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Choosing Safe and Effective Cosmetic Tools Part 2

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Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors. Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.

Hi, my name’s Michelle Gellis. I am an acupuncture physician and I teach facial and cosmetic acupuncture classes internationally. Before I get started with today’s lecture, I wanted to talk really quickly about book that I’ve just written and the name of the book is Treating the Face and it is a 500 page hardcover book with over 350 color illustrations all about treating the face Everything from neurological conditions to some five element and also cosmetic.

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So, if you can go to the first slide.

Today I am going to be doing part two of a two part lecture. on how to choose safe and effective cosmetic tools for your treatment space. So last time I did an overview of some tools and I went through some safety. And today I am going to talk about some Practical considerations, things like ease of use and functionality, how to match tools to different skin types, and then how to set treatment goals, and also how to integrate different technologies using these different tools into your treatment space in order to get the best results.

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So the first thing I’m going to talk about are microneedle pens. And I have a microneedle pen here. And the microneedle pens when you’re thinking about ease of use microneedle pens are great. They typically you want to look for ones that have both a, like a Battery that you can use or a plug that you can use.

And also you want to be able to adjust the depth of the needles. So you might wanna go to me for this. So these needle cartridges click on and then there is a little adjustment ring here where you can adjust. The depth, these numbers signify the depth of the needles on the, how deep the needles will go.

And then on this particular model, this is an AccuLift micro pen. On this one, the This end shows you how fast. It says number four. Sorry, trying to catch the light here. You just adjust, you push the, whoops, this way, you push the button on the top, and then it lets you know how fast The needles are going up and down.

You can go back to the slides. So you want a pen that has an easy to use dial for your depth adjustment. And that way, when you’re working in different areas of the face, neck, chest, hands, back any parts of the body. You can adjust the needle depth and then having it either recorded or cordless gives you some versatility and lightweight pens.

If you’re doing a lot of microneedling, you don’t want something that’s too heavy in your hand and a really simple cartridge adjustment. So the needle cartridge, you should be able to click it in, snap it on and make sure that it’s something that will stay securely attached. And replacement parts should be easy to get as well.

Just like with any. electronic device batteries can wear out on these over time, over years, and being able to get replacement batteries, cords, things of that nature is very helpful. So derma rollers, you can go to me again. This is a derma roller and they have this head. You want to get one with a smaller head that’ll fit in smaller areas.

And I like the ones that have needles that are shaped like little pyramids. They tend to not bend as easily. And these are actually integrated right into the head of the Dermaroller. And the handle has a design that makes it easy and comfortable to grip, to get a good grip on it and to hold in your hand.

And these have 540 microneedles on them, and they come in different lengths. These are also made by AccuLift. You want to make sure that any microneedle device that you have comes in a nice case to keep it clean, and that it’s protected. Pre sterilized. You can go back to the slide. The nice thing about derma rollers is they perform a lot of the same functions as a microneedle pen, but they don’t require any batteries.

You just take it out of its case and you don’t require any numbing cream. You just roll it on the face and you can rinse it after you use it. They are for single person use. But you can use them over and over again, and then you can sanitize them once a week just to make sure there’s no bacteria or anything on them.

Go to the next slide. Let’s see. I can do that. Hydra needles and Hydra rollers are very similar. Can you go back to me again? And these are great because, so this is a hydra needle, you can see, let me see if I can get those needles up here, tiny little needles right in the tip. and it has a plunger and when the plunger is depressed, serum comes out of this glass vial.

So you press it on the skin and it’s infused into the skin, whereas the HydroRoller, which is very similar, has these gold needles on it also, but this one you roll onto the skin. So these are great. They’re very versatile. You can build them. They cap, keep the contents from evaporating and you can travel with them, which is really nice.

Okay, go back to the slide. Just make certain whichever products you choose have steps and instructions. And again they don’t require a lot of pressure. The needles are very short. And they travel well.

Facial cupping sets are also wonderful. Oh, I’m using mine to hold my computer up. Hold on one second. Let me let me grab the cups. This is funny. I’m just gonna grab these out. And so this particular set comes with two cups. of two different sizes and two, so two cups and a large one and a smaller one and then two jade gua sha tools and the facial cups are really I like the ones that are glass and They’re easy to use.

They’re easy to clean because they’re glass. They glide well. And so these are things you want to look for. Also, they should be easy to squeeze. You don’t want to get facial cups that are too stiff or too hard to squeeze. And these smaller glass cups fit well on the face. With the Gua Sha tools jade is certainly preferable to a lot of times they’ll be plastic or synthetic or I’ve even seen metal ones.

Really not designed to be used on the face. They can cause injury. You don’t want to cause any redness. or Payne when you’re working on the face. You don’t want to leave any cupping marks when you’re working with the cups and that’s where the glass is really unique because it will collide and it will work well.

You can go back to the slide. Instructions are important. The the set that I used has instructions in the box and on the box and it really makes it wonderful because you can refer to it yourself and you can also sell them to your patients and they can do some self care at home, which is nice.

So the shape you can see here in the slide, the shape of these Gua Sha tools is very versatile, has notches for around the jawline. These flat sides work underneath the jaw, around the temporalis, across the forehead. And then these rounded edges are really nice for stimulating acupuncture points, for massaging the temples, and for working in between the eyebrows.

And Fosha is wonderful for releasing any fascial adhesions, stimulating blood flow, really getting that Qi moving into the face, and it’s very calming and relaxing at the end of a treatment.

Red light devices tend to come in two general categories. There are the tabletop ones which are nice. You can easily just move them from room to room and they typically have an easy setup. They’re lightweight, easy to store, Get them out of the way. They do have some limitations though over the floor models.

Of course, the floor models, you can easily move them all around a patient and depending on the size of your treatment room would determine whether or not it makes sense for you to have one of these. They Usually are the same power. They come in different powers. Some of them will go as far as a pain setting.

Some of them are really just for cosmetic. But when you’re looking, you want to get one that has really simple controls, a built in timer, that has an automatic shutoff. So if you can’t get back in the room to shut the lamp off, it’ll shut itself off and it should come with some sort of eye protection. So microneedle pens are best for really aging skin deeper scars, discoloration, also for fine lines.

They’re good for normal skin combination oily skin. You certainly don’t want to use it over any inflamed or pustule acne, a very sensitive skin, and it’s great for stimulating collagen in the long term. Dermarollers are better for not quite as severe signs of aging, home maintenance, and again, if someone has very sensitive skin, they’re probably not the best choice.

You don’t want to use them over active acne as well. And that’s it. So more advanced signs of aging, the micro and scarring microneedle pens, derma rollers for less. The hydro rollers are like the hydro roller and hydro needle. are just like a dermaroller, but they will infuse serum right into the skin, and again, you don’t want to use those with very sensitive skin.

So the HydroRoller, you can work quickly over a larger area, whereas with the HydroNeedle, it’s better for spot treatments. fine lines, dark spots just little areas. You certainly can use it all over. And it’s, you can actually take a hydroneedle and put, if you have a hair loss product that you’re using, you can put it right into the hydroneedle and use it for that.

Facial cups are great for puffiness, tension contouring the face. Pretty good with any skin type, but you want to stay away from any broken capitals. capillaries, or any active raised, inflamed, or pustule skin conditions, really good for enhancing the circulation, lymphatic drainage, and giving that healthy glow.

The facial gua sha tools will help with any tension in the face. Relaxes your patient, improves the skin texture, and it’s pretty much good for any skin type, except for any active wounds or infections. The red light device is wonderful for almost every type of skin, anti aging, redness, acne, and the only, there are some contraindications if someone is on a medication that’s sensitive to the light.

And you can use it with some of the other tools, but I don’t usually recommend using red light before or after microneedling just because I like the skin, unless you’re using just the white light, the blue light to clear the bacteria.

So for microneedle pens, you want to optimize your results. You want to clean the skin, disinfect the skin, adjust, adjust the depth of the needles, use good high quality serums, keep the speed and the movement consistent, and then the cartridges. have got to be discarded in your sharps container every time.

For the microneedle derma rollers, you want to choose the right length for your patient’s particular skin. You can either, this should say or before or after, but you can either use the serum before or after. I guess you could do both, but If you put serum on first and then you roll, you’re really going to have to be diligent about cleaning that roller and make sure that when you’re rolling, you work in multiple directions, gentle, consistent pressure, and you’re going to be replacing those rollers about every three as much as six months, depending on how often you use them.

