Covid Support Through Vitamin D Testing and What Chinese Philosophy says about our divided society.

It's been a ride, now what?Covid: where we go from here.
Covid has redefined how we live, how we interact, and how we raise our kids. But at the same time, even though the way we connected has changed, the content of those interactions has stayed the same. The fundamentals about what our society, our culture, and our community means has remained and in the process of conveying that meaning through new channels, we have solidified the core truths about our oneness.
We thrive on love. The more connections we make, the more people we hold in our hearts, the richer our lives are. We’ve felt the missing connections and the skipped visits. If absence makes the heart grow fonder, our absence from one another’s physical space has reminded us of the value of closeness.
We talk with so much more than our voices. The mass masking of society has revealed the importance of those random smiles as we’re out and about. We’ve all been dialing in our eye smiles and experiencing the vast amounts of important information our expressions pass out into the world. So many people realize now that they have worked silently to soothe the world around them by simply smiling at it. They look forward to being able to share that again.
What Can Chinese Medicine tell us about Our Divided Culture?We are divided. In Chinese Medicine we talk a great deal about the interaction of opposing forces. The belief that everything, at its core, can be viewed as an interaction of yin and yang is the central truth that allows the complexity and nuance of Chinese Medicine to exist. With an elegance and a subtly that can comprehend and address symptoms from the psyche to the psoas, Chinese Medicine starts at this simple truth. At its most basic, yang represents fire/heat/dynamic movement while yin represents cold/ice/stability/stillness. Our natural world, our bodies and even our society consists of myriad interactions, exchanges and transformations between these two forces. The Taoist philosophers that laid the foundations for this medicine observed these two forces at work in all things and established basic rules for how they interact. Certain general observations can be made. For example, when a yang or yin nature pushes to an extreme, it turns into its opposite. When yang burns too bright and hot it turns cold (for example when a fire exhausts all the available fuel). Yin can consume yang and vice versa. In a medical sense this is represented by someone driven by stress and anxiety to movement and action (yang) that depletes their hormone synthesis capacity (yin) leading to the tell tale symptoms of HPA axis disruption (insomnia, fatigue, irritability, systemic symptoms of disfunction). Yin/yang is one way to talk about the self regulating systems that are present in all biological systems and in all complex metasystems. The interaction and depletion of yin and yang cause changes in a complex system that ultimately results in a correction of the imbalance. The sticking point though is that yin and yang need to interact for this self-correction to occur. When yin and yang no longer interact and work to self correct that is known as “separation of yin and yang”. It means the dynamic principles of life are no longer active. It means death.
Considering our society and the division that exists within us now, that’s the concern. As division and separation increases, the capacity for the self-correcting interplay of opposing ideas and forces gets less traction. Dialogue and the exchange of ideas is what allows for the interplay of yin and yang. The interaction doesn’t have to be about the issues that are dividing us. Simple exchange is a place to start. It’s up to all of us to keep the conversations going.


What’s New at Cotati Community Acupuncture?


We’re comfortably established in our new location right next to La Plaza park in downtown Cotati. There have been countless woodworking projects to make it our own and more still to come. It’s a beautiful, peaceful and healing space with dedicated space for community acupuncture, private treatments, massage, consultations, and our custom herbal pharmacy.

50% off Vitamin D Testing.Studies have been fairly consistent that Vitamin D status is an important factor in Covid response. Studies show the severity of a covid infection is influenced by the patients’ covid status:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.736665/full
This may be related to the function vitamin D performs as a messaging hormone regulating immune response. In one study vitamin D was found to regulate the rampant inflammation and damage the immune system inflicts on the lung tissue in a covid infection:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/study-shows-how-vitamin-d-could-halt-lung-inflammation-in-covid-19
In another study vitamin D eliminated the risk of death from covid and nearly eliminated the chances of being sent to the ICU:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7456194/
Like all nutrients in the body, more isn’t always better. In patients with sufficient levels of vitamin D or even above the target levels, supplementation with vitamin D is NOT ADVISED. In order to identify your vitamin D status we are offering half off vitamin D testing from today through February 14th. Stop in or call to set yourself up.
8099 La Plaza Suite H Cotati, CA 94931