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The Yin and Yang Balance of Sleep Tsao-Lin Moy

Today I’m going to be talking about the importance of sleep and using it as a way of improving health for your patients. People are not getting enough sleep, and this was an issue that was happening even before the pandemic.

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Hello and welcome. My name is Tsao-Lin Moy, and I am an alternative medicine acupuncturist and Chinese medicine practitioner. And I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for hosting these Facebook live events. Um, today I’m going to be talking about the importance of sleep and using it as a way of improving health for your patients. Uh, so, uh, let’s go to the slide.

Okay.

So one of the, uh, problems that we are facing in these times is that, uh, people are not getting enough sleep, and this was an issue that was happening even before the pandemic, um, that, uh, we have a situation that is really a crisis, um, about a hundred million Americans, which is one-third of the population are sleep deprived. And that means getting less than six hours of sleep per night. And poor sleep has been linked to many chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity, dementia, and chronic pain. And the studies actually show that if you miss one night of sleep, I means like, stay up, do an all-nighter that you, um, you build up a protein called beta amyloid at two, as much as 5%. And this is, uh, a linked to impaired brain function. And it’s also associated with Alzheimer’s disease. And this is where these beta, the beta amyloid proteins actually clump together and create those plaques.

So lack of sleep, it’s also linked to increased emotional disorders, including things like anger. And later on, I’m going to actually talk a little bit about it, like how it works with the season, right? So seasonal, emotional issues can be linked back to sleep. Uh, what we know is poor sleep has been a problem for weight gain, uh, hormone imbalances in fertility for male and female lowered immune function because of the, the cytokines, which are the inflammatory process and also premature aging. So, uh, many of you, if you have children or have been home and may have been experiencing this, uh, uh, problems, getting sleep, uh, being stuck at home, right? Uh, so what I am going to talk about is, uh, as you, as practitioners, understand the yin and yang, and really what I’m going to do is relate it to sleep because the, of yin and yang play a major role in sleep.

Restorative sleep is governed by the body’s circadian rhythm and the sleep and wake homeostasis. So circadian rhythm is that internal biological clock that regulates wakefulness, metabolism, body temperature, and hormones, and synchronizes with environmental factors, such as temperature and light. And this is also true of the seasons. Uh, what’s interesting is that it also closely relates to the Chinese medicine organ clock. So here’s a picture of the Oregon clock, right? We all, this is a foundations in Chinese medicine. And as you know, if you are a practitioner of, uh, Dr. Tang, that you might also, you look at the clock is how you’re going to treat the different meridians systems, right. Um, okay. So yin, if we look at yin is considered the hormone of darkness or the hormone of darkness we should say would be yet. Um, this is the circadian in the part of the biological clock that signals the release of melatonin.

So melatonin is called the hormone of darkness because it gets triggered when the light is lowered. And so when the sun begins to set, we have melatonin that starts to build up and it signals the body to start to move into a yin phase, which helps you to, to slowly go into a sleep phase. So following these movements and rhythm of the day and nighttime in the evening, the body is going to naturally move towards a yin phase. And that parasympathetic, which is the rest and digest, this is what Phyllis, uh, facilitates, you know, restorative and restful sleep. And so studies show that actually people that work night hours that combat that natural rest period, uh, in terms of light, um, they cause a misalignment of their circadian rhythm. And what happens is they suffer more cognitive problems and they’re at higher risk also for developing diabetes.

Uh, so somebody who drives a truck or is, uh, just, you know, staying has like the night shift clearly related to, um, higher health problems. Um, so it’s important also what time you go to sleep versus not just the, not only the quality, but you look at the time because there is an, and there’s also like how much the quantity we really need at least seven to eight hours of sleep. Now, the thing is, is what we need is really restful sleep. So here’s a little bit of the, the nighttime, uh, the, the yin time. And we see the moon so related in time is related to

Pink. Yup.

We’re looking at is more sunshine and vitamin D. And so in the morning when the sun rises, we actually are entering into that young phase and become wakeful. And this also relates to the circadian rhythm. Sunlight will actually pause that melatonin production, and it’ll also help the body to produce vitamin D. And that also helps with mood and other metabolic functions. So if we don’t get the restful sleep, it will manifest in being tired and wired. And that could also be related that you’re not getting enough sunlight. Right. Um, so, and just as a side note, every cell in our body has vitamin D receptors. And if we look at many of the people that had a severe COVID from had lowered levels of vitamin D, uh, in the U S we have a lot of lowered levels of vitamin D even before, uh, since we spend a lot of time indoors in front of our computers, uh, watching zooms, uh, this is, you know, exhausted. We don’t, we just don’t get out. And we also see with children, they don’t run around and play so much anymore. They are really stuck in doors doing activities. Uh, so what’s really important is for children to actually get out there into the sun and, and play, and also as adults too, we really need to get outside and move around. Okay. So here we go. This is exactly, yeah. Fantastic. Would it feels like to be a kid running around in the sunlight, uh, enjoying, enjoying themselves.

So what causes this imbalance or to this a yin and yang out of balance? Well, as I said, you spoke about it a little earlier. The problem of modern life is that we also tend to ignore and override the body’s inclination for rest. And this can result in like racing thoughts when it’s time to sleep. And I’m sure a lot of your patients report, they can’t get to sleep. They, you know, they keep thinking about what they need to do. So this is really an example of this young energy when it’s really time for the yin to quiet down, or we see people staying up all night long and then sleeping during the day. And that’s really when they are out of alignment, really out of alignment with the Nat, the natural cycle. And what happens is, is that when you do that, your body is, is actually fighting with the, the rotation of the earth, right.

Going and moving towards sunlight. And you’re going down trying to go down and all of the forces of nature are pulling you back up. So what happens is you get very tired and wired. Um, and so really studies they’ve shown that people that work night shifts also have greater health issues. Um, even if they’re getting the hours of sleep, that they need the number of hours so that they there’s more, that has to be looked into. Uh, another thing is also people say like, Oh, I catch up on my sleep on the weekend and you cannot catch up on your sleep. It doesn’t so not getting enough sleep. You create something called a sleep debt, right. And that negatively impacts the, the, the health. So things such as stress, fear, and anxiety, which are like being in that fight or flight mode very young, um, that is often one of the complaints that people have, especially when it’s time to rest.

Uh, so just sitting and relaxing, their mind is still going, which means there’s this disconnection of the mind and body. So not going into calm, being relaxed and stable, which is more of that yin time. So there’s not enough time for recovery. So what we see is is that there may be too much of activity. And then the body just doesn’t get that TA like the focus time to relax. So then we start to have this thing where it, uh, the adrenals get involved and the people are unable to actually rest and relax. They just can’t go into it. And that’s like kicks into their nervous system, right? So when we’re looking at this, we’re looking at the illness is coming, comes from being out of balance with nature, our environment, and how it affects our biology. And so this yin and young balance is reflected.

It shows up in the quality and the quantity of our stuff sleep. Um, so, you know, why are we talking about this? Well, this is addressing sleep as a strategy for your patients. So no matter what they’re coming in with focusing on the quality of their sleep is going to be really, really a good key to helping them to heal. It’s also telling you that something else is going on, right? So most people don’t consider sleep as a wellness or self care practice. They don’t think of it as an activity because they think like, well, I’m just lying there. I’m not doing anything. But the fact is, is that there’s a lot that’s happening when you’re sleeping and you really need to get that quality sleep just as you’re preparing for your day. You know, this is an activity that, you know, during the daytime, very young, you’re very aware of the activities that you’re doing when you’re sleeping.

You don’t need to be aware of those things in your sleep. You need to come that part of your brain down and let that your body take over. So most patients, when they come in with the chief complaint, we know that there’s an imbalance in Ian and young. We can look at the meridians, we can look at digestion, we look at the emotions, right? And then the key is like, well, what can we look at that is really gonna give us, uh, an indication, because it’s really not yin or yang, it’s yin and yang. So that problem that they’re coming in with, there’s gotta be the other side of it. And so this is where we can look at sleep. So if somebody is not getting restful and restorative sleep, their body, you know, their, their body needs to heal if they are getting the sleep.

So even if they report that they get great sleep, um, that there’s a pro you know, sleep is going to be something that’s involved in, cannot be perfect balance if young is out of balance because they’re interconnected. So if someone has a problem, then we know that there’s also going to be the other side in, in the yin aspect. Um, so, and the other, again, I said, you can’t catch up on your sleep, right? We have the sleep debt, and that’s like an, I, those are one of those myths that people are like, Oh yeah, I sleep on the weekend. It’s not. And in fact, if you sleep too much, that you also can cause a problem like the, the, uh, the metabolic waste builds up and toxicity. So sleep quality we’re looking at. So what happens when you have a good night’s sleep, you release growth, hormone growth hormone is what helps maintain healthy body tissue.

It promotes healthy metabolism and is important for maintaining bones. 75% of growth hormone is released during sleep. And it helps to restore your body and muscles from stress experience during the day. So this is really key. If you don’t get into that restful state, this is not happening. And so that is going to be a real clue. If your patients are not healing, right, better mood and positive outlook, sleeping well means you’re regulating the autonomic nervous system to be in a state of rest and digest your body. And mind are able to repair and recover and balance brain chemicals. Poor sleep is correlated with depression, deep restorative sleep results in a more positive outlook on life. So anybody who has depression, you’re going to notice that they probably sleep a lot, but it’s not restful. So that’s where you there. That’s one of the clues of, yeah, well, I get a lot of sleep, but it’s not restful.

And so that means that there’s some other imbalance that’s going on. So immune function studies show that sleep quality and immune function are linked to better health outcomes. So getting deep and restful sleep, you are able to reset and remove that metabolic waste that builds up from stress and in turn reduces systemic formation. So we also know that children require a lot of sleep. Why is that? Whatever they’re learning, they’re growing and learning and their body and their brain needs to be able to integrate and do its functions, right? So this is true for us, even as adults. And, and when people are not healing, we can look at that. They’re probably not getting restful sleep. So you’re, we’re looking at the four seasons, right? The spring, summer, fall, and winter now seasons and patterns of sleep right now, we’re in the spring time. So all in all things, we can see that there’s a dynamic interplay of nature and seasons that are a microcosm of the cycle of life.

So we are influenced, this is, it goes back to the circadian rhythm, right? That we are also, uh, relates, you know, our health is also related to the environment. Uh, so if you look in certain countries where they have like four hours of light, when they’re in the winter, or they have, you know, forever a day, they tend to have a lot more emotional, um, problems. Right. Um, so understanding that the yin and yang of our body is what connects our biology for the need of sleep daytime and nighttime. So that we’re in sync with the movement of the sun and the moon, as well as the seasons where the amount of light will change. So being in rhythm with nature is going to help us with the flow of our own internal clock. So that’s resetting the circadian rhythm and the body’s ability to maintain homeostasis.

So this also applies in the change of seasons because we start to look at people having more health issues at certain seasons. So important to bear in mind that people’s energy will shift depending on those seasons and can show up in pulses and different types of illness. Right? So we always expect in the spring time that you’re going to have a little bit of a winery pulse, and that’s going to be normal in the spring time. Right. Cause your with the seasons, um, we got a little winter, okay. Winter, for example, is considered the most UN time of the year for looking at union young. Um, it’s cooler, there’s less light. Uh, it naturally influences the process of slowing down animals naturally go into hibernation to conserve their energy. And that’s true of us. We tend to feel more sleepy. We gain a little more weight, may not have so much energy.

You want to go and, and, and, you know, sleep. Uh, and so it’s during this sleep that the body temperature actually lowers. So this is something that we, you know, going into a sleep phase, we actually, our body temperature lowers. So we go towards the end, which is why, you know, the first days that are cooler after hot summer people have fantastic sleep. So people are also, uh, sensitive to the seasonal change, right? Experiencing the winter blues, the seasonal, sad, um, their relationship of their internal balance becomes upset by the external changes of the season. And in this case, something like sad in the winter, they may sleep excessively, withdraw, feel like hibernating and experienced depression. Also people with low vitamin D have a higher chance of developing seasonal depression. Uh, so treatments such as light therapy, acupuncture, exercise, and vitamin D have been found to help.