And with the HydroRollers and the HydroNeedles, you’re going to want to use good quality serum and pretty much the same as a DermaRollers. You’re going to work in sections. You don’t want to press too hard. And if you’re doing a deeper treatment, you don’t want to treat more than every two to four weeks weeks.

The same thing with the hydroneedles, and you do want to keep them clean. You clean the head of the device after you use it. With the cups, make sure you’re using a high quality oil and Be careful not to use too much suction. You’re going to follow the lymphatic system and you can do cupping as much as three times a week and you want to choose the right cup size for the person’s face.

With the gua sha tools, again, make sure there’s Good high quality oil and use proper techniques. You’re going to be doing more of an upward and outward movement and you can work on different acupuncture points. I always tell my students you can go for the Gua but not the Sha. And red light devices, you’re going to choose the right wavelength depending on your patient, make sure their skin doesn’t have any product on it, and you can use it as three to five times a week, um, for the best effectiveness.

Bringing these, this all together you really want to tailor combinations of treatments. Depending on your patient you can layer your treatments. So you could do some dermarolling and then some red light. What I do is I sit down with my patient and I am going to adjust my treatment plan depending on their needs.

I might do acupuncture and put the red light over it. I always do. cupping and gua sha after a facial acupuncture treatment. And I educate my patient about what it is I’m going to be doing and A lot of these tools, not the microneedle pen, a lot of these other tools you can sell to your patients for at home care in between treatments and make sure that you take before pictures and really track their care.

progress, speak to them about their goals ahead of time, and then check in with them and see how they’re doing. Again, my name is Michelle Gellis. If you would like to reach me, you can go to my website. FacialAcupunctureClasses. com. You can learn about my classes and any of the products that I spoke about today.

And you can also find me on social media under my name. And I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for this opportunity today.

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Choosing Safe and Effective Cosmetic Tools – Michelle Gellis

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Hi, my name’s Michelle Gellis. I am an acupuncture physician, and I am going to be doing this short presentation for the American Acupuncture Council on choosing safe and effective cosmetic tools. For your treatment space and this will be part one of a two part lecture. So go to the first slide, please.

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So a little bit about me I have been teaching cosmetic acupuncture for a little over 20 years. I’m on faculty. at Yosan University, and I have recently published a book which let’s see, you can, let’s see, this way you can see what the book looks like. It’s a hardcover book and it is called Treating the Face.

Oh, thank you. It is over 500 pages of color, Images and information about treating the face, 5L Lumen acupuncture, cosmetic acupuncture, neuromuscular acupuncture, facial motor points, scalp acupuncture, submuscular needling, facial cupping, facial gua sha, microneedling, red light therapy, skincare, and more.

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And self care and you can get the book from my website facialacupunctureclasses. com. I know a little bit about buying tools for treating the face because when I am treating patients, I have a few different tools that I use. And I have a where I actually have designed and sell tools. But I have spent a lot of time looking into different tools and devices and their efficacy and their safety.

And in order to save all of you a lot of time, I thought I would just put together some really good information on what you should look for when you’re deciding what sort of tools to bring into your treatment space. Some of the tools that I use in my treatment space that are very popular are microneedle pens, dermarollers, hydrorollers, hydroneedles, facial cups, Facial Gua Sha tools, and red light devices.

For today’s lecture, I am going to talk a little bit about each one of the tools, their benefits, some considerations that you might have when you’re looking into these tools, and then also safety concerns. So first is microneedle pens. These are relatively new devices. They’ve Been around for 20, maybe 30 years, but essentially they are it.

They call them pens because they look like a pen, and at the tip of the pen are tiny little needles that vibrate in and out, and they puncture the skin, and they cause microtrauma to the skin, and they cause microtrauma to the skin. When this microtrauma happens, it causes the skin to remodel to produce collagen, and it can be really effective for things like fine lines and wrinkles.

And the treatments are very fast. They, it doesn’t take very long, about 20 minutes to treat the entire face. You can also use these on the neck, the chest, the back of the hands, pretty much any part of the body. But you do need to be trained in how to use them. It’s not intuitive how to do microneedling.

And, They’re really just treating skin level concerns. Another concern with these is sterilization. So when we talk about safety, we’ll talk about that. Another device is derma rollers, and derma rollers are similar to microneedle pens in the way that they work. However, these are manual. Microneedle pens either run on battery or you plug them in, or some of them are both.

And these devices, you just hold them in your hand and you roll them on the skin. And they have tiny needles which penetrate the skin, which help to stimulate collagen. And, will also help to exfoliate and increase the absorption of any products that you might put on the skin. They’re not going to be as precise as a microneedle pen and they can’t always be sanitized as well.

With the microneedle pens you throw the tips out after you use them, the tip, but with the derma roller you tend to use it over and over again, not from patient to patient, but If you’re doing these as in office treatments, you can use the same device on a treatment on a patient multiple times. A HydroRoller is very similar to a DermaRoller.

As you can see here, there are tiny little needles. on this device and this glass container at the bottom gets filled with serum and you roll it on the skin and it infuses the serum right into the skin. So the benefit is you’re really combining two treatments into one. You’re getting the stimulation of collagen and you’re getting the absorption of the product but It’s really going to be limited as far as how much serum it can hold.

A hydroneedle is very similar to a hydroroller, but this is more of a stamping device, so it has these tiny little needles with a little plunger. And you feel, you fill the reservoir with serum and then you would stamp it into the skin. So it’s very precise delivery and, but you just want to use it in specific.

areas.

Facial cups are wonderful. They’re a great add on to cosmetic acupuncture treatments. They help to stimulate blood flow and qi to the face. They’re non invasive. They don’t hurt and but you do want to Make sure you get trained in using them. You don’t want to leave any bruises or cause any injury to your patient’s face.

Facial gua sha tools are made, I like the ones that are made out of jade. Jade is very much a part of our medicine but they can be made out of various different materials and they can also be made in different shapes and The benefit to using them is they can help with lymphatic drainage and they can break up fascial adhesions and they can really sculpt the face if someone has like puffiness under their eyes.

If their jawline is sagging, you can use a gua sha tool for this. Again, you want to make certain that You are properly trained.

Red light devices are Again, something that are a little bit more modern than let’s say our acupuncture needles, and they come in different forms. Here we have one that just sits on the table, and then this one is a freestanding device, and each one has its Benefits. These tend to be the ones that just go on the table tend to be less expensive.

The freestanding ones are more flexible. You can move them anywhere around and it’s just the important things to look for. We’ll talk about in a little bit, but they are pain free, they’re non invasive, and they can heal with a lot of skin level issues. And some of them even have settings for pain.

Safety first. Most importantly, when you’re looking at devices, you really want to take into account, are these devices safe as well as effective, because there are a lot of devices for sale in many places, online, on TV, at your local store. cosmetics shop or uh, wherever you shop, it seems that they have all different types of devices.

So you really want to make certain that what you’re getting is safe. So first I want to talk about microneedle pens and the things that are important. With a microneedle pen are the needles themselves, because those are the real powerhouse of the device. So the microneedle pen needle cartridge, which is disposable, The needle should be made out of stainless steel or titanium, and then so the stainless steel keeps them stainless steel keeps them strong, and the titanium keeps them strong, and very few people are allergic to it.

Check. to titanium. So it’s good if the needles are made out of that. And also the motor of the pen itself, you want to make certain those needles are going up and down at least 16, 000, preferably 18, 000 RPM, because you don’t want The device to be dragging on the skin. You want to make sure that these cartridges get firmly attached into the pen.

And also make certain your pen is CE certified for safety and reliability. And you can even check with the American Acupuncture Council. The American Acupuncture Council has approved the AcuLift Micro Needle Pen for use in the treatment room. Also, anti backflow technology means that not only do you have three connectors on the tip, But also on the inside of the pen, there’s three places where it connects and that the cartridge itself clicks on and stays in very tightly.

For Dermarollers, again, titanium, stainless steel, very important for durability and safety. And you want to make sure these needles are lined up. and that there are enough needles on the roller so that your patient doesn’t have a lot of pain. If there’s too few needles on the roller head, then they can have pain when they’re being The handle should be well constructed, should fit well, feel well in your hand, and you want to make sure that it rolls smoothly.

