Ep. 19: The Microcosm Reflects the Macrocosm: Chinese Medicine as a Holistic Model for Disease and Health, with Jeffrey Schifanelli

0:00:01 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Hey everyone, Alexa here with a quick note about the audio. In today's episode. My guest, Jeffrey had a few audio glitches towards the end of the episode, so sorry, sorry, if it gets a little staticky and broken up. It does get better. So just hang in through the glitchy audio and I promise it will be worth it. Thanks so much for listening. Let's get on with the show. 

Welcome to Notes From your Acupuncturist, the podcast for anyone who's interested in acupuncture, complementary medicine, holistic health and self-care. I'm your host, Alexa Bradley-Hulsey. If you enjoy this show, you can help other people discover it by leaving a rating or a review, by following or subscribing on your favorite podcast listening app or simply by telling someone about it. And if you'd like to support this show financially, you can become a paid subscriber on Substack for just a few dollars a month. Just head over to substackcom and search Notes From your Acupuncturist or click the link in the show notes. And one more thing before we get started, just a disclaimer that this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a replacement for medical care from a qualified healthcare provider. Okay, on with the show. 

Hello and welcome to Notes From your Acupuncturist. I'm Alexa and my guest today is licensed acupuncturist and Chinese medicine practitioner, Jeffrey Schiffinelli. Jeffrey has been practicing since 2011 and runs a 501C3 non-profit clinic in Savannah, georgia. Savannah Community Acupuncture offers low-cost acupuncture and herbal medicine services with a goal of making Chinese medicine more accessible. Love that. Today, Jeffrey and I are going to be talking about holistic disease models, adaptogenic medicine, differential diagnosis and prevention of disease. These are some of the true strengths of our medicine and I'm so excited to dive into these topics, Jeffrey welcome. 

0:02:08 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Thank you for having me, Alexa. 

0:02:10 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Absolutely so. Let's start by talking about holistic disease models. You talk about this on your website, so why don't you start by just talking about what that is and why it's so valuable? 

0:02:25 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Sure, In our society we tend to be reductionistic, so we kind of break things down into like a very minute root cause, but in reality a lot of things are more systemic and so something that may be happening with the digestive system may also be affecting the nervous system, could be affecting the endocrine system and so forth. And so a lot of times in Chinese medicine, because of the way that it has been viewed over thousands of years, it hasn't been taken a reductionistic approach but more of an inclusive approach where every system in the body works together as a whole functioning organism. So when we look at disease in the body, we tend to examine everything that's going on, because one aspect of a person's life or condition that they have may aggravate. Something. Else I would say about the closest comparison in Western medicine would be like metabolic disease, where you have this idea of like multiple things happening in a patient that's spanned across many systems, but there's also a metabolic aspect to it which is driving everything. 

0:03:47 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Yeah, I talk with my patients a lot about that, about how everything is connected. Like you say, it is an inclusive medicine. I love that word because things don't occur in a vacuum. Our body is a sort of a closed system where everything affects everything else. And I think maybe another analogy that we have in allopathic medicine is the endocrine system, because the endocrine system functions as a feedback loop, and so the hypothalamus does one thing, and then it affects the pituitary, and then it affects the ovaries, and then it goes back to the hypothalamus. So there is some understanding of that in the allopathic medical model, but not to the extent that we view, have this holistic view in Chinese medicine. 

0:04:42 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

True and if I can add another way on to it, the holistic aspect of Chinese medicine deals more than what's just happening in the body internally. It also connects what's going on and what we call the macrocosm, and that's basically time and space and how we travel through it through the course of the seasons, through the course of a day, through the course of our life. All of this has certain influences on how our body operates, the things that can go wrong and how it can aggravate certain things and also help other stuff. 

0:05:22 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Yeah, that concept of the macrocosm and the microcosm is really foundational, I think, to our medicine. 

0:05:31 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Yeah, and there's a reason for that, because back so pre-modern Chinese medicine dates back as far as like 1600 BCE and at that time, and for a long time afterwards, civilization depended upon the ability to observe nature. For time keeping purposes because obviously no one had an Apple Watch then, and also because most civilizations were agrarian they had to observe nature and see like when was it time to plant, when was it time to harvest, when was it time to just kind of keep what we have and use our storage and not do anything and wait for the coming of spring? All of these were vital to surviving, and what the ancient Chinese realized is that these systems that they were seeing in nature trickled down through every aspect of society, from political to social, to medical. 

