Acupuncture & Energy Flow: Unlocking the Body’s Healing Potential with Dr. Felice Chan | Ep. 149

Hadlee, I feel like we're basically acupuncture cheerleaders at this point. That was so fun.

So fun. I know, I love learning about these different ancient healing modalities that are now being proven by modern science and like how freaking awesome that is.

And I was also really inspired by how much overlap there is with traditional Chinese medicine and the philosophy and understanding with Ayurveda, which— totally. Yeah. And she was also talking about, like, in Peruvian philosophy and how all these different places, they weren't communicating with each other, and yet they were coming up with similar conclusions and treatments.

Right. I know. It's so freaking cool. Yeah. That's how you know that this stuff is real.

Yeah, totally. And there's been a question that's been like nagging in my mind for a super long time. And so if anybody listening to this podcast is menopausal, and if you wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning or 3:15 in the morning, and it's been driving you just out of your mind frustration, you're gonna learn why, and we're gonna have some ideas for you and what to do about it. And so that was a big one for me. For you, Hadz, like, Is there like a big takeaway?

Um, I loved what she said about Medicine 3.0. Yeah, I wrote that down.

Totally. Yeah,

because it's really, it's, it's about prevention. And, and it's about like getting to the root cause, which is crazy that that wasn't what medicine was for 1.0 or 2.0. Um, but I love I love that that's like her whole thing. And, you know, everyone who does TCM or Ayurveda or any traditional medicine, it's like, how can we get to this root cause and truly heal? Like naturopathy, like how can we really truly heal this root cause? That's the most inspiring thing to me.

Oh, absolutely. And I also love that she was willing to dive into the difference between dry needling and TCM. We got into 5 element and And it was just so good. And she also sees patients. And so if any of our audience lives in LA and you're looking for a really good acupuncturist, she's there. She's also on Instagram. And so wherever you are in the world, you can learn from Felice by going onto Instagram. And we'll give you her show notes. So, Hadz, do you want to share her bio with us?

Yeah, absolutely. So Dr. Felice Chan holds a doctorate in acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. She's the founder of Felice Acupuncture and co-founder of Moon Bao, a traditional Chinese medicine skincare line. We didn't even talk about that. She's so cool.

What?

So cool. I know. And she blends Western neuroscience with TCM, which we talk a little bit about on the episode. And she's committed to holistic patient-centered care. She emphasizes the connection between mind, body, and soul, which we love, integrating wellness practices within her clinic and encouraging patients to continue them at home for lasting health benefits. She's passionate about education and accessibility. She shares TCM techniques and insights on social media, especially her Instagram. You guys gotta go check out her Instagram. It's chock-full with so much really good information. And it'll help you integrate all of this stuff into your modern life. And she focuses on compassion and community support, ensuring that holistic wellness is both approachable and empowering for all people. So we love, she's incredible.

She's amazing. So let's get into this interview.

Yes, let's do it.

I'm super happy that you're here, Felice, and I would love to learn a little bit about, well, I kind of wanna start it a little bit differently. And hear about the one thing that you feel like in your practice that just sets your soul on fire the most. Like the why that— why that you're here, why you keep doing it.

Yeah, I think what sets my soul on fire is understanding the root cause and helping patients understand their body in a different way that gives them so much clarity. And once they understand that there's a root cause and that there's ways to help and fix it, that they feel inspired So the

root cause, and it's from a traditional Chinese medicine perspective. Yeah, absolutely. I have a patient, actually. I was just talking with her, and she talks about she goes to see an acupuncturist, and she's like, oh, I'm her pincushion. So she sticks a needle in me. I don't know what's happening, but I always feel better. And I always like to laugh because there's so much more to traditional Chinese medicine than just needle insertion. So for those who may be a little newer to it, can you teach us a little bit about what it is?

Absolutely. So I think most people get brought to Chinese medicine because of acupuncture. And I do want to preface that there's— I like to say there's 4 main buckets under Chinese medicine, right? There's acupuncture, there's herbal formulation of medicine, there's food as medicine, and your lifestyle, which is very much mindfulness forward. And so when people are exposed to Chinese medicine, it's, oh, you know, I heard this acupuncture is great. Let me give it a try, but it's truly amazing for every condition. And the reason being is that acupuncture brings all the imbalances in your body back into balance to a place where your body can heal the best. And how it works is that acupuncture needles are placed throughout the body, you know, could be the head, the feet, the toes, the legs, the belly, and it essentially enters energy wells into the meridian system that lasts all over the body. And this meridian system is so intricate because, yes, it flows through the whole body, but it flows through each organ as well. So you have specific meridians like the spleen, the liver, the kidney, and those, let's say, start in the feet. They'll flow up all the way into the legs, into the organ itself, and let's say into our eyes as well. So you're able to get into the body holistically just with one point entering the energy well with acupuncture needles.

Wow.