Now, if you’ve been indoors all summer, as winter comes around, what happens is, is that you have lowered vitamin D and you can become more, you know, have, uh, feelings of melancholy and depression, right? And so here is we’re looking at the young time. This is summer, right? So this is the most young time of the year. And so the warmth of the sunlight makes people feel a lot happier, right? We have more energy because we’re getting the energy and here there is a propensity to stay out later. So this is one of the things and get less sleep. Uh, the additional time in the sun is where people also get vitamin D and some of it can be stored in the body, right? That’s what kids do. They run around outside, and, uh, get a lot of sunlight in, in certain cultures where they’re working in the fields, they’re out there getting vitamin D and, uh, they don’t have to take the supplements, right?

Historically we didn’t have supplements, uh, in the summer, but we need them. Now, when you do need them now, uh, for many other reasons, environmental factors that cause us to lose, uh, also, um, important, uh, vitamins and minerals, uh, in summer months, some people experience more anxiety though, and agitation and even mania, right? So that’s that heart energy not sleeping, right. If they’re out all the time, they can actually trip into, uh, having more mania. So summer insomnia, they call it where, uh, that can be very frustrating. And that we see in, uh, in climates where people have like forever song, uh, long days of sunlight, you know, closer to the North. So maintaining a sleep schedule and cooling the environment and, uh, darkness for sleeping is something that can help. So this is where someone has to get really disciplined in the summertime, right?

Because that is actually kicking in their natural propensity for being very up, right? So they need things to do to help, to balance it out. So this is like seasonal illnesses and getting sleep, uh, getting good sleep in the spring is especially helpful for the emotion of anger, right. Uh, we’ve been seeing a lot of outbursts and a lot of stuff going on, at least here in New York city, where I am, you see people, you know, very angry and agitated. Uh, and of course the, the formula of choice is the shallow song to kind of help, uh, to unwind the liver and smooth out the emotions. So this is like that liver young energy people get very agitated as also as the season shifts. So it was at, to look at when there is a shift in season that we’re going to have liver energy is going to be involved to a certain degree.

So not getting sleep is also going to mean the blood’s not stored during the night and results in irritability and angry outbursts, also allergies and itchy skin fall, poor sleep. You can have more worry and anxiety, digestive problems, gas, and bloating, and then you get colds and sinuses and more melancholy, you can get lack of sleep is going to magnify any of these seasonal influences. And also it’s going to magnify the imbalances that are part of that patient’s constitution. So this is a place where when you look at their constitution and look at what’s going on in the season and how it’s relating to their sleep, like what’s happening. And that’s like a, like a, I won’t say a no brainer, but it’s a good start because what happens is people’s symptoms are all over the place and you start to chase them. And so you’re going to know if they’re having emotional problems, that there’s going to be some liver involvement, and you’ve got to look at whatever liver energy involvement and look at whatever else is going on with the season and their sleep, right.

So really to help your patients to cultivate better health. Um, if you’re, you know, diet is going to make a difference, right. With sleep, um, exercise, making sure to move the cheese in blood. And definitely during the, you know, outside, uh, meditation for mindfulness acupuncture is going to definitely help, right. With regulating the nervous system. Um, we’re looking at herbs supplements. They may need support with, like I mentioned, you know, shallow sawn in the, in the spring. Uh, but if you’re a new Yorker that is like, uh, you know, that’s the, the first formula you might think of. Cause new Yorkers tend to get very irritable and cranky and agitated, um, get some bodywork, cause touch is also going to help, right? Uh, again, there’s something when I, I love is the environment with Feng Shui, I’m going to quickly do something with that and spending some time in nature so that you’re able to really take advantage of, you know, the, the earth.

So here are some tips for better sleep, for something that you can do with your patients, mind, body harmony. So worrying and overthinking those racing thoughts are very young and it makes it very difficult to fall asleep and have a restful sleep. So powering down the mind is just as important as lying in bed, a relaxation, meditation, and breathing exercise can help bring the body back into a parasympathetic or you’re a yin phase. Now most, if somebody is very agitated, it’s very hard for them to meditate, right? I’m sure you have patients that say, I can’t do it. Oh my God. My mind races. Um, so what there is instead is there’s that four, seven, eight relaxing breath. Um, and it’s an exercise it’s really simple to do. Um, uh, there’s a link to it in here. And later on, if anybody wants the slides, uh, they can have the slides, right? It’s a, it’s a method of helping to calm you down. You can use it anywhere. You know, it helps with anxiety and actually helped to shift the nervous system. Breathing is also going to help with oxygenating the body and moving the energy, right. With each breath, we know that the cheese is going to move like five soon, right? And, and if we’re, our energy is stuck, we need to be

Great

In time promoting deeper sleep. So in time getting to bed before 10, right? The, the, the Oregon clock, right. We want to make sure we’re in bed before 10. So sleep can occur during the most yin time between 11 and 1:00 AM. So that’s taking advantage of the circadian rhythm and the movement of the earth. So when you’re in rhythm with your own biological clock, as well as with the plan, and then we’re looking hormone of darkness, you some heavy curtains on the windows, block out the light and the noise to help keep your biological clock for you to have a produce the melatonin and the rest will sleep. Right. So this is the thing in studies. If you’re, you’re looking at your, your computer or your TV or your smartphone, they found the people that, uh, expose themselves to room light before bedtime actually suppressed the synthesis of their melatonin. Right? So it means you got to put your phone down probably a couple hours before, at least, um, in temperature, you know, studies also show that the best temperature for sleep is 65 to 70 degrees. So your body will naturally lower its temperature and stay cool while staying asleep. So your body actually does do that.

Good.

So, um, young and moving energy, get outside and do a little bit of exercise. Um, this helps the body to synchronize, uh, with the movements of the earth. Uh, we see that, you know, looking at nature, um, here doing a little exercise in the early morning to move the Chi and gather that energy from the sun, uh, and then tips for functions way, you know, removing clutter, uh, distract, like that creates a mental distraction and chaos, um, that can actually interfere.

I got nice thing.

And then here, you know, preparing the sleep environment, you want to lower the lights again, you know, for the melatonin, no TV screens or computers, make sure you have those heavy curtains really make it a ritual for sleeping. Right. And, uh, again, uh, so this is, uh, I’m gonna stop sharing my screen here. Uh, if you, again, if you need copies, uh, you can, or you missed part of this, uh, this is going to be, uh, available to you. Uh, you can, I guess you can email or text, uh, you can get copies of the recording, uh, and, uh, yeah, for a copy of the transcript, you’re going to need to, you can text needle, uh, to the, the number (714) 332-6926. And, uh, I hope this was, uh, informative for you and please join us next week. Uh, when we’re going to have Jeffrey Grossman, who’s going to be hosting, uh, these, this, um, uh, American acupuncture council, uh, Facebook live. And, uh, so I want to thank you all for listening, and please comment. If you have any questions, you can always get in touch with me. And, uh, again, uh, this, uh, you can, uh, get the transcript and I think there’s going to be a replay too. Thank you.

#1 Practical Tip to Increase Retention – Chen Yen

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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.

Do you feel like you give great clinical care, but then sometimes patients don’t end up sticking with care and it feels really frustrating because you feel like, Oh, I could so help them if they only stuck with care. So welcome. This is Chen Yen, six and seven figure practice make-over mentor at introvertedvisionary.com. Your host for our AAC live show here today. And so let me give you the number one most practical tip that you can use to help with retention, whether with your own patients or your associates practices, because maybe you’re, you’re actually pretty busy, but then you have an associate and you would like them to stay busy. Have you ever thought about this with, with retention? That if you are actually, um, if your patients don’t really understand why they should stick with it and they drop off care, it’s almost like, like, uh, not helping them fully.

It’s also, uh, something where if you’re feeling like I’m not consistent enough with patients, then it’s a leak. It’s like you bring in patients on Linden and then on the other end, they end up not coming back to the extent that you could really help them. So this is a number one practical tip that you can use right away is to think about these three key things. Number one is that patients need, and then I’m going to give you a specific strategy you could use in, in specific, um, thing that even a template that you could, you could use right away in your practice to increase retention. So then, um, three things. Number one is that patients need to understand if they’re not actually understanding why the care is helpful for them and why to stick with it, especially with the number of treatments many times with, with acupuncture could take, then they’re not going to actually stick with it as well. The second thing is to remind them, because even if they do understand, and they’re not reminded of it, they might not actually understand it fully because for you, it’s, it’s something that

Jen we’ll be right back. She has a little internet issue going on. We’ll fix that in a second. So hang in there, she’ll usually come back very quickly here. She comes

For you. It’s something that is, uh, you know, you get, get it clinically. But then for someone who, who is brand new to what you’re doing for them, they don’t really, uh, always understand things clinically. So it’s up to you to remind them and educate, continue to educate in each visit so that they will actually, uh, understand what you’re, how you’re helping them and why it’s important to come back. The number three to think about is to make it really easy to book an appointment. Again, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard from acupuncturist where it’s like, Oh, would you like to book it your next appointment? And then if someone says, no, I’ll just wait until next time. Well then they don’t end up booking, right? I mean, I’ll just wait until I, I fig figure out my schedule and then I’ll call you and then do they have ended up calling?

Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t. So how can you make it easy for them to book, for example, what are you saying right then? And there at the end of the appointment, are you actually saying, let’s get you scheduled notice. Even the tone of that is different than would you like to get book your next appointment? When would, when would you like to book your next appointment? Like that is not taking leadership of, of recommending what, what would be best for them? Because people are looking up to you for guidance. People are looking up to you as their acupuncturist to, to tell them what would be best for them. So those are three quick things to think about. Now, let me share with you specific strategy that my clients have used that have helped them double the retention rate in this Cub. So this, this retention piece comes from the fifth step of the consistent patients formula for introverts.

So as far as the, uh, practical tip related to this is one at the beginning of the visit, what do you do? Uh, do you always have an, a short, a very short intake form that they fill out very brief, just literally three questions and that, and what are they? So the first question is something more about, um, what what’s been happening since the last visit and the reason why you would want them to, to actually take a moment and write this down. Cause I, I hear from some acupuncture loads, do I really need to do this? I ask these things during the visit, or I, I actually diagnosed them during the visit and, and they it’s pretty obvious. And then I’d talked to them about it. There’s something about, um, patients taking that moment and writing down, reflecting on the progress that they’ve made.

Have you ever had people who, who have actually made great progress and they don’t seem to remember it? So this is why it’s important to do this. So the first question is the first thing is describe what’s been happening since your last visit. Um, and then with, with what you originally came in for, by the way, I’ll make sure that you get this template. If you want to just PM me and I’ll make sure you get this progress assessment form template. So the second, um, thing to have on there, actually. So I mentioned having three things, I’m gonna give you four things, but, um, the, the second one kind of ties into the first one. So the, the second one is to share any improvements you’ve noticed. So first they describe what’s been happening since the last visit. And then the second thing they share is, is the improvements that you’ve noticed.

Then the third thing is something that measures their, um, feeling of progress, right? So for example, if it is pain level, then, then you could say, what is your X level on a scale of one through 10? So what’s your, what’s your pain level on a scale of one through 10, and then they actually read it. Then the fourth question is, and this is the most powerful question. What it, what, what are your top three most frustrating health issues right now? What are your top three most frustrating health issues right now? And why is this so powerful? Because have you ever had people who came to you for one thing, but they didn’t even realize you could help them with other things? Well, this helps them have a moment to write down those things that are actually bothering them right now in this moment. And some of those things, they might not even have thought that you could even help them with.

So then during the visit, you can bring this up, you can say, okay, I noticed that this has been happening for you. And then you’ve mentioned that you’ve been having these issues. Tell me more about that. So that helps you to be able to have, um, a conversation with them about what’s most pressing for them right now. And again, you know, I get the question well, uh, from acupuncture sometimes like, well, do I really need to have them fill this out ahead of time? And the answer is yes, because, um, they w that’s where you end up having that opportunity to,

Oh, she’s coming back, ladies and gentlemen, hang on, Chad. I believe you’re muted. I don’t know if you could hear me, but you’re muted. Nope. You hold on. Okay. Wait, try it again. Let me hear you talk, talk, talk. Okay, there we go. There we go. Good. Keep speaking. Nope. Oh, wait a second. I hold on a second here. We’re sorry for these technical difficulties. Let me see if I can bring chin. Can you hear me? I can’t hear you. You must have muted yourself up and she’s gone again, ladies and gentlemen, um, we’ll make sure that you get a copy of this. Um, uh, here she comes.