0:06:42 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Yeah, I like to talk about how Chinese medicine is really based on observation of what happens in the macrocosm. It's observation of what happens in nature, how water flows. We use water metaphors when we're talking about the points and meridians because that's based on observation of how water behaves, whether it's in a spring or a sea, and so there's so much wisdom in it, because this medicine is based on what people observed and how the universe works. 

0:07:18 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Basically, yeah, and water is a really good example, because so the natural cycles that we see on the planet reflect the biological systems inside the body. So let's look at the water cycle as an example. So to remind everyone in the audience, you know what the water cycle is is water falls from the sky, it's precipitation, it runs down the mountain, goes into the groundwater, into the aqueducts, into the lakes and rivers, and it makes the soil fertile, and then it goes into the ocean and then heat causes the water to vaporize and it lifts up as if it's on wind, and that vapor then rises up into the sky. And when it rises into the sky, because it's so cold there, it turns into icicles which form in the clouds, and then it rains again. When the clouds get too much full of moisture, then the rain starts again. 

And that whole life-giving process to the earth of the water cycle can be mapped to what we call the six confirmations. So the six confirmations are, for those who may be listening, you go to Chinese medicine school or, you know, have a Chinese medicine background. These are things like what may have been called the six stages in TCM school, and confirmation is like a. It's like an environment that adapts to the world around it, so it conforms, its structure, changes based on its internal and external influences. So Tai Yang would be the sky and Yang Ming would be the mountain and Tai Yin would be the soil. And each of these aspects, because of the way that Tai Yang, yang Ming, tai Yin affect physiological function, we see them mirrored in something like the water cycle. And it helps to inform us as clinicians, because a lot of times when we're dealing with complex conditions, once again getting back to that holistic model, if we try to look at it from a reductionist approach, using Chinese medicine, we can get very lost because the patient comes in and they're like I can't sleep, my digestion's all messed up, I have anxiety, I have, you know, hormonal imbalance on top of it, they come in with a wide array of symptoms and to try to fit them into like a specific pattern becomes impossible. 

And that's where something like using the six conformations and understanding like how it works in nature, you start to see people as ecological systems and you can see where things are off balance in one place and how that water cycle, to use as an example, is disrupted. Okay, there's not enough water in the ocean. This is a very common one actually and it could come out and manifest as night sweats or hot flashes. So the magnetic pull of the ocean is not allowing the water and the yang from the sunlight to be absorbed into the ocean and, as a result, it's just dry. There's no vapor coming up and what little there is, the heat, isn't trapped in the water, because that's what comes up on the other side is water and heat, and when there's not enough water, the heat just is rogue. It runs up with no anchor. 

0:11:09 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

And it's so interesting when you talk about the macrocosm too. The macrocosm, observation of the macrocosm, doesn't just inform how we diagnose a disease and we'll get to diagnosis in a minute, because I really want to talk with you about this too but the macrocosm also informs how we approach a treatment, and so one example I can think of is you mentioned seasons earlier, and we will formulate a different treatment that is based on the season that we are in. So, for example, in summertime, acupuncturists for the most part, at least, this is what I do I tend to needle my patients a little more superficially because the chi is more on the surface of the body, because that is the nature of summer and the fire phase and excess yang that occurs in the summer, chi naturally lifts more to the surface of the body, so you don't have to needle a patient as deeply because she is more superficial. And so we craft a treatment based on not only what we see in front of us in the patient, but what is going on in the world around us. 

0:12:31 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Yeah, you kind of touched on a point that's brought up in the Nei Jing. 

0:12:37 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

And tell us for our listeners who don't know what the Nei Jing is, tell us what the Nei Jing is. 

0:12:42 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

So the Nei Jing is one of the oldest Chinese medical texts. It was compiled during the warring states periods, probably about 300 or 400 BC around there. But the tales and the discussion of Huang Di, which is the Yellow Emperor, go back further than that. But I think the first compiled edition of it was somewhere during the warring states period. So it's like Chinese medicine Bible. That and the Shang Han Lun are probably like two of the most prominent classics in Chinese medicine. 

And what the Nei Jing does is it lays down foundational precepts of Chinese medicine and also gives some advice on how to engender yang, which was the most important thing, and when we say engender yang we mean our life force and our ability to survive the harsh realities that, especially around that time, people were experiencing, and how to thrive in situations, whether it's winter or summer, and also prepare for the next coming season, which was important. So, getting back to what you were saying about needling patients superficially or the idea of Qi expansion during the summer, so at that time in summer everything is in full bloom, so the Qi is expanding and as a result you can go to bed later and you can wake up a little earlier and you can actually handle it better and actually it's a very good time of the year to start to get in the habit of waking up early if your schedule permits and you can do that, because waking up early is really important in Chinese medicine. It can have a profound effect on how you feel, also your mental and emotional state as well. 

0:14:44 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

I haven't really studied the Nei Jing in a long time, but I think I'm coming up on 20 years of practice and so I think for my 20th year in practice I'm going to really dive into the Nei Jing and maybe it'll make more sense to me after practicing for 20 years. 

0:15:02 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Yeah, the Nei Jing is something that well, I feel more comfortable with the Xiangheng Lun and I do the Nei Jing. But the parts of the Nei Jing that I've studied I realized they forced me back into fundamental concepts that maybe I learned remotely during my first year in a very out of context kind of way, because we didn't use the Nei Jing as our foundations book. We shut up but we didn't. So whenever studying the classics in particular, you find yourself going over and over things that you kind of knew beforehand, but then you suddenly realize there's another layer that you pull back and it becomes more and more profound, and so it's like it's a never ending. 

Chinese medicine is circular. It's not linear at all. So whether it's disease models, treatment or even like how a patient responds to treatment over time, I try to get patients into thinking outside of the linear model, like, okay, I'm going to get treated and then I'm going to be okay and that's it, and it's like, yes, you will get tangible benefits from getting treatment. But it may not play out with like that, especially when we're dealing with like chronic systemic diseases. There may be a circular pattern of progression where a person sees himself improving, but they have moments where things go back. But if they were to look at like where they were when they first started and then like six months to eight months later, they can say, oh, there's definitive improvements here. It just wasn't a straight line like I thought it was going to be. 

0:16:49 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Right, right. Well, let's talk about diagnosis and the concept of differential diagnosis in Chinese medicine, because this is one of the true strengths of Chinese medicine and one of the reasons why it is so effective in the hands of a practitioner who really understands differential diagnosis Something that you say on your website is in Chinese medicine, treatment and the disease are customized for each patient, so talk a little more about that. 

0:17:24 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Sure, and to take from that article a little bit more to elaborate on what you're saying, is, when a patient walks in, one of the usual questions I get asked first is do you treat allergies or do you treat insomnia, you know, or what do you? What do you got for insomnia? And I'll say I got nothing for insomnia, but I bet I have something for your insomnia. Yes, no, insomnia is our life. 

And hopefully I don't off, put the patient by saying that because they don't know me, and then I have a sense of humor or try to have a sense of humor. 

0:18:08 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

I think it's funny. 

0:18:12 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

So. But then I explained to them is like, well, how your body is reacting to either internal or external stimuli, or both, that's manifesting these symptoms, is very unique. And going back to the idea of the confirmation, like Tai Yang, yang Ming, what they are, once again, is their structures, that change based on what's happening internally and externally and their relationship to one another too. It's very complex and how someone's Yang Ming, just as an example, responds to their life circumstances versus another person's Yang Ming will be very different. And just to clear up for any Chinese medicine practitioners who might be listening to this, who are still like, who are operating from what they may have learned in TCM school Yang Ming, yang Ming, tai Yin, all that stuff, they're not just diseases, they're actual physiological structures in the body. 

So, to use Tai Yang as an example, so Tai Yang's a sky, it's a sun, right it's clouds. So Tai Yang, very important for body thermal regulation, because from the sky comes the water. Right Comes the rain. From our skin that consolidates the surface. Right the exterior, weiqi, comes sweat, right Tai Yang bladder also helps with the release of water. So the what's left of the chi transformation process of fluids and then what needs to be eliminated and then of course, Tai Yang, bladder and Tai Yang surface work together to consolidate the surface, to protect the body from any type of external invasion. So these confirmations are more than just disease processes. They actually can inform how the body is supposed to function, which is very helpful when you're trying to diagnose disease, because it's when you know how the body works. When we know how the body works, then when we're presented with disease, we have a blueprint to work towards and we can kind of see like what's not functioning. 