It's so good. And I know that today we had wanted to learn a little bit more about How, like, why moving that energy is so important and for our overall health, vitality, for specific conditions as well. Do you wanna speak to that a little bit?

Yeah, definitely. I think what can help is one of the earliest ancient texts translated to English says that if there's qi stagnation or blood blockage, there are ailments. But as soon as there's free flow of qi and free flow of blood, there are no ailments. And so that really speaks to we need this energetic flow in our body that is continuous. Well, so that we have movement of this energy, movement of our blood to give us health. You know, it could even be something like emotions. When we get stressed, we feel everything kind of stuck inside our body, in our abdomen, in our throat, in our diaphragm. And that in itself is stagnating our energy that we need to then be healthy. And when everything's stuck in the center of our body, we almost feel cold hands, cold feet. Everything's a little bit off. And so I think that speaks volumes to why movement is important.

That's so good. Would you mind breaking down like what chi really means for our audience in case anyone doesn't know?

Yeah, so chi in translation is this energy that surrounds our body. And I think, you know, there's so much proof now that it does exist with quantum physics, with energy bodies, right? With, you know, there's even dyes out there and studies that show meridian systems existing with dye in the body, which is fascinating. And so chi, which is our energy, flows through the body Through these energetic meridians that we call acupuncture meridians. And they exist. It gives us the energy we need. We can breathe it in and we get chi from different areas, right? From breath, from food. And it gives us life. It's our life force.

Yeah, it's similar to prana in Ayurveda.

Exactly.

We talked about. Yeah, yeah. So good. I feel like most systems of the world, like traditional systems, have some some sort of acknowledgement of this life force energy.

Yeah. And so much overlap, I think, you know, from traditions in India, in Peru, in China, all of the energetic— I say even like chakras, for example, they line up with acupuncture energetic points that are really powerful for the body. And it's fascinating that through different cultures they were explored and found.

Totally. It's so cool. I always say, like, if something has been found to be true in like all of these different cultures, like all around the world that had— that didn't even have— I mean, Ayurveda and traditional, traditional Chinese medicine, like they have overlap. Um, but like in Peru, they weren't talking to the people in India and in China, in, in all of these places, and they were still finding the same thing. Like, it's so cool. Yeah. And then we've got modern science coming in and being like, oh, actually Yeah, this is true. And then I'm like, once we have all of those overlaps, then it's truth.

Yes. Oh, for sure. You know, and it's a medicine. And it's funny when people sometimes come to me and they say, oh, I believe acupuncture works. I'm like, that's so awesome. But, you know, it's not a belief system anymore. It is a medicine that is rooted in thousands of years of medicine. And it just goes to show that it's a medicine that's not really understood in the Western world. And, you know, the point of this podcast is to share with the world that it is such a special medicine.

So in diagnosis, the other thing that I learned that I thought was so fascinating when I was in school is before we had modern medicine diagnostics, like I could take your blood and look at your white blood cells and look for autoimmune cells and sugars and things, is that we had tongue and pulse.

Yes.

And so can you tell us a little bit about that?

Oh, absolutely. It's my favorite thing. It's something that I always look at with every new patient because it's so informative to understand what imbalances their body's going through. You know, sometimes I have a patient who comes in and they don't want to share much because, you know, they're more closed off. And I look at their tongue and pulse and I am given a base understanding of, oh, this is the what we say pattern diagnosis in Chinese medicine. You know, with the tongue, for example, we look at the color, the shape, the coating, any stagnation sublingually as well underneath the tongue. It all gives us an indication of what's happening in the digestion in different organs like the kidneys, the liver, the heart. It's so informative. And with the pulse as well. So each hand, there's 3 positions which indicate 3 separate organs. And so we feel each position, but we also feel the texture. So yes, we feel the heart rate, but there's so much that the texture gives us in terms of the information of the imbalances. We have strange terms like wiry, slippery, bounding, you know, and I think with a lot of practice, you start to feel. commonalities within patients who have a wiry pulse and why they have that, right? For example, wiry, it almost feels like a guitar string, if you can imagine that. And usually people are stressed or they have a liver pathology or they're experiencing pain. And so it gives us an indication, oh, okay, this is what's happening to the body.

I always have a wiry pulse.

Oh, me too, because we're all stressed. We all live in this modern world that is So fast-paced. So it's a very common pulse we feel.

Yeah. And then it's fun because then I think if I'm remembering correctly, this is so fun because you're like opening up like parts of my brain that have been like in storage for so long. So like when you're on your period, it could be slippery,

right? Yes. And pregnancy too. There's sometimes, you know, when people come in, they're like, oh my gosh, my acupuncturist felt that I was pregnant before I knew it because the pulse becomes more slippery. And when we think about slippery, it's more dampness in the body. It means something is blocking movement and it's heavier and almost wet in a sense. And that is what a baby is in the uterus. And you can feel that in a pulse.

