displayed on the page. Please
let Congress know this issue is important to you, and tell them why. If all of
us work together, we can get this bill passed – and it’s as easy as sending an
email or making a phone call.

Here’s a sample script:

“Hello, my name is _______________ and I am your
constituent. I am calling/emailing to ask you to please co-sponsor and support
HR 3133, the Acupuncture for Our Seniors Act of 2023. If passed, this
legislation will allow American seniors greater access to non-opioid treatment for chronic pain through Medicare. Thank you.”

Thank you in advance for your help, on behalf of the
acupuncture community and older Americans! Let’s get this done!

eaten like a cereal. Rolled oats and some type of liquid (nut or soy milk,
dairy milk or yogurt – although I’d suggest nut or soy and I’ll explain why
later in the article) are the two foundation ingredients. Combine them, and
then let your imagination, your taste buds and your pantry guide you toward a
realm of delicious and healthy additions.

My first experience with muesli was eating it at my grandmother’s
house when I was a young child, and I’ve recently incorporated it back into my diet
here in Dallas,
recognizing it as a heart healthy powerhouse. Also, from an acupuncture theory
perspective, it is a food that is considered nourishing to the Qi. Qi, in
acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, is the energy of the body that is
responsible for all its functions, so making sure we nourish and build our Qi
in every way we can - and our diet is one of the best ways - is important to
our health and longevity.

Muesli is quick and easy to prepare, which makes it a great
addition to a weekly meal-prep regimen, as you can combine the dry ingredients
in small containers for the week, carry one with you in your work- or
school-bag, and add your liquid of choice right before eating. If you like the
oats to be softer, you can still prep the dry ingredients in advance, but
combine them and your liquid in a thermos either the night before, or in the
morning to let the oats soften before you eat them.

What makes muesli heart-healthy? We know that oats can be
helpful in reducing blood cholesterol, and as previously mentioned, raw rolled
oats are the foundation ingredient of muesli. I like to add oat bran to mine to
increase the amount of that healthy soluble fiber.

My current favorite way to make muesli is to put a third to
a half of a cup of rolled oats into a bowl with a tablespoon of oat bran. I add
a little water, just to wet them, and then add about a half of a cup of
unsweetened soy milk (EdenSoy Unsweetened is my favorite brand, since it in
unsweetened and also has no additives at all – just soybeans and water). While
the oats and oat bran are softening in the liquid, I chop about a tablespoonful
of raw almonds and add them to the bowl. I also put in a tablespoon of hemp seeds
and a tablespoon of raisins. While I’m doing this prep, I often also set up a
number of small containers and add the same amounts of dry ingredients to them,
so that I can easily mix up a bowl on another day).

I would suggest choosing a soy or nut milk as your liquid.
Many of us in the west could stand to use less dairy, as in Traditional Chinese
Medicine we see it as being a culprit in creating what in our medicine is
called Phlegm (some of the symptoms of Phlegm could be nasal
congestion, sinus drainage, runny nose, productive cough, excess adiposity, or masses such as
lipomas and fibroids). Another culprit in the development of Phlegm is over use of
sugar and added sweeteners. This is why I suggest choosing an unsweetened soy
or nut milk (make sure to read the label, as most of the ones labeled
“Original” are still sweetened) and to let a small amount of fruit – the
raisins in this recipe - serve as the only sweetener. If you are used to eating
sugary foods, it may take some time for you to get used to this very mildly
sweet cereal, but it is worth it for your health.

To recap, here are the ingredients: rolled oats, oat bran, raw almonds, hemp seeds,
raisins, unsweetened soy milk. Mix, match, and enjoy!

I hope I’ve inspired you to experiment with eating some
muesli.

Guess what! I got recognized for an award here in Dallas for small businesses! You can read their press release at the bottom of this blog post.

It’s so nice to be recognized and to receive awards (any kind of award)! I got this notification regarding Dallas acupuncturists and small businesses in Dallas a few days ago and thought I’d share. It seems partially to be about marketing, which I find hilarious since I do next to no marketing whatsoever. I guess it was more about the “enhancing the positive image of small businesses through service to their customers and our community” part that got me noticed. And it is certainly a compliment to be noticed for those qualities in business. I can’t say it often enough: support small businesses! Your local corner market, farmers market, meat provider, dairies, bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants, clothiers, tailors, auto mechanics, appliance repair - we have lots of options of where to do business, and supporting a small independent business really helps our community overall, in more ways than we can count. For anything you need to do, I encourage you to explore and do some research to see if there is a local small business you could visit and shop from as opposed to a corporate owned store.

I am ever grateful to my lovely patients and the Dallas community for supporting my acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine practice for all these years (I’m in my 16th year of acupuncture practice in Dallas now - I can hardly believe it! Add to that the three years I spent as an intern in the grad school clinics and I’m at 19 years of treating patients)!

Thank you, thank you, Dallas community, for the recognition and the award!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hawken Acupuncture Receives 2020 Dallas Award

Dallas Award Program Honors the Achievement

DALLAS February 13, 2020—Hawken Acupuncture has been selected for the 2020 Dallas Award in the Local Business category by the Dallas Award Program.

Each year, the Dallas Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Dallas area a great place to live, work and play.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2020 Dallas Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Dallas Award Program and data provided by third parties.

About Dallas Award Program

The Dallas Award Program is an annual awards program honoring the achievements and accomplishments of local businesses throughout the Dallas area. Recognition is given to those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value.

The Dallas Award Program was established to recognize the best of local businesses in our community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to recognize the small business community’s contributions to the U.S. economy.

SOURCE: Dallas Award Program

– the beautiful, historic church building on Greenville Avenue at McCommas Ave.in Dallas.

It is happening this Saturday, October 5^th, from 11:00am to 6:00pm. I will be there from 11:00am until 2:00pm.

Their exact address is

Their website for more info is www.dallasunity.org

For those of you who attended one of my workshops when I led it in Dallas

: “Power and Passion: Cradling Our
Anger, Transforming Destructive Energy into Creative Power – a One Day
Retreat,” this is where it was
held. You may remember pictures of the
building on some of my flyers, or in the short intro video I made for the event.
It is an absolutely stunning space and worth going to the expo if only to see
it.

There will be a wide range of vendors there: from
acupuncture (me) to organic pet food! Come and see what your community has to
offer.

This year I will be offering free stress-relief group
acupuncture treatments at certain points during the day. The building is
currently being renovated, so all the health practitioners will be practicing
in the same room. Last year we had private rooms to work in at the event, and
hopefully next year we will be back to that.

One of my
favorite things about having a booth at a Health Expo is having the opportunity
to relax and just engage in conversation with a variety of people. Those of you
who have come to me in my acupuncture and Chinese medicine clinic in Dallas
know that during the course of a treatment, we spend a lot of time talking:
discussing your main reason for coming and any other concerns you might have,
and unearthing nitty gritty details about all your mind, body, and spirit
systems and symptoms. But during that conversation I am also thinking hard and
asking very specific questions that help lead me to the best way to treat you
from a Traditional Chinese medical perspective. Being at a health fair couldn’t
be more different. At a health expo I get to just hang out and socialize. Sure,
I talk a lot about acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine – I love how
fascinated people are with it. But I also get to meet other health care
professionals, some makers, and scores of people who are interested in learning
ways that they can be healthier and closer to the life they want. The last fair
I did I had really nice talks with a candle maker and a body-balm maker!

Last year at Unity’s Health Expo someone was there giving
out samples of kombucha to drink. I sure hope she’ll be back this year
(speaking of kombucha, a patient was surprised to hear that I had been brewing
my own kombucha since the mid-nineties. “Leave it to the weird kid who grew up
to be an herbalist,” I quipped).

In any case, this is all to say that if you’ve been a
patient of mine, I’d love for you to stop in and say “Hi.” If I haven’t met you
yet, please stop by and introduce yourself.

It’s Saturday, October 5^th, and I hope to see you
there.

Those of you who know me know that in addition to doing acupuncture, I really want to help you stay healthy and well, so here are some tips on sunscreen.

When shopping for a safe sunscreen, look for mineral active ingredients: titanium and zinc are a couple.

Because I can spend hours sweating on a summer bike ride, a sport sunblock is my preference. Basically what this means is when you are sweating hard enough that sweat is running into your eyes, this sunblock won’t burn.

My new favorite sunscreen is Badger Sport. Here is a link to their website for information: https://www.badgerbalm.com/s-29-about-badger-organic-sunscreen.aspx (I don’t get paid for this, I just really like their product, and like to help other people find good, safe products).

It goes on really smoothly and covers well, unlike some of the other natural sunscreen products.

For more info on safety in skin products and cosmetics, visit the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep website here: https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/

This is a great site that relies on your donations to provide you with clear information on cosmetic and skin product safety. Right now they are offering a free sun sampler box for any donation over $60 - if you get it and try them out, comment below and let me know YOUR favorite SAFE sun screen (nope, I don’t get paid for that either - just love their work)!