0:20:52 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

So are you saying that? Then your treatment? So you look at how the body should function if it's in a state of optimal health and balance. You look at what should be happening and then, when that's not happening, you are trying to lead the body back to what that blueprint should be, or what that blueprint shows. 

0:21:19 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Yeah. So let's use an example with Tai Yang. So Tai Yang, once again, is the bladder and I had a patient who had this kind of like frequent urination and this pressure in the lower abdomen very common pairing of symptoms and there's usually like a nervous system and anxiety induced component to it right. Or one feeds the other person, gets the symptoms and then they get the anxiety, or they have the anxiety and they get the symptoms right, and some of these patients get diagnosed with interstitial cystitis. 

0:21:58 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Yes. 

0:21:59 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Okay, and some people it's just, it's undiagnosed, but they have these symptoms and stuff and it's hard because they can't go about their day without having to use the bathroom about eight or ten times. 

0:22:09 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Right. 

0:22:10 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

So what's important with the bladder is the bladder must discharge evenly and it should know when it's time to go and it should know when it's time to stop. And so when there's a fluid dysregulation problem with Tai Yang, this can create sort of a drying effect through the whole water cycle and because the soft tissue of the bladder is associated with nutritive chi, which is basically blood right or beginning part of blood, and blood is very important for the smooth firing of the muscles in both our skeletal muscle and our schmooze muscle. So if there's disruption with the water function in Tai Yang, that will create a chain effect through the water cycle and all of a sudden Jue Yin and Xiao Yang get affected too and Jue Yin and Xiao Yang and act on Tai Yang bladder, creating the spasms because Xiao Yang misfires ministerial fire and Jue Yin doesn't have enough blood to nourish the smooth muscle of the Tai Yang bladder. But it all stemmed because somewhere along Tai Yang there was water dysregulation function and then that created that whole domino effect. 

0:23:38 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Yeah, and for our listeners out there who are maybe having trouble making sense of some of the terminology that you're using Tai Yang and Jue Yin and I think the important thing to keep in mind is that these terms describe, as you're saying, structures in the body, sort of blueprints for how the body should function at specific levels, and you know Chinese medicine practitioners and acupuncturists study these terms and what they mean in detail. For the average listener who didn't go to acupuncture school, I think what you just want to keep in mind is that there's a very sort of elegantly mapped out blueprint in our own body that is a reflection again of the macrocosm of what's around us in the universe and in the natural world. 

0:24:40 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Yeah, and actually I can put it into more relatable terms. 

0:24:45 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Let's do it. 

0:24:46 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Okay. So what you just described is perfect. I'm saying what I was saying I'm going to put into more relatable terms. So what I was saying in more relatable terms, because I was thinking as I was speaking and I speak in six confirmation all day is, imagine the sky stops dropping rain and if the sky stops dropping rain, the soil gets dry. When the soil gets dry, the oceans dry up. When the oceans dry up, the vapor that's created in the condensation process, going back to the water cycle, also gets dry. When all that gets dry, things don't function right on the planet. Things dry up, they start to wither. Fire is likely to occur. That's what I was talking about ministerial fire. So, to use the example of, like the overactive bladder, sometimes that presentation can be because there's no rain coming from the sky and it's drying up the earth and the ocean and, as a result, people are experiencing these symptoms which reflect that dryness, that that spasmodic heat that will sometimes affect the smooth muscle and so forth. 

Yeah, that's a great metaphor. 

0:26:11 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

I can visualize that I feel like what you're. What you're talking about also relates to this concept of adaptogenic medicine and some listeners might be familiar with adaptogenic herbs, and these are herbs that help the body cope with stress, and it sounds like you're saying that as a whole not just not just certain herbs, but as a whole Chinese medicine is an adaptogenic medicine. 

0:26:47 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Yes, I stole the term from Heiner Fruhoff. 

0:26:50 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Okay, that's fine. 

0:26:51 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

And a light bulb just went off when he said it. So, basically, what adaptogenic medicine implies or suggests is that Chinese medicine and once again talking more about pre-modern Chinese medicine the viewpoint was to strengthen the body or to balance what was going on in the body so that the body could heal itself. So I don't like take herbs that are antibacterial or antiviral or anything like that. Even if I'm treating something, maybe that like chronic line, as an example, I'm not going to get herbs that I know are antibacterial in nature and just use them just because they're antibacterial in nature. What I'm going to look for is how is the body, what natural resources does the body need so that it can expel the chronic infection on its own, so it can create an environment that's inimical to whatever pathogen is wreaking havoc on the body? 