Oh my God.

Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, I mean, it's reminding me of like, okay, so wiry pulse, that sounds like more vata. Maybe pizza mix and then—

Yes, exactly. I love that.

Yeah.

So one of the common misconceptions that I hear from patients is, or people just like talking in general, is, oh my gosh, my acupuncturist said that I had liver Qi stagnation. I have a liver problem. And then they ask me, well, what herbs can I take for my liver? Do I need to go to the doctor? Do I have hepatitis? And it's not the same language system. So I wonder if you could teach us a little bit about that, like the organs. Yeah,

I'm so glad you brought that up because I think a lot of what I do in clinic is also education to make someone understand that, oh, it doesn't mean your liver is dysfunctioning. It just means that that's the system, right? So in Chinese medicine, there's main organs in the body, the liver, spleen, the kidney, the heart, the stomach, the gallbladder. And we look at these organs in terms of certain patterns that revolve around it that give us an understanding of what's happening. So let's go back to liver qi stagnation. So the liver is the center of our emotions and how we hold stress and frustration and anger, which is very common in our modern world. And so when anyone is experiencing this, we see that the liver organ or the liver channels itself is blocked because the liver's main function is to move this qi. It's to move this energy in our body. And when everything is blocked, Then the meridian system can't flow freely. And that's specific to the liver itself. Yeah. So it's fascinating. It doesn't necessarily mean the liver is not working. It does not mean hepatitis. It does not mean, you know, fatty liver disease or whatever you can tie to it, because everything in Chinese medicine is on a balance scale. So liver qi stagnation could be in this balance scale where you're a little bit off, whereas Western medicine will diagnose it when it's at its pinnacle. And so Chinese medicine, whenever it's diagnosed in this area of this dome, we can bring it back to center where you heal before anything's ever diagnosed, right?

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Why wait? Why wait till— and I think about that with hypoferritinemia. I talk a lot about iron, and so many people, their doctors will just run a CBC, and if they don't have anemia on a CBC, they're like, you're fine. But you can have symptoms of anemia way before that happens. And so what you're talking about is not just looking at symptoms and managing that, but looking for signs of maybe imbalance or restoring balance so then it doesn't have to become a full-blown disease.

Yes, I love that. And I love how you brought up anemia too, because I see that so much, like pre-anemia with women, for example, because we bleed every month, we have a menstruation. And in this modern world, aren't really taught how to replenish that. In a Chinese culture, it's very much part of our childhood where my mom would be like, drink goji berry tea or jujube date tea, eat more red meat to bring up that iron again, or even that B12 deficiency. Whereas I see now a lot in the Western world where a lot of people are on that scale, which one day they could hit anemia if that could happen. And so we say that's blood deficient and we look at the certain pathologies, right? They get lightheaded quickly, they're fatigued. They have low energy, maybe thinning nails, thinning hair, a pale inner canthus, a pale tongue. All of those are signs of a blood deficiency, but they're not necessarily anemic.

Oh my goodness. Yeah, this is something that I talk about a lot with my clients where, well, in public health, in grad school when I was in school for public health, something that they talked about a lot was You know, getting people to change, the easiest way to get people to change is to make the consequence closer in time. So a lot of times people are like, oh, you'll get cancer if you do that, like smoking or whatever it is. But that's way, way, way down the line. And so getting— teenagers to stop smoking, it's more effective to tell them like, your hair is going to smell, your teeth are going to get yellow, like, you know, all of that kind of thing.

Yeah.

And so something that I love about, you know, knowing that and then also bringing in Ayurveda, which it sounds like it's super similar with TCM, is, is this idea that if we can just balance things, in the moment, we don't ever have to worry about the disease states down the road. We don't ever have to be like, you know, super concerned about, am I gonna get this disease? Am I gonna get that disease? If we just balance things out as we're going along.

Yes. So I love that you said that, you know, and I think there's this whole concept of medicine, not that, you know, it's wrong, it's just a different outlook of you get medication or you go to the doctors when you are sick. But what about all that time and the prevention that could be, you know, shared to prevent any severe illness. And I think I'm so excited that there's this world almost of like a Medicine 3.0 where people are understanding that this prevention is so important.

I like that.

Yeah. So maybe we could talk about a couple of example cases. And I know that you're really passionate about the mind-body link. And so are there any cases that come to mind that can perhaps help us and help our listeners sort of walk through how to think? Because this is a big thing I love that you're teaching us is how to think a little bit differently about health and about wellness.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I think one example we can talk about is gut health, right? A lot of people suffer from bloating, from loose stools, constipation, anything with digestion is a little bit off. And I think what we have to really understand is Figure out why that is happening, and it could be tied to a root of how we are eating, how we are treating our body, how we're neglecting emotions. And let's stick to constipation, for example. You know, in this modern world, in medicine, we think of constipation: Oh, it's dryness. You know, