By: Cesar Cruz Jr.
Suffering from common office illnesses? Do not fret. Acupuncture has got your back.
When you feel discomfort or pain, do you address the root cause of the disease or do you address the symptoms?
While both Eastern medicine and Western medicine concern themselves with realigning the flow of energy within the body, they vary in terms of where the focal point is placed. The focal point in traditional Chinese medicine is treating the person as a whole instead of the symptoms alone. On the other hand, Western medicine places a high emphasis on the treatment of symptoms through the prescription of a particular drug to address the pain.
Acupuncture is a branch of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) that deals with the insertion of needles in various points in the body in order to stimulate its ability to heal itself. (TCM and Ayurveda techniques make up Eastern medicine.)
In some health care programs, intervention happens only when damage has been done. Vas Bismark, owner of Balanced Qi Health and Wellness Center, fills this gap by his proactive approach to health care. The certified acupuncturist sees his practice as a sustainable pain management program.
“Acupuncture is one of those modalities that specializes in treating and protecting illnesses. For example, in the office setting, common illnesses are rampant but people think they are normal. You have frozen shoulders, back pain, hyperacidity, headaches, migraines – these are things people deal with on a daily basis. They are symptoms of illnesses they don’t have a direct answer to. Manage pain before it breaks out into something more serious. It is something I want to put a stop to by providing people with a sustainable pain management program.”
How can people benefit by putting acupuncture ahead of Western medicine to feel better and/or address their pain?
“When a person undergoes acupuncture, they are optimizing the efficiency of the circulation of their systems. Acupuncture helps bring a person’s body function to its normal state – from your sleeping pattern, to your digestive, to your reproductive cycle (for women). Acupuncture is designed to restore the natural healing abilities of the body.”
In this regard, one does not have to be sick or feel discomfort to enjoy the gains from acupuncture. When one is sick, acupuncture could bring one to a state one will feel better. It brings the body to a place where it could heal. On the other hand, when one is well, acupuncture helps reinforce the body against illnesses. It helps optimize its functions. In fact, Vas has patients who visit him on a regular basis so that they could sleep better. They don’t have anything wrong with them, they just want to feel relaxed.
What habits complement good health aside from having acupuncture?
“Sleeping on time and regulating one’s eating time go hand in hand. If you don’t control your eating time it affects your sleeping time. Walk 6000 steps a day. Give importance to consistency rather than intensity. As long as you are doing any form of exercise, be it 15 to 30 mins a day. It is better than 2 to 3 hours of exercise once or twice a week.”
Before becoming a certified acupuncturist, Vas Bismark was an instructor of Tai Chi and Qigong. The transition to learning acupuncture for him came smoothly as the principles of the martial arts share a lot in common with acupuncture in terms of how the body works and how energy flows. He learned in La Consolacion College Manila under his first teacher Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan, a former DOH Secretary.
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