So, because Chinese medicine is pre-scientific and once again, this is Chinese medicine prior to the cultural revolution, and the reason I keep making this distinction is once the cultural revolution hit, Chinese medicine was reformed, based on Maoist ideologies, and so materialism and a lot of modern type of thinking concepts were incorporated into Chinese medicine. And also because at that time, Chinese medicine was dealing with a very China was dealing with a very that healthcare crisis. So they had to teach people very quickly to go out into the rural areas as barefoot doctors to help, because they didn't have enough doctors. Most of them were persecuted, so they had to come up with a very straightforward system in order to be able to teach people quickly. So using something as fluid as the six confirmation system or so wasn't going to work, because it would have been just too difficult to explain or teach to many people in a very short amount of time. So, once again, going back to pre-modern Chinese medicine and what we were just talking about, what were we just talking about? 

0:29:44 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Well, I think what you were sort of moving towards is the fact that you were talking about sort of moving towards, is the concept of maybe what we think of as the immune system in allopathic medicine and sort of helping the body to function optimally so that it can, say, fight off a pathogen on its own rather than needing antibacterial herbs. 

0:30:20 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Yes, thank you. Thank you for bringing me back. Exactly so my point and that whole little divergence there since it was pre-scientific how the body was looked at was more empirical, based on what we were seeing in nature, and, as a result, how I treated dealt more with how do we shore up the body to be able to handle the stresses of life in and of itself, as you just said. So you brought up the immune system, which is interesting because I remember it was a question. You wrote to me and said you know, probably going to ask about the immune system and the concept of zheng qi. Is that something you want to go into right now? 

0:31:11 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Let's get into it. 

0:31:13 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

All right, and I thought about that question because I was like, first of all, to explain to the audience if they're unfamiliar with the word zheng qi. So zheng qi, a rough translation, is righteous, or upright and, in a nutshell, because Chinese medical terms can be very difficult to define because a lot of times they'll be influenced by the context in which you see the word, so it can change. So, just in a nutshell, what zheng qi means is our once, what we were just talking about, the body's ability to adapt to any type of pathogen, internal or external, and to find homeo stasis again. So, and in the Beijing, which once again is the Chinese medicine Bible, there's even discussion of our zheng qi. 

And in the term of epidemics, because the student asked the master, he says you know, chibo, how come in epidemics? You know many people die, but yet there are a few who never get sick, and this is a theme which we're all too familiar with. So, and what Chibo goes on to explain is that the concept of zheng qi and how some people their zheng qi is so strong, usually from some type of cultivation, and how they live their lives and also what they eat, and you know that kind of stuff and their emotions very important as well. So zheng qi is very strong and that the pathogen never had a chance to sort of set up camp. 

0:33:14 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

I think, yeah, I think, this concept of zheng qi which is spelled Z H E N G. 

0:33:22 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Yeah, opinion. 

0:33:25 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

I think a lot of Westerners think of the immune system as something that will fight off a pathogen that's going to invade from the exterior. 

You know, you've got a virus circulating in the community, so you want a strong immune system so that it doesn't penetrate. Well, in Chinese medicine that's only half of the story. That's what we call the way Chi, which circulates on the surface of the body. That's the young aspect of the quote unquote immune system. But then we have the nutritive Chi, which is internal, and that is what we cultivate through diet, through, as you said, emotional regulation and healthy practices and things like that, and that's the hidden aspect of it. And they both have to be there to really form a complete, strong, zheng qi or righteous Chi. 

0:34:29 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Right, and so what you were saying before about immune system and zheng qi, and are they the same? For the question you asked me earlier. Of course, I never have a simple answer. 

0:34:52 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

That's why you're a good podcast guest. 

0:34:56 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Hopefully I'm not losing everyone, but so you know, when you, when you asked about that because I, you know, was thinking about that and also the terms in terms of way Chi and you know the things that you're talking about and I was like, well, it's zheng qi really, the immune system. And then I thought about a little bit more and I said you know what I'm going to say. 

0:35:18 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

No, All right. 