So they need to be able to have that moment to actually reflect on their progress. And literally, how can these this be done logistically? Is that before they actually have their visit with you, they would actually fill this out, just this, you know, three or four quick questions out in the waiting area, like on a half sheet of paper, or if you are doing this in EHR, you could end up having, um, like a, a kind of like an iPod thing and iPod iPad, and then have them fill out the answers to this. And, uh, the finally the final tip I wanted to give you is that at the end of the visit, are you also giving context and also same thing at the beginning of the visit? So perhaps you could say, okay, last time we worked on this, this time we’re going to work on this or this I’m going to focus more on this.

And then at the end of the visit, acknowledge the progress they’ve made. For example, I have, um, a craniosacral therapist I’ve seen and, uh, she’s so good at this. You know, after every visit, she says, what got you? Or what some version of this, right? Like, Oh, you look like you’re glowing. You look so vibrant. You know? So then I feel really good at the end of the visit. Right? And she reinforces that for me. So if you see visibly that your patients look more relaxed or they just seem more, more like they’re in the flow or in a goal, it glowing, then, then recognize them for that. And then say, this time we focused on this and next time we’re going to work on this, you know, something like that. Right. So, uh, and I know that as, as a clinician, as an acupuncturist, you are already good with diagnosing things and you feel like, Oh, I don’t, you know, I probably don’t need this thing.

It’s not like I need them to tell me that this such and such is wrong. Sometimes, you know, you do a pulse, I’ll tell him and you, you know, exactly what’s going on. But when patients are bought into the idea of what you’re doing for them, when they understand, when they can actually see that they’re making progress, when they are actually feeling better and you are acknowledging that they are feeling better, they feel more excited about their care and they’re going to actually stick with it. And they see a context to, okay, this is what I need to do. Um, like continue on. And this is, this is what you’re going to do for me next time. And then as a quick reminder at the end of the appointment then mentioned, okay, let’s get you in the calendar for the next appointment. Let me see here.

I have such and such a for such and such date. Right? So, so there’s none of this, this kind of thing like, Oh, would you like to book an appointment, the right kind of tone, but rather an assertive, a tone of you knowing what’s best for the patient and you’re in terms of your recommendation and then giving it confidently and getting it on the calendar. So with that, I love to see you comment below. What did you find helpful most helpful about this? What’s one practical tip that you can use. And then go ahead and PME, go ahead and click on my name there and then private message me. And I’m more than happy to give you that template that, um, that I gave you in terms of the progress assessment form. There’s also a script that goes along with it in terms of what to say to, so that way you can actually benefit and help your patients get to the best outcomes as possible when they stick with care.

And they’ll appreciate you for it also when, when they get better care. And then when they’re also actually getting better results as a result of that, then they’re going to refer more to, and your practice will be full, or your practice we’ll get into more of the snowball effect and you’re going to help more and more people. So with that for more six and seven figure, practice, makeover tips, go to introverted, visionary.com. And if you’re struggling right now and feeling like you’re at a plateau, um, you, and you just know you’re capable of so much more, you’re meant to help people who, who really need you then feel free to reach out on our website and happy to give you insight into your situation, how it can help you. So that till next time.

Acupuncture Sports Medicine with Whitfield Reaves

His experience includes the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic games, as well as numerous track and fields cycling events nationally for the last four decades, Whitfield is the author of the well-known practitioner’s manual, the acupuncture handbook for sports injuries and pain, which one of the few texts integrating traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, orthopedics, and sports medicine.

Click here to download the transcript.

Hi, welcome to this week’s American Acupuncture Council’s Live uh, Facebook podcast show. I’m your host Poney Chiang of neuromeridian.net from Toronto Canada. Joining us today is our special guest Whitfield Reaves who is joining us from the central coast of California and he will be relocating into Santa Fe. I’d like to begin by giving you a biographical description of, uh, uh, Dr. Reaves. Uh, Whitfield Reaves is one of the leading practitioners in the field of acupuncture sports medicine. He began clinical practice in 1981 as specialized in the field of orthopedic and sports acupuncture for 40 years. He is licensed in California and his earned doctorate Oriental medicine degree in 1983, his thesis acupuncture and the treatment of common running injuries demonstrated that TCM could address many clinical issues in sports medicine. His experience includes the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic games, as well as numerous tracking fields cycling, either events nationally of the last four decades, we feel is the author of the well-known practitioners manual, the acupuncture handbook for sports injuries and pain, which one of the few texts integrating traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, orthopedics, and sports medicine. He’s also the director of the acupuncturist sports medicine apprenticeship program. Thank you very much for joining me. We feel it is an absolute honor,

And it’s a pleasure for me, Poney. It’s great to see you.

Um, I have, um, uh, some questions for you today and, um, uh, I want to keep it pretty relaxed and casual. Um, mostly wanted to hear about your experience, um, in sports medicine and you know, your clinical experience, especially, I was wondering if, um, you can tell us how you ended up specializing in the field of sports medicine.

Well, I started practice in 1981 in February of 1982. I had a marathon runner out for run run in my office and he had Achilles tendonitis and he asked me, you know, can you, can you help? And I said, of course, and of course I had never treated Achilles tendonitis. I had never had a teacher that taught me how to treat the Achilles tendonitis, but that was, you know, I was new in practice. It seemed like the logical thing to say. So I treated them. I was back from China. So I treated them China style, little bit Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And then on Sunday he ran the mission Bay marathon. He won the race. I had no idea. I didn’t even know him. You know, like, well, how fast do you run your splits? And what’s your personal best? And what are you training on this? I didn’t know any of that stuff, you know? And so that was Sunday and this was 1982. This was two years before the Olympics in San Diego. This was in San Diego, California, San Diego was filled with Olympians training, trying not to be in Los Angeles, but to be close Monday morning, he brought in busloads of athletes, you know,

From, and

Literally I became a sports acupuncturist overnight and it was of that moment. I didn’t choose it. I was always athletic. I love sports. And it just happened. And really looking back, I didn’t know anything as, you know, the education for graduation to be an Lac in 1981, included nothing very precise about sports acupuncture. So what happened? And I had to teach myself while we went.

That’s a fantastic story. So I guess it’s all, all word of mouth from a high-performance athlete from there. Yeah, that was it. Yeah. Um, well, unfortunately it’s sad to say even to this day, there is still not very more sports medicine curriculum, your average Chinese medicine school. Uh, so, uh, so unfortunately that it has changed, but thankfully we have, uh, mentors and masters such as yourself, which can help us pre-state yet. Now I wanna, um, um, uh, kind of put you on the spot a little bit. Um, I want you to tell us what do you find you get the most consistent results and when it comes to sports medicine now, what do you find? It’s one of the more complicated, more difficult, uh, conditions for you to treat

Well? Um, I would say consistent results for me come with the shoulder, come with tendonitis, infraspinatus, uh, the acromioclavicular joint, much of the shoulder. I find that I can just do really well with the techniques that I’ve learned and, and put together over the years that, I mean, unless you have greater than a 50%, all the way up to a full thickness tear of a, of a rotator cuff tendon, you can get great results in better than any other tradition. I know better than anything PTs can do or, or, or exercise signs or anything. Cause we can get into those discover chromium space area effectively with the needle. So I’d say that’s my favorite.

This has been great and reassuring to hear because for a lot of practitioners, they are afraid of shoulder. I have an associate in my clinic whenever a shoulder case, just like she gives it to me. So I’m very happy to hear that you, um, at that, that is possible to become really, really good to get great results in the shoulder. Cause I know a lot of people lacking that confidence because sorry to interrupt you, please continue

The worst. The things that I don’t like are places that are hard to needle. I don’t like an inguinal hernia or inguinal strain. I don’t like the groin. I don’t like need doctors and I don’t, and I don’t like the armpits, you know, the awareness, you know, I would prefer to send them out for manual therapy. Uh, and so as I would prefer to send out for manual therapy and those are conditions that I think acupuncture does, you can’t get precise access. Cause my needling is all about precision, you know? And you just can’t be precise, kneeling into an armpit, you know, or what have you. So, uh, that being said, there are people who can needle the subscap pretty effectively. I don’t like I don’t teach it. I don’t like it.

So I see. Yeah. Um, well I, I can relate, um, those places definitely are trickier. And of course you just, sometimes you have a deal with like, uh, you know, body hair and things like that. It’s, uh, it can get a little messy. Um, um, and yeah, I, I have found, uh, you know, growing issues to be, uh, relatively difficult to, you know, I’d rather treat, um, at least tendonitis than deal with the growing street. Um, you shared us with it as a great story.

Okay. I got to tell you that you became my hero.

Well that’s

When, what, when I use this technique of using needling small intestine nine, uh, with three-inch deep, deep, you know, all along the act below the axle and I use it for shoulder joint dysfunction, and I never could understand we’re not really going into the infraspinatus or the Terry’s minor. And I would do a corresponding point on the anterior side and I never really knew why they worked cause we weren’t really going into a muscle. And when I was looking at one of your webinars and you showed that branch of the nerve here that goes into the shoulder capsule, can’t remember if it was the anterior, the posterior or both. I went, that’s why it works. It’s a neural explanation and you became my hero. So,

So that means a lot. It means a lot. Uh, I was not expecting that at all. I mean, you know, I, I, you’re definitely a giant the field and I, you know, I, I studied your work very in depth and uh, so it’s actually a great, tremendous provision for me to, to have you on my show today. And, uh, so I really I’m just floored by your, by your generous words. Thank you very much. Um, no. So you shared it with us a really awesome story about how you got into, uh, the field of sports medicine. Would you mind telling us, um, a recent success story to something that was especially memorable that you can, um, chose, inspire our fellow listeners?

I’ll go back to the shoulder. Uh, I had this boy who had had a pretty severe motor vehicle accident 10 years ago, and she’d had a fracture and humorous, uh, up the proximal end and, and, uh, so they dealt with the fracture and, and, but the opposite shoulder had always heard her and it never got any attention because of the fractured side and the opposite shoulder was, uh, the seatbelt and shoulder. So something had happened in there and I, uh, I evaluated it. She had a positive arc of pain, so it with a D AB duction, she had impingement right into here and she was going and she had weakness on resistant AB duction. She had a weak, uh, turned off, right, inhibited supraspinatus with a positive impingement test. So something was going on inside of here, uh, with the 10 men and what have you.

And it just smoldered for 10 years and nobody had paid attention to it. She was leaving in two weeks to go to the Caribbean, uh, to, to, uh, take, uh, uh, uh, to sail. And she was going to be the captain, you know, ahead of the boat. And she needed to get her arms up like this for the wheel and for the lines and all that. And, and, and I said, well, two weeks, you’ve had this for 10 years. So she said, give me everything you got. So I went in at L I 1645 degrees of bleak, lateral and threaded under into the subacromial space needle and kind of toward [inaudible] superficial to the supraspinatus tendon, deep to the S to the boney, you know, a, a chromium. And I felt it going through these layers of scar tissue. I could just feel the springiness and I pushed through, and we, and we had maybe five mechanical strikes of, of scar tissue and fibrosis underneath here. She aggravated for, for seven, eight, nine days. I couldn’t treat her because it was so aggravated. She came back. Finally, we had three days left ago, she had no positive and, uh, impingement test. And the only thing that was left was that her muscle was still inhibited. We needled small intestine, 12, the motor point of, or the muscle belly of the supraspinatus. And she was seated. I got the needle in, into the muscle and, and within five seconds she turned green and

Yeah, that’s definitely a very memorable story.

Oh my God. Well, so we brought her up and we got her all fixed and then I’ve retested, it turned off five seconds of needle into the supers place. It turned on that muscle and she was 100% fixed for the rest of the time that I knew her, you know, and the second treatment was a five second stimulus to small intestine 12 and it just went, wow. So I didn’t need to put that needle in there for 30 minutes and do all this stuff fixed. So that was good.

That’s very, very cool. Um, and I like the fact that you’re not afraid to share some of these, um, slightly, you know, less than perfect stories. Right. She aggravated her, but sometimes as a healing response, she passed out, but you know, things like that happen. Right. So, um, yeah. So all of them are respect to you for, for, um, sharing these, uh, sort of less than perfect stories. But I think, um, mature practitioners without experience, understand that this part that’s part of the, you know, part of the day-to-day bread and butter, and that is, uh, amazing. Okay. And of course she won the race as well. Right? All your patients in races, right.

And it pricked the boat and they didn’t die. If practitioners will take the point of view that there is no such thing as a wrong needle, you might put a needle in and it might not go to where you want it, but it, but it tells you, okay, I need to direct this over here, or I need to needle it over there. Or I’m not on the band. I didn’t get a [inaudible] or whatever your criteria is. If you, if you, if you, there’s no such thing as a bad needle, there’s just some needles that just guide you to a better placement. Then, then you’re not always feeling like you’re a failure. You use those failures to get you more precise and it’s, it’s a much more positive relationship to the experience. So, yeah.

Yeah. What you’re, you’re, you’re saying is very profound when I have to kind of digest it and reflected about it. I’m sure it’s like, it’s not just going over my head right now. And there’s no such thing as, as a wrong needle. I have to, I have to think about that. Uh, but I appreciate that. Um, now I have the, because I, you know, I’m also interested in neurology, neurology and orthopedic aspects, and I encountered this with, um, you know, uh, new learners quite a bit. And some of them are, uh, hesitant to, to embark on a path to become great, uh, good at treating sports issues. Um, and, and it doesn’t have to be sports. It orthopedic issues right now, but it’s she’s athletes, but everybody, you know, um, everybody is, uh, has some repetitive chronic pain and due to repetitive strain. And so there’s sometimes a lot of overlap between the high-performing athlete and your typical sedentary type of desktop, uh, desk workers. Um, but I encountered some people are afraid to go into the field. I wonder if there’s any advice or words of encouragement. Um, I know you didn’t seek out to go into it, but it has turned out to be very rewarding for you, right? Any, any advice about people that are afraid or hesitant about going into this wonderful field?

Well, I, I think being afraid and hesitant is a really very beneficial emotion to take a look at because, because you’re not going to be very good knowing what you probably know already, uh, Meridian acupuncture is of very little value in treating orthopedics. Zang Fu is of almost no value in treating orthopedic and sports injuries. So you have to learn a new headset, a new way to think, you know, about what you’re doing, but it’s all doable. You can learn this. And there are plenty of teachers and you can, you don’t have to have one teacher. You could do a little bit from a number of places, learn from your neuroanatomy, uh, webinars. Learn from me, learn from that. Talisen, there’s just so many ways to get the information. So the, your fear should only be a guide to tell you you’re going to have to work.

You’re going to have to retrain yourself. You know, I had an occupier, I had a patient that came in and she said, I’ve got Achilles tendonitis. My family general practitioner takes care of all our, our coughs and colds takes care of the kids and all that six times nothing happened. So the patient came in, I said, okay, you have Achilles tendonitis. So when you get up in the morning, your Achilles tendon is stiff. And your first steps are difficult that as we know is a keynote symptom of Achilles tendonitis. It has to act that way to be Achilles tendonitis. And he said, Oh, no, I get up in the morning. And I feel great. It’s at the end of the day, that it’s a problem I want, okay, 99% chance, you don’t have Achilles tendonitis. You got the wrong diagnosis. This guy was a 1500 meter masters runner with the most beautiful body, 1500 meter runners just they’re gorgeous.

Right? They’re just beautiful bodies. You know, they’re not so bolt up as a, as a sprint or they’re not so lean as a marathoner. They’re just like, perfect, beautiful. So, so, uh, I did a pinch test of the Achilles and the pain was all the way down at the attachment at the Achilles bursa. He had Achilles bursitis. So I needled, uh, instead of the tendon, I needle down into the area of the burst. I’ve got some techniques for that. He came back five days later, he was 80, 90% better with one treatment. And the first thing he said to me, he said, there’s a difference between a general practitioner and someone who specializes in sports medicine. He just said that to me. And it made me feel so good because that is what we, that’s what we need to communicate. There is a difference. You know, you don’t go have brain surgery from your, your GP.

Doesn’t do brain surgery on you. You go to a brain neurosurgeon, you know, so the specialty is a beautiful, wonderful specialty. And if you’re drawn to it, you got to learn that you got to learn the language and you have to understand there’s orthopedics, but the next step over is their sports acupuncture. When you’re getting into sports medicine, you have to learn about the psyche of the patient, of the athlete. You have to have more, more attention to how they think and feel, and of course how they train, whereas with the PDX, you can get away without knowing a lot of that stuff. But there are similar the basis of orthopedic and sports acupuncture. The basis is similar with that emphasis of really trying to figure out what makes them do this and why are they doing this? And so, but it’s a wonderful field and it’s totally open. There’s no obstructions, there’s no barriers to entering. You can, you can, you can do fantastically in this field. So you’re welcome to come and join.

Thank you very much for that. Um, just to finish off with our interview session today, I was wondering if you can share with us your favorite acupuncture point, if there is possible to identify one of your favorite, one of your favorite points and how would you, uh, how do you recommend that we use it? Well, I think, you know what I’m going to say.

My favorite point, if I had only one point to do would be the extraordinary point. Jen claw, J I a N qua qua, uh, the claw, the is the, is the thigh and the glutes, the lower mid section five of the bodies, not just the thigh, but it’s, you know, probably includes the, the gluteus Maximus and all of that gen means strengthened. So the translation is strengthened the thigh or strengthened the block. Uh, this is in the muscle belly of the gluteus, medius it from the greater trocanter halfway, but from the greater toe canter to the iliac crest, along the shallow young line, take the mid axillary line, go straight on down to the Raider trow candor halfway between there and the iliac crest is Jen qua it’s post Steria to gallbladder 29. And it’s right on the, in the muscle belly of the gluteus medius, gluteus medius is what stabilizes the pelvis to keep that tilt from going and is crucial to establishing order in the lumbar vertebral segments of the body.

So that when I treat low back pain, I don’t treat Thai young. I treat shaliach. I go in from the side and treat the gluteus medius and deeper, of course, it’s the gluteus minimus. So you have two muscles with differing functions to get, bring about stability in the pelvis, so that the rest of the pair of spinal muscles have some consistency in their experience. They don’t have to be compensating because everything is moving because the gluteus medius inhibits from prolonged sitting. And we all sit too long for reflection along city, the gluteus medius, no matter how big and health, how well, you know, function, this is inhibits. And that big muscle just turns off and all you gotta do is needle it, turn it back on everything changes. So that’s my absolute favorite point that would, that would go up and affect everything up to the shoulder, posture, the neck, it wouldn’t go down and affect heel strike. And, and your whole cadence as a Walker or runner could theoretically correct everything from, from plantar fasciitis up to, you know, neck and head pain. I don’t know.

Wonderful. I didn’t know. I knew it was one of your favorite points, but I didn’t know it was such bright applications for it and the entire spine as well. And it makes a lot of sense that it, the smile has to compensate, you know, that you can have bad problems, they problems, right. And that all comes from having a nice stable, um, pelvis, pelvic bone. Cause after all the, where does the vertebrae sit on this, this other sacrum, which is rooted in the pelvis. Right. Wonderful. Um, so unfortunately this is, um, uh, we’re coming to the end to our, about our interview here. I was wondering if, um, people wanted to learn more about your curriculum or learn or study with you, um, are there some resources or some new information, a website or something that they can do to get in touch, get in touch with you?

Probably the easiest thing to do is go to my website, which is my name, Whitfield Reaves, not com. You got to make sure you spell it right. Wood field.com. There you can order my book there. You can see the links to my most current webinar program called mastering the treatment of injury and pain. It’s 40 hours. I just completed this right before the lockdown last year of all, it’s just all of my work put in 40 hours of webinars. Uh, and we also have some three hour modules of little special segments or portions of the body that we’re teaching still during this COVID era. Uh, and we’re actually starting to schedule some live stuff in the fall. So you can find all of that on my website, on the calendar page. Um, and, uh, and you can email me if you’ve got questions, email me, there’s a contact button. I’m happy to, to give you advice if you need some advice on how to proceed. So, yeah.

Okay. Thank you so much with, um, unfortunately I wish we have more time. I’m sure we can just talk on for hours and I can just, I mean, for me, I guess I can just listen to your stories for hours. Okay. Um, but, uh, I’ve always, that’s all the time you have today. So I thank you very much for joining, joining us. I think all the listeners for joining with joining us today, and don’t forget to join us next week posted next week is Chen Yen. And I’m sure she’ll have some wonderful information to share with everybody. Thank you and have a lovely rest of the weekend

Seal. Thanks for listening.

CIGNA ASH Update for Acupuncture Providers – Sam Collins

Well, as always, let’s kind of work with what’s going on and changing for us in the realm of coding and billing. And specifically this episode, we’re going to spend some time with American specialty health and Cigna.

Click here to download the transcript.

And we’re Live. All right,

Greetings everyone. This is Samuel Collins, your coding and billing expert for acupuncture and the American Acupuncture Council. Welcome you to another episode of, to the point by the American acupuncture council. And thank you for spending some time with me. I will always want to give you some updates. What’s changing. What’s going on. What’s new. If you have not, please take a look at the American Acupuncture Council Network site to check our new section. Cause we do update information there. Along with these shows. We also have information on our Facebook page too. If you’ll take a look there. Well, as always, let’s kind of work with what’s going on and changing for us in the realm of coding and billing. And specifically this episode, we’re going to spend some time with American specialty health and Cigna. Cause I know a lot of you have gotten some letters, so let’s go to the slides, everyone.

All right. As always here’s our website, of course, we’ll take a look there. That’s where the new section is, but let’s kind of focus in on what’s been going on or what is going on with Cigna. So let’s take a look at this letter that I’m sure many of you received. Notice. This one is just dated February 26 and it says here Cigna is pleased to announce that they are expanding their acupuncture per provides our customers with access to services effective June 1st. Now let’s read this thoroughly because it says we encourage you to become a participating provider with Ash to support acupuncture services for Cigna customers, benefits plans nationwide beginning June 1st. So let’s start first with notice. It says encourage it. Doesn’t say we require. In addition, it says as a result of this program, this will contract directly with providers for acupuncture services for Cigna benefits.

Now, for those that are familiar with American specialty health or Ash, it is one of the largest plans out there that manages typically chiropractic acupuncture as well as physical therapy. And most people often will give a kind of negative outlook to this company. Now I want to be careful. I’m not saying they’re a bad company, but the one factor that many people focus on is that they simply have a very low reimbursement. They do have some other requirements, but as far as being negative towards it, I’ve heard people say it’s not so much the company. I think they’re fine. It’s just the reimbursement as well. So it says here, we’re going to use that company, which means reimbursements are going to decrease based on this. And it says, provide contract administration, medical necessity, review, and claims processing. Now I will say this. They have a very good plane claims processing portal that can make things easier.

And actually if you use their portal, they actually give you a bonus payment. So that’s pretty good. Don’t get too excited. That bonus payment is literally pennies to a dollar nonetheless. Um, this is what’s occurring now. What’s important. It says we encourage you and then notice here. It says what this means to you. You must be contracted with Ash in order to provide in-network acupuncture services. So what that is saying that if you wish to be in network with Cigna, you must Ash. Now. Sure. Some of you have been through the program with Accu care, maybe a couple others that were handling this. They’ve just simply moved the contract over to Ash. So does that mean they won’t have benefits? No. It just simply means that if you want to have in network benefits, now this is where we really have to decide how well this is going to work.

Now it says here about advantages, continuity of care, access to their Ashlyn, which is their, um, billing portion, no fees to join. That’s all good advantages of a hundred percent, a hundred percent. Peer-to-peer here’s the downside. The downside is they’re often very strict when it comes to medical necessity. Now I’m not saying they’re too strict, but you have to remember, they’re going to look for how well is the care working? What are the changes being made? So it’s something you really want to start to take a look at as to whether or not that’s something you can work with or how many visits you see. Because often after five visits, they’re going to request additional information, which I will say is terribly hard, but it doesn’t mean that’s going to be extra work. And we have to decide whether or not this is going to be a benefit we want.

Well, there’s a second part to the letter and something I want to emphasize here is this. It says for applicable areas, this is not going to include California, Washington, state, Oregon, or Tennessee. So those areas already have contracts with Ash. So you won’t necessarily have to join, but the benefits can be managed there. And it’s not including benefits for North Carolina and Virginia, which they say are upcoming. So what they’re saying is if you want to join, they’re looking for you to join sometime around April 1st. Now that’s when you can begin, do you have to join for you to have these benefits? Is what my concern is. The answer is simply no, the patients will still continue to have the benefits, but what will it pay and how do we decide? So here’s one of the things we do. I do seminars, of course, I’m sure many of you have attended.

And I also have a consulting service that our network that I work with you one-on-one. Well, one of the things you have to do is kind of do what I do with my members. And that is to figure out how worthwhile is it to be a member of this? Let’s start to talk about it this way. I’m going to keep this kind of simplistic for the timeframe we have. But think of it this way. When you join Cigna or Ash, you’re trading something now, what are you trading? You’re trading generally, you’re going to get less money per visit, but more patients. That’s kind of the advantage. If you’re in network, are you going to get considerably more people? So one of the things to consider is how does Cigna patients come to you in the first place? Were they coming to you because you were in network with something or were they simply coming? So in other words, if you are already getting the patients, how has joining going to bring more? In fact, my concern would be, if you join, you simply are going to get less. So the choices, if it can give you much

More volume and will it make up

For the decrease in reimbursement. So let’s talk about the in network and out of network in network means you’re controlled to those fees and you may not collect anything different other than what’s allowed. If you are out of network, they’re going to pay what they allow, but then you can balance bill the patient. Now that balance billing is fine, but how much will the patient take? How much can they afford? Would it be better for them to go to an in-network doctor where they have to pay maybe a $15 copay compared to coming to you where it could be $40? So that’s something to consider. Although I will say this, don’t be afraid to offer your patients good service. People don’t choose acupuncturist because you’re cheap. They choose it because you can help them and make them feel better. And there’s a value to that.

So before we begin in talking about what the fees are of this thing, let’s talk about joining. When you join, you have to wait out what what’s good. What’s bad. So I suggest take a piece of paper, draw a line down the center on one side, please. Yes. On the other side, put no and start looking at the potentials. One thing to start with is, is this plant exclusive? Well, I’ll start with, it’s not, so that’s going to be a no. Why would I join something? That’s non-exclusive unless somehow it could send me many more patients. So I’m going to check a no on that one because it’s not exclusive. The next thing says is the pay reasonable? Well, I’m going to show you in just a moment. Not very now. I’m not going to say it’s horrible, but it’s not very good. So that’s already two there.

The only thing I could think that this would do for you is bring you a lot of new patients. Because if I look under the note, it’s, non-exclusive, it doesn’t pay very much. If they’re already current patients, how does that help? And there’s other requests they have after you do a certain number of visits, probably after five years, I have to do what’s called a treatment authorization. So this is, there’s a lot of downside to this in the sense of the extra work. Not saying it’s too hard, but please go in with your eyes open. I want you to think of the value. Well, let’s talk about what does it cost to treat a patient in your office? By example, let’s say your overhead per month is $4,000 and you see about a hundred patient visits. It’s a month now, again, that’s 25 a week.

That means it costs you $40 just to keep your office open on those number of patients. So by example, under some of these Ash policies, they pay 1550 $5 max per visit. So therefore if you’re getting $50 or $55 max, that means you’re making only 10 or $15 per patient think of how much extra volume. So in other words, if you have only asked patients, you’re going to go broke this one, you have to be a value added patient. And maybe this is where this can make a difference. Can it bring you someone that you have not already seen that will be new to your office? My key factor is going to be, does it really bring that type of value is the trade-off worth it? Well, let’s take a look at what they’ve done in California. Over this past year, American specialty health has worked with blue shield of California.

And what it allows is a car, an acupuncturist to do ENM codes. So exams, acupuncture in some objective therapies. Well, that sounds pretty good. Realize too, this plan doesn’t cover massage or TuiNa. So those services can be built with a patient separately so long as you inform them beforehand. So that sounds good. Except when you see, well, what’s the allowance. Well, even though they say they cover all of these things, the max per day is $55 and it’s inclusive and all visits count towards. So if you have a patient come in and get one service, it’s going to count as a complete visit. There’s no like, Oh, I just did a therapy. It’s still going to count. So here’s their allowance. This is the California. One $30 for exams essentially. And then 20 to 30 for re-exams. Okay. Not bad, but remember that’s still within the max.

So you’ll notice here. The plan says it pays $55 max per visit. Well, isn’t it interesting that the first set is 45 and the second set is 10. So in other words, as soon as you do two sets, you’ve maxed out. Even if you did an exam, do you get paid separately for that? Nope. The max per day is still 55. So therefore there’s really no additional benefit of them to think it’s paying you 55 per visit. Even the therapies you’ll notice are $10. So therefore, even if you did these therapies plus the acupuncture, what are you getting? Pre-visit 55. Now I’m not attempting to sound overly negative. I’m just saying, be aware of what the plan pays. This particular plan with Ash in California pays $55. Now American specialty health does do a medical necessity. And I would say, this is something I believe they’re pretty good at.

They kind of look at the patient. Yeah. As an overall, what do they cover? Things like headaches, hip or knee pain with arthritis or not extremity pain, mechanical irritation, pain, syndromes, back and neck pain. And of course not vomiting. And of course, you know, that Cigna has one of the most prolific diagnosis, allowances of all plans. I don’t foresee that changing the concern is how much, well, how much also relates to, well, how many visits are you going to get out of this? What they do pay attention to is your diagnosis understand less severe diagnosis. Don’t get as many visits, back pain compared to, let’s say a disc injury are very different. They do pay attention to things like this. And when you do your authorization, keep in mind indications in their history, such as it acute or trauma or traumatic chronic. Those make a difference.

A patient with comorbid factors, things that inhibit their recovery should be brought up. But when you do an exam, anything, you do the range of motion, palpation, orthopedic testing. If you do it, neurologic testing, quantify it. Don’t just tell me it’s positive. But also they do pay attention to tongue and pulse. So I’ll give them credit. They do follow some traditional principles. However, at the end of the day, what they’re looking for is can you show that you’re making the patient better? So understand that for $55 after five visits, do you have to do more of this information to get additional visits potentially? And it depends again on severity of diagnosis, they also look at the goals, how are you going to get the patient better? Well, let’s look at what this Cigna proposal is. And I couldn’t put the fee schedule up because it says it’s proprietary, but this is one I received from the, uh, Idaho area.

And, and I should say Midwest. And so you can see here, it’s not much different than what I just showed you. The 33 to 44 exams. The acupuncture they’ll notice here are going to be far cheaper. They are doing $40 for acupuncture. And I want to point out, I put a mistake here. This should be 40, not 45. The additional sets are paid for nothing. They’re just certain inclusive. So if you do one set or 10 sets, you’re going to get the same money. So something to consider when joining these plans, if you are a four set type of provider three set, this is going to be hard to absorb because that means you’re spending 45 minutes with a patient and getting $40 of reimbursement. Now, what if you’re the type of provider that does one set can be efficient. You needle the patient, make sure they’re finding, maybe they rest for a while and you’ll come back kind of a battlefield acupuncture or modern acupuncture style.

Maybe it can work because you can do volume. The difficulty is how much volume can you do? You know, at some point there’s a finite amount of things that an acupuncturist can do. Well, here’s what their fee schedule. Again, same thing for acupuncture and for therapies. So notice $10. So again, what is the maximum per visit? Well, it’s going to be 50 assuming, uh, acupuncture and a therapy. What they haven’t made clear, will they always pay the therapy separately. Now here’s for the region for the East Eastern areas. This is when I got out of DC. You’ll notice about the same prices, prices a little higher than the Midwest, I guess, but then you’ll notice fees are all the same. So what I’m going to suggest when you get into this, notice every therapy. Now the thing that frustrates me with this is how do you justify charging $10 for a hot pack and then $10 for exercise.

When exercise requires one-on-one care, that’s detailed undocumented compared to just lay in a hot pack on someone. How does that seem reasonable? So my bone to pick here is they should be paying providers more. And so I’ve had a lot of providers asking me, Sam, what I joined this? Now, all I can say is I’m going to give my opinion. Each of you have to make a decision on your own, how well this works. If you can do a high volume practice and there are a number of patients that are going to come in, only because they’re in this space, it could be worth it. However, if you are a two or three set provider, right, and you’re getting only $40, that’s going to be hard to swallow, but here’s the point. If you’re out of network, is it going to be the same thing?

Anyway, the difference is you can charge the patient. And what I’d explained to the patient is your plan pays $50. My visit is 80 and what you’re going to get with my visit is a much better level of care. I will be able to spend more time with you and really correct it as opposed to what I call a poke and run doctor, meaning, put the needles in and run out. Now, I’m not saying that in a negative way, there’s places for all types of providers. I could just find this very hard to work with now, how is this going to work? If providers do not join, will they still have benefits? Nothing has been shown from Ash or from Cigna. That patient we’ll lose benefits. If they go to out network providers, I think mostly this is a way to get the PR profession to join where they are going to gain more control.

Now I’m not against the medical necessity side. I think that’s fine. I just think that this reimbursement level is a hard one to sustain a practice. Let’s face it. If all you got were $50 from every patient and you spend a half hour with every patient, that means you make a hundred dollars per hour, assuming everything works efficiently or 800 per day, you can say, Hey look, that’s 4,500 per week. You know, or knowing that 4,500, excuse me. Uh, but those amounts could I, well, there’s 4,500 per week. Could I make that work well? Sure. But that’s, if you’re very efficient within that. So is it terrible? No. Is it really commensurate with what they were already paying? I don’t think so. And so that’s something that as a provider, you’re going to have to look at and decide, is it worth it to me now?

I will tell you, I’ve given you a little thumbnail of information. I tried to get it out there to you to get a little understanding. If you need more or want more, we offer services to do that. Our seminars at the American Acupuncture Council do that, but also we offer a service. That’s called the network. Just take your phone, scan this, come and take a look at the services we offer. Allow me to be part of your team where you can call me, email me, text me, or fax me questions. And we can work this through the, see how this is going to work and how to make sure you can keep your practice viable. I’m not going to be overly negative, but I want to say that obviously this is going to create a much greater level of control with much lower reimbursement. And that’s something I’ll say it’s not a positive for the profession.

So I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from different States and I’m talking to their state organizations where they have surveyed and a large number of providers have indicated they’re not going to join. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s not very many, what will Ash do or Cigna? All the patients will still have access to benefits. So what I’ll say to you is make a good decision for your office, make an informed decision. And the good news is what if you do join or don’t join. Can you always go back and change your mind? Sure. You can always go back and drop out or join. You want to do what’s best for your practice. Remember you are important to your patients and it’s good to be important, but it’s more important to be good. And to give that good service, you want to make sure that you have a viable practice to do it, allow us a chance to help you, but also the American Acupuncture Council is always here for you. Next week’s class is going to be with Poney Chiang. So pay attention to that. Otherwise I’ll say to all of you, best wishes, keep a close eye out and don’t be afraid to take a look and decide to be or not to be if you will. Thanks everyone. I’ll see you next time. This is Sam Collins, your coding and billing expert.

Simple Email Strategies For Every Acupuncturist – Jeffrey Grossman

“we weren’t really given the tools on how to effectively market and grow our practice. So that’s what I’m here to do. I’m here to spend the next 20 minutes or so with you to share some insights about how you can do just that.”

Click here to download the transcript.

Hi folks, Jeffrey Grossman here, and I am really glad that you are joining me here. And I’m really grateful for the American Acupuncture Council. We yet, again, to invite me for an opportunity to share some business and marketing with you, I’m thrilled to be back here to share 20 minutes of insights and inspiration to help you build your practice, um, and to attract more patients and to really tap into the tools that we weren’t really given when in acupuncture school, we really received everything that we needed in order to grow our practice. We were given all the tools, all the know-how, all the insights and all the wisdom to be amazing pulse diagnosticians and tongue, tongue readers, and pulse readers. But we weren’t really given the tools on how to effectively market and grow our practice. So that’s what I’m here to do. I’m here to spend the next 20 minutes or so with you to share some insights about how you can do just that.

