Look Younger. Feel Energetic.

Archive for January, 2012

What do you think about exercise?
Would your opinion of exercise change if you knew it would keep you looking young and feeling limber?
During my time in college, I took a leave to study Japanese in Japan.  During my second semester, I met an elderly gentleman.  From the moment we first met, there was a spark.  We spent every day we could in each other’s company.  One day, I met him at his campus office.  He was finishing up his class work.  From his shelves of books, he pulled out a thin blue, paperback book and handed it to me.  It was titled, The Fountain of Youth by Peter Kelder.  I was a little baffled until the concept turned a light on in my brain.  Then he replied, “Give this to your mother.”  I thought to myself, “My mother?! Maybe when I return home in three months.  But for now, I am going to use.”
So I brought it home with me to my host family’s house that night and started the exercises that night in the tiny room that was mine.

I would be its human guinea pig.  I was very interested in reducing the effects of aging.  Starting young would allow me to see my aging process in relation to my siblings.
The program consisted of a 10 week process of beginning with 3 repetitions and adding 2 until I reach the full set of 21.  Before I left Japan, I was doing the full set.  A full set only takes 10 minutes to complete.

The instructions stated to do these exercise whether you were sick or well.  It also stated in my copy, that if one did these exercises every day, one would not need to do any other exercise.  I was excited about that.  I liked the idea of addressing youth while staying fit.  Over the years, I estimate I have missed 60 days of doing the exercises due to shoulder injuries and severe fatigue related to being sick.  I firmly believe that the exercises helped me keep my physical strength when I was in acupuncture college doing nothing more than studying.  I could lift objects that the rest of the women in the group could not.  Many years later, I attended a shopping convention in which one of the booths was selling a piece of exercise equipment.  To determine what your individual workout program would be, the sales person had the group of us take a fitness test.  Where my friends ranked around 5 out of a possible 10, I ranked 9 out of 10.  Not bad for someone who only did the Fountain of Youth exercises daily.
The first year of my acupuncture practice, I held a 10 week program on the Fountain of Youth movements.  On day 1, I asked everyone to write down how they felt physically, emotionally and mentally.  I collected the letters and stored them away for the last day of the program so they could compare their results.
Ten weeks later, six participants completed the program.  The age range went from 35 years to 85 years of age.   This was some of the results from the group:

* The 85 year old woman had more energy.  She was even more spunkier than when she started.  When she started, she carried herself like an old woman. When she left, she stood a little taller and had a stronger presence.
* The 60+ year old man came to the class with a cane and instability in his walk and stiffness in his movements.  At the end of the program, he was more stable on his legs and he ceased to appear like the Tin man from the Wizard of Oz.  Both his wife and him were very happy about the changes.
* The 50+ year old woman believed nothing had changed.  What she did not observe that the staff observed was that her extreme pessimism had become more optimistic.  She was smiling more and her tone of voice had softened.
What about you?

These exercises, also known as the “Tibetan Rites” or “Five Rituals” take only 10 minutes of your time a day.  They work by allowing the energy in your body to move in the proper direction and speed to keep you healthy and maintain vitality your body.  Remember, it only takes 10 minutes a day.
Give yourself a challenge.  Get the Fountain of Youth and start your own experiment.  Log how you feel at this moment in time – physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Add in how you feel about your job, your family, your body.  Put as much as you want about your opinion of yourself.  Then file it in a drawer and get busy with the Tibetan Rites.
I recommend that you start your day with the Tibetan Rites.  Jump out of bed and do them.  If you wait until after you have showered and had a cup of coffee, you probably will find something better to do.  The point is not to give yourself an excuse to not do them. Then go on with the rest of your morning and enjoy your day knowing that you have done something to keep your body strong, limber and youthful.
When I have been compelled out of bed by an emergency long before my usual wake-up time, I would throw on some clothes and get on my way.  When the task was completed and I found myself home later that morning, I would start my day as if I had just gotten up:  begin with the Tibetan Rites, shower and dress.  I would feel like a new woman.  At one time, I thought it was the shower that made me feel so energized but during one of those made dashes, I only had time to get home, do the Rites and fly out of the house again.  I realized then that it was the Rites that made me feel alive, not the shower.
I recommend that you do the Tibetan Rites early in the day because of the revitalizing affect they have on the body; some of my patients noticed sleep issues when they did it before bedtime.
Some of you may say that you do not have enough time in the morning.  I say, just get up 10 minutes earlier.  The Tibetan Rites will change your day. Let your body feel beautiful again.

Everyone wants to be beautiful these days.  People are looking for ways to feel younger.  No one wants to be old or diseased or infirm. You see commercials for hair and skin products regularly on television and in the magazines.

There is a move to bring the population to a higher standard of youth and beauty.

Society as a whole is living longer.  I hear fifty is the new forty.  So what does that mean?  We want to look forty at fifty.  Heck, we want to look twenty at forty.  I vote for that one.  Is it unrealistic?  I do not think so.  With the longer life span, there has to be a change in the aging of the body.  Having a decrepit body at ninety when you still have another thirty years does not make sense.  There is an answer out there – more than one.

With a longer life, there are certain expectations and desires that go with it.  What is the point of living longer if you cannot have fun?  And if all your friends are dying off, you have to make new ones.  The only way to make new friends is to be able to get out of the house and be public.  That means you need to be able to move and look good doing it.

Right now, you look at the older generation and say, “No way do I want to look that old.  No way do I want to be housebound when the world is moving all around me.  If I am going to live longer, I want to have enjoyment in my days.”  With enjoyment is the unspoken desire to retain your beauty.

Getting older is fine.  Being old is not so fine.  As our lifespan increases, beauty becomes a necessity.  By being beautiful and staying beautiful, the world pays attention to you.  You have a secret that everyone else craves.  You become someone special.

Beyond being special, beauty allows you to stay connected to the younger generation.

Sometimes the extra wrinkles set you apart from the younger generation.  The lines on your face create an age gap which translates into a gap in understanding.  You are looked upon as being different, set in your ways. The teenager says to herself, “How can someone that old really understand what I am going through?”

By looking younger, or not so old, you may have an easier time convincing the teenager that you really do understand.

It is good to have many years over your head, just not written on your face.

What are a couple of options for getting rid of the wrinkles?

One way is through a surgical facelift.   It is a short procedure, including the recovery time.  The excess skin is removed and viola, you are young and beautiful.  Then the months pass, maybe even years, and your face begins to wrinkle, and with the wrinkles comes the dreaded sagging.  What do you do?  Have another surgical facelift?  Hmm.  Your skin has lost its elasticity and your face looks stretched and unreal.  Even though you can cut away the wrinkles, you know, given a certain amount of time the procedure will wear-off again and you will look wrinkled and aged.

There has to be a better way to beauty that will smooth the wrinkles, lift the skin and keep the elasticity so that the face stays younger looking, longer.

Let’s take a look at skin in general.

The skin is the largest organ in the body.  It protects the body from the world outside and it maintains proper temperature through the opening and closing of its pores.

When other organs do not function properly, for instance, when digestion gets stopped up and you have constipation or when the blood is not being filtered by the liver or kidneys due to an accumulation of chemicals in the system, the skin helps out by removing the waste and toxins in the form of odor, perspiration, sores, ulcers, rashes and pimples.

The face, in Oriental Medicine, tells the story of the whole body in its coloration, blemishes and lines.  When you are tired, you get bags under your eyes.  When you have a fever, your face turns a shade of red.  When you have allergies, the eye lids become red and swollen. When you are under stress, pimples break out on your neck and chin.

If the face looks old because the body is having problems, why not fix the body then the face will look younger, less haggard? You are probably thinking that fixing the body is great but that might take a long time.  I have tons of things wrong with me.  I want to look younger now.

So, how do you get the face looking better in a short amount of time?  One way is to work on the face directly which in turn helps the rest of the body.  Acupuncture facial rejuvenation, also known as, acupuncture facelift does just that.

Facial Rejuvenation achieves both a more youthful appearance and a healthier body and mind.

Rejuvenating the face rejuvenates the body.  When the body is filled with vitality, it reflects on your face.

During cosmetic acupuncture, each wrinkle and furrow is viewed in relation to the whole body.  The points located near the wrinkles and furrows correspond to a specific organ system.  By needling these points, the skin becomes smoother and the organ system related to each area gets a treatment also.  The more treatments the face receives, the more healing the organ system receives.

You will find that as you continue regular facial acupuncture treatments, your back aches, your indigestion, your bloating reduces in severity to such a point that you stop having the symptoms.  In this way, you heal the body by retaining the beauty in the face.

Beauty is not skin deep.  It is the reflection of the health in your body.  Your vanity is simply your body asking for help.  Listen to its whisperings.  Give it what it craves, what you crave.  Give it its vitality, its smooth operation, its ability to be and do for you what you want to be and do.  It lives for you.  Choose beauty through health and you will find your body thanking you in vitality, strength and calmness.