Just imagine a time, not too long ago . . . in a rural land where refrigerators didn’t exist and people bought just the right amount of food for the day. Now, I know it is hard to envision a world without Costco, or mega refrigerators, iced water with every meal, late night ice-cream, and smoothies. The thing is, it is not natural for us to ingest such cold drinks and food on a regular basis.

Why, you ask? Well, I am sure that everyone has seen and would recognize the legendary yin yang symbol. Besides for it being an awesome symbol, it is also one of the basic principles of Chinese Medicine. Yin can be seen as the bodies cooling agent, mainly being the fluid substances in our bodies such as water and blood. Yang is considered to be the warming properties of the body, or your metabolism and qi; which many refer to as one’s vital source.

We all know that it takes a great deal of energy to digest food and make it into the proper form in order to provide nutrients to our organs and to maintain proper health. That energy is yang energy. We need a proper balance of yin and yang in order for our digestive system to properly break down the food we eat, transform it into proper nutrients and then transport it throughout the body in the most efficient way. If we ingest foods that are difficult to digest, are too cold in nature, making them overly yin in quality, we disrupt the balance between yin and yang resulting in a slower metabolism.

According to Chinese medicine, the organs responsible for digestion are the spleen and stomach. It is important to remember that when looking at this ancient organ system, the organs do not have the exact role as they do in western medicine. This is because Chinese medicine has a large philosophical component to it and each organ holds emotion, carries out a duty, has a yin/yang partner, and is associated to one of the 5 elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. In this case, the spleen is associated with worry or over thinking, transforms the food and then transports it throughout the body, has the yang counterpart- the stomach which is responsible for grinding down the food initially, and both the spleen and the stomach make up the earth element. Now of course this is a very simplified description of how our digestive system works considering that are numerous texts that just speak about this topic, and there are other crucial factors involved. To stay on topic, I will just add that one of the more important factors in order to complete the mission of digesting is the yang (our metabolism) to break down the food. This yang is like our bodies boiler system and comes from both the spleen and the kidneys.

Ok, so now we know that we need a good balance of yin and yang, and that for proper digestion the yang factor is critical, does it make sense that if we ingest foods that are really cold, especially in the winter we are creating an imbalance in our bodies that causes our digestion to slow down?

So, if for this New Year, one of your resolutions is a juice cleanse and you live in New York during winter storm season, it can really damage your digestion. Fruits and veggies, especially raw, are very yin in nature and can damage the body’s yin yang balance, especially in the winter- being it is the absolute most yin time of the year. It won’t happen right away, even though if you are sensitive you might end up running to the bathroom, but over time it can cause a great deal of damage that your Acupuncturist will have to work very hard to fix. I suggest doing a soup cleanse consisting of cabbage and ginger, which can be just as effective. If you insist on doing a juice cleanse, please supplement it with tons of ginger to warm up the cold nature of the cold and raw fruits and veggies, drink ginger tea throughout the day, and don’t do it for too long. Waiting for the spring to do a juice cleanse might be the better option

This is the beginning of a New Year, and everyone is concerned on how to better their lives, better their health, better their relationships, and actually stick with all of these things. Vision boards are being made, calendars are filled, dreams on paper notes are put in glass jars, and manifestations are written down or made into mantras. But why is it that we start so strong, get up at 6:30 in the morning to workout, start our cleanses, commit to our relationships, and commit to bettering our lives, and then by mid-February we are back in the grind, full of stress, and our resolutions sit in the glass jars and our vision boards become background art on our walls?

Well, maybe this is because we have such high expectations on ourselves. We tend to be so hard on ourselves; treat ourselves with a harsh judgment that we would never dare have on anyone else. What if instead of trying to fulfill a million resolutions all at once, we begin with one? A suggestion can be to write down 10 resolutions to put in a jar, and pick one out at a time. It doesn’t have to be one a month or with any time restriction at all. How about once we accomplish one task, I mean really get into it and make it part of our daily regimen, we move onto the next goal? This way we can go in our own pace, be realistic with ourselves and feel like we are accomplishing a better way of life; this will make us more confident and able to then keep going and do more.

So this year, make realistic commitments, choose to incorporate one change at a time, and make sure that the changes you are making are appropriate for you and where you live so that you don’t feel like a failure when you can’t fulfill your goal. If you haven’t tried Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, or just haven’t gone in a while, this might be a great first goal to accomplish. Acupuncture can get you on the right path so that your other resolutions will be easier to implement into your lives. For example, acupuncture can help digestion and weight loss, restore your immune system so that you have more energy to go to that early morning yoga class, better your sleep so that you have more energy and feel better about yourself, and decrease your pain so that your spirits a lifted in everything you do!

Are you excited? I am! I can’t wait to see how this year unfolds.

I wish you all a Happy New Year, and 2014 according to Chinese Astrology is the year of the “Wood Horse”. Each year is associated with an animal and an element. This year the Chinese New Year is on the new moon which falls on the eve of January 30th, and we can finally bid adieu to the “Water Snake” of 2013. The Chinese New year is a spring festival which falls on the second new Moon after the winter solstice, with the Sun and Moon in Aquarius.

What does all this mean? Well, the water element is all about reflection; it can be associated with fear stagnation or be fast paced like the white water rapids. The snake sheds its skin and is associated with malevolence, cattiness and mystery. Of course many great things happened in 2013: births, marriages, commitments, changes for the better, and seeds planted for the future, but HALLELUJAH let’s welcome the wood horse!

Now, the wood is associated with spring and growth, prosperity and as the sapling grows up through the earth, it makes me think of us overcoming obstacles and moving forward. How great that it is coupled with the horse, which gallops forward with its mane blowing glamorously in the wind. The horse year is a time of fast victories, unexpected adventures, and surprise romance, making me quite optimistic that this year will prove to be full of wonderful amazement! Not to mention that due to the strong nature of the horse, this is the time to act fast, purchase that home, start your business, travel the world, and have revolutionary breakthroughs; now that sounds amazing to me!

Let’s get on the horse, and gallop through 2014 with our heads held high that we are doing our absolute best every day!