So, um, you know what we’re going to be talking about today, we were talking about a couple of things that some of you might not think are appropriate. We’re going to talk about email marketing, but I want to hear me. You, I want you to hear me out as we talk a little further, I’m going to lay out the facts as to why email marketing should be important and incorporated into your marketing strategies. And at the end of today’s training, I want to give you a link because I know that if I give you the link now that, um, you’ll go ahead, I’ll lose you, you’ll download it. And I want you to stay focused with me because our time together is really important. So I want to give you a link to an ebook that we just released. Um, um, uh, it’s called resetting your practice for 20, 21, how to get patients on your treatment table.

So if that’s okay, just stick with me at the end, I’ll get that link for you. So welcome. My name is Jeffrey Grossman, though, for those of you that don’t know me, I’m the founder and the owner of acupuncture, media works and acupuncture websites, and Accu downloads 2.0. So I started my practice back in 98 and I struggled just like many of you did back in the days. My background was as a graphic designer. And, um, and, uh, that was what the world that I was working in before I became an acupuncturist. So when I became an acupuncturist, I realized that like, there weren’t enough tools for me to help me grow my practice. I didn’t have the know how to grow my practice. I didn’t have the skills, the techniques and the insights on how to make that happen. So I, I sought some help.

I actually started coaching. Um, I paid about 15 grand to work with, um, a chiropractic coach to help me maximize my patient communications and my marketing strategies. And it paid off in spades for me. So it was one of the best things that I ever did. Um, I just want to just encourage you guys with the fact that marketing is important. And the idea is that in order to grow your practice, you need new people coming in. Therefore you need to have tap into these ideas and these skills and these insights that I’m sharing with you and that the AAC brings to you on a weekly basis. So you guys are an incredible resource. People are looking for you, especially now. They want the type of healing that you offer, right? They want something safe. They want something natural. They want something that lets them feel less anxious and more balanced. And this

Is what you have to offer. This is how you,

As an acupuncturist, changes lives, and people need you. They need your services, but a lot of people don’t know that you exist. And that’s what I want to do is I want to help you get more people in your treatment table. And that’s what these talks are all about us to help you be seen, to be heard and ultimately to bring people into your practice so you can make more money, help more people and change the world. One person, one needle at a time. So if at the end here, if you’re interested in learning more, if you need a little bit of hand holding some help, I’ll, I’ll give you, um, uh, an email address at which you could reach out. And, and, and, you know, if you’re looking for some support, please feel free to reach out to me. So there are more opportunities than ever right now for you to be tapping into growing your practice, especially now, especially now that we’re many of us are working from home and we have to reinvent ourselves.

And one of the easiest ways to do it, excuse me, is what I’m going to be talking about today, which is using email marketing, right? So, um, um, you know, one or two of these suggestions that you come up with in the ebook that I have for you at the end today, that you could download and even in today’s training, could that you put them into use, can make a massive change and a massive difference in your practice. So, today what I want to do is I want to talk to you about, um, a resource that is such an easy tool to use in your practice. And most of us use it every day. All of your patients have access to it and those kids, they probably use it too, right? So this is about tapping into the power of it and to grow your practice.

And I’m sure that when I talked about email marketing and using emails in your practice, I heard a universal grown, right? And, um, I heard people saying that, Oh gosh, email marketing. There’s no way I’m going to be using that in my practice. So sending emails is one of those things that every practitioner should embrace, whether you’re an acupuncturist, a dentist, a chiropractor, massage therapist, or even a big box store, everyone is using emails these days to communicate with your audience and it should be a priority for you in your practice. And here’s a couple of reasons why it’s important. One, it allows you to reach more patients in real time, right? It’s affordable. It keeps you on top of mind awareness within, um, it’s personable and it can be action oriented and you can see results almost immediately after you send out that email.

So think about your own experiences, right? You have email how your friends and family members have emailed. How many times do you check your email out every day? Right. Do you know anyone who doesn’t have an email address these days? Okay. So it’s here to stay and email us something that you need to embrace in your practice. And when you approach email marketing, um, there are a couple of things I want you to consider. Um, and a couple of things to think about when you formulate your emails and your plan to make that happen is the first thing to think about is why are you emailing them, right? What do you want to get across to them? What kind of message are you sending? And what do you want people to know? Okay, these are all important aspects. When you sit down to draft your emails or when you sit down and, and, and, and, and think about what you want to, what kind of messaging and what kind of things you want to get across to them.

It’s important to think about that first. Why are you emailing them? What do you want to get across to them? What’s the message. And also what’s the next step that you can get across to people, uh, to, you know, how can you get them to take the next action? Okay. So you got to have a valid and valuable reason that would motivate them to take some form of action in an email. And I’m going to review five types of emails with you that you should be sending to your patients on a regular basis. And these five emails are the perspective, email, the offer, email, the newsletter email, um, add the benefit email and the simple email, right? And I’m going to talk about each of these five briefly. Um, so let’s talk about the perspective email. This email is designed for you to offer, uh, your, to offer your take on a relevant and trending topic, right?

So the key to this email is not to chime in, um, every time there’s a celebrity gossip or a story or a new figure that are released in the economy. This type of email should be commentary, right? And old area areas that can imply expertise. And when things are relevant, like if there’s, uh, some information about acupuncture and immunity, that’s relevant for today, acupuncture, anxiety, that’s relevant for today, acupuncture for alleviating low back pain from people working from home and sitting in their chair all day that’s relevant for today. So think about how you can chime in to what is on people’s minds these days, and how to make it relevant for them in one of your emails, a couple of tips to consider are be current, okay. Make sure your content is based in today’s right. Think about what your audience or in this case your patients are going through.

Now what’s on top of their mind. What’s their most pressing concern. When you tap into that, you can talk to them and tap into what’s on top of their minds. It’s the what’s in it for me syndrome, right? People want to know what you could do for them. They don’t. They like to understand about all the cool things that you have to offer, but what they really want to know is what’s in it for me, what are my benefits? Okay. Therefore you need to play into their current state of mind and to get that information out to them. Next thing to do is to be factual, okay. Facts for, from up belief. And they can be very important when adjusting people who may not have all the same views as you do. So when you use facts, people can rely on the idea that they are rooted in truth, and that the, they may be more inclined to move closer to your beliefs.

And then the other thing about making stories relevant or emails relevant is to share stories from your perspective. There’s a saying that facts tell and stories sell. So people learn through stories and it’s part of our DNA. It’s what we want. And we really can learn more when things are given us in story form. And when we facts into a story, when you re read the relevance of a study or a program or something, or, or, or research into an email, um, it makes your story more relevant, excuse me, and, um, and gives you a better perspective that you’re talking on it with that topic. Okay. So the next type of email that you should be sending is the offer email, and everyone loves a good offer, right? So that’s why sending out an offer email can bring in inactive patients and prospects. And this email is perfect.

When you have a, a new therapy, a new technique, a new topics to talk about new research that you just unearth new products that you’re carrying or whatever it is when you have something that you want to offer, this is the perfect type of email to get out there. So there’s a couple of types of offers that you could be doing, which is one is a test drive offer. Okay. The test drive offer is exactly that. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Letting people come in to test drive a therapy or a service before they buy it. And before they sign up as a new patient, it’s getting them to take step foot in the door so they can learn about you learn about your offer and then take the next steps, become a full fledged pain patient. The next type of offer, um, is a solution offer.

Okay? And this offer provides answers to people’s most pressing problems, and it can be very powerful and invites people into your clinic. They get them clarity on a particular condition, right? So your offer could be, learn five ways that acupuncture can alleviate headaches or migraines, or, um, you know, it could be come in to get a seven point, you know, back paid assessment exam. Okay, whatever your offer is, what solution are you offering for them? Um, that, you know, that, that th that might be on top of their mind, right? Anxiety come in to receive a two point acupuncture, anxiety, and stress reduction, treatment data solution, you’re offering a solution to anxiety. Um, and that could be part of that email, the other type of offer that you could be offering as a stress reduction offer, and this offer, it does what it says, right?

This is one of my favorite offers that I’ve done in the past. Um, I’ve used it for all of my health fairs. And, uh, as, as a marketing tool, for me, basically offering an acupuncture, stress reduction treatment, um, and who doesn’t have stress these days, right? So the stress reduction offer is perfect to get people to come in for a free or reduced rate stress reduction offer, and that’s pretty straightforward. So those are the different types of offer emails that I feel are important. The test drive offer the solution offer and the stress reduction offer. Okay. So the next, this type of email that you should be sending out regularly is the newsletter, right? So if your practice doesn’t currently send a regular newsletter to your patient base, consider starting one. Okay. It’s um, massive missed opportunity. If you overlook any type of email for that matter, specifically, if you overload, overlook the idea of sending out, um, monthly newsletters.

Okay. And I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Um, it’s important to stay in top of mind awareness with your patients. And, um, you know, it’s all too easy to have patients fall out of care, simply because they were, you know, were feeling better and they just forgot about you. Life happens, they just get caught up in it and they feel good. They forget about you, but I’m not receiving a monthly newsletter or an email from you for that matter puts you back in top of mind awareness. So when they need you next time, they’ll remember where to turn because they understood, or they read an article about how you could help with XYZ condition, um, um, in that way. So hopefully that makes sense. So a monthly, quarterly, or even an annual email newsletter give you the opportunity to share important information and remind patients of the practice.

And of course, you know, keeps you in top of mind awareness. So here’s a couple of things to consider when you put together your newsletter. One thing you could talk about is discussing your practices outreach, or any sponsorship or any type of community involvement. You can highlight any new clinic changes or a new staff members that you may be brought on announced marriages or new babies or new grandchildren, whatever that is. So talk about a new line products or new services that you’ve added. You can highlight condition, specific information. You can obviously always request referrals and online reviews with every type of email you put out there, especially with your newsletter. You can also address seasonal health concerns like or sports injury, or immune acupressure routines and things like that. Um, you can remind and encourage people, um, you know, about good healthy habits. And of course, when you use any type of email, especially your newsletter, you need to promote it, um, on your social media channels.

Okay? So there’s so many topics that you, as an acupuncturist can talk about in your newsletters. There’s no lack of content that you can put in your newsletters, but if there’s any type of email that you should be doing consistently is the newsletter email, and the other type of email that you should be putting out there of course, is the benefit and tips, email. And this type of email never gets old because as long as you can talk about new benefits that people can receive and tips that can help your audience, there are always people who want to hear them. So it’s all too common for practices to make the mistake of talking about how amazing what you do is, and how awesome the thing that you have is while you’re excited about it. Um, you know, you, you know, about the latest, cool thing that you do.

Some people might not care, right? People care again about what’s in it. For me, it’s the, what’s in it for me syndrome. People want to know what they can get out of it, what are their benefits? Okay. And, um, it’s always good to start with that in mind. So here are a couple ideas that you could be using, how to end back pain once and for all three simple techniques and, um, two acupressure points you could learn in the comfort of your home or suffering from depression. Here are three supplements that you could use in two powerful acupressure points to help or seven tips to supercharge your immune system. All right. So I’m not sure if you’ve opened emails that talk about X number of tips or ideas or whatever it is. And, but people love learning from emails like these people. And there’s a couple things I want you to consider when you put out these what’s in it, the, these, um, these emails considering your patient’s view of what’s in it for them.

Okay. Is it new? Is it useful? And is it beneficial? Okay. So is it new, given your topic? Is there a new angle or twist on it that you could take? Is there an update or a surprising bit of news that you can share? Do you have something that other people don’t know about yet or something that you’re the other one in your town that’s using, right. Something that your audience hasn’t heard or considered yet that’s about being new. Is it useful given your topic? Is there an application that your audience could use, right. Can you help them sort through or think through a common problem in some way, do you have a solution to something that they face and is it beneficial? Right? So again, given your topic and more importantly, given what keeps audience up at night, what is it that you have that will help them, right?

What is it about your topic that will benefit your audience? Is there a silver lining for them? Is there a net gain for them? How will, what you offer them, change their lives. And finally, the last type of email that I want to talk about is the simple email. So this is such a simple email. I send these out periodically and I’m amazed at the responses I get, and this is the type of email that can get your patients back in care pretty quickly with just a couple of sentences, even it’s so simple, but it works. And, um, it’s short, it’s sweet. And it’s getting an interested party to take notice. So here’s the framework. You have a simple subject line, something like patient’s first name only. So it would say like Jeffrey, right, or something like patient’s name Jeffrey. Can I share this with you?

Okay. One email that I’ve sent to other practitioners is, Hey, Jeffrey, are you looking for new patients? And that got me a ton of responses. And as you can imagine, most practitioners are looking for new patients. So emails like this with, um, curiosity, uh, subject lines, really pique people’s interest. They’re short, they’re sweet they’re to the point, and they get people to take quick action. So first think about, on your patient’s mind right now, right? Is it stress? Is it good health? Is it immunity? Is it better sleep? Okay. So what do they want to learn about where are they at with that? So send off a couple emails, says, Hey, Jeffrey, do you want to learn about better sleep? Hey, Jeffrey, do you want to learn about four points for immune health? Hey, Jeffrey. Um, do you want to learn about, um, you know, uh, five ways to alleviate your back pain?

Okay. So I want to run down a couple of examples of, of, of what the, the S the copy itself could read, like super simple stuff. Okay. Really, really easy. So it could say, Hey, Jeffrey, um, Hey, Jeff, you want to learn about immunity? Question Mark. That’s a subject line. And then the copy of, of, of, of the body, of the text of the email, if you’d be like, Hey, Jeffrey, can I share these immune points with you? These are two acupressure points that alleviate immunity. Um, if you know, um, if you’re interested, just respond to this email and I’ll get right back to you as soon as possible, that’s it? That’s really simple, right? Hey, Jeffrey, I’ve got two acupuncture points to share with you about better sleep. Do you want to know about them? Or, you know, that’s it, you know, so, um, that’s all you’ve got to do for those emails.

Okay. So, Hey, Jeffrey, are you still interested in getting help with back pain or learning how to boost your immunity or getting help with insomnia? If so, respond to this email and I’ll reach out to you as soon as possible your name, that’s the email, like three sentences at most, and that’s it. So people will get back to you. It’s almost like these emails work like magic. And if you haven’t sent an email like this one before, try it right. And let me know what kind of response do you get? You’re basically checking in with them, nagging them as really simple offer. And it’s one of the easiest emails to really send out. And I wouldn’t be doing you any justice today. If I didn’t mention that these other types of emails that you should be sending, like the missed appointment, email, the follow-up email of the reminder and confirmation emails, happy birthday emails. And of course the, please give us a review email. Okay. So I hope that helps.

Three Stress Busting Mind Hacks Your Patients Will Love – Lorne Brown

We’re looking to create an environment to support the body’s innate ability to heal. Um, the body has this capacity to self-regulate. We call it balance. And when it’s doing this well, um, we have health and vitality.

Click here to download the transcript.

Thank you. Um, again to the AAC for having me on their series called To The Point. My name’s Lorne Brown and a little bit about myself. I’m a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. So my clinic is in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It’s called Acubalance Wellness Center. I’m the founder of healthy seminars where we offer online continuing education. I’m the chair of the integrated fertility symposium. And I’m the author of this book of my past experience called missing the point why acupuncturists fail and what they need to know to succeed. And I’m a passionate about learning and passionate about consciousness work. And today I wanted to share with you, um, three mind hacks that your patients will love and you’ll love as well. If you incorporate these into your daily life. Um, my background also that I didn’t mention a moment ago is I’m also a trained clinical hypnotherapists.

So I really love working with the mind. Now, the reason I think this was real valuable tools to share with you for you yourself personally, and for your patients is because our whole goal often is to support the body’s innate ability to heal. Right? We understand this as Chinese medicine practitioners, that our bodies have this innate ability to heal. We’re not trying to override it. We’re not trying to suppress symptoms. We’re looking to create an environment to support the body’s innate ability to heal. Um, the body has this capacity to self-regulate. We call it balance. And when it’s doing this well, um, we have health and vitality. And when we ha when we catch a cold or we have an injury, we rebound, we recover. And if our body Lee loses this ability to self-regulate to a disability to heal, then we get a cold or we get, um, an injury.

But then we see this with our patients. They don’t heal, they don’t recover. And so these three mind tacks, I’m going to share with you how they’re going to support the body’s innate ability to be heal. And often I’ll share with my patients, you know, cause I want to educate them on why they’re going to use Chinese medicine and how those will benefit them. So I’m explaining some of our philosophies, um, how we see the body. And so one of them is your body has an innate ability to heal. And I often say, if you get a cut, you don’t sit there and stare at your hand and say, he’ll he’ll he’ll know, your body knows how to do this on its own. It can do this. And if you get a really serious kind of big gash, you may need stitches, but the stitches does not create the healing.

What that thread does is it creates an environment to support the body’s innate ability to heal by bringing the tissue together. It creates an environment which allows the body to do its job, to heal. And I often say Chinese medicines like that, red, we’re going to create an environment to support your body to heal. So the reason these three mind hacks are crucial in life. When we feel stressed, we often call this like cheese stagnation. Um, some people in the conscious world call this resistance or friction. You know what it feels like when you’re out of balance, you’re feeling stress. It doesn’t feel good. You can tell. And when you are in flow and she is flowing, you feel inspired. Your, your chest feels open. And like, there’s this expanse to you versus this tight contraction. So you have this built-in mechanism when you are off track and we call that stress or cheese stagnation.

And so when you think about our autonomic nervous system, this is the part that’s doing the healing, right? This is the part where you bite an Apple, but you don’t think about what digestive juices need to be released. You don’t have to think about what nutrients get absorbed and what waste gets eliminated. This is part of the subconscious mind is the body, the autonomic nervous system. When you sleep at night, your blood pumps, your heart pumps, I should say, in your blood circulates, you don’t have to think about that. And so really this innate ability to heal our goal, if we’re thinking of the body like a garden is if there’s weeds, we want to pull these weeds out. So the plant can do its things. We may pull away obstacles. And one of them is this stress, this chiefs technician. This is really key, especially in our time, people are living in stress.

They’re watching the news and this is putting us into the fight or flight, um, uh, nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system. And when you are feeling stressed, your energy is being mobilized for survival. And if your energy is being mobilized for survival, then this energy, these resources are no longer available for healing and creativity. And so by using these three simple mind hacks, you’re going to tell your body that it is safe. And it’s going to go from that sympathetic fight or flight where it’s mobilizing for survival or to fight. And we’re going to put it into the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest the breed and feed system where healing, where healing can happen. And when we think about our medicine, it sets us up so beautifully because we understand the mind body connection. It’s bi-directional. So your physical being your physical can impact your mental, emotional, and the mental emotional can impact your physical it’s bi-directional.

And if you’re going to use these tools for yourself, um, I will share with you that you will also start to find more success in your life because by getting yourself into alpha brainwave. So parasympathetic alpha, brainwaves, sympathetic high beta overwhelmed brain brainwaves. When you’re in the alpha brainwaves, you get to tap into parts of your mind. That’s not normally available to you. These areas of creativity, that research is showing in these cool ideas. Ideas can just pop into your head that you get to grab and run with. And we mentioned that when you’re in the parasympathetic, you’re going to free up your resources for healing. Because if you’re in the sympathetic, in that high beta overwhelm, then your energy is being mobilized and it’s not available for healing because it thinks it needs to survive, but there is no survival benefit when you’re usually in this there, you’re not about to get eaten by wild animals.

So often this stress response that we have, we’re thinking about something that’s happened to us. We’re worried about something that we think may happen to us, but you really, there is no survival benefit to be engaging this stress response right now, it’s not going to help us, um, jump out of a moving car for example. And so we have to relearn or have to train our bodies to regularly elicit the relaxation response and by doing so, your patients will get more benefit from your treatment because our goal is to support their innate ability to heal. And so if we are teaching in these simple tools and they’re coming to your treatment for dietary therapy, Twain, acupuncture, mocks are herbal. They will get so much more from your treatment. If you also teach them these tools and who doesn’t want to feel good. So in my experience, patients on the table, and it takes a minute or two to teach them each one of these.

So every session I teach them one out of the three and I have many more I’m teaching you today, three of them and with the needles in and resting on a table. And then I give them this little mind hack that they can take home with them. Well, just on the table, they feel amazing. So the healing is amplified. It makes them want to continue the treatment because who doesn’t want to feel good. And they’re going to get so much more of the treatment because you put the needles in today. But if you’re not going to see them for a week later, you want to have that momentum. And if they’re using these simple mind hacks, then they’re going to benefit from this. And we remind our patients. It’s never, the it’s never the stress or the condition that causes the problem. It’s not, COVID, it’s not your clinic being closed.

It’s not a divorce that’s happening. It’s not bad weather. There’s always everything that happens is neutral. And then we give it meaning. So then we have a perception. It’s always our perception of the event that causes stress, not the actual stressor. It’s our perception, how we perceive what’s happening. And as soon as we have that perception, then we get a mental, emotional response. And it’s either positive or negative based on what’s happened. Often the response is based on programming. I say subconscious programming. So you see the world through the lenses of your subconscious program that you inherited, whether it’s negative or positive. And then you kind of have these electrical changes in the heart and the nervous system, which will affect your immune and hormonal response, which then affects a physiological effect. So your thinking leads to emotions. Emotions are, um, our end results of chemical reactions and these impact your DNA, your genetics, they turn on and off genes epigenetics. So your thoughts and feelings, positive thoughts and feelings, negative thoughts, and feelings can impact your biology, your gene expression, and turning you on towards health or turning your ons more towards disease and learning to elicit these relaxation responses throughout the day on a daily basis. As we mentioned, frees up your resources, your energy for healing and for creativity. So here’s the three, and then we’re going to practice them. And so I’m going to explain to you why I use each of these and why they’re kind of my favorite three.

And then I’m going to encourage you to

Work through these with me. The intention I’ll set out is that these are simple. They are powerful, and they are effective. Everybody likes the powerful and effective. This simple, ironically simple often has the risk of being ignored or dismissed because they are so simple. You know, in our life, we, things need to be difficult. We need things to be complicated. And my practice, why I think I kind of skip around the room is I don’t do complicated. So if you like complicated as a patient or as a student of mine, you don’t tend to gel with me. We don’t resonate because my frequency is about simple. I want things to be as simple as possible. And so, um, these are going to be very simple. So the first one we’re going to talk about is just called shaking it out. And there’s been some research on this. There’s some, um, books written on this and an interesting enough, um, I, the, the author of the book, I think it’s the tiger tail, but it it’s skipping my mind. Um, but that does not matter. Um, I’ll still teach you the technique and why we want to shake it out. When you go into this fight or flight, you’re in high beta, you’re in overwhelm, you’re in the sympathetic nervous system. The energy is being mobilized. This is a massive

Amount of energy. And

They, there are stories of mothers lifting cars off their children. And then the next day they can’t budge the car. This is an amazing amount of energy. And if you’re stressing yourself out through your thinking, again, there’s no survival benefit. You get all this energy because your body’s going to respond as if you’re being attacked by a wild animal. And you have all this energy, but it doesn’t get discharged in the wild with animals. Cause this is where this was observed. When an animal has a stressful experience, it’s fighting. So it’s discharging the energy it’s fighting or it’s running. And often what they’ve observed in the wild is animals. After there’s been a stressful experience, they see them shaking, twitching, everything out. And this is a way of discharging this excess energy. Because if you hold it in your cells, it leads to disease. We need to discharge Y yoga, chigong running exercises, healthy for you.

You’re discharging the energy. And so you can purposely do this. And so if you’re at your computers there, I invite you to stand up. Um, I know that I take myself probably a little bit out of camera, but I’ll come back to the whole Sarah. But if I was going to stand up, I’m going to move myself back and you really want to kind of pound yourself, like pound your heels to the ground and shake it, or really shaken up Twitch to edge. And you want to do that for about three minutes. I do this for patients sometimes before we put the needles in just because they’ve had a stressful experience, they’re telling me their stressful story and we just get them to shake it out like a duck. It was a story I share with my, when my son was a toddler, he was really stressed out.

