This is an overview of the treatment for hormonal imbalance and treatment for stress. Acupuncture treatment can be very helpful for both. It’s an effective natural treatment for stress.
I’ve had a few people emailing me asking for recommendations that my acupuncturist told me. So I will just put them out here for you all to see. A lot of the mindfulness exercises can be good for anyone.
Acupuncture is great for: stress, digestion, hormonal problems, and more. I mainly went because of my digestion and a hormone thing!
Eating recommendations:
- Eat: lamb and bison, lightly spiced. (Cinnamon and chili are good.) (This is for the hormone thing.) (I made lamb here and here. Used spices here.)
- Eat: Eggs and bacon. Alternate between turkey and regular bacon so I don’t get bored. (Reasoning: animal fats are good for hormone regulation as long as they are from free-range/organic animals.) (Also for hormones.) (I made bacon here. Eggs and bacon breakfast here.)
- Eat: black beans with some coconut oil. (For hormones.) (Ate them here.) (Coconut oil here.)
- Eat: lemon rind/zest in cooking; oranges. Something about the rid of these citrus fruits is good for digestion.
- Eat: ginger and garlic. Good for digestion. Also very warming.
- Snack idea: rice cakes with coconut oil.
It is good to keep a balance – meat and carbs are acidic in nature, so to balance them out, we need alkaline green leafy veggies. Lots of them!
Other recommendations:
- Soak feet in hot water with lavender and epsom salts. Don’t let the water get cold! Do this for 20-30 minutes.
- Take a hot bath after dinner with lavender and epsom salts.
Meditations to try:
- Lie on your back (savasana). Breath in and out with your chest. Imagine your heart is expanding and making your chest rise. Keep focusing on the strength and power of your heart. (5-15 minutes.)
- Sitting or savasana. Focus on an area of your body that may feel neglected or needing love. Imagine a tiny light the size of a dime radiating from the center of that place. Now imagine it growing and radiating out from that body part until it is big enough to envelop your whole body. Now take all that energy and begin to compress it back into a smaller and smaller light. Eventually the light goes back to the size of a dime (still in the same location). Repeat if necessary. (5-10 minutes.) I got this one from an intenSati class with Lindsay.
Books:
- Feeling Good by David D. Burns. Cognitive therapy isn’t just for depression!
Have you tried acupuncture? What about other Traditional Chinese Medicine? (Coco has a good series on this stuff too.)
I really like what your doctor have told you to do, it’s basically what I believe it’s right for me too. A lot of warming food and soaking feet!!! 😀 Have you noticed that you sleep better after soaking feet? I fall into sleep many times while soaking. hahaha….. 😀
oh… by the way, I do think it’s very expensive going to acupuncture treatment, maybe you can do a home therapy by “beating” those special Qi points?
I think I have spent half my life in a hot bath. Very therapeutic! A foot soak sounds lovely.
I love lamb, one of the many reasons that I will never be a veggie head. That along with bacon, seafood… 🙂
I have never tried acupuncture. Almost did once for BAD cramps but never got around to it.
I do enjoy the healing from foods like ginger and garlic. I do believe food has the ability to heal or harm you!
I have never tried Traditional Chinese Medicine, but it’s intriguing-sounding.
Do you like massages? We have a massage school here, and the massages they offer to the public are waaaay cheaper than certified masseuses. Maybe you could find something like that for acupuncture, especially since you’re in the NYC area.
I’m sorry to hear the binge eating is getting you down. You can overcome! I’m rooting for you, and I know all your readers are. We all go through cruddy times like this with our food. Small steps, right?
You are describing me to a T!
I have not tried acupuncture but someone else told me that it would help my hormones and digestion. I’m going to look into it.
i have tried acupuncture before! i was so scared when i first started, but it doesn’t hurt at all – it’s actually really relaxing! i’ve also tried reiki, which i LOVED!
Thanks for sharing 🙂 The mindfulness tips are just like a lot of things I do in yoga. I tend to binge to cope too. I like your tea suggestion! It actually really helps to calm me down in the evenings and help me relax.
Happy Saturday Maggie!
Good to hear you’re learning so much and teaching us as well. But what if you’re a vegetarian and can’t have animal fat? Do you still visit Western doctors for advices? I’ve had acupuncture once, but I think you need several sessions to see the effect. Take care Maggie!
I love epsom salts!
I haven’t tried acupuncture. I used to go to a chiropractor in NC and it was an office of two – the male was a chiro and the woman was an acupuncturist and they were married. The chiro helped me so much I never did acupuncture, but my old boss used to for her knee.
I used to acupuncture all the time. Then I had to cut back to money. I miss it. I used to feel so good from it!
Great recommendations Maggie!
My digestive system is rather “challenged” and I find certain food combinations definitely help as well as simply slowing down my eating/drinking pace.
While I haven’t tried acupuncture….I’ve found Bikram yoga and savasana to be amazing releases for stress and anxiety.
I wouldn’t eat most of those things, but good recommendations none the less! We talked all about our “pill” issues and I’m still suffering from mine as you know. My hormones are all messed up and I’ve been getting migraines still and feeling tired, achey, etc. I’m better than when I was ON the pill, but not by much. 🙁 I’m looking into herbal/vitamin options and I’ll let you know if I find something that helps!
I love this post! I actually have Feeling Good, I haven’t really gotten into it but now I am gonna try reading it. I ordered a bunch of books on health and anxiety anyway.I really like savansana and that stirfry with creamcheese is sooo good!
Thank you so much for sharing Maggie. I’ve thought about acupuncture several times, but it’s kind of pricey. So, been trying to do my own thing with my diet. Hmm, I wasn’t too far off. 🙂
Need to buy lamb and bison. I once made meatballs in the crockpot that were half ground lamb and half bison. They tasted amazing…then I made the mistake of looking up the nutritional info for lamb and freaked out at the fat content. Now, I’m all about the fat – bring it on!
I’m about to start acupuncture, definitely excited to see if it helps with my stomach issues/stress.
Great recommendations! I’ve read “Feeling Good” and loved it!
Loved your post!
I have acupuncture every other week and occasionally once per week depending on how I’m doing. I started it for digestive problems and have found it’s helped so much more than that. I’ve also done Chinese herbs and didn’t love it. It was helpful but I had a hard time committing to it.
I also do the warming foods to improve my yin deficiency.
Your rec for “Feeling Good” is right on, too.
I would just add that acupuncture treatment is expensive but if you are close to an acupuncture school, you can get treated for a fraction of the cost and sometimes insurance will also cover a portion.
i love the advice you got on nutrition!!!!!!! im trying to follow similarly along those lines… i love me some coconut oil, also good is macadamia oil(along the same saturated fat lines, but not so flavor inducing)
very jealous you have access to freerange animals… i dont 🙁 and cannot afford it online for shipping
what we use at home as bird food are sunflower seeds, we have lots of sunflower at home`”,
most of the bird food that we have are just sunflower seeds, birds love sunflower seeds”~.
In that case , a whole lot more pals do discuss about it danger.