You may change your diet to help yourself feel better, physically.
But can you also use food to help improve your mood or address other emotional issues?
Absolutely.
In fact, food and nutrition has been utilized as a part of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for hundreds of years.
In TCM, every emotion has a physical manifestation (or multiple manifestations). Sometimes you won't even realize or recognize that you're being affected by things in your past -- whether it's yesterday or 20 years ago -- and you will feel physical ailments because you haven't addressed those events.
A prime example is anxiety and panic attacks. Oftentimes, before you get to a full-on panic attack -- which may have been building up for years based on scary or uncomfortable situations from your past -- you'll suffer from low back pain or knee pain, insomnia, high-pitched ringing in the ears, and even menopause.
Nutrition is key in relieving these symptoms, and you can even address certain mood variations with specific foods.
For example, if you're dealing with anger issues, which can manifest as headaches, PMS, muscle tightness, and a whole host of other health conditions, you can address some of that by eating beets, turnips, cabbage, broccoli, quinoa, asparagus, and pin nuts (just to name a few). These foods all help detox the liver, which is related to anger.
You may not see immediate relief; in fact, you may go through a healing process where you actually see and feel an aggravation of symptoms before you feel better.
Stress falls under the same category as anger in TCM, so those same foods can help with your day-to-day stress. A few more foods to help in this area include cucumber, kelp, parsley and kale.
Acupuncture can be a viable option for addressing these symptoms, as well as the underlying condition. The process of acupuncture helps remove any energetic blockages in the body by stimulating energy (chi) flow. It can also help reduce inflammation.
Listen in as acupuncturist and nutritionist, Heather Lounsbury, joins Andrea and Lisa to share more about foods that can heal your mood, as well as the reasons these foods work so well.
Wednesday, 24 September 2014 11:33
Fix Your Mood with Food
You may change your diet to help yourself feel better, physically. But can you also use food to address emotional issues?
Additional Info
- Segment Number: 4
- Audio File: naturally_savvy/1439ns3d.mp3
- Featured Speaker: Heather Lounsbury, LAc
- Guest Website: Live Natural Live Well
- Guest Twitter Account: @DocHeather
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Guest Bio:
At an early age, Heather Lounsbury, L.Ac., discovered her love of travel, foreign language and learning about different cultures. By the time she was fifteen, she was learning three languages and had been abroad several times. These interests led her to graduate Magna cum Laude from University of Maryland with degrees in Russian linguistics and German literature. It was also during these years that Heather took being a vegetarian much more seriously and in fact worked part-time as a vegetarian chef.
Heather then moved to Los Angeles, graduating Summa cum Laude from Emperor’s College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Prior to graduation, Heather held an internship at the Daniel Freeman Hospital in the Chemical Dependency (AKA Exodus), Psychiatric, and Trauma units. Heather has been in private practice for over 15 years as an acupuncturist, herbalist, nutritionist, and Reiki master. At her clinic in Santa Monica, she treats a variety of ailments, specializing in pain management, gynecology, mental health and addiction, digestive disorders and has developed protocols for those in the performing arts to maximize their bodies’ health and to minimize illness. Her patients range from newborns to the elderly, celebrities to college students. Because of her expertise, Heather is a frequent invited guest speaker on television and radio shows, at local colleges, and even Whole Foods. Her weekly radio show Live Natural Live Well covers a wide variety of health topics, as well as how you can get more involved in your community and saving the planet. She has been published as well as featured in several magazines. As a well-respected physician and vegan spokesperson, Heather’s unique holistic approach to healing encompasses all aspects of her patients’ needs, allowing for the best possible results.
Heather is a leading healthcare advisor and acupuncturist who has worked with many award-winning celebrities over the past decade including Rainn Wilson,Coldplay, Tori Spelling, Dean McDermott, Korn, Carmen Electra, Carmit of The Pussy Cat Dolls and Dave Navarro. She was featured as Best of the Best in Elite Traveler's 2006 Black Book. -
Transcription:
- Length (mins): 10
- Waiver Received: Yes
- Host: Andrea Donsky, RHN and Lisa Davis, MPH