It shouldn’t be dragging on the skin. With the hydro rollers, there’s a lot of concerns as well, especially since you’re using these devices over and over again. So you want to make sure once you put the serum in, that it This reservoir is sealed well. Again, needles that are either stainless or titanium.

And with the HydroRollers, having them gold plated can add an additional layer of it being hypoallergenic, microbial, added durability wonderful for conducting serums and Making sure that your device has well made needles for precision and for comfort. And gold can help with the healing response. So these are all things to look for.

And then when you’re buying one of these devices, you want to make sure that it’s packaged properly, that it’s sealed and that it’s sterilized. Many of the same concerns that we have with hydro rollers, we’re going to have with hydro needles. So the material and that the. Top screws on tightly, sterile packaging, easy to clean so the top should be able to come off, you can throw it in with some sanitizing tablets, and again, the gold over titanium needles.

For facial cups, The cups that I like are the glass cups. You don’t want them to be plastic or silicone. They can drag on the face. You want to make certain that everything that’s involved here is non toxic. And cupping sets that have at least two different sized cups, because these are small smaller cups.

They’re only just for comparison, the larger cup, the opening is about the size of a dime, so they’re pretty small. With the Gua Sha tools I already mentioned, I love Jade. If you’re using Gua Sha tools that look like this, make sure they’re actually made out of jade and not green glass. They should have a smooth finish.

They should feel cool in your hand, be chip resistant. And if you can find out where they’re sourced, ethical sourcing is also a nice bonus. For the red light devices, when you’re looking at quality and safety, you want to make sure that they have a minimum of 630 nanometers. 850 is where you’re going to be getting into those pain settings consistent power.

And it should have some sort of heat management. If the device itself does get warm, which it shouldn’t, you should still be safe to touch it. And look for something that’s durable, that’s sturdy, that’s not a flimsy device. Okay, so we’ve talked a little bit about the different devices and safety.

And next time we are going to talk about some more practical considerations. ease of use, matching the tools to different skin types and different treatments, and also integrating different technologies. How do you integrate all of these different devices? So thank you so much, and I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for this opportunity.

Again, my book is available right now only through my website in the US. If somehow you’re catching this in another country, check with your local booksellers online. We have some distribution going on internationally. Thank you so much.

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Acupuncture Malpractice Insurance – License Protection

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When To Give A Child A Smartphone – Cowan & Heller

And today we’re going to talk about a topic that comes up all the time, and that is the use of smartphones and technology in children from a Chinese medicine perspective.

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Hi, my name is Stephen Cowan and I’m happy to be presenting here today thanks to the American Acupuncture Council, very thankful that they have this opportunity, this platform. And I’m joined today by my dear friend and colleague, Moshe Heller, who teaches with me around the country on pediatrics and Chinese medicine.

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Hi, Moshe. Hello, Stephen. Nice to be here. Nice to see you again. And today we’re going to talk about a topic that comes up all the time, and that is the use of smartphones and technology in children from a Chinese medicine perspective. So let’s go to the first slide. This is an interesting question, and I believe that Chinese medicine is more than needles.

It’s a way of life and being modern practitioners for Chinese medicine and carrying that perspective, the understanding of Smartphones and tech, this powerful technology raises an interesting dialogue that Moshe and I have been having and parents ask about it, particularly with their teenagers, but I think it’s even more important to talk about it with babies all the way up.

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When is the right time to introduce a smartphone? What are the dangers, etc. Things like that. Yeah, that’s a, it’s a very big common questions. And I think one of the things that we have to understand as you mentioned here before is that we need to look at what, how can we translate what’s happening from a Chinese medicine perspective so we can help in balancing that and understand what we need to do in order to make it because Exactly.

Exactly. We can’t stop it from happening. No, the cat’s out of the bag, right? The Pandora’s box is open. You can’t make this go away. We all have smartphones. Parents are using smartphones. So it would be ridiculous to put your head in the sand and say I don’t believe in smartphones because they’re going to be here.

And there are all kinds of positives and negatives. It’s the obvious. Negatives that people know about are addiction, right? Exposure to dangerous things, pornography and violence and things that we don’t want. Bullying misinformation and, loneliness, right? These are the kind of five things that I think, We all fear when it comes to exposing young children.

