Abbey Seiden, LAc, Dipl. OM
When a patient seeks treatment for a specific health condition, the plan of action involves a multilayered approach aimed to restore the body’s natural yin-yang balance to promote longevity. Using a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) model, first steps involve documenting the chief health concern to establish a treatment plan that typically involves acupuncture, herbal medicine, dietary recommendations, and lifestyle modification.
However, even with this comprehensive system geared to bring a person’s health back into alignment, often the relief felt is temporary, and the benefits of the treatment are reported as “short acting and not long lasting.”
It seems the most common obstacle to restoring natural balance with regard to the patient’s chief complaint is the pace of the daily grind. Rushing around throughout the day has become accepted as normal, often going unnoticed as a contributing factor to the patient’s overall health and balance.
Raising clear awareness around the normalization of busyness will empower the patient to align with clear choices to optimize success. This conversation about how to live a life more balanced in yin and yang will increase the patient’s overall health and create a longer-lasting positive effect for the individual.
Useful Tools
One pair of tools that helps to begin this delicate conversation regarding busyness is a measure of an individual’s “readiness to change” (precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance) and the planning of SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound).
During the intake, begin this conversation to establish a partnership in which both the practitioner and the patient are taking responsibility for their specific role in the treatment plan and intended outcome. Exactly how current personal choices with regard to the pacing of life are contributing to the chief health concern is part of this initial conversation.
A Case Example
For example, a 50-year-old female has come to the clinic with the chief complaint of insomnia and secondary issues of fatigue and weight gain. When asked about the insomnia, the patient reveals they have trouble falling asleep and wake frequently with dream-disturbed sleep. The dreams are about tasks of the day left unfinished, and people they know appear vividly. The patient tries to speak in the dream, but usually no words come out, or what is uttered is complete gibberish.
Upon waking from these dreams, the patient reports feeling very agitated. It takes a long time to fall back asleep, only to be woken again by the dreams, and this cycle repeats itself throughout most nights, but not every night.
The patient does not feel very rested in the morning, often runs late upon waking, with no time for breakfast, grabs a cup of coffee, and drives to work in traffic. It is midday before any substantial food is ingested; intake of caffeine fuels the workday; no time is carved for nourishment.
Although feeling very fatigued, she makes herself go to the gym on her way home from work and consumes the biggest meal of the day around 8:30 p.m. while watching television. Getting ready for bed, she checks her phone, catches up on social media, and reads the news headlines. She sleeps with the phone next to her bed and looks at it throughout the night to check the time and use it as an alarm clock.
Typically in the case above, the practitioner would do a TCM pattern differentiation, select appropriate acupuncture points and herbal formulas, establish a treatment plan, and then schedule to see the patient again in a week’s time. If the patient is compliant, they will take the herbal formulas and return the following week to continue care.
The Patient’s Role
Often the patient is not aware of their own role during the days between sessions. Without the initial conversation regarding SMART goals or “readiness to change,” they might put all of the responsibility on the practitioner. Similar to when they get a haircut or their car washed, they view the outcome as dependent on the person providing the service, not themselves.
Engaging the Patient
There are several ways to keep the patient engaged in their own healing process between sessions. In the insomnia case mentioned above, it was recommended during the days between sessions to keep a log of the times when food was being consumed, exercise was happening, and the hour screen time was stopped before sleep.
Upon returning to the clinic, the patient reported with excitement that her insomnia had improved. She shared that she became more aware of how quickly she was moving haphazardly through her day.
Once she became more mindful of her own pacing, she was able to make a conscious choice, and the result was an overall slowing down. She was able to create more time to eat meals, and this felt encouraging and very positive, fostering a desire to continue to explore her own world as it relates to her health and longevity.
Clinical Takeaway
The manner in which we are moving through our lives is potentially the number-one fundamental obstacle to long-lasting cure. By using the SMART goal system and raising awareness regarding a patient’s readiness and willingness to change, a connection can be made between daily choices and successful outcomes.
With this approach, it is the duty of the practitioner not only to provide treatment for the patient, but also to ignite curiosity to connect the dots between what is going on daily in a person’s life and how to restore and maintain the natural balance of yin and yang to promote health and longevity.
