How To Use East Asian Medicine For Healing With Dr. Tom Ingegno

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Dr. Tom Ingegno, DACM, LAC,  is a clinician, speaker, and the best-selling author of The Cupping Book: Unlocking the Secrets of Ancient Healing. Dr. Tom owns and operates Charm City Integrative Health, a multifaceted clinic NYT bestseller and futurist David Houle called the "Future of Medicine." His clinic provides a multidimensional approach to reducing inflammation, improving circulation, and regulating the immune system to help people thrive. In addition to a quarter century of clinical experience, Dr. Tom has taught at two universities of East Asian Medicine and served as Chair of the Maryland Board of Acupuncture. Dr. Tom has been featured in both consumer and professional media, spreading his message of health using modern research, traditional practices, and humor to make complex theories and treatments understandable. His professional passion is to help patients and like-minded practitioners develop no-nonsense practices to allow people to maximize their health. 

In this episode Tom talks about: 

• What is East Asian Medicine
• His backstory on how he got into East Asian Medicine and acupuncture
• Speaks about the unity of the spiritual and how East Asian Medicine correlates
• How acupuncture helps headaches and migraines
• Explains the method of and benefits of cupping
• Best method for managing stress
• One thing that people can do at home

And so much more...

Transcript available

Dr. Tom's links: 

• Website: https://www.charmcityintegrative.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/baltimoreacupuncture/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CharmCityIntegrative
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ccintegrative
• X (Twitter): https://www.twitter.com/ccintegrative
• YouTube:

Transcript

Interview with Dr. Tom Ingegno

Elizabeth

[00.00.00]

 Are you? A woman over 40 who can't seem to bust that stubborn fat hormones all over the place, or feel low energy and sluggish or even achy all over? I am here to tell you that it does not have to be that way. Our lives start a new chapter after 40 and it is not downhill as everyone says. Taking the first step towards better health is the most important step in the and one that I can help with. I have created Functional Health Coaching with Elizabeth out of an understanding that it is hard work getting and staying healthy holistically as a woman over 40. I will arm you with resources, knowledge and accountability and work with you to mesh in small, easy habits in your life so that it does not have to be so hard. Book your free 20 to 30 minute consultation today by going to calendly.com/functional health coaching forward slash consult and get started feeling alive today. 

Dr. Tom 

[00.01.15]

 Make those studies fit into our system without losing the integrity of our system. And at the same time, how do we say those things to somebody that doesn't have a background in Chinese medicine that doesn't alienate them? Uh, so I really love that program, too, you know, and I'd already been practicing 18 years when that happened. But we're starting to see this real synergy. Even functional medicine has its roots in East Asian medicine. Right. How do we go to that that root of that problem? And can we turn that little bit back on? And those are classical Chinese medicine, East Asian medicine, whatever you want to call it. Uh, concepts. Doing 

Elizabeth

[00.01.57]

 it all. Hello. Hello and welcome to another episode of The Root of Our Health podcast. I am your host, Elizabeth, a nationally board certified health and wellness coach, certified Functional medicine health coach, and an employee wellness coach. Each and every other week, I'll be talking about topics that has to do with alternative health and wellness for women. As we celebrate the second half of our lives, these episodes will range from solo to interviewing professionals in the space, as well as getting to know everyday people like you and how we can implement simple, bite sized habits in our daily lives that will help us thrive. Today's episode is an interview that I had the pleasure to sit down with. Town in general, and he is a clinician, speaker, and the best selling author of the cupping book Unlocking the Secrets of Healing. Doctor Tom owns and operates Charm City Integrative Health in multifaceted clinic. New York Times best seller and futurist David Hall called the Future of Medicine. His clinic provides a multi-dimensional approach to reducing inflammation, improving circulation, and regulating the immune system to help people thrive. In addition to a quarter century of clinical experience. Doctor Tom has taught at two universities of East Asian medicine and served as chair of the Maryland Board of Acupuncture. Doctor Tom has been featured in both consumer and professional media, spreading his message of health using modern research, traditional practices, and humor to make complex theories and treatments understandable. His professional passion is to help patients and likeminded practitioners develop no nonsense practices to allow people to maximize their health. And in this episode, Tom doctor Tom talks about what is East Asian medicine. So he digs in a little bit more about that. Also talks about his backstory and how he got into East Asian medicine and acupuncture. He speaks about the unity of the spiritual and how East Asian medicine can correlate, how acupuncture helps headaches and migraines. He explains the methods of and benefits of cupping. Best method for managing stress which are we want to all here. And also one thing that people can do at home in terms of whatever it is to obviously manage stress or just overall alternative wellbeing and so, so much more. So I will have to say that there was a little bit of technical issues at the end due to inclement weather, which we had to end a little abruptly. So I'm going to go ahead and go through the places, the areas that you can reach out to. Tom. You can reach out to Tom via website at Charm City integrative.com. You can connect with him on LinkedIn at Baltimore Acupuncture. Also Facebook. You can unfriend him or follow him at Charm City, Integrative Instagram and Twitter, or both at CC integrative and his YouTube channel is Charm City Integrative Health Baltimore. Of course, I will link all of these and more in the show show notes, so make sure you check this out so you can connect with Doctor Tolle. You definitely want to do that because this episode he brought a wealth of knowledge, humor like he said. And it was just a great conversation. Unfortunately, yes. You know, the weather sometimes dictates our our technology at times, but, you know, it actually didn't really do much harm because he talked about everything that we wanted to hear anyway. So, uh, if you do like this podcast in this episode, please do let us know. I shared you, um, his his, uh, Instagram, his Facebook. Let us know there on on the socials, but also let us know if you can rate and review this podcast. This is actually what helps this podcast get up in the rankings. And why is that important? Well, of course I wanted to get in so many people's ears because not only to listen to doctor Tom and his wealth of knowledge in East Asian medicine, but so many other great, magnificent interviews that I have done, not only for, of course, a little bit of selfish reasons, but also to get the education out there for you all. This is alternative health and wellness, things that you can use on, you know, on your own. Bring with you if you need to go to a doctor's office and and just to learn more. So if you rate your review on iTunes and believe you go, if you're on the phone, you scroll all the way down, you can do that. And then all you have to do is just put a rating. Or if you want to put a review, you can. That's up to you. But, um, and then after that. And you can also share this episode around because, again, doctor Tom dropped some major nuggets here in terms of what we can do at home, the best methods for managing stress, and so much more on this wonderful, um, method, the East Asian medicine method. So please do share this around. And also if you can, please subscribe and follow wherever you hear or listen to podcast episodes. So without further ado. Um, actually, before I get into this, uh, interview with doctor Tom. I want to tell you that I have partnered with the Erased Beauty, skincare, and Makeup. I talk a lot about toxic products, and it's not just what we put in our bodies, but what we put on our bodies that count as well as are. You're currently using products that have chemicals you cannot even pronounce. But I am here to tell you that there is a clean beauty company that actually works. 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No health harming or pointless filler ingredients, and no synthetic dyes or fragrances. As if that wasn't enough for every product that is sold. A Raza donates a portion of the profits to organizations that help victims of sex trafficking and domestic violence recover and heal. So how do you get your hands on these products? Go to Bitly, forward slash Araiza beauty and at and at track. Check out ad The Root of Our Health for 15% off your first order. Now back to this episode. Here is the interview with doctor Tom. Welcome, doctor Tom to the root of our house. It is such a pleasure to have you here on the podcast. Thank you so much for being 

Dr. Tom

[00.11.10]

 here. Oh, Elizabeth, I'm excited. Thank you so much for having me. 

Elizabeth

[00.11.14]

 We're just going to dig right in. So first question that I have, because I don't know if my audience knows a lot about what you do, but if you can first explain what is East Asian medicine. 

Dr. Tom

[00.11.27]

 So yeah. Yeah. Let's that's that's a great starting point. Uh, East Asian medicine. Uh, originally we used to call it oriental medicine. In fact, my master's degree is in Oriental medicine. And as that word has become somewhat offensive, uh, certainly we're not calling individuals that we're referring to a region. Uh, and, and really, when we say East Asian medicine, it's not that we want to exclude India with their tradition of Ayurveda, but we're specifically talking on practices or talking about practices that probably originated mostly in China and then spread to the rest of Asia. Um, and that includes a pretty wide spectrum. It's so it most people know me as an acupuncturist. That's that's my mainstay for 23 years. But included in that is Chinese herbal medicine, uh, qigong, which is breathwork with movement meditation. Uh, body work, which, uh, some people would call massage. Although a lot of these systems are not, uh, you know, going to a day spa, you're going to get worked. Uh, so that would include 20, uh, um, uh, um, a bunch of other folk massages and then things like shiatsu from a Japanese perspective. Um, I'm trying to make sure I don't forget anything. Adjunct therapies that we include in acupuncture, like cupping, which kind of came later into the system. Uh, gua sha, which is scraping, which, uh, was kind of rebranded as Gaston's technique here in the West. Um, moxibustion, which is an herb we burn on or near the surface of the skin. Uh, so it's a really big animal. And a lot of us that are practitioners tend to focus on 1 or 2 of those things. Uh, even though we might have knowledge and and work, uh, in all of them, you know, so we kind of are able to better tailor to the needs of whoever happens to be in front of us. 

Elizabeth

[00.13.25]

 Amazing. I had no idea that it was such a wide range of methods or, you know, things in the Italian Renaissance. So the thank you for explaining that. But then how did you get into all of this? So what prompted in your story. Yeah. 

Dr. Tom

[00.13.43]

 So, you know, and I love talking about this because I get to honor, uh, my grandfather with this, uh, and this is, this is something that I, I had this core memory. He was a pharmacist. Right. And, you know, growing up, I, I wanted to help people. And the idea was, well, you're going to be an MD, right? That that was the, the the most linear path, uh, for my for my mind. Um, and as I was growing up, uh, I was working my grandfather's pharmacy, helping stock shelves and clean things in high school. And one day he looked at me, and he's counting out pills, and he's shaking his head. You know, this was so. This was so, uh, this was such a core memory, even though I had blocked it for years and didn't remember this until I was actually in acupuncture school. He was counting out pills. Old school. They had this tray that they would slide, the ones that they were going to put in the bottle for the patient in one side, and then they had a way to pour them back into the master bottle for the rest. Right. Uh, he counts them out and he puts them in the jar and he closes it. He looks at me, he goes, look, this guy's a Daley. Doesn't make much money. He's got to take three of these a day for the rest of. And they were five bucks apiece, like in 92, 93, 94 sometime there. And that that was a huge chunk of change even even back then. And this is somebody that gets handed a little bit of cash at the end of the day, it's not, you know, and he had a family he was trying to feed. Uh, so my, my grandfather said, uh, there's got to be a better way. And I'm hoping you find it. Um, and that kind of got tucked into the back of my head. And here I am in college, taking my pre-med courses, going. I'm in a room with people that are at least as smart as me, if not smarter, and they can memorize anything. But if you ask them a question about that human connection that like, you know, they they kind of they kind of froze up. There was there wasn't this, uh, innate empathy. There wasn't this innate compassion. There wasn't this, um, and, and and these were nice people. I'm not I'm not crapping on them by any means. It's just that they didn't have, like, what we would call bedside manner when you when you're a professional. Right. It was I can tell you exactly what the textbook says. You're saying the words that are symptomatic of x, y or z, but that. I know this is tough, or that that hand on your shoulder to let you know that they they're they're making that connection that wasn't innate to them. Right. I'm sure they could learn that or or mask it and, and go through those motions if they had to. But for me and and this is something my dean and my acupuncture program said to me once, I would rather step out of the of the room, say, I have to look something up for you and be present there for that patient in front of me that have everything in, in a photographic memory. And, and that really resonated with me. You know, it was it was really important that that there was that human connection there. We can't lose that in the medicine. So here I am at, at college and, and uh, in my junior year, uh, I'm sitting there in winter break going, oh, God, I just, I, I don't know if this is the right path for me. And I got a postcard in the mail for an open house and an acupuncture junior year winter intersession. And I said, well, that's interesting because I had a Chinese philosophy class at that time. I'd take in. Tai Chi is kind of like a club thing after school. And, uh, I went to the open house and I'm like, give me the application. Uh, two weeks later, I was enrolled. Um, my parents were a little hesitant because at that time, the college was still working on its credentialing. Um, so my junior year, uh, because of all the coursework I had previously, I was allowed to enter the program, which was a master's degree program. Uh, and I was carrying, I think, 32 credits. Uh, that second semester junior year, half of them were for the graduate program. Half of them were still my undergrad with pre-med. And once the accreditation went through for the master's degree, they also gave me a, a bachelor's in professional health science. And it's like, well, I can skip my senior year. So, uh, you know, I kind of never looked back. I just I loved it so much. I love the schooling. I love the philosophy. I love the fact that, you know, even though it was looked at as, like, less scientific, there's actually more studies on, uh, acupuncture than there is on, uh, and this is not a shot at physical therapists or chiropractors. We have more systematic reviews in the Cochrane Database than than PT and chiropractic put together. Right. So they like and a lot of those originally were like attempting to discredit Chinese medicine. And they went, oh, oh no, this is actually working there. They're doing the thing they said they're doing. And for me now, uh, my thrill and the doctorate, like, they didn't offer that. That wasn't a thing when I, when I first started. So it took me 18 years before that, before there was a course that I could actually take, uh, that bit into, like, now I'm running a clinic and I, I can't be, you know, taking two years off to go do this doctorate. Um, this doctorate focused on bridging that gap. How do we read the studies? How do we make those studies fit into our system without losing the integrity of our system? And at the same time, how do we say those things to somebody that doesn't have a background in Chinese medicine that doesn't alienate them? Uh, so I really love that program, too, you know, and I'd already been practicing 18 years when that happened. But we're starting to see this real synergy. Even functional medicine has its roots in East Asian medicine. Right. How do we go to that? That root of that problem? And can we turn that little bit back on? And those are classical Chinese medicine, East Asian medicine, whatever you want to call it. Uh, concepts. 

Elizabeth

[00.19.54]

 Then also added the passion that you have just like flows through right here. I 

Dr. Tom

[00.20.01]

 don't know. You know, you gotta love this. It. Yeah. Has to, it has to. I hate to say, in fact, but it has to in fact, every aspect of your life. And I wouldn't be doing my mentor credit or any of the, the practitioners that came before me. And we actually say when drinking water, remember the source. That's a Chinese phrase, right? And like, like I know clearly I'm not Asian in descent, but I have to try even harder to make sure that I'm presenting this in a way that's respectful to the people that gave so much before me. Right? So that's my mentor and everybody before him. Uh, so if you're not passionate about it, uh, this is not a field that's a get rich quick field. It is a lifetime of learning, a lifetime of refining skills. And, uh, honestly, there's so much there that I absolutely, uh, will never get like, my ADHD brain will never run out of things to look at. So it's it's nice to be out here 23 years and go, wow, I didn't know that. You know. That's that. That's exciting to me. 

Elizabeth

[00.21.09]

 Yeah, yeah. No. That's amazing. And and, you know, I like what you said in the, in the beginning. Right. So it was more or less you knew there was a problem in terms of the empathy part was there was a problem in terms of, yes, you know, oh, great. You were smart, you know, like every word in that textbook. Yeah. Every word in that. That's amazing. You can regurgitate that. But where's the emotion in that. Where's the. And it's not just the emotion but it's just the play on in terms of it in an individual basis. You know, it's not like we're robots and we're turning and burning. Yeah. We need that empathy there. Well, 

Dr. Tom

[00.21.49]

 you know, one of my, my favorite Okinawan expressions, uh, literally translates is as half doctor, half shaman. I actually have it tattooed on my arm. We've got a giant wall scroll from a very amazing calligrapher out at a Canada, uh, who did, uh, who did the actually the design for the tattoo, but also the scroll. Uh, so half doctor, half shaman. Right. And when we translate that into a more English expression, it's when seeking advice, seek both the advice of a doctor and a shaman. Right. We're we're not just a physical body. We're not just parts. were also just not a spirit, right? Where the unity of those two are inseparable. Um, and and you need to look at problems from both aspects, whether it's a physical condition or, uh, something more esoteric, more spiritual, more psychological, however you want that. And East Asian medicine doesn't separate those things. I remember talking to a dentist and he goes, you know, that's the craziest thing. At some point, medicine decided the teeth aren't part of the body, right? They're regulated out, right. We train pregnant women as if it's a disease condition, not a natural part of life. Right. And I'm not you know, this isn't taking shots at Western medicine. It excels at certain things at an amazing level. Um, but but it tends to, you know, focus in on the tiniest part. And we do need to do that. But at the same time, we do need this, like 50,000 foot view of what's going on with that person as a whole. And that's where traditional practices around the world really excel because, well, you know, it it sounds weird, but this may be rooted in a conversation you had with your aunt 20 years ago that you don't even remember. Right. And and it sounds so new agey and touchy feely, but. Oh, you you might have stored something in your body that, like, kind of programmed you for that and that on the other, on the other side, you know, maybe you got hit by a truck and yeah, you're you're physically messed up, you know. 

Elizabeth

[00.24.00]

 All right. Yeah. And that's where obviously that's where, you know, the, the I don't want to say just Western medicine, but just that's where it lies is. Yeah things like that. But we are a we are a system, right. We are made up of a system when one thing goes wrong, as you said, you know, functional medicine root cause. What is that root cause it's not just like we have a headache. So let me just fix that headache. Know what's causing that headache? And speaking of which, actually just came I, you know, um, what you do actually helps headaches, am I correct? 

Dr. Tom

[00.24.38]

 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So we see, you know, it's it's crazy and and I, I quote this and I mean this is back from the 80s and it's probably been improved and updated. World Health Organization recognized acupuncture back in like the late 80s, early 90s for 43 separate groups of conditions. Right. So there are logical conditions. Was a big part of the migraines and headaches fall into that, you know. And as you know, it's not just one cause it could be hormonal, it could be seasonal allergies, it could be neurological. It, you know, and it could be central nervous system or, you know, something in the neck that's actually causing these headaches. Um, so the great thing about it is we don't need to hang on a Western diagnosis to kind of, you know, sleuth that out. And and when we look at somebody, it's, it's the words they're saying to us. It's how they're holding their body. It's what are their pulses saying? What is their tongue saying when we palpate those acupuncture points? Oh, when I press here you say, oh, okay. We both know there's something there. Right. Um, and and that's always, that's always, uh, the fun part. You know, I know it sounds weird to say that, like, somebody's suffering and you're trying to help them, and there's something fun in that. But the the unwinding that they're getting to the core of that is, is where, uh, you can you're you're solving a problem, right? You're you're sitting there thinking about a puzzle and, you know, hey, they mentioned that they like this food and that sounds so far. And we're not even talking about digestion. And you're like, wait a minute, hold on. In Chinese medicine, that food has these properties. And this person is this type of a person. Um, not only should you not be eating those, hell, you might have an allergy to that. You know, something that's not celiac disease, but it's enough to cause inflammation if we want to put it in Western standpoints. So that the correlation is there. Right? We don't we don't want to translate western to eastern 100% or vice versa. But there's enough overlap where we go, oh, you said these things. And from a Western standpoint that might indicate these. And here's how we would describe it in eastern medicine terms. Right. So they're they're two different languages, but they're essentially saying the same thing. Same. Exactly. Owing to the same cause basically. 

Elizabeth

[00.27.19]

 Yeah. Yeah. Also um, going into cupping. So I had cupping um, a few times. Absolutely love it. I know the benefits it has, but could you, um, first explain what the method is? Yeah, yeah. I'm 

going to the benefits of cupping. 

Dr. Tom

[00.27.21]

 So, so regardless of how uh, because how you get the, the cups attached, uh, you're creating a vacuum, right? So in my clinic, we do classical fire cupping, which we use fire to actually eat the oxygen out of the cup. The cup should not get hot. We don't want to heat the cup up but create that vacuum. Now, today there's pumps, there's silicone. And you know, for me that that makes it perfect as a home therapy because we've removed the most dangerous aspect. Uh, traditionally this was a home therapy. It wasn't, you know, physicians were like, no, that's beneath us. Grandma does that. You do that at home before you get to us, right. So in, uh. And we're not exactly sure. This is another thing that I love about cupping. We're not exactly sure where it came from. We we know it was done. In the ancient world. It's older as a formalized system that acupuncture, which is also weird to me. Right. We go acupuncture. It's thousands of years old. Well, 1515 BC, it was written in the Ebers Papyrus, which is an Egyptian medical text. Right. We know that, uh, Hippocrates wrote about we know that the, the, the, um, Persian doctors wrote volumes about. And we know that even though we call it the silk trade route, there was exchanges going back before it was even named that. So we know it got to Asia, we know it got to Africa, we know it got to Europe, we know it got to Russia. And there was even people doing it in South America. And that's where it gets crazy. I, I'm not an anthropologist. I don't know this, but like, was that two evolutions of the same idea or was there some kind of intellectual exchange going on. And that's mind blowing. But yeah. When it was done. You know, when especially when I taught at a school in Manhattan. Uh, a lot of foreign students, every one of them said grandma used to. Do you know what? It didn't matter what what country they were from. What continent? Grandma used to do that. And because of its ease of use, even with the fire. Uh, so it's become infinitely. You're the second cat we've had this week. No, I I'm an animal lover. You can see I tattooed old dog and there's Fidel Castro back there. Um, but but, yeah, you know, so that. That's fine. If I had my door open, there might be four of them walking in and a bulldog. So, uh, but within that, uh, you know, I, I absolutely love these traditional medicines that were so easy that you didn't require a medical degree to do. Um, and I feel like handing that knowledge back to families, putting that back into the households really would improve people's health overall. Right? There's there's a limit to what it can do. But if I can help you with the minor aches and pains or chest congestion or help you get over a cold or help you with some digestive stuff, and you don't have to leave your house and you could read, uh, you know, I think it's 120 pages of text. It's meant to be super accessible, not a high level. Hey, I need a medical degree to read this, but what would your grandmother have told you if she taught you this? That was really what I was striving for, and it just seemed so natural to to give that back, right. Uh, you know, it was it was in the even in American history and American movies. Right? Godfather part two. Zorba the Greek. Uh, there was a Roman Polanski movie that after I wrote the book, somebody said, oh, yeah, that was 1965. And, you know, it was about vampires. And there's a there's a cupping scene in that. It's like, well, thank God you were alive during that time, because that was that was a bit before me and I, I didn't know that. But yeah, it's amazing that, you know, in that really spoke to to to immigrants specifically in the US. Right. You know, like, oh grandma does that, you know, um, but within that to, to, to be able to return stuff and look, you pay for cups that are silicone or plastic, you clean them the right way. They're going to last forever. You pay for the book, you read it in an afternoon, and hopefully you've you've assimilated that knowledge. And now we've removed one of the biggest barriers to health care, which is just cost. There's an initial outlay, but you can do this on friends and family. You can show friends and family how to do it. I want the knowledge shared. You know, every time we add a zero to the end of anything medical, be exponentially cut out. The amount of people that get access to that. So to to kind of reverse engineer it and go, this is things that come from all of our histories to, you know, try and make it as affordable as possible and, and show somebody that has modern evidence that, yes, this does what we say it does and have it be safe. You know, uh, it it really hits that sweet spot of evidence based medicine. And I just want I just want people to to take better care of themselves. And I could run myself ragged in my clinic trying to treat as many people as possible. Or I could share the knowledge. 

Elizabeth

[00.32.46]

 Cool. I had no idea that you can do it at all. And. Oh, yeah, 

Dr. Tom

[00.32.50]

 I mean, if you if you go on Amazon right now and search cupping sets, you will mind things for under 20 bucks. Uh, you know, they're so prevalent. Like, I know I wrote a book on it, but this is this is how technical it has to be. These are silicone cups I love these. These are probably my favorite. I don't play favorites in the book. I talk about the different systems. I talk about the pros and the cons. But to get this to it here is really you put it where you think it should go and you press it down and then you have a suction. Now this one I like because it has a handle. So if you put a whale down you can do some sliding up and down the muscle too. Um, but it should be intuitive. It should be like, where do you think it should go? And we give you examples of, like, ears for chest congestion. Here's for neck and shoulder pain. Here's for low back pain. But it's a little bit more horseshoes and hand grenades. We can just take it wherever it feels like it should go. 

Elizabeth

[00.33.45]

 Can you go into a little bit more of in depth of how that does, like 

Dr. Tom

[00.33.51]

 how that works. Yeah. Yeah, 

Elizabeth

[00.33.53]

 yeah. Because when you think, okay, I'm sucking. What. So what's going on in 

Dr. Tom

[00.33.57]

 okay, so so if we look at it and I'll, I'll talk as Western as I can right now we, we create this vacuum. We put the cup over that tissue. Now what happens is the skin gets pulled up into that cup. That's the vacuum for to keep it as brass tacks as possible. You're creating a hickey, right? You're right. So so we pull the skin up, we create a little void, we pull the fascia also gets pulled up, or we create another void. And we know that like a lot of pain, a lot of tightness, a lot of those little gritty bits in the fascia can cause musculoskeletal pain as much as muscles. So now because we're a closed system and we've separated, we've created some space between the skin and the fascia and the fascia and the muscle. We we have a closed system so that the blood that's sitting in that tissue at that moment gets pulled into that. Now, chances are if you have tightness in those muscles, if you have tightness in that fascia, the circulation isn't as good as it should be. And that could be from inflammatory processes not moving your body enough, moving your body too much. You know, cytokines, lactic acid. We could throw a bunch of different terms, but something's tight there. When we pull that blood to the surface. Uh, not only are we creating fresh blood being drawn in, and studies show up to six inches into the body, right? So that's that's pretty deep on most people. Yeah. Um, but within that we're increasing the circulation of fresh blood in. And we've pulled that older stagnant blood to the surface. Uh, a byproduct of that is rupturing those capillaries at the surface. Uh, but creating this void and allowing fresh blood to come in. We've kind of like, given the body a little bit more room to move, but we're also pulling fresh blood with oxygen and nutrients in to help repair that tissue and relax muscle types. Now, that bruise itself actually has a longer term healing effect, because now my body has to keep sending blood to that area at a less intense rate is when the cup is on. But to kind of clean up the the broken down blood vessels and to get that old blood out of that tissue. Right. It's sitting in that interstitial space. So your body is constantly bathing that probably for a week or so after at, at a less, you know, intense effect than the initial cupping session. 

Elizabeth

[00.36.19]

 Interesting. Yeah. I always wondered why it was like staying on for 5 or 6 days. I mean, I know a lot of times when you get a brew, is it. 

Dr. Tom

[00.36.26]

 It takes a while, takes a while.

Elizabeth

[00.36.28]

 Right. But it is just it's good. Thank you for explaining all of that. Because I wonder too, like what's really happening underneath. Yeah, that's cool because, you know, I get it mainly for um, pay not paying really. But I exercise a lot, so it's really good. Like lower back. 

Dr. Tom

[00.36.47]

 Oh, smart core recovery or something. Right. 

Elizabeth

[00.36.49]

 Yeah. Right. Right, right. So cool. Um, so what in your opinion, is the best method for managing stress? We're talking about stress 

Dr. Tom

[00.36.59]

 now. You know, I there's so many hacks, uh, and I don't want to call them hacks because they're all evidence based. Um, you know, there's an expression. Ever ask a barber if you need a haircut? I'm first and foremost an acupuncturist. Uh, a lot of these hands on modalities, whether it's massage, cupping, gua sha, it all play with the autonomic nervous system, right? If we look at them objectively from a Western standpoint, the idea is, you know, autonomic nervous system has two modes, right? Sympathetic, which is fight or flight and rest and digest which is parasympathetic. And guess which one? Anyone in a modern, civilized quote unquote Society is in all the time it's fight or flight, right? And we can call it adrenal fatigue. We can call it HPA axis imbalance. We can call it just being stressed out. Doesn't matter. What ends up happening is we get vasoconstriction, we get tighter. We're we're we're more worried about either defending off something, fighting back or running than we are about having those normal functions. And our brain is not really good at differentiating those things. Right. So our amygdala that that fear center, especially the left part of that amygdala is going, oh my God, you know, is that a snake or a stick. Right. And everything becomes a snake after a while, especially if we're not given that chance to go, okay, no. Cool. It's a stick. Let's calm down. So when we do acupuncture, when we get a massage, when we do cupping, there's this kind of window. So we're doing something very physical, but we're increasing circulation and our, our autonomic nervous system sees one sign of relaxation which is vasodilation and increased circulation. And it goes, oh, we must be relaxed. But this is the same reason why breathwork works, right? I'm going to slow down and control my breathing. Right? I'm going to extend my exhale. Well, that's a sign of autonomic balance right. That's that's going back to the parasympathetic the rest of digest. So our brain goes well I'm breathing slower. All right. So now all of those things that come with that regulation of neurotransmitters, increased digestion by increased blood flow to the intestines, slower heart rate, slower, deeper breathing. Right. That all starts to fall into place and our brain goes, oh, we're relaxed again. So this is one of the reasons I love acupuncture so much, and why it treats so many like things that seem so unrelated is because we're telling your body, no, no, no. Come back down, regulate your hormones, regulate your neurotransmitters, balance out your digestion, allow for proper circulation. And all of those are repeated signals to like, calm down, you know, and and that's where we see this improvement across all of these individual systems within 

Elizabeth

[00.39.58]

 us. Hmm. Very nice. Yeah. It's it's, you know, yeah, it's whatever tool or method that you could do at this point. Yeah. Um, and actually kind of brings up a question and you probably touched on it a little bit, guys. And spine puncture. Yeah. But, um, if there's one thing, one method that you could tell everybody or my audience to do, what would that be 

Dr. Tom

[00.40.23]

 at home? We're talking. Right. Um, yeah. No. Yeah, yeah. So look, uh, hands down and, and I, I, I joke that I've been trying to meditate since 1994. I'm almost at 2000 days consecutively. I think today was 1991 or 92. Um, you know, I, I had a qigong teacher who was actually my mentors, qigong teacher. Um, and of all the qigong sets that he taught, there was probably about six that he really wanted people to do. He said, uh, you know, and this is perfectly broken, uh, Chinese. English, uh, was you might be meditate that most important thing. And he would just say that he said, you know, hey, uh, seafood, what happens if I don't have time to meditate? He goes, oh, you you you might be meditating like that. Was it? No, you got it. That above all else, do that right. Because that's going to help you regulate. And and it's not a quick fix. It's not I'm going to sit there in, you know, the middle of traffic, take a couple of deep breaths and everything's going to be cool. It is a small, consistent practice that leads to big results. I would be completely unchained right now if I did not have almost five years of daily meditation behind me. Why? Because, look, you know, as much as sometimes practitioners are looked at like, oh, we're supposed to be the ones. Although, you know, uh, no, no, there's there's a crazy dumpster fire in my head too, you know? So, so to be able to take that 5 to 10 minutes a day and it doesn't have to be long, it needs to be consistent to just sit there and breathe. And those thoughts are going to come up. You just kind of let them go. It's all right. You're not going to beat yourself up. That is where you're going to see the best long term benefits. And and that's going to keep your body healthier to. 

Elizabeth

[00.42.16]

 Amazing that that was the first thing that was in my mind, too. Yeah. Um, I meditate, you know, every morning, and and it's like you, if I didn't, I'd probably be off the rails. Yeah. Um, you know, I'm as stressed. I just seem to have a lot of stress. Um, and I wouldn't say anxiety, but just a lot of high stress. Yeah. And, uh, that helps. Obviously, you know, we talk about HPA access, you know, things like that. But meditation I literally that in breathwork, those two things I tell all my clients, if you can start anywhere, start there. And if you think that you can't meditate, you can, because a lot of people think, oh my gosh, I have to clear my mind. That is not it. Nope. Clear. It's not. It's not possible to clear your mind. 

Dr. Tom

[00.43.04]

 I you know, it's funny when we talk about trends in mental meditation and I that's not like I use a Daoist type of meditation more than anything else. But even TM, they're like, the end goal is to have no thoughts, but when they talk about it, they're like, you're going to have thoughts like, that's right. No one gets there. You're right. You're not. You're not. I'm not sitting there on everything disappears, you know, like you don't cease to exist, you know, and and you know, the Daoist method. And you'll hear this said 10,000 different ways. Think of the thought like a cloud passing by. Right. Oh, it's there. Okay, let it go. You know, and, and and the more and this is so hard being so self-critical, but the more you don't hang up on that, you go, oh, my God, I'm so horrible at this. The more you go, oh yeah, that was a thought. And you go, okay, now it's gone. You know, then that's that's where you slowly have and and like seriously, it's a meditation practice. Why. Because you're not going to get it right. And some days you're going to be like, God damn it. I did two minutes and it was horrible. And then other days you're going to go, that was 20 minutes, you know, and it's, you know, and and that's where you, you, you, you're tender with yourself and going, yeah, I'm human and I'm going to work to in progress to it. Hopefully you come out better than you were, especially when you go through those rougher meditations. 

Elizabeth

[00.44.27]

 Yeah. Yeah. Yes. 100%. 100%. All around. You've wrote a book and alluded to earlier about copying? Yeah. Was there anything in there that you wanted to kind of talk about, if you haven't already? There's anything. 

Dr. Tom

[00.44.41]

 And, you know, we covered so much of it. But what what I really like and what I think I wrote the book for, and this is where I'm starting to find this passion, is we're at this weird junction between traditional medicine and, and modern medicine, where we're now able to look at a lot of the things that we, uh, you know, we call witchcraft, snake oil, these kind of things and say, no, there is some, some actual science behind this. There is a system. There is. So when we have something like cupping and there's a bunch of other stuff, and it's not only from one, you know, tradition or one one origin, um, these, these traditional medicines have a lot of value. And even if we're talking about something like we'll dress up, uh, like affirmations and stuff like that and say, that's all B.S., but neuro linguistic programming know there's something to that, right? So for me, you know, let's let's re explore these traditional practices, whether they're from, you know, shaman or witch doctors and, and look at them with, with, with fresh eyes and look at them with like an open mind, you know. No, no. That's old. So it's gotta be bullshit, right. Um, and I'm sorry, I didn't even ask if I could. 

Elizabeth

[00.45.58]

 No, no, no, it's fine. Right. Um. Yeah, 

Dr. Tom

[00.46.03]

 but but with. But within that. How do we how do we how do we take that good and preserve its tradition, keep it alive and breathing and and allow it to be expressed without appropriation or colonizing it and, and really be able to take that and, and have that human part of it still alive and healthy and, and when appropriate, have it as part of your daily practice. 

Elizabeth

[00.46.32]

 So this is where we had to end and cut it off. So hopefully you have enjoyed Doctor Tom's interview and hopefully you got some really great information education on East Asian medicine and will hopefully share this around like I said. So take care and have a good one. Bye bye now.