And so you can do this. If you have young kids, um, he was upset about something and he was having his tantrum again. He was a young kid here. This is like before age of five and I’m listening to him and I say, Hey, let’s shake it out like a deck. And we start to shake and he’s crying. He’s looking at me and I go, come on, let’s shake it out. Let’s shake our tooshie sir, shaking our tooshie. And he starts shaking. He starts because children are in the moment. They’re great. They’re not like us. They don’t have all this baggage yet. And within 30 seconds, he is shaking, shaking his tail, his duck tail, and he is laughing. And he’s out of that experience. Same thing for us as adults. It’s a great, great way to create a change in state and to discharge the energy, to get you out of that high beta sympathetic and getting yourself more into that parasympathetic.

So remember I said simple, powerful, effective. Is that not simple? So I hopefully you have, um, stood up and you’ve tried this out just now just shake it out for three to five minutes, mind hack number two, the breath. I love the breath because it’s always with us and it is free. And the reason the breath is so important is again, as part of the autonomic nervous system. So as you’re listening to this lecture, um, you’re not thinking, Oh, I need to inhale and I need to exhale. I need to inhale. I need an exhale. It happens all on its own. You don’t have to really think about it. You sleep at night. When you go unconscious, you continue to breathe. You do not have to think about it. Your heart’s part of your autonomic nervous system too. And if I asked you to slow down your heart or stop your heart for four seconds, most of you, maybe one or two of you, of your super monks, um, cannot do that.

Um, I’m assuming none of you on here can do that, but your breath, you can control your breath. And so, although your breath is part of your autonomic nervous system, you do have some voluntary control over it to a degree. And by changing your breathing, you can communicate to your nervous system that you are safe because when you go into that survival mode, that fight or flight is your eyes. Pupils, change, blood flow changes, your breathing changes. And if you can, in the moment, start to change your breathing. It’s a mind hack. And if the body’s breathing a certain way, it tells the nervous system, Hey, we’re safe here because remember most of the stress responses we experienced, there is no survival benefit. It’s like, you know, when you pass a car on a highway and you accelerate, they say current enthusiasts, that that’s actually beneficial, healthy for the vehicle to clean up the exhaust or the engine.

I don’t know, I’m not a car enthusiast, but they say every once in a while, it’s really good to bring those RPMs to the read every once in a while. It’s good for your, your, your car. But if you drive a hundred miles, um, with the RPMs and red, you’re going to damage your car. So the sympathetic nervous system is not bad. It’s just that we’re in it too often. We’re driving a hundred miles with the RPMs of red and that damages the body. And so every once in a while, it’s okay. So going back to our breath, we can communicate, we can put on the brakes basically, and we can tell the body we’re safe. And there’s some literature suggesting that when you do the deep belly breath, um, it’s somehow stretching and impacting the Vegas nerve, which engages the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest the breed and feed nervous system.

And they have shown through heart rate variability research, where they’re looking at the variability and the heart, looking at the autonomic nervous system. That is the exhale that’s engaging the parasympathetic nervous system. So the breathing technique that I have used, I first learned, and it’s a version of box breathing that I learned from Dr. Andrew Weil, who is a integrative MD. We spoke at a conference together many moons ago, um, at UBC. And he taught her version of this. And I’ve modified it because of the research of the long exhale is engaging the parasympathetic. So you breathe in through your nose for a count of four. Your mouth is closed. You’ll hold your breath for a count of four. And then you exhale through your mouth for a count of eight. We want the exhale to be twice as long as the inhale, because the exhale engages the parasympathetic nervous system.

The time at the roof of your mouth juice behind your front teeth. So do 26 area because we want to create that orbital circuit of the rent in the Duma. Okay. So that’s why we want to have her tongue up there. Also, I always like practical reasons because some patients don’t buy into the channels and the meridians. And so if your tongue is at the roof of your mouth, um, then it keeps you from clenching your jaw. When you are stressed, you often will punch your jaw. And if you put your tongue gently at the roof of your mouth, your lecturer close your teeth, we’ll have a little bit of separation in that will relax your jaw as well. The rhythm is up to you. If you practice this for a while, you can really have a slow rhythm of in, for four hold for four Oh for eight.

Um, I start my patients that are pretty quick rhythm because it can get them out of breath and be uncomfortable if, if the rhythms too slow at the beginning. But with, with practice, you can definitely slow it down. They say it takes about at least three of these in, for four hold for four, for eight for your brain to start to realize it’s safe. So do four to eight of these with your patients, um, sitting or laying down. And again, let’s do this together now. Um, and I’m going to add a few things to the breath that you can do as well. So I usually ask that you take a breath and just get rid of the, your mouth close into the nose. One, two, three, four, hold two, three, four. Now exhale through your mouth. One, two, three, all the way out. Five, six, seven, eight, inhale through your nose, big belly breath, three and four, hold two, three, and four.

And now slowly exhale through your mouth. It’s a gentle exhale. Like you’re almost blowing out of a straw. It’s not a forceful, it’s a very gentle, slow for count of eight and breathe in one, two, three, and four, hold two, three, and four. And as you let go, just release any tension, any worry on the exhale. As you count out to that age, just letting go of any tension. And this time as you’re breathing, I invite you to close your eyes and breathe in peace and calmness on the inhale for a count of four. And then as you hold just marinate and Bay in this calmness and peacefulness your choosing, and as your exhale, just surrender and let go of any tension, any worry and stress. And again, breathe in peace and calmness on the inhale, holding, just take it in and now surrender and let go.

Any tension, any worry on the exhale at all, the way on the eyes closed is always beneficial because when your eyes are open, you’re into an external, you’re looking at your external environment, more of a sympathetic or a high more beta brainwaves, and an inner experience. More alpha, alpha brainwaves are detached relaxation. So if you can close your eyes and start to create that inner experience, you’re just going to help elicit the relaxation response a little bit easier. Now, often what I will do is I’ll get people I’ll check in and people will notice, Oh, I feel a little dizzy, or I’m starting to feel a little different. It’s a mind hack your body can’t help itself, right? Because you’re changing your breathing rhythm. And when you breathe this way, your body tends to know that it’s a safe, relaxed time. Let’s do it again.

We’re going to add another, um, a feature to this another little mind tack. Um, so this is two, two eight two B I gave you. One is, shake it out to eight is the breath and imagining peace and calmness on the inhale and releasing tension on the exhale. This is to be part of the breath. So again, exhale and through the nose. One, two, three, four, as you inhale and hold two, three, four, and exhale out for count of eight, two, three, all the way out this time, you inhale. Keep her islands close. And as you inhale, roll your eyes up as if you’re looking through your forehead on the inhale, don’t strain that it hurts. But look as imagine if you’re looking at a moon, um, through your forehead is your eyes are up eyelids down and hold that during the whole. And as you exhale, keeping your eyes closed, lay your eyes, rest comfortably on the exhale all the way on for [inaudible].

Now roll your eyes up. One, two, three, four, eyelids down eyes up on the hold, two, three, four. And now as you exhale, let your eyes rest comfortably. And as I continue to talk, keep breathing in for four, rolling your eyes up, holding, keeping your eyes up, and then on the exhale, let your, um, your eyes rest. As you exhale the air, keeping your eyes closed the whole time. The benefit behind this, again, it’s another mind hack. When your eyes go up, if you notice your eyes are lids, you’re closing, your eyes are up. You may sense a little bit of a tremor, twitching your eyes, right? Well, this kind of mimics REM when you’re in REM sleep, how your eyes go up and there’s that bit of that, that Twitch. Again, it’s a mind tag, the body’s memories like that. Pavlov’s dog experiment, where you rang the bell for the dog.

And it was salivating. Even though there was no food there, hopefully you’ve heard of this experiment is quite old and well-known well, if you start to breathe and roll your eyes up, it takes you from a high beta into low beta unit to alpha because your body, when you do this every night, your body thinks it’s safe. It’s sleeping. You’re not asleep. If your body does not think it’s safe, your subconscious, our nervous system will have you alert. So if you are doing this, the breath remember engages the parasympathetic. We know through heart rate variability study, and you had the eye roll up. Um, then that also starts to bring you into the alpha brainwaves. And it’s just your body can’t can handle it. And not that it can’t handle it. Your body just responds to that kind of behavior. So if you do this, your body’s like, Oh, I’m safe.

I can turn off the alarm system. I’m safe, engaged parasympathetic. Now let’s do the third, um, uh, mind hack that your patients will love. And I’ll encourage you to do that as well. And it’s a form of open focus and the research comes from Les Femi, and we’re going to wrap up here. Less family did some research, trying to engage alpha brainwaves. He studied shamans. He studied Buddhism, different cultures, and he had people, uh, hooked up to the, uh, uh, the, I think there, the EEG machines, um, on their head. And I’m sorry if I got the term wrong again, a little brain lapse here, but he was measuring the brainwaves. So he’s going to see what’s going on and he couldn’t get into, um, he couldn’t get into alpha. And when he finally surrendered, um, and let go, um, he went into alpha brainwaves.

He just turned it. They just turned out automatically. So it shows you these techniques. A lot of this is about surrendering and basically getting to present moment to getting into alpha in his research though, what he also shared is what he talked about. Narrow focus and open focus when we have our eyes open and we’re focusing on the external environment and we’re very, narrow-focused, um, we’re more into the beta brainwaves. Um, and if we go high beta we’re into overwhelmed, medium, low you’re good focus, and alpha is a form of open focus. So it’s best done with your eyes close. And if you can start to sense your body parts, this is a form of awareness and open focus. So for you guys, again, I invite you to close your eyes and just do some nice breathing in. You. Don’t have to do the four, four and eight, but a nice in deep inhale belly raise and a nice, slow exhale.

And without looking at touching or moving, can you tell you have a right hand, just bring your awareness and notice if you can tell you have a right hand. Excellent. And can you tell you have a right thumb without touching, moving, or looking at it? Just, can you sense that you have a right thumb? What about a right baby finger? Just notice it, bring your awareness now to your left hand. Can you tell you have a left hand without moving or looking at it? What about our right foot left foot? How about your right ear low? Can you sense? Can you bring it up awareness to know that you actually have a right here, a little bit attached to your head, and if you’re really stressed, you’re not, it’s going to take a while to feel these things. If you’re in a high beta, this is an open focus in our awareness.

And again, it’s another mind hack because if you start to sense your body, then you are going from externally referred, looking into your environment and you’re going inside. And the practice of going inside is an open focus. And it’s more of a low beta alpha theta brainwave activity. And now you’re engaged in the parasympathetic nervous system. And from here in my practice, I jump off and do belief change work because once I can get them into alpha, then they are now in that suggestible stage, they’re in that state of ability to heal. And you’ve now allowed the innate ability to heal to you’ve amplified it. And so just like when you’re putting your acupuncture needles and by the way, acupuncture for most induces the alpha feta, they get that Accu buzz. So you’re inducing that already. For some, some patients, they get stressed. Don’t, don’t like acupuncture, you’re inducing high beta.

So some people don’t respond to our noodles, you know, this right majority do. And if you bring in the, the, um, the shake it out, if you bring in the breathing technique, if you bring in the open focus and it only takes moments, then you are going to enhance their, um, innate ability to heal their ability to self-regulate. And then if you encourage them to do this several times a day throughout the week, they are going to benefit so much more from your treatments because the autonomic nervous system is going to have more energy and resources available to them and their creativity. It’s amazing what happens to creativity. And this is why meditation is so becoming so much more popular amongst entrepreneurs is we’ve learned that by quieting the mind and engaging the alpha brainwaves, um, we can tap into areas of creativity and you don’t need to go to burning man and take psychedelics to tap in there.

Like some of the billionaires have done, um, um, in the past you, and now you can do without the residue of those drugs. You can sit there and tap in and tap into creativity, um, areas that aren’t normally available to you. And bottom line, you just start to feel happy who, who doesn’t want to feel happy, have that peace in comments anyways, that’s the wrap for today? Um, check out my website@healthyseminars.com. Um, I have lots of online courses, um, there, and also you can check out my website, lornebrown.com for more of this conscious work. And I want to remind you next up on to the point is Jeffrey Grossman. So please make sure you tune in and, um, hopefully you’ll pick up a copy of my book, missing the point and thank you for listening and please practice these three mind hacks. Your body will love you for it. And so will your patients