Let’s go to the next slide and talk about a deeper level of Chinese medicine understanding our society. You can do the other one too. Yeah. So this idea of so much yang in our society at the expense of yin because the circle doesn’t change. If you got more yang, you got less yin. But in our case, we have both happening simultaneously.

Too much, too fast, and too little, too late. And one of the things, Moshe, you and I teach wherever we go, is the What we’ll call the sensitivity and openness of a child’s heart mind, right? This very a kind of gentle, open, innocent heart mind, body, way of consciousness that is absorbing the world.

And here we have this modern society. And I think that’s the first place we have to sensitize parents is understanding both the yin yang philosophy and understanding the nature of a child’s mind and body, right? That quality. They’re not, the classics say children are naturally more young. and more underdeveloped in their yin.

So if you add to that this sequence that we can, everybody can see here, so many things on this list of too much, too fast, that’s cumulative, that’s adding to the natural societal yang nature, right? And then couple it with too little connection, too little exercise, too little darkness, right?

You can leave lights on all night, right? Kids sleeping with lights on. Too little slow and quiet time, too little sleep, too little exposure to natural surroundings. That’s a kind of societal yin deficiency. And so it’s a lot of that stimulation. So it creates, supports that imbalance. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think your kids went to Waldorf school where they actually were very strong in holding off on screens and technology. And There’s one thing I want to just put out. There’s actually two things. One is that actually one of the things we need to think about is that looking at a screen, whether it’s an iPad or it’s a cell phone or it’s a TV, is, on one hand it really makes the feeling that the, or the parents have a feeling that it actually calms the child where the, suddenly there’s quiet, there’s nothing there’s no interaction.

They’re plugged in. But on the other hand, what is happening is all that energy goes inside and creates excessive or extreme stimulation. So it’s actually very similar to a stimulant. Oh, absolutely. And a hypnotic stimulant in that sense. But there’s another piece that’s a really good point you’re making.

As it’s going into the being, the child, there’s a natural feeding of the mind at the expense of body. So you’re creating a tension between the more yang head and the yin. body or lower part, right? So they’re not embodied. They’re so sucked into this technology because it’s so stimulating. that they’re transfixed, but it’s pulling them out of their embodiment, right?

So you’re getting this tension split of being disembodied and engaged, and it looks like he’s learning, or he loves it, or he’s, quiet for a chance, right? How many kids with ADD come to me And they say he has no problem paying attention when he’s on his video games or when he’s on his smartphone, right?

And that’s evidence of exactly what you’re saying. They’re being sucked into this very powerful technology that’s designed to capture your attention, right? There’s another component that when I mention ADD, I have seen over and over again what I call slow modem syndrome. The more you’re exposed to fast technology, The harder it is to go back to slower analog settings, like sitting in a classroom, because it’s like working on a slow modem.

You tear your hair out. You go crazy. It’s like, why isn’t this thing responding, right? And you’re being forced, after you’ve been playing for three hours on, Your screens on Roblox, on your phone, having to sit in the classroom becomes torturous, and there’s a lot of acting out behavior, distractibility, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and then they’re being medicated for that.

So yes, I think it, you’re absolutely right that if you were expecting the child to go back to the classroom after playing a video game, that seems, Extremely impossible. So one of the questions I will ask a kid when I play that out in front of the parents, I say, Let me ask you something.

Why would you want to make school more boring than it already is? And they look at me and they say, I don’t want to make it more boring than it already is. And I said the more you play Expose yourself to this technology. By default, it’s harder to go back and all of a sudden the light goes on with somebody in the family like, Oh my God, we’re actually contributing to the problem.

And so we’re opening up those ideas. Yeah, I have a question about that because I’ve been really struggling with this kind of problem that comes from exactly this point, is that I see that there’s a lot of bargaining with many of the kids that are, that the parents have an understanding that they cannot give them free use of screen time, that they will bargain and sometimes It’s almost like this kind of fighting between the parent and the child.

Oh, definitely. I see it. I earn more time, and and if you do this I see it all the time, and it’s being used as a reward or bribery, right? If you do your homework, you can do, two hours of this. I had one kid, the father was a techie, and really deep in, made a lot of money in the tech world.