0:35:21 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Yeah, and I'm going to explain why. I don't think, in my opinion, that there is a Western analog that explains a lot of Chinese medicine content concepts, john john Chi in particular, and what I saw that best describes zheng qi was the different ways that the earth heels, so like how tectonic plates move to reduce pressure and create new land formations, how erosion causes, you know, seaboard to roads, that minerals can be taken to other other areas, the carbon cycle and like how the plants, can you know, based on the amount of carbon, will create more oxygen, will create more plants to offset the carbon, and so forth. And it's all these like cyclical self healing mechanisms in the earth that I, I personally found really explain what john Chi is. Because once again, we look back at the earth as our template for understanding what's happening in the body. So all of these systems in place that repair the body, strengthen other parts that have been, that need to be addressed, and so forth, are what composes john Chi and so that these natural cycles really explain it in depth. 

0:36:56 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Yeah, I, I like that theory. 

0:37:00 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

And so like, of course, going back to that would would fall into that category too. Because without, and when we're looking at, you know, once again, although I study these things, you know I don't have a Harry Potter complex you know something's not practical to me, I just disregard it. I just I don't have the, you know, I don't have the luxury of being able to, you know, have something just because it's, you know, scholarly interesting. You know it's has to inform, it has to help my patients in the long run. 

0:37:35 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

So you know you can read a quote from your blog on your website and you've got some fascinating information on your blog which will link to in the show notes. So something that you say on your website is this instead of getting rid of disease, Chinese medicine is a reset for the body so that it can overcome a potential war, or at least manage it way better than no intervention at all. This is what we mean by our body's capacity to self-heal. 

0:38:04 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

So the idea that we examine the battleground, which is our body, and we see where the weakness is, where are the things where there's possible opportunity for invasion, or how do we make the battlefield work more towards our favor? So if something does invade the outer ranks, it finds it pretty inhospitable to stay so, and I think I use the term omni-directional field of engagement. 

0:38:43 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Yes, you did. I remember that term. 

0:38:45 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Because it goes right back to what we were talking about the different cycles that go on on the planet and how we can use them to see how human physiology works, and it's always in a circle. So when you're dealing with a circle, once again it's not linear, it's not straight and you can't. Nothing is left out of the circle right. It's inclusive. So when we look at ourselves and like how we can promote good health just on a day to day, we have to look at not only like what we eat, but also our sleep, our social connections, our mental and emotional well-being all these are the omni-directional field of engagement. 

0:39:38 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

One of the things that I love about Chinese medicine is that it really continuously adapts to meet the needs of a world that is constantly changing, and one of those changes that it adapts to is in the area of new and emerging infectious pathogens, and so, even though a virus may be a novel virus like SARS-CoV-2, the approach of treating infectious diseases and epidemics and pandemics is really foundational to our medicine. So let's talk about some of the ways that Chinese medicine is uniquely suited to address a world where emerging and migratory diseases are likely to become more common. 

0:40:26 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

What we see with like these emerging conditions is people get some type of active infection and then it goes away, but then like there's this like long-sufferable language and to use long COVID as an example, so, and then people can suffer for like months and stuff, and it usually has an effect on more than just one western medical system in the body. So how Chinese medicine can adapt to that is once again go back to the individualized approach. Instead of one thing, for many it's the idea of like we can customize a patient's treatment based on the exact presentations that they're getting and that's what makes it very flexible and how the virus changes and how the patients change either as a result of like this, something like COVID. Like COVID changed depending on what the season was, you know, as far as pattern-wise and symptom-wise. So it would have been very hard to like put out one COVID vacation for everyone from Chinese standpoint, because it kept changing, because the pathogen kept on evolving. 

0:41:58 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Chinese medicine is so nimble in that way, it's so flexible, and we change our approach from one treatment to the next, and that's all depending on what we see in front of us, what is happening in the patient and then again, as you say, what is happening in the larger macrocosm in the world around us. Well, we are coming up on our time here, so before we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to add or anything we haven't touched on yet? 

0:42:33 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

So I think in our society, you know, just in modern life in general, we can. Our technology divorces us from nature because we don't have to rely on nature as much as we did prior to technology, which is, you know, a great thing. I'm not knocking that. But there are important things going on around us cyclically which can have a great effect on our lives. So sleep, knowing like when you can get away with less sleep and when you need more sleep as the months go on and we go into fall and winter, you may notice you need more sleep, and it's not a bad thing. It's not like there's anything wrong with your body. 

That's just the way that the world is. 

It starts to the yang chi, comes into the earth, it starts to hibernate, and we should do the same thing. 

