me&my health up

Health from an Eastern Perspective with Chinese Medicine Practitioner & Tai Chi Master

January 13, 2021 me&my wellness / Aaron Khor Season 1 Episode 36
me&my health up
Health from an Eastern Perspective with Chinese Medicine Practitioner & Tai Chi Master
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Show Notes Transcript

This episode is on an Eastern Health Perspective with a specific focus on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Master Aaron Khor a TCM practitioner and Master of Tai Chi shares his knowledge and experience on how TCM can support good health. In particular we discuss how TCM can help improve mental and digestive health.

Master Aaron Khor's bio:

From the age of five, Aaron has been practising the martial arts form of Tai Chi. He was first introduced to the combat and self-defence techniques by his father, Grandmaster Gary Khor, the founder of the Australian Academy of Tai Chi and Qigong (Chinese martial arts). Master Aaron Khor combines both Tai Chi and Chinese Medicine together in helping his patients and students with their healing processes and maintenance of general health. He completed his training in Traditional Chinese Medicine in China with the Cheng Du University Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine and completed his degree at the University of Technology Sydney. In addition he completed a Health Science degree at the University of Western Sydney.

About me&my Health Up & Host

me&my Health Up seeks to enhance and enlighten the wellbeing of others. Host Anthony Hartcher is the CEO of me&my wellness which provides holistic health solutions using food is medicine, combined with a holistic, balanced, lifestyle approach. Anthony holds three bachelor degrees in Complementary Medicine; Nutrition and Dietetic Medicine; and Chemical Engineering.

Podcast Disclaimer
Any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, health care or other professional advice, and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this Podcast. [Connected Wellness Pty Ltd] operating under the brand of “me&my health up”..click here for more

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Anthony Hartcher 0:00
Welcome to another insightful episode of me&my Health Up. The purpose of this podcast is to enhance and enlighten the well being of others. I'm your host Anthony Hartcher. I'm a clinical nutritionist and lifestyle medicine specialist. This episode is on an Eastern Health perspective, with a specific focus on traditional Chinese medicine, often referred to as TCM, in abbreviated form. Today we have with us master Aaron Khor, who is a TCM practitioner, and has joined us so welcome Aaron, how are you?

Aaron Khor 0:38
Good, how are you, Anthony? Thanks for having me.

Anthony Hartcher 0:41
You're welcome. I'm fantastic. So a little bit more about Aaron. So from the age of five, Aaron has been practising the martial arts form of Tai Chi. He was first introduced to combat and self-defence techniques by his father, Grandmaster Gary Core, the founder of the Australian Academy of Tai Chi, and Chi Gong, Chinese martial arts. Master Aaron Khor combines both Tai Chi and Chinese medicine together in helping his patients and his students with their healing processes, and maintenance of their general health.

He completed his training in Traditional Chinese Medicine in China, with Xi Dong University Hospital. Correct me if I'm pronounced that wrong, Aaron, Jenga University. Okay. And that's where he completed his traditional Chinese medicine. And he then completed his degree at the University of Technology, Sydney. In addition, he has completed a health science degree at the University of Western Sydney.

So certainly, well qualified and loads of experience from early childhood days. So as such a delight to have you on Aaron. So thanks.

Aaron Khor 2:07
Thanks, Anthony.

Anthony Hartcher 2:09
I'm really interested in you know, sharing with the listeners and viewers, this whole philosophy around traditional Chinese medicine, it's very different to our western medicine approach. And I'm really keen for you to give us a synopsis view of you know, what it is, and how it differs from Western medicine.

Aaron Khor 2:34
Okay, so let's take our Western medicine first, in western medicine, a lot of the times they look at the body in specific parts, and then wanting to look at what specifically inside the body is causing that type of problem. So a lot of the times they do a little breakdown of each part of the body slowly, and then they focus entirely into that spot. And in Chinese medicine, it looks at the whole entire body as one. Whereas if there is a pain in that particular area, it will still affect their entire body based on their constitution, based on how they're feeling emotionally, and how their health is generally overall, as well.

Anthony Hartcher 3:23
And so it's really very much holistically seeing the person as a whole. And really, then taking the approach to improving their health and well being from that whole perspective.

Aaron Khor 3:38
Yes, that's right. So we want you to always want to find a good balance in Chinese medicine. Whereas sometimes in the western medicine side, they only take into account what's causing the problem and then treat that particular area without considering the other aspects that may occur later on.

Anthony Hartcher 4:01
Okay, so let's take mental health, for example, because we know that's been really affected detrimentally in this COVID period that we've been going through. So really keen to, let's say, take mental health, for example.

