This book is meant to be primarily practical. It contains theory and philosophy as well, but its main function is to be a tool to improve your life. But most of solutions in this book are not one-time magic bullets. You must continue to apply many of these frequently in order to bring yourself back into balance, and to maintain that balance.

NEW HABITS, NEW LIFESTYLE

But, as imperfect humans in a very demanding and distracting society, we have difficulty acquiring and maintaining new habits. In fact, it's much easier to keep a good habit than to create a new good habit, and it's tragically easy to let go of a new good habit. So, this book would be incomplete if it didn't help you form and keep new good habits.

Men's natures are alike, it is their habits that carry them far apart. - Confucius

Another issue that needs to be addressed is that many of solutions in this book (e.g. food choices, sleep schedule, exercise, etc.) are lifestyle changes. And changing way we live is not easy. You may have adopted some of your bad habits to make up for imbalances in other parts of your life.

For example, you may reward yourself with sweets or ice creams at end of day because your work is so stressful. Yes, you feel so much better when you reward yourself that way. But, if sweets are aggravating or perpetuating one of your health complaints, e.g. low energy level, then your reward is actually shooting yourself in foot. Your low energy level may be what makes your workday so stressful! Or your sweets may be perpetuating your weight problem- and some of stress of day may come from constantly feeling insecure about yourself because you're overweight. It's easy to get caught in vicious cycles like this. And it's a little uncomfortable getting out of them.

In above examples, you might have to eschew sweets and take herbs or enzymes instead. When you get these right, you'll have less cravings, and it'll be easier to eliminate sweets. But you still have to make that decision and stand by it.

To change, we need clarity, willingness, and discipline - and how to get and keep these things is, I believe, major human obstacle to better health and a better world.

* Without clarity, we don't know we need to change. * Without willingness, we cannot adopt better habits. * Without discipline, we cannot keep from falling back into old habits.

Without these three qualities, we are at mercy of our own unhealthy cravings and obsessions. These cravings may give us short term comfort, but in long run, they lead only to disease and death.

The Chinese Medicine Physiology of DECISION MAKING and PERSISTENCE You have to make decisions to change your health, and if you don't persist in your changes, nothing gets better. Let's talk a little bit about Chinese medicine physiology and psychology of decision making and decision keeping:

1. PERCEPTION, CLARITY, AND CALM The Heart-system is not only a blood pumper, but also relates to our overall consciousness. If we have a problem here, our perception of life, of ourselves, and of our habits may be distorted. Heart-system problems most often show up as anxiety and insomnia, so you may have to deal with these first. Certain imbalances can obstruct clarity, or create mental and emotional unrest. Once you have more calm and clarity from remedies in those chapters, it will be easier to deal with your other problems.

2. ORGANIZING AND CATEGORIZING YOUR OPTIONS The Spleen-system digests not only foods, but also ideas, concepts, etc. Once we have perceived our lives and our habits, then we analyze and categorize them. This requires energy, so if you have trouble with digestion, worry, or low energy, this part of decision making process will be more difficult. In fact, this book may be hard to digest! Herbs, enzymes, different food choices, etc. will help you here, and then it'll be easier to deal with other problems in your life.

3. EVALUATING THE GOOD AND BAD Some Chinese medicine authorities maintain that Small Intestine is involved with separating good from bad options- but this may also involve Spleen, Heart, Kidney and Bladder. People have trouble distinguishing good and bad options for a number of reasons- you may lack Heart's clarity, or Spleen's strength of analysis. Some SI acupoints do have mental functions like SI3, so that would be a good point to add to other points like: P5, P6, SP4, ST40, and ST41. You'll find more answers relating to your specific patterns in anxiety, insomnia, and depression chapters.

Although you can certainly make philosophical arguments about how much gray there is in world, decisions are much easier when you take a black and white perspective.

As I see it every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself. - Adelle Davis

4. MAKING A DECISION After you've analyzed your options and decided which is best, you must make a decision. The most important organ for decision is Gallbladder. Gall is not just physiological bile (part of digestive process), but also a psychoemotional quality. You've probably heard it used of someone who was thought to be overly assertive: "Can you imagine- gall!" Our oldest medical sourcebook, Nei Jing, says, "The gallbladder is, like a judge in imperial court, one that decides."

Translator Philippe Sionneau adds, "The Gallbladder is organ that endows an individual with ability to resolve, make decisions, and settle on a resolution. In case where Gallbladder Qi is abundant, decision-making ability is firm. In case where Gallbladder Qi is empty, individual loses capacity to decide; determination wanes; it transforms into fear, cowardice, and indecision. In everyday language of China, it is said that a person with a small gallbladder (Dan Xiao) is shy, fearful, and cowardly, whereas a person with a large Gallbladder (Dan Da) is bold, intrepid, brave, and daring. The state of gallbladder is proportional to individual's force of character."

No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown. - William Penn (1644 - 1718)

More Decision Quotes

Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense. - Arnold Bennett

Make up your mind to act decidedly and take consequences. No good is ever done in this world by hesitation. - Thomas H. Huxley (1825 - 1895)

The first step to getting things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want. - Ben Stein

I understand your question, Dr. H., and reason for it. Most doctors expect herbs to act just like pharmaceuticals. If there is a beneficial healing effect, they reason, there must also be side-effects. Conversely, if there are no side-effects, then there can be no healing effect. This expectation makes sense in pharmaceutical medicine where you treat with just one active ingredient (why?) at a time. But, chinese herbal formulas make use of more than one herb 99.99% of time. Oriental medicine has been prescribing multiple-agent compounds for thousands of years. This practice is similar to recent drug 'cocktails' developed for HIV and HCV.

Each herb in and of itself is composed of more than one ingredient, plus other 'buffers.' I suppose you could think of a pharmaceutical as a lone-gunman; he is effective in what he does, but abrasive and dangerous. An herb, on other hand, is a more balanced and complex person. The herbs in a formula work together as a team. Each herb has strengths and weaknesses, but whole team can do amazing things! (I could say something really tacky now like, "There's no I in TEAM, but there is an I in SIDE EFFECTS and PHARMACEUTICALS," but I won't subject you to that kind of writing. Not directly, at least.)

Problems with Drug Treatment

To see difference between biomedical and chinese herbal prescription, let's look at an example: You go to see your MD or DO for sinus problems and they prescribe you guaifenesin. You come back a year later with anxiety, and they prescribe you Paxil (you know it's working if you're not anxious about its side effects…). Then, you develop serious heart palpitations, but they tell you it's just in your head. After demanding more tests, you get back a normal EKG or cardiac stress test. Then they really think it's in your head. I know, this is oversimplified, but bear with me - I do have a point; end result is that you end up on several drugs, some of which try to fix side-effects of your primary prescription.

Often Biomedicine Knows But Cannot Do

You didn't know that biomedicine is incomplete? Consider how many diseases in biomedicine have names but not treatments. In oriental medicine, we can see your constitutional tendencies ahead of time and balance herbal formula so that it doesn't worsen any pre-existing conditions. We can see more subtle imbalances than biomedicine can or will detect with its tests (there may be appropriate lab tests or visual studies, but if disease has not progressed very far just try to get insurance company to approve them!). We have ways of seeing gray areas of imbalance that precede serious disease. To be fair, in long run, micro-approach of biomedicine will sharpen oriental medicine, and broad effectiveness and insights of oriental medicine will guide and inform biomedical discovery.

Oriental Medicine is Not a One-Size-Fits-All Medicine.

It's not a one-herbal-formula-fits-all medicine. It's not a one-acupuncture-point-fits-all medicine. Oriental Medicine is a get-to-know-you medicine.

In oriental medicine, we can predict and prevent side-effects because

* We understand of causes and nature of diseases, and * Our understanding of diseases and herbs is integrated and interwoven