Self-Care Tips & Herbal Remedies
Keep your feet warm.
Keeping your feet warm is good for your health because it anchors yang.
Here’s how: Find a comfortable chair. Take it outside. Position yourself mostly in the shade, and put your feet in the sun. If you want to absorb Vitamin D, expose skin. If not, wear black, or dark colors, which warms up faster. When it is not sunny, wear socks and fuzzy slippers, or put a blanket over your knees.
Nausea is my least favorite sensation
Some things I do for managing nausea:
Huò Xiāng Zhèng Qi
Pericardium 6
Keening
Crying
Miso
3 Recipes for Transitioning to Spring
Today is the first day of the solar term 雨水 yǔshuǐ, Rain Water. When the weather is cold and damp, it’s important to keep warm and take extra good care of your TCM Stomach, since the digestion doesn’t work as well when damp.
For this solar term at the beginning of the Year of the Fire Horse, I bring to you three recipes from Dr Hao Liu for the transition between winter and spring.
How to Strengthen the Immune System?
Don’t get a flu shot.
Keep your life functions going.
Do what makes you happy.
Stay warm.
Walk in the rain. (Then take a hot shower.)
Beware of overexertion.
Use medicine only when you are unable to keep life functioning with the simpler solutions.
Winter Self-Care Recipes 2025
Beverage for Moistening Lungs and Skin
Five Spirit Black-boned Chicken Soup
Congee for Brainpower, Kidney, & Anti-aging
Mutton Soup for Warming Yang
Sweet Dreams Tea
If any of these recipes sound good to you, please email me to order ingredients!
Xiǎo Chái Hú Tāng for Jet Lag, and Other Herbs I Don’t Travel Without
Here are 4 formulas for jet lag that I don’t travel without, and how I use them.
Sichuan Peppercorn Diaries: Home Remedy for Reflux
Swallow 8-10 whole Sichuan peppercorns 花椒 huājiāo once daily before a meal to unclog your intestines and increase peristalsis. Do not cook with the peppercorns and then eat them. Peppercorns that have been heated until the aromatics are released (i.e., like the ones that came as a garnish on your dish at a restaurant) will create Stomach Heat before passing through to your intestines.
Leave Yourself a Little White Space
It's fall, we're entering into a season associated with the color white and the lungs, and I'm thinking today about breathing room.
Preparing Yourself for the Season of Fall
You are going,
and I am here,
helping you balance
and then letting you go
like a father
launching his child forward
as she learns to ride a bicycle,
“There you go.”
Insects Awaken
We’re in the solar term 驚蟄 jīngzhé, when insects awaken as thunder strikes the earth, and I’m as shaken and disoriented as those recently hibernating critters today by Daylight Savings Time (ugh, self-imposed jet lag when we haven’t even traveled anywhere) but I wanted to mention here that in a few weeks I’m doing an event for the next solar term 春分 chūnfēn, the spring divide, aka the vernal equinox.
Details here: https://www.manzanitawellness.com/workshops
Happy Winter Solstice, and an Update
I am raising my rates in 2025. Read on to find out why.
Nourishing yin
Wednesday, November 15, 2023 3:55pm
I have several patients right now who need yin nourishing so I’m hoping to jot down a few thoughts while my Boon is upstairs hanging out with Grandpapa (I hope they are both napping).
The most important thing to nourish yin is to sleep. If your sleep is super disregulated, just sleep as much as you can, whenever you can. But if you have some agency over when you sleep, it is important to be in deep sleep during Liver o’clock (by the 12-hour Chinese chronobiology clock, which I will try to find a link to) so your body can thoroughly detox its blood while you are asleep.
If you are already sleeping the correct hours, but still not growing yin (i.e., you have dryness, you are restless, there’s not enough yin to anchor your yang so you are hot and bothered frequently), try avoiding spicy and deep fried foods.
2023 Updates
October 22: My old website was deleted recently, along with all my professional blog posts. I am in the process of retrieving and generating content. Thank you for your patience!
As of September I am now a Certified Provider of Hospice and Palliative Care Acupuncturist, and also listed on the Everywhere is Queer map. Please contact me to schedule an appointment. (Yes, I am accepting new patients again.)
PLEASE NOTE, I'M NO LONGER IN NETWORK WITH ANY HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY. There are a few directories that refuse to update/delete provider listings, sorry about that. I've really tried.
On Parenthood and Suicidal/Self-Harm Fantasies
Nerdnote #155: thoughts on parenthood and suicidal/self-harm fantasies
Tuesday, October 17, 2023 1:43pm
Today I am thinking about how much of parenting is a practice of self-regulation. Now that I have a one-year-old, I am constantly talking myself down, talking myself (and others) through the consequences of allowing my child to live her life, getting out of the way while she explores new skills, tries solutions that I know won't work, take risks that make my uterus and vulva twist in dismay.
On Grief and MRI Results
Nerdnote #147: on grief and MRI results
Wednesday, June 14, 2023 9:15pm
It's my baby's birthday today. She's one.
Her Auntie Nora is visiting from Tennessee this weeek, and they are currently watching ...Ru Paul's Drag Race? with her other mom in the livingroom. I am sitting alone in the kitchen with the remains of Larb Thai dinner and my thoughts on grief and injury.
I handed her off a few minutes ago when she spotted the black cat image on Dr Kelsey's CleanPro cat kibble bag tucked up in the top shelf of our pantry and got all excited, thinking it was our black cat Catapult, who passed away three weeks and two days ago.
2022 Updates
As of October 20, 2022 I have received the Pfizer bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccine (in addition to 3 Pfizer shots on March 1 & 23, 2021; January 10, 2022). I am still rapid-PCR testing weekly.
Starting September, office visits will be $120, and housecalls will be $30 per 15 minute commute (minimum $150).
Same-day appointments are subject to a $50 fee (e.g., office visit $170, housecalls minimum $200). This fee may be waived at my discretion (e.g., for labor support).
Ginger slices soaked in vinegar: for sprains
I rolled my right ankle Monday morning while hiking the Lower Jordan Fire Trail in the Berkeley hills in the misty not quite rain. I was able to limp back to the car, leaning on my partner…
Start of Autumn
Today is the beginning of fall, 立秋 lìqiū by the Chinese agricultural calendar.
On being a Doctor of “Oriental” Medicine
Nerdnote #58: What's in a name? or, a Chinese-American's reflections on being a Doctor of Oriental Medicine
The words that we use to describe ourselves are important. Here and now, we are finally beginning to honor the right to choose these words. However, in my professional life, I find unmanageable labels applied to my highest achievements.
Start of Spring
Today is 立春, lìchūn, the Beginning of Spring by the lunar calendar. Interestingly, the Spring Festival, AKA Chinese New Year, does not begin for another 12 days. It starts on February 16 this year, and traditionally lasts 15 days.