You know, modern medicine would very much focus on the head, the thinking, the cognitive processing, the behaviours as a result of that cognitive processing and really hone in on that the head so to speak. Now, you know, from your perspective, from a Chinese medicine perspective, if this client came to you and said, Look, I'm feeling down, you know, I've been let go from my job, feeling just feeling very anxious. There's so much uncertainty around whether I get another job and where my income will come where whether I can make paying the Bill's, and as a result of that I'm not sleeping at night, my energy's low.

So if that person came and presented to you, what would be the process that I guess, you know, hypothetically? How would you think through the situation? What would you? What examinations would you do?

You know, how would you get to that sort of more Chinese diagnosis as to what's going on? What's the underlying problem? And then from that, what would you be your course of treatment?

Aaron Khor 5:32
Okay, so if a patient presented with these kinds of problems, the first thing we do in Chinese medicine, as a practitioner, is that we actually use the four main methods of diagnosis through asking, listening, hearing, and also feeling with as well as taste, except that's a one that the patient would actually tell us what they be feeling around the taste area, which would indicate something different.

In in doing this, we would be asking them how they feel and how they have developed into this condition. And through that process, what we're looking at in Chinese medicine, is how the body's changing from the state that it's in, in terms of the elements just like nature, outside in the world.

So right now it's hot, summer, sometimes we have the heat just come out all of a sudden, and then we have to change straight into the windy, and in turning into the rain. So then we use specific, simple logic to help understand that let's use watering fire in the body.

So a lot of the times you want the water and fire to sort of be balanced a lot about it's never always equal, it's always one-up one down and constantly trying to maintain that, in the person feeling very down and anxious after losing that very detrimental emotionally, what we look at is how that affects the body's mechanism and the way the flow under the blood changes.

So when blood moves, she's moving and now in a simple term, let's call she in western medicine and initially, that's what they bring it down to. So when the blood moves in Chinese medicine, the chi is moving as well, but when there's an emotional change in your body, the different emotions, emotions cause the body to react differently and that is what caused an obstruction.

So for example, let's take fear as one, if someone always feels frightened, and then they always pull upholding that contracts a lot of the body, without unnecessary energy uptake. So when it takes that energy, it consumes that and causes that person just slowly diminish down. So now we mentioned a water in the fire, what happens is, instead of the fire, bringing the light up, the fires going down from the consumption of energy, and the Chi of the water starts to increase a little bit more, or must stay level where there's no change, then that relates to temperature change in the human body and that will also determine whether they feel cold, and whether they feel like doing anything at all.

Whereas if we take weather and nature, for example, when it was raining the other day, what most people do they stay in an order Uber Eats through the phone. Whereas when it's really sunny, everyone goes out enjoys the weather at the beach, because all the heat and the yang energy, which is the active part of the body, moving the blood makes us very energetic.

So that's why we move out and then when it's too cold we move inwards. So in part of this, that's what we're looking at, in looking at the patient when they come to us in this situation.

Now, when we go towards the process of actually treating this patient, the first thing we want to look at is calming the patient down first, so that the body sort of settles down in a natural, almost level state just for that moment just for a little bit and that contributes into breathing into the mindset because the mindset in Chinese medicine, we've related it to the heart. So if the mind is thinking a lot, then the heart is really disturbed, and that will actually disrupt the flow of the Chi in the body. So one part of the body that is disrupted will disrupt the others in sequence overall.

So you're getting the patient to even lie down and just lie there for a little while closing the eyes, then we can form some acupuncture points and help direct the chi towards the right area or strengthen it by either tonifying and building it up. When the patient was actually relaxed, just like when we're sleeping through rebuild.

Anthony Hartcher 10:06
I really liked that approach, you know, the fact that you're going through this whole process of, you know, assessing the individual at the very beginning, and that's, you know, the basics around asking, listening, and getting a sense of how they're feeling inside.

So what's going on, you know, that you when you asked about their feelings, you know, they could say, I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling down, I'm upset all the time, or I'm angry or something like that and so that also plays into your assessment of, you know, where I need to work and support that individual.

So I really like that, you know, that initial approach, and then the fact that you and I can see lots of parallels, in a sense with Western medicine, although they're sort of going very much down to that, really reducing the issue into a particular area, in a way you are, in some way doing that, but then also looking at how that affects the whole, right.