And the kid He had set up these, rules, and it turned out the kid was cheating. He was a techie too and he had played nine hours of video games. And in one day and the father was like horrified, right? Nine hours where he was cheating, right? This particularly became a problem during the pandemic where kids were online for school and they were actually playing games or they were Look, I don’t want to demonize all of the screens.

They’re here to stay. It’s a way to make balance, which is what, That’s what Chinese medicine is about, finding that dynamic equilibrium of these two polar aspects of our engagement. The rule I use at home with people, with kids and families, is a one to one rule that I call the green to screen, ratio.

That for every minute that you’re on a screen in a day, You have to have equal number of minutes of time in an analog natural setting. That could be a walk in the park. It could be playing with blocks in your room, something that’s not plugged in to any electronics, right? And as long as you, because the time is limited in one day, you can’t bank the hours for later.

You It limits itself. And, so a kid who’s, I’ve had kids who said, all right, I just did two hours of exercise outside. Can I do some screens now? And I say, yeah, but there’s another rule, an hour before bed, because you don’t want to interfere with your melatonin levels. So an hour before bed, all screens are off in the house, including the parents.

They have to, Pretend to turn off their own addiction while the kids are going to sleep, because it’s not fair. And I’ll hear this over and over again if the parents don’t practice the same principle. The classic place where this is a problem is the dinner table. Screens at the dinner table, phones at the dinner table, and getting parents to break their own habits.

is critical, right? Yes, but there’s another thing that you mentioned in another talk We gave, Moshe, that is so dear to me and really important and that is when we’re asking the question of When is a good time to introduce a smartphone to a kid? Which is a big question I get asked. I think this idea that different kids have different Needs, different sensitivities, and you have to know the complexity of the temperament of a child.

For example, More fiery kids, where that phase, that element, is stronger in that kid, because we’re a complex of all of them. They’re more prone to addiction, because, I find a lot of fire kids just love scrolling through YouTubes and finding all kinds of wacky things that they can’t stop looking at, right?

Whereas, More of the woody kids are more prone to looking for pornography and violence and danger and, they’re just curious about it. I’m not blaming them. It’s part of their nature to be curious about those kind of things. Yes. Earth kids are more prone to the bullying that takes place in, in social media and to FOMO, fear of missing out, right?

They’re voyeuristic. They want to know, is anybody talking about me or are they including me? That’s a very earthy, spleeny way of thinking. So they’re vulnerable to that aspect. I think metal or gold kids are much more prone to misinformation because they’re collectors of information and data. And so they’re prone to get, coming up with the wackiest information, that we see that’s littered in the internet, some of it causing great fear and concern when it’s not even true. And then most, and probably most importantly, is the water temperament or the water within us all that is prone to alienation, aloneness, being cut off from the world because they’re so sucked in so deep.

So knowing the temperament of your child becomes a way of gauging age. When is that, knowing your kid and knowing how they’re developing and what are they prone to already helps guide you in terms of timing of introducing these things. Some people say There’s a movement in parents now called wait until 8th.

Wait until 8th, meaning 8th grade. Because waiting till puberty begins for a smartphone in particular, which is a full on computer that’s in your pocket, as opposed to what we’ll call a dumb phone, which you can use to call mom to pick you up from a basketball game or whatever. But smartphones are a very powerful computer that has access to the whole world.

So that’s one kind of global guideline. I don’t like global guidelines. I think it has to be fit to the needs of the family and the child specifically, but it’s something to think about. Yeah. And as you mentioned before, my daughter went to a Waldorf school where there’s a very strong anti media screen phone exposure till and they also talk about how to expose and the But their concern is mostly about The information that’s being you can be exposed to.

And that’s another, probably totally different talk. I find it interesting that your daughter, who’s a whiz at at IT now was someone who was not exposed early. So it doesn’t delay you in that, but in some kids, particularly in some kids, it makes it even more. enticing by restricting it.

So you have to know your child to know how you can go about doing this. Let’s go to the other, the next slide and talk about that. An important thing, I think to just also talk about that from Chinese medicine perspective, this kind of Excess energy that you mentioned that goes up to the mind being the heart shen can actually imbalance and create less fire in the lower part of the body, in the minstrel fire, and create what we might call now, in fire, right?

As we yeah, it literally, kids where their feet are cold, and their head is hot after playing these, being online for a long time, there’s a physical effect and the poor spleen gets caught in the middle, right? Which is already dealing with absorbing information in the form of food, in the form of exposure to information online.

And gets overwhelmed, right? And so it’s a setup for this quality that, Dongyuan Li Dongyuan talked about this Yin Fire mixed pattern which I think is contributing to a lot of the disorders I see both physically and mentally in children today. Yes, that that plays to another aspect, which is very interesting, I think, is that, A lot of times when we are thinking of balancing that, we should think of the Shaoyang level and Sanjiao gallbladder kind of level where it enables to shift back some of that excess top fire back down to the minstrel fire and create a Better balance with the spleen in the center.

Yeah, I you know, I talk a lot about san jiao as the Relationship organ of the body so that everybody’s relating to each other one big happy family and these the screen addiction of our society is a breakdown in those relationships. So always think of Sanjiao. Both Sanjiao points and Sanjiao concepts as part of the Xiaoyang as integral to the kind of integration of heart, mind, kidney, pericardium, this primary, uh, yin yang relationship.

And in terms of any kid that comes into your office who’s having trouble relating, whether they’re relating to friends, relating to family, relating to the school work, relating to food, whatever, anytime you think relationship, think Sanjiao. And of course, gallbladder being one of the kind of special organs.

this unique, powerful organ that, is kind of part of the extraordinary organs related to mind. So I do, you’re right. It’s really important that we have this concept in our mind when we see the effect of early exposure to powerful technological advances will hit this complex and cause a kind of upside down pattern of yin and yang.

Correct. And, I also have been noticing that one of the a lot of, one, one symptom that I see that comes up more frequently in my practice I don’t know, I know that probably you too, is that I see much more ticks. Yeah, and particularly tics of the neck, shoulders, head, face, eyes, right?

It’s all the yang aspect that’s ticking, right? Occasionally, you’ll get a hand or a foot, but usually it starts with the head. So this is a great example of that and important to approach it with this model. And one of the things, interestingly, one of the herb formulas I’ve been using for tic disorders in general, no accident, is Buchong Ichitan, right?

Believe it or not, even though you’d think, wow, isn’t that potentiating the Qi? Yes, but we’re trying, this is one of the principles of yin fire treatment is not suppressing, right? The yang, but actually improving the relationship of yang. Yeah. The idea is that the pericardium is not necessarily it’s, That deficiency is manifesting in a excess and somewhat correlates to what we sometimes in the course that when we teach, we talk about this kind of hyperactive spleen chief acuity.

That concept also comes from this idea and the importance of strengthening the spleen more so than dispersing that kind of what may seem excess. Exactly. And so the spleen, stomach, middle, burner is what BuChong means, right? Health, unhealthy. Exactly. And I think that was the brilliance of Li Dongyuan’s idea.

It’s so applicable to pediatrics. And we get into a lot of that discussion of both Sanjiao dynamics and hyperactive spleen qi, acuity. in the course. So I think this is a great example of how to see smartphone technology from a Chinese medicine perspective. So I think at this point we can And this discussion.

We’re interested in more about treating kids. And we really encourage all practitioners to be kid friendly because kids respond so quickly. It was very rewarding in your practice. And we’re doing come visit us at the Jing Shen pediatrics site where we’re doing teachings. We have online teachings.

We’re planning some in person teachings and we welcome you guys to be there. And I also want to just point out one more very important thing that I was thinking about is that I think one of the things that when we learn go back and look at the theories and how they manifest in children It actually enables you to even treat adults in a little different way.

Absolutely. Good point that we all have a child inside us and tapping into that. This is old trauma. This is the child activating the child nature, right? Longevity. All of these things, the virtues of a child, when we can tap into that and treat that in adults, it’s very beneficial. I a hundred percent agree.

Thanks, Moshe. This is why I like teaching with you because we always play off each other and remind each other of ideas. So let’s thank the American Acupuncture Council again for hosting us and we look forward to seeing you guys again. Yes. Thank you. See you soon.