Smiling from the Heart

As an acupuncture physician, I have taken numerous qigong classes involving many different forms. By far, my favorite qigong practice is the Inner Smile. Literally, you can smile from any organ in the body that you intend. I like smiling from the heart, because it feels so good. This smile is the real deal.  Once you have experienced a smile from the heart, no other smile will do. And it is so easy and fun to do! Get ready to wipe the artificial, superficial smiles away & replace them with a deep smile from the core of your being:

This technique is designed to put a smile on your face that comes from deep in your heart. From a standing position, take a deep breath into your belly and hold it there for a moment. Smile. This breath is nurturing the organs in your abdominal cavity. Feel your body receive this nourishment. Continue to smile.  As you release your breath, feel the happy energy moving out past your heart and onto your face. If your style of qigong has a specific tongue placement, use it. Otherwise, simply let your tongue rest lightly on the roof of your mouth. Repeat the pattern as often as possible. The smile on your face will be deep and from the heart.

Yes, it really is that simple.

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Calming Cravings with Acupuncture

While I was in acupuncture school, I received training to help people calm cravings. I used this protocol to help people to stop smoking, to lose weight, and generally to feel more relaxed. I simply believe in ear acupuncture for calming cravings because I have seen it work.

I am creating an acupuncture stop smoking support group that will provide low-cost ear acupuncture in a group setting to help with nicotine cravings. The premise is simple: Turn off the fight or flight mode and nourish the adrenal glands so that the person feels filled from within. Also, there are points that help to harness the willpower, so that a person will have the inner strength to follow through on their commitment to stop smoking (or stop the twinkies, or booze, or caffeine, or whatever it is that they crave.)

Today, I experienced a skeptic. She doesn’t understand how auricular needling could possibly work to calm cravings. She basically dared me to prove to her that this type of service is valid. I have my own anecdotal evidence from my experience in the clinic, but that wasn’t good enough for her. She wanted hard evidence…. proven research. And so I did what any self-respecting acupuncture physician would do…. I googled it. And I found a multitude of evidence that ear needling is effective in stopping cravings of all types. I am posting a few of these links below:

http://www.hawaii.edu/hivandaids/The%20Treatment%20of%20Obesity%20By%20Acupuncture.pdf

http://www.easternhealingcenter.com/En/acupuncture_weightloss.htm

http://www.acufinder.com/Acupuncture+News/Study+Shows+Acupuncture+Effective+for+Weight+Loss

The bottom line: I can talk all day about how well acupuncture works to calm cravings…  I can  ”blah blah blah” ad nauseum about technical details like cortisol levels, seritonin, and adrenal exhaustion. But you won’t know if acupuncture works for you unless you try it out. And these groups are designed to be a very cheap way to find out if acupuncture could work for you.

If you’re interested in calming your cravings for cigarettes, coffee, or cupcakes, give me a call at 386-676-0307.  Our group sessions will be held Wednesday nights at 6:00 at my Daytona Beach office. The group fee  ($20)  is less than one third of what a personal acupuncture session would be, and it’s a great way to try acupuncture out. I invite you to come on over and check it out!

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Between Heaven & Earth

There is an ancient Taoist saying. “All man’s problems arise because he is caught between the heaven and the earth.” This is a deep philosophical quotation. It means that in order to heal, a person needs to embrace his or her unique spiritual gifts and bring them into physical expression. In other words, healing is achieved by fully embodying your spirit.

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The body electric….

Hi…. I’m Dr Elizabeth Stephenson. I am an acupuncture physician in Daytona Beach, Florida.

It is my belief that our bodies are designed to heal themselves. Most of the time the body does this  job perfectly. For example, if you cut yourself, you can just put a bandage on the wound and it will heal. You have a team of inner resources that flows with your blood to areas of the body that need attention. Red blood cells carry oxygen to nourish our tissues at the cellular level. White blood cells and platelets are always ready to respond to assaults from the environment. Other members of the team include the neurotransmitters, endorphins and hormones that keep your body healthy, balanced and vibrant. This all goes on behind the scenes, with little thought or attention from the consciousness that is in ownership of the body.

As a practitioner of Chinese Medicine, I have found that the further people live from the natural life, the more likely the body will be unhealthy.  Florescent lighting, processed foods, sedentary lifestyles, and the stresses of our modern society all take their toll on our nervous systems. Sometimes our energy circuits get blocked, causing our organs to have difficulty in communicating with each other. This is when the body needs acupuncture, herbs or massage to restore health. An acupuncture physician is a lot like an electrician. We insert tiny sterile needles into precise points to encourage the body’s healing resources to enter the targeted area. This opens up new pathways for the healing energy of the body to travel… a new way for your body to actually heal itself.

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