Obviously not the extent of like a bear can do it, but you know we should. We should respect that. You know, or like right now, how we can enjoy a little bit more of the expansion and, you know, have a little more fun and get outside, enjoy the sun, you know, but also keep in mind that the harvest is coming too and with that we're going to have to prepare by eating well and, you know, being fluid with our emotions and allowing things to, you know, process and being open about our, you know, emotional and mental state of mind, allow things to flow so that we can gather what we've cultivated once the fall comes along as well, and start to store for the winter, you know. So these are important things and they from a day-to-day basis. It's like what are we eating, how much are we sleeping? How are we socially connecting with others? You know, in a meaningful way, our projects. This is a good time for projects to come into fruition and, to, you know, really expand on projects. 

0:44:38 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

But then, once you know fall and winter starts hit, maybe not so much, maybe you want to back it off a little bit and be more reflective and more yin like and, you know, allow things to just gestate for a while for the coming spring yeah, that sounds like a a way to live that is in line with the principles of Chinese medicine, which, again, are based on the macrocosm, based on what's happening on the earth around us and in the sky and and the the larger universe, and it is a holistic way to live and and I think there could be a wonderful process of discovery in that too. Like I've you know, in summertime I always wake up earlier in the morning and it's like, oh yeah, well, that's because it's a young time and so my body is just doing. It's just a reflection of what's happening in nature, and I think that helps us all feel more connected to one another and to the world around us. 

0:45:45 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

Yeah, you bring up a good point. You know about instincts and that's really important. It's like you instinctually know to wake up earlier in the summer. It's a natural thing, and what I'd say to the general audience is just don't deny your instincts. You know especially how much COVID really like affected our instincts, because COVID and the poll which is really important for our instinctual like, our response to instincts and the poll is the spirit associated with the lungs and it's also spirits associated with connecting with the world outside of us and not suffered so much with COVID that some people may feel very divorced from like trusting themselves because they don't trust anyone outside in the world. 

A lot of institutions have totally betrayed them and so there's a sense of distrust there and so that they can't find trust within themselves as well, as well as the isolation of COVID. So getting back in touch with our instincts and so forth is so important and probably something that really is important. Now, with the things that have happened, people can see that. Oh, you know, hey, maybe I can. I want to eat these foods right now and that seems natural, and then, as the winter goes along, okay, I'm going to eat more warming root vegetables, more seasonal stuff, because my body feels better when I do it. Don't ignore those instincts, so important. 

0:47:17 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Well, you have shared so much just interesting information and also great advice. So if people are interested in working with you, if people are local to Savannah and want to come see you for acupuncture and Chinese herbs, or people are just interested in in learning more from you, where can people find you? 

0:47:41 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

So I have my nonprofit clinic, which is Savannah Community Acupuncture. That's probably the mainstay of what I do. So I'd say that anyone who's dealing with any type of like chronic internal medicine condition and is looking for complimentary ways to treat that, I'm not going to ask for them, because I'm not only believe in the holistic model of Chinese medicine, but I believe it should be accessible to the general public so that they can see oh hey, wait a minute, this is. I can use this for more than just back pain. 

0:48:19 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Yes, amen to that. 

0:48:21 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

And there's a whole, like you know, several thousand years of medical literature that support a wide range of different disorders that Chinese medicine really excels at. 

0:48:34 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Yes, yes, well, we will put links to your website and your social media in the show notes so that people can easily find you. And again, that clinic is Savannah Community Acupuncture. So I think this has just been a fascinating conversation. I always love talking with you. Thank you so much for joining me today. 

0:48:57 - Jeffrey Schifanelli

It was my pleasure. 

0:49:03 - Alexa Bradley Hulsey

Thank you for listening to today's episode of Notes From your Acupuncturist. If you liked what you heard, please follow this show, leave a rating or review or just tell someone about it, and if you want to join the conversation, you can subscribe to Notes From your Acupuncturist on Substack, where you can comment, ask questions, participate in discussion threads, watch videos and read more of my reflections on acupuncture and healing. Huge thanks, as always, to our paid subscribers for helping keep this work sustainable. You too can become a paid subscriber for just a few dollars a month. Just head over to substackcom and search Notes From your Acupuncturist or click the link in the show notes. Until next time. This is Alexa Bradley-Hulsey, your acupuncturist, signing off with love and gratitude. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page