The recommended intake of fiber for adult women is 25 grams per day, for adult men it’s 35 grams per day. Most Americans are only getting a small percentage of this amount in their daily diet.

Fiber is especially important in the health of the colon itself, potentially helping to prevent the formation of diverticuli (easily infected pockets in the colon). It can also help to prevent constipation, and assist in appetite control.

To increase your fiber intake, please do not turn to a fiber supplement, unless you have no other option. Why? Most fiber supplements provide 4 grams of fiber - the same amount of fiber in one apple! If you simply add some high fiber foods to your diet, you also get the benefit of all the vitamins and minerals in the food, not simply a fiber supplement (often made of wood).

Committing to tracking your food intake can provide powerful insight into your diet. Tracking for a week (or longer) is great; even recording what you eat for as little as one weekday and one weekend day can give you useful information, and the advent of apps makes this extremely easy. My favorite food-tracking app is called My Fitness Pal. Since everyone who uses it can add information, it has a huge searchable database. This is both good and bad - it means you must exercise a bit of judgement in what you read, as some people are adding information without having researched it. For instance if you see a pint of ice cream listed as having 25 calories and 30 grams of fiber, it’s probably someone’s wishful thinking. But with some critical review, the app can give you a great deal of useful information.

I like to recommend that people use a food tracking system, even for a short time. I’ve found that many people simply aren’t familiar with the fiber content of foods, and can easily educate themselves by checking what they eat in a food database. For instance, most people believe that salad contains a lot of fiber, yet one cup of shredded lettuce only contains 0.5 grams.

Always stick to whole foods: vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and legumes - don’t turn to boxed cereals, as, like fiber supplements, these are limited in the amount of vitamins and minerals they provide, and .often contain added sugars and other unhealthy ingredients.

Be sure to drink plenty of fresh, pure water as you increase your fiber intake. This will help to insure that everything moves easily through your digestive system.

Here are a few high fiber food suggestions:

Vegetables

Green Peas 1 cup: 8.8g fiber

Broccoli 1 cup: 5.1 g fiber

Fruit

Raspberries 1 cup: 8g

Pear (medium) with skin: 5.5g

Grains

Pearled Barley, 1 cup cooked: 6g

Brown Rice, 1 cup cooked: 3.5g

Legumes

Lentils 1 cup cooked: 15.6g

Black Beans, 1 cup cooked: 15g

Let me know in the comments how you are increasing the fiber in your diet! Happy eating!

Recently I’ve been relying on search engines to bring me new, good recipes. I’ll do a quick search for certain ingredients or a type of dish I want to make and then scan the ones that come up. I’ve been cooking a long time (I did it professionally for years, prior to becoming an acupuncturist, and I was the go-to pie crust roller of my household at the tender age of 5), so a few seconds looking at a recipe can usually tell me if I’ll like it, and if I have the time to make it.

So I stumbled upon this one.

This amazing recipe comes from the Food 52 Vegan cookbook (a signed copy of which I actually ordered as a result of finding this recipe).

I tagged this post both as “food,” and as “Chinese Medicine.” The first tag is hopefully obvious, the second may leave you thinking, “What the - ?” But in Chinese Medicine, one of the things we stress for many people is that it is very important not to eat too much cold food (unless you have a very Hot condition - in our medicine even food prescriptions are customized to each patient!), and that the longer things are cooked and the soupier they are, the more easily they are absorbed and used by your body. So this recipe fits that bill nicely. It’s great on a cold day, or even a cool rainy day.

I also love it because it contains protein (from the quinoa), healthy fats (from the coconut oil and almonds) and also is quite high in dietary fiber (I’ll write a whole ‘nother blog post ranting about fiber soon, don’t worry).

Because - like many of us - I prefer to keep my cooking time to a minimum aside from the days I really have set aside for it, I make a big batch of this at once, and then refrigerate it. When I’m ready to eat it, I just spoon out how ever many servings I want to heat, add some water (the quinoa keeps absorbing the water as it stands, so you will always have to thin it before re-heating), put it on the stove, covered, on low, and let it heat, stirring occasionally. During the initial cook I’ve toasted enough almonds for the whole batch at once, and kept them in a small glass container on the counter at room temperature. I sprinkle some on after I’ve put the porridge into bowls and am ready to serve it. Note - I make this porridge with about half the amount of maple syrup called for.
Click the following link to see the recipe on Food 52s site, and comment below to let me know how you liked it!

http://food52.com/recipes/19277-toasted-almond-and-coconut-quinoa-porridge