We spoke about mental health and you mentioned, okay, so if the mind turning over a light that affects the heart directly, and that the heart obviously affects the flow of blood, which you said correlates to energy or the Chi moving around the body. So then, yeah, so then you're looking to calm the mind and that obviously has a flow-on effect to the heart, and then, as a result of that, you will get better dispersion of Chi and energy throughout the body.

Have I understood you correctly?

Aaron Khor 11:53
Yes, yes. And that's the heart of it. The other aspect is when we go into a bit more detail, so we're going back to talking about how the mind is related to the heart, it's actually in Chinese medicine, they look at the spirit that's connected to the actual organ.

So a lot of the times when the chi moving in the body, and if there's too much, sort of, let's say, in a hypothetical situation, the person is very hot, and they feel hot all the time, they have red face, red eyes, then everything's floating upwards towards the head. So when that goes upwards, it actually disturbs the heart.

So we think of an analogy of disturbing the heart, just imagine trying to walk in a cloud or mist or haze, or have you automatically have lost lose a sense of direction, breathing changes and when that comes up, it disturbs the mind constantly so it's making the mind constantly moving, moving, moving, as opposed to settling down.

So when that heart organ tries to push the blood around, by also moving the chi around, it actually has difficulty trying to disperse the chi around openly and freely. So let's say for example, in another simple sense, we use a western medicine type of idea, it's certainly the blood comes from the heart pumping with circulation around. So if the blood doesn't circulate properly, then the other organs actually can't see the right nutrients and minerals.

So in Chinese medicine, that's the disruption in the flow of chi, when it tries to tonifying strengthen and rebuild those organs, it can't reach, therefore, the movement becomes trapped, and therefore it doesn't move. That's what we relate to as stagnant stagnation. So in other sense, when we look when we talk about Chi, Chi has a direction of moving inwards, outwards, up down out to the sides in moves in all different directions. When something is disturbed in the body or, or the function is sort of failing or starting to deteriorate.

The movement of that particular organ, the flow of chi actually causes the disruption and changes the way other ones move.

So that's another sense of getting into a saga is a bit it's a bit very detailed. So that's the general basis idea behind something causing like that, in in that sense. So in mental health, if that person was very anxious, very unsettled, unable to do anything or think clearly getting them to lie down while giving acupuncture who would be good when us somewhere down away from the body so I doubt but away from the head, more like the feet.

We use the points on the feet to draw or that energy away from the head down, but then circulate properly to the right area. So that's the way we would actually do an approach, but every practitioner has a different way.

Anthony Hartcher 15:13
Sure, sure. Yeah, it's the same as in Western medicine or complementary medicine, you know, you could have the same training, however, your approach is slightly different. And, yeah, I totally understand that. Yeah. So, it, it applies a lot, you know, the way in which the, you know, what you're describing as to what's going on, and, you know, if I'm thinking from my perspective is, you know, when someone's anxious, and their minds very active, then it implicates the digestive system, and, you know, you mentioned that, you know, the, the Chi is elevated up, if that person is hot and hot inside, so all the energies upwards, so that means the energy is not heading downwards.

Hence, therefore, the function, you know, below the say heartline, or below the spleen is somewhat less, and hence, you know, then you'd expect digestive issues such as potentially constipation.

I often see that in practice, where someone is constantly in that anxious state, they may be experiencing that constipation and I'm thinking, Well, you know, it makes sense in terms of what you're saying, because their energies up in their head, there's not much going downwards, and in terms of your approach with the acupuncture and drawing the energy down by putting the, you know, the pins or needles or whatever you call it into the ankle area, that would help, you know, move the bowels and relieve that constipation.

Aaron Khor 17:04
Yes, that's right. That's what we will be looking at doing, because, in a sense like that on what you already see, in your practice, if the patient had that those symptoms, right after they got the sort of the high, anxious level, and in this time of your constipation, then to what's in Chinese medicine, in a way of our process of thinking, one of the things you would be asking them is the water intake, and then what type of food they're actually eating, and core and what's leading up to the dryness if the dryness around the actual anus region, is there any sort of what we call any aches in the lower abdomen region? Is it difficult to pass out? And are you eating a lot of hot food or sugary foods that are dehydrated the body as well.

So those are the things we will be going for to look at, similar to how you were thinking about how it affects the digestive system at the same time as well. So yes, that's, that's the sense that we would also follow similar

Anthony Hartcher 18:14
And just on from that, I know, you know, and you just mentioned that in terms of when you're looking at food and looking at the person's intake and you know, correlating that with the symptoms or the signs they're experiencing you're very much taking into consideration the energetic properties of the foods so you know, and there's other properties you take into consideration as well. I think there's the that sweet the sour the bitterness, I'm missing one or two and a wet, dry Yeah, and so you know, as you mentioned, whether the food's heating or cooling so just like you know from my perspective, you know, if we get to constipation Okay, so now we're with you know, starting wanting to move the energy down, we want to help the person move their bowels who help them relieve their digestive concerns due to the mental health that we set of these hypothetical clients.

You know, so certainly, you know, for me my nutrition point of view, I'd be asking about water intake like you and I would also be talking about foods but mainly probably more are there having enough fibre so you know, we know that fibre helps move the bowels water. Again, that's that lubrication. It's that and I think probably correlated in some ways there's some close connection with the way in Chinese think about it in terms of too much wetness or, or too dry or Yeah,

So I'm really keen to explore this energetic property of food or your way of looking at the diet for this person that's now you know, experiencing digestive issues from a mental health perspective. So take us through that.

Aaron Khor 20:17
Okay, so when we're looking in terms of food properties, when we actually look at the food itself, we also got a look at its colour and its taste and what we also notice, which most people jump opposition probably don't think about is the way it moves the actual flavour in the body. So in another sense, we in Chinese medicine, how it how it moves the chi inside.

So let's take Chi, for example, it's hot, it's red in colour indicates the fire element inside. And when you take it in, it disperses a lot of the flavour going outwards. Plus, you will also notice when it's hot, it feels very dry in that type of nature.

So in the person having digestive issues and constipation, the main thing would be is what discomfort are they feeling when they ingest sort of particular types of food. If it's constipation occurring, and there are not many problems with you know, as soon as they eat the food, they feel that or they feel like they're going to throw up or something, it is no symptoms that is leading to that, then in this case, we'll be looking at lubricating that test size more.

So eating something like Nashi pears or even cooking Nashi, pears boiling on with soft red dates and Goji berries, with a little bit of rock sugar to help hydrate the body is one way we look at helping them to naturally rebalance the body without taking any herbal medicine yet at the early stage, unless they really wanted it. So that's what we always look at in terms of food. So another one would be, even if it's very hot, we will use apples, applesauce or cooling effect, but also has a little bit of fluid inside and that actually helps to really cool down the heat, especially when it's drying to create the moisture.

So the best thing to do is to create a list of foods that have more fluid and are watery so watermelon is one that is good to help when there's a lot of heat and dryness inside to help cool that down and move fluids around more freely, that will enhance the blood flow as well, as well as being able to digest and extract the essence from the food to feed all the other organs.

So Western medicine think about as nutrients and minerals being able to spread out through the bloodstreams and cells and being able to replenish and repair the internal organs. So when once that is being changed through that process, we would then look at giving other types of foods such as eating the vegetables a bit more to help ease the digestion, okay, if the digestive part of the stomach was very uncomfortable, and they kept getting watery diarrhoea or something for example, even or not just being able to pass anything out due to constipation, then we even something like kanji in China in the Chinese culture where they eat the kanji with the rice and because of the water and fluid and devices so soft the digestive system has an easier way of breaking that down. So in that to where and that can actually then sort of go down and spread into the intestines to lubricate.

The importance in Chinese medicine about the foods is not to eat the wrong ones and to create a balance so the person has constipation already. Avoid any hot, dry fried foods, any oily foods, anything that causes the body temperature to go up instead of cooled down because that will only drive the fluids further up and if the water intake is already very low, then the person will get symptoms of such as something like dry lips, dry mouth, feeling hot, hotter than the person next to them on a normal day when they're not even feeling hot.

So these things will occur and even pain upon defecation and straining can occur so multiple different types of symptoms can occur and size through eating the wrong foods by eating correctly is the main thing to balance the body out, so we go back to watering fire, if the cost of patient is dryness inside already, water has gone down, fire starts to rise a little bit, there's the imbalance. So we want to bring that down, back together, and we just using the water and fire element, as just a general one simple way to help listeners understand what we're talking about.

Anthony Hartcher 25:25
Okay, and just, you know, we spoke focusing then on constipation, and we spoke a lot about the, you know, dry foods, and foods that raise the heat, we don't want that we want to move the bowels, we want to get that out of the, out of the person's digestive system. So we're looking to lubricate the gastrointestinal tract.

And, yeah, and also keeping the energy down there is now in the case of because, you know, with extremely anxious people, if you're having a bout of anxiety, it can result in those, you know, the diarrhoea that you mentioned, you touched on diarrhoea and obviously, that's where, you know, it's moving too fast, and there's not enough absorption of the nutrients from the food and you're not getting the nourishment from the food, it's just passing on passing through too quickly and also the person's losing hydration status and minerals and so, from that, would you then have like, So, you mentioned like the hot food such as you know, chilli is drying, and it raises the heats, pushes pushes the fire up.

So you would then, for diarrhoea apply that, is I would have I got that right?

Aaron Khor 26:49
So wouldn't apply to Chilli Red would more say so do not eat any of those type of foods with those type of properties, but one chilli. In this case, for me, personally, I would tell that patient to actually have some kanji style with because of the easy digestion, absorption and more because got more fluids, even if they do pass out some of the diarrhoea very quickly at least they're still getting some of that simple breakdown first. Otherwise, if there is something very heavy, yet they're not feeling well.

The state of a person's constitution isn't really affected. Therefore it will, if it's already started down in the lower part of the abdomen, the intestines and it's already dry, then eating a large amount inside is blocking the stomach itself would make it hard to actually digest and essentially they will become even more exhausted from trying to digest such a heavy type of food. So the watery type food the kanji would be one of the most simple as a basic.

Anthony Hartcher 28:03
For sake, so that the kanji for diarrhoea is that what

Aaron Khor 28:09
Kanji for diarrhoea as a start to help with the digestive system at the same time, but if it's constipation, dryness, and the kanji as well because it depends which part you're looking at. At the same time.

In western medicine, I do hear some people say that the bread or the diarrhoea as well, or sometimes even toast, these might be some general things that people say, but in terms of when you notice something not being digested easily you need that type of foods. And it's always good to go back to the most simplest way, and that's what Chinese medicine also looks at is that, you know, don't put pressure and strain on the system energy systems in the body, but use the simple was to help create the digestion process to slowly build up again.

Anthony Hartcher 29:04
And so you wouldn't like you to know, where I was coming from was applying the, so with diarrhoea, it's very lots of lubrication, you know, very moist and you know, fluids, a lot of fluid movement through the intestines.

So I can understand why you'd want to replace the fluids like you said with kanji, but would you want to apply an element of somehow drying an apple slowing it down? How would you Yeah, I guess that's my question. How would you either just slow down that motility to put a plug so to speak on the diarrhoea Yeah, or you know, is that through increasing dryness of dry foods and maybe that's where that wife you know our wives tale is around eating bland bread, dry blood bread, you know it maybe they see that as you know Putting in dried?

Yeah, so that's why the question is just around the diarrhoea and the trying to slow that rapid motility.

Aaron Khor 30:10
Um, in that case, then it would be the first step would actually not necessarily eat food to dry it up, but more to strengthen internal parts, particularly the stomach and intestines from causing that diarrhoea.

And then when you look at in Chinese medicine, you're also going to look at the function of what's causing that diarrhoea. So for example, if someone has a deficient weak spleen in helping the stomach digest as they need the ying and yang.

Sometimes when, when the fluid in the water moves into the stomach with the foods, instead of being pushed around, it will sink down into the Intestines, causing diarrhoea other cases is an excess of what we call dampness. In another sense, in western medicine, you would refer to as water retention in the body, which turns into like, body fat at the same time and that's actually locking a lot of that.

So what you want to do is eat the vegetables more to help slowly strengthen the centre of the body easier, no, don't necessarily have to eat meat, but it's very small portions of the meat as well to help strengthen that part in there.

In some cases, if the, if patient was let's say he was very damp inside, but then it was having diarrhoea, we may use something like ginger as part of drying up drying it up internally, as well, but that's also balanced with the other foods, it's cooked with men as well.

Anthony Hartcher 32:03
Okay, yeah. So it really depends on as you said, the driving causation behind that diarrhoea. And you need that information in order to best prescribe the right foods to balance the condition. In that response, you mentioned, yin and yang, be good if you could just explain in simple terms to listeners, viewers, what Yin and Yang is, and how it works from a, you know, Chinese medicine perspective.

Aaron Khor 32:35
So when we talk about yin and yang, we also talk about dynamic interaction of well, everything is around us constantly changing, constantly moving, in terms of this make it very, very simple. When it's the yang energy there is movement there is let's use the sunlight that's day, and then when it's cold, Yin, everything begins to settle, then night time columns, as well.

So it's always a constant of change between different aspects. You can say heavy and light, or dark and light, shade and no shade at the same time contraction versus no contraction at the same time.

So the Yin and Yang is always somebody that's constantly changing the energies around you that you always see. So as you take your body, for example, you're always there's always some form of hardness, and softness on the inside, and when we're looking at that, we're trying to find the best way to actually relax and balance that inside everything.

So if we take the yin and yang symbol, as a general overlook, it represents balance, but it doesn't just represent that itself, it represents that even in the softest part, or the hardest part is always soft and hard. Otherwise, if everything was a complete state in one sense, then you will probably not have balance in that sense. So Yin and Yang is always a dynamic interaction of changes occurring around us at the same time.

Anthony Hartcher 34:37
Okay, that's very insightful, and yeah, I love that whole philosophy around that real balance and that it's a dynamic state. So it's, you know, a constant conversation I have with my clients is you don't just arrive there.

You need to be constantly working at achieving that balance and it's a constant it's dynamic. So it's not just a point that one day you arrive at this perfectly balanced life, it doesn't happen that way. You need to be constantly working towards that balance and that's very much that yin and yang concept, you know, so it's a very dynamic state. It's about balance. You know, there's always two opposites, whether it be hard, soft, Night Day, and contraction expansion.

It's the balance between these two things and thinking just in terms of your response, you know when we go back to this anxious person this stressed person. You know, muscles are often found as tight or hard, maybe it's I don't know, the terminology used. But there's obviously, you know, around the neck area is tense. You know, and that probably the chi up, as you said, before, the energies are up in the person. So they get tense muscles and things like that and with, you know, you've mentioned the acupuncture, but also Chinese medicine has is a massage to it.

There's also cupping techniques, there's so many ways in which you can help this person relieve this muscle tension. So maybe you just go through some of the thinking behind, really tense traps, maybe the person may be experiencing some headache, some sort of, you know, some of the techniques that you may apply in combination, whether it be food.

Also, you know, I mentioned the cupping, the acupuncture, the, maybe some breathing exercises, so, yeah, just take me through some of the approaches that you would take to someone feeling really tight in that neck area, potentially getting some headaches.

Aaron Khor 36:52
Okay, so if someone came in like that, the first question that I would always check with is, have you ever had acupuncture before, because there is a difference between the Western culture and the eastern culture at the same time when people receive treatments as well.

For example, in China, a lot of times a lot of people that Chinese actually, due to treatment, even if it's painful, a lot of the times, whereas sometimes in our Western culture, the pain is a bit they don't like to deal with the pain so much, they don't like to take that and go the opposite way, at the same time. So that's very important. If someone comes in with completely tight trapezius muscles, and they've never had acupuncture, then I would ask them, if they ever had coffee, I'll start off with a much softer approach.

So we also have Tie massage, which is essentially translating into moving the disease out of the body. That's what the actual technique of the tweener massage is, is to push and move that out of the body. So starting with a bit of massage to warm that particular area is to stimulate blood flow to the area and it also gives a chance for the practitioner himself to feel where the stagnation of the chi in the body is, along with the blood, because obviously the work environment that they do impacts on themselves.

Once the blood stimulator is moving more, and the patient feels more relaxed, then applying cupping verse will probably be an easier approach as then you can reduce the suction, but also the heat. So when you use fire cupping, you use the technique of putting the flame in the cup and putting it onto the body by burning up all the oxygen, the suction then has heat and that opens the pores of the skin to allow the suction without the disease of the bad chi, and actually stimulate the muscle to relax through the heat going in and then the muscles just open up to relax.

That would be a good simpler way to approach in some of the patients I have found in doing that before putting in the acupuncture needle at that particular point, because at some time at some stages, some people may find it very painful itself in doing that, particularly if they've done a computer job a long time and they're always like conditioning the air blowing, and that's going to cause the muscle and blood to start to freeze up, and now the generally a lot of people don't pay attention to some of these type of temperatures and things occurring, that air could consider as wind and when there is wind it will actually move and attack the body because it's the speed of 100 diseases and that's what they say Chinese medicine.

So when that occurs, freezes up for a long period of time. The person can then be so tight that even the smallest touch or pinch on the muscle feel can cause pain.

So after doing a bit of the massage between our massage to move the area, stimulate the blood flow, adding the cupping on top to help further relax that part of the muscle before inserting the needle to actually stimulate the muscle to the point and disperse the actual chi at some point, that would be the approach I would take so that they don't feel too much pain when they actually experienced it.

Anthony Hartcher 40:38
I really like how you take that very individualised approach and you know, ask the person as to, how, yeah, that I guess they're probably not the right words, but their pain threshold. And so, really tailoring your treatments to what they want. And, it's very much I love that individuality of what you do and what you know, Chinese medicine can do for the person.

And there's so much more we can talk about, because we haven't even touched on Tai Chi and Qi Gong and so it's just such a huge subject in itself, and you know, I think it's definitely another episode down the track is to further explore the likes of Tai Chi and Qi Gong and how that can help a person's overall health and well being. Because yeah, I think it's just such an again, it's another conversation in itself.

Aaron Khor 41:44
In relation to this patient with the trapezius muscle pain in the way that I do my practice is, after treatment, let's say two to three treatments as well, in between, I would actually advise him to do a Tai Chi, because in Tai Chi, you're not doing as a specific exercise where you're actually shrugging off, tensing up particular shoulder, and trapezius muscles, you're actually learning to put the joints at a lower height, to actually let that muscle relax, and that's what increases the blood circulation to that area, and that gives the nervous system reaction to the brain to say, hang on, if I'm doing this, and lifting my arm and my shoulder by drop my elbow, it helps relax joy, then that's my relaxation comes into the blood flow.

So by doing that, and keeping the body, using the body to exercise with the feet, is what moving our whole circulation around, rather than just moving the arms because now in our daily life, we always use that arms too much and we feel that that is exercise, but we realise we have lost control of certain parts of our body.

So in combination with both Chinese medicine and Tai Chi, that is how I actually combined the two together. So they help maintain the lifestyle as a whole of the human body, instead of just treating one part, as well as just feeling pain. So in another sense, training the trapezius muscles that tightly by headache, tight neck, then postural alignment is one big issue nowadays and that is something why I refer people to do Tai Chi, a lot.

Anthony Hartcher 43:31
So yeah, tai chi, helps with the postural alignment, it helps with the movement of chi throughout the body, and anything else? I mean, there's also that connection of breath and movement. So, you know, I'm sure that's a big part of the exercise processes. Breathing. Yeah, so maybe want to touch on that a little bit more in terms of how tight because I mean, that's really going to help the anxious person right when they're doing exercise plus, you know, they're breathing properly. So yeah, that just provide a bit more elaboration around tai chi and how it could help this anxious person.

Aaron Khor 44:11
So it's so in Tai Chi, breathing, blood circulation, relaxation, self awareness, and confidence with spinal alignment, and movement of the body. So when we do all these aspects, most people would find out how to do it as one combined together. So, therefore, you learn each part of the loop it's separate.

So first, learning the form on the external part, and then practising the breathing for this anxious person. The breathing technique of focusing just on a specific part and function of the body is what will help them actually settle the chi and the imbalances down back to its natural state. So while they're doing the breathing method, healing the movement from the abdomen, and the diaphragm expanding, you're also exercising the lungs, and the lungs in Chinese medicine descend and disperse that chi around the body.

So when it does that, it still moves everything around, as well as moving the blood flow and water metabolism as well. So that actually helps to settle everything in the region and then think about where the heart is, it's also sitting in the same upper part of the body where the chest is. So when you do tai chi, you do the movements to relax your blood flow.

Positioning is what helps the person not feel like they're holding and then so they become a little bit more Yin and then they still have Yang as they're still got the flesh and the muscles holding in place for that relaxation there as well and once that breathing technique comes in the mind and the blood flow starts to reduce down, the blood flow goes down, that makes it all the way back up the same time, and the centre of the chi because the focus on where it's where you're working and exercising. and then they started to warmth spreading because when the warmth spreads through breathing method, that's also the true life in the area as well.

Anthony Hartcher 46:28
That's fantastic. I just love how you can support a client in so many ways. For one concern, you know, they come to you for mental health, you know, that you're helping them with their diet, what they should be eating, drinking, you know, you're further Furthermore, getting the energy circulating throughout their body, you know, you can help them outside of the console with exercises to support their anxiousness around Tai Chi.

You can help their muscle tension, as you said, through a bit of 20 Ma is that the how I get the message, and then you've got the cupping technique that's, you know, further provides relief for that trapezius area and even got Tai Chi exercises to help with that, you know, Upper tightness.

And so just really, like you've got so many tools, you know, it's a helpful person. You know, when I compare it to Western medicine, it's very much drugs and surgery. Whereas you've got so much more to help an individual with one, you know, we only discussed one concern today, that being you know, mental health, extremely anxious person, but you can apply, this whole philosophy of what we discussed to any illness, right.

Aaron Khor 48:02
And, yeah, many different approaches into it. And, you know, there's also the technique of ear acupuncture, scalp acupuncture for different conditions. Scalp acupuncture is very effective and popular for people with neurological disorders, loss of functional movement.

Ear acupuncture is effective in different ways of the whole entire body because if you look at the ear, it's like an upside down baby fingers placed in there. So you can see how the back the legs, the head, the organs correlate to actually our human body.

There's actually one other method that wasn't mentioned and that is moxibustion. Moxibustion is one of the very most popular methods used in China and originally when you look at the word to which is acupuncture in Chinese medicine, it includes the word acupuncture. Moxibustion when they use heat therapy, from that Moxibustion. Moxibustion, and that's a that's made from the plant atoamition, if I say correctly, atomition, and that stimulates that heat in the body to relax and move the blood to the area to actually help relax.

So a lot of the times in Chinese medicine and even in Tai Chi, we can treat one disease with many different ways and we can treat the same disease with the same method at the same time with the same diagnosis. So it's a lot of different ways of really helping the body. And the other thing that one thing that in the Chinese culture that they expect, also do not cut into the human body on this really need to otherwise that will disrupt the flow even further. Further, unless perhaps the person may have some sort of disorder to the point where it's too much to handle that they actually do the surgery.

Anthony Hartcher 50:11
So it's more that last resort, but you've got so many things that you can aid the person's self healing, to apply and to support the person to heal themselves, in hope that they won't need the surgery down the track. But you know, in some cases, as you sort of alluded to, it's a necessity, but it's really that last resort.

Aaron Khor 50:34
That's right, because any disease that we develop nowadays, think about how long it's taken you, from a young age, to that to the current age you are now then to reverse that process, you will still need at least quite a long period of time, before it starts to change.

So it's very hard to get a quick fix in doing that, but there are methods where you can use the Chinese medicine modalities to help maintain for a while, and then the rest is your lifestyle, it's how you maintain that longevity in your life, and how you nurture your body to stay alive. So that's why I always recommend people do some acupuncture and if they try Tai Chi after, and I say feel the difference between the relaxation in the body and the flow, chi of blood inside and the mind, feel how that changes the entire feeling sensation.

Because once you feel something penetrate into the body, like the needle, you feel the stimulation, the nervous system starts to go, oh, I actually have this part connected to my body. Yet, I didn't know for such a long period of time, because being too tight, too long. I forgotten about it. So therefore that's that's how you, you can use these type of methods to help strengthen your body, maintain it, and change it and actually make it make something change in the body.

As opposed to just going straight for the appeal, or you know, straight for the surgery or something, you can actually change this through a different method and using Chinese medicine.

Anthony Hartcher 52:25
It's fantastic, and I really appreciate you sharing all this knowledge with listeners and viewers to really empowering them on another alternative to the tradition, daughter Western tradition of just, you know, going to the GP or getting a drug, and, you know, in some cases, overtime may require surgery, but you provide a lot of help for the client to heal themselves and, you know, then as a last resort, and in the cases of really severe catastrophic or, you know, that, that you really need these, you know, this last end result of surgery, and so, you know, for me, I'm thinking, well, the viewers and listeners are probably excited about the prospect of finding out about a new approach to health, it could be a new approach for some, some may already be applying Traditional Chinese Medicine in their quest for longevity and good health.

But the but for those that you know, haven't experienced that and would like to how can they best get in contact with you?

Aaron Khor 53:31
I'm in contact with me through loudmouths website, which is called Living cheap.com.au Khorchi as K H, O, R, and living chi for chi. Otherwise, find me on Instagram just with my name Aaron Khor you will be able to find me on researcher, Australian Academy of Tai Chi, and Chi gong, you'll be able to still find me around there and not only to Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, those would be the easiest ways to find me because the contact details will also be listed as well.

Anthony Hartcher 54:11
And I'll certainly include the your website in the show notes and your link to your Facebook and Instagram. So that viewers Yeah, they can go straight to the links and and find you that way. So yeah, just like to really thank you, Aaron for, you know, sharing everything you've shared with us today and empowering us and giving us another option to support our health.

And, you know, from my point of view, I've been using traditional Chinese medicine as part of, you know, my journey for longevity or just, you know, had to do or to prevent illness essentially and be proactive and, you know, regularly, you know, getting some acupuncture or some support in that sense.

So, I really appreciate you spending this Time and for the listeners. If you liked the episode, please like and share it, share it with others that could benefit in. Just having another option, I think is the key here. And stay tuned for more insightful episodes of me and my health up. Thank you.

Aaron Khor 55:18
Thank you, Anthony.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai