Why Your Teenager Needs an Acupuncturist By Erin Kennedy Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every adolescent could have their own health guide that could help them to:  Develop body awareness, and mind-body awareness Regulate their hormones and menstrual cycle Balance their mood Improve digestion Reduce body pain  Manage migraines & headaches Reduce acne Improve sleep Who wouldn’t want to help their teenager with these?  Especially considering the likelihood that any given teen could be suffering with one of many health conditions.  31.9 % of adolescents experience anxiety ..read more

An Overlooked Condition in Western Medicine and the Important Role it Plays in Traditional Chinese Medicine A recent New York Times article highlights a concerning women’s health issue: more than a third of women under 50 experience iron deficiency and many of these women go undiagnosed. Iron deficiency can be understood within the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) diagnosis of blood deficiency.  In contrast to the holistic perspective of TCM, Western medicine tends to focus on individual symptoms and diseases, often overlooking the subtle manifestations of imbalances that blood deficien ..read more

How to Recharge Your Battery this Winter If you feel tired and drained, you are not alone. “Lack of energy” is one of the top five complaints that doctors hear in their offices, regardless of the season. While there are multiple reasons that can account for low energy–including  blocked energy so it’s not available or true depletion from an illness or deficiency–it’s quite common in the winter months.   According to classical Chinese medicine, the cold months of winter are the perfect time to recharge your battery and generate vital energy – Qi – in order to live, look, and fee ..read more

What’s Blooming (and Fruiting!) Now: Autumn  Our local medicinal plant series continues as we move into the fall, with fewer flowers and more fruits, and some particularly fragrant plants. The following medicinal herbs, or their close relatives, can be spotted around the city. I stumbled across all of the fruits on this list on a recent walk in the woods at the New York Botanical Gardens. It’s always such fun for me to greet medicinal plants in their living form, and connect with them as whole plants, before their fruits or flowers or leaves have been processed into the convenient powders ..read more

By Erin Kennedy “When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”  “What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”  “I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet.  Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.”* We’ve all heard the saying that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”, but even if you didn’t know that was an ad slogan crafted by a breakfast cereal company, it sounds like a dubious claim. There has long been a debate in western nutrition over the va ..read more

Sharon has been added to the Cup of Jo blog’s Beauty Uniform Series! Sharon featured on Cup of Jo Five Seasons founder, Sharon Yeung, LAc, was recently featured on New York-based lifestyle blog, Cup of Jo.  We’ve been longtime admirers of Joanna Goddard’s blog and the supportive women-centered online community she’s built. We are thrilled that Sharon is included in her Beauty Uniform series, a testament to CoJ’s commitment to expansive ideas of beauty. Get to know more about Sharon’s meditation practice, her family obsession with rock climbing, her favorite Asian-American comedians and h ..read more

Chinese Herbs at Your NYC Doorstep (Part 3) What’s Blooming Now: Late Summer July & August As we enter the hot humid days of late summer, there are still a number of Chinese medicinal plants blooming around the city. Of those medicinal herbs that are still putting on a show this time of year, several share a cooling property, which can be especially useful this time of year, when the heat might be getting to your head.   Butterfly Bush Flower / Buddlejae Flos / Mi Meng Hua   Buddleia, commonly known as butterfly bush, is a perennial shrub that grows in mountainside thickets ..read more

Nourishing Your Lungs during an Extreme Poor Air Quality Event By Erin Kennedy Smoke in the air at Central Park- Captured by Wendy Binioris   How can you take care of your lungs while smoke envelopes New York and the region, aside from reducing exposure by staying indoors, and masking when you need to be outside? Due to the poor air quality, you may experience headaches, burning eyes, runny nose, cough, phlegm, wheezing, or sore, scratchy throats. The damage done by wildfire smoke inhalation can also make you more susceptible to infection. Below are recommendations for foods and te ..read more

Chinese Herbs At Your NYC Doorstep (Part 2) What’s “Blooming” Now: Late Spring / Early Summer- May & June Consider this your prescription to get out and visit one of the many wonderful gardens in or around NYC if you haven’t already this month. Take your pick from the Conservatory Garden or Shakespeare Garden in Central Park, the New York, Brooklyn or Queens Botanic Gardens, Wave Hill, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, or the Cloisters (which has its own medicinal herb garden!). Submerging yourself in the sensory experience of a flower garden can be incredible medicine. While you’re there, see ..read more

Chinese Herbs At Your NYC Doorstep (Part 1)   What if you could stroll around New York City and pick your own Chinese medicinal herbs? When I was a student in the Masters program for acupuncture, I was still working as a horticulturist, gardening in and around NYC. And I loved learning about the medicinal magic of common garden plants. So, here is my seasonal guide to connecting with the beauty of Chinese medicine that surrounds us, even in NYC. The posts of this series will introduce you to a few of the plants that you may find both on a walk around NYC, and in your herbal formula ingred ..read more