Insights

I want to help you love your body - and loving your body means taking care of it from the inside out.

21st December is one of the most important days in the Chinese calendar – the Winter Solstice. Known in the 24 Seasonal Nodes as ‘Extreme Winter’.

To preserve our qi, we need to rest. Much like Winter itself, we go inwards, conserve our energy and begin to build up our reserves once again.

I wanted to talk about Water. As the dominating energy of the season, its arguably the most important element – it's certainly the deepest. 

Chinese Wisdom offers us some really great advice when it comes to the best food and drinks during the Winter.

The 24 Seasonal Nodes are an additional way to influence our health and give us information on how to elevate our wellbeing.

The 3rd November was Stress Awareness Day. Learn how you can help relieve yourself of it.

Now is the time to really ask ourselves how to protect our lungs before the winter truly sets in.

Something I absolutely love about this time of year is the shorter nights.

The Parable of the old Farmer reminds us that what we have, is choice.

This moon is a Yang Earth Dog Moon and gives us some indication as to what we can do to support our self-care this week.

We need to remember that there are two main organs that relate to letting go – the Lungs and the Large Intestine.

So, what is it that we should be letting go of? That is the question we should be asking ourselves in the first instance.

The Masters were big on reflection and letting go too, as the great Lao Tzu said: “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be”.

Like all seasons, Autumn offers us its own unique perspective.

Embracing the energy and powerful gifts afforded to us by the ever-changing seasons

We can really benefit by what we now consume daily. So what should we focus on?

Anxiety can manifest in a multitude of different symptoms. These include tense muscles and headaches, feeling light-headed or dizzy, etc.

What really stands out about the Chinese attitude to food is the focus on digestion, on improving your eating habits.

Sleepless nights do more than make you feel lethargic, cranky and generally rubbish the next day. Sleep disorders are rife in today’s world.

Why is stress so key in infertility? A healthy diet and exercise are clearly key if you are trying to get pregnant.

Did you know that your skin is the largest organ you have? It’s also one of your body’s go to ways to clear inflammation and toxicity.

The stress "fight or flight" response causes the body to produce adrenaline. This causes inflammation, so the body then produces cortisol to reduce this effect.

In addition to physical symptoms, anxiety causes negative thoughts and feelings which can feel overwhelming.

It is no longer all about calories, frenetic exercise and deprivation. Let’s change the narrative and prioritise balance, quality and enjoyment.

So when lockdown started, Jules and I decided I should just go live on Instagram with my daily Qigong session.

Once you have some decent oxygen going on in your bloodstream, you then need to get it circulating around the body.

Consider your organs as little mini kingdoms. They all have territories, rivers of Qi that interact and weave all over the body like a canal system.

Wellness is suddenly a buzzword, covering everything from fake tan to a supplement, to green juice and yoga. We need to reclaim wellness.

In Chinese medicine we categorise these factors into wind, cold, heat, dryness, dampness & summer heat. We call them the 6 excess factors.

Chinese medicine has always understood that what we feel has a huge impact on our bodies & organs causing health problems.

Five Elements is a fundamental theory of Chinese medicine. It holds that everything in the universe can be categorised into one of five groups.

Just one night of Insomnia can affect your memory, emotional state, hormones and appetite. Learn to sleep better with yang sheng.

The way Chinese medicine talks about menopause may come as a huge relief to you. Here I look at a few common symptoms.

Yang sheng considers your emotional state as rooted in your body rather than your mind.

Stress is a natural response – it’s all about how you deal with it.

All emotions are healthy, it’s all about balancing them. Learn how.

Your gut and brain are intimately connected - it’s about so much more than digesting food.

Constantly exhausted and in need of an energy boost? It’s all about rebalancing.

If you are fed up of always feeling under par, yang sheng may have the answer.

No matter your skin issue, the problem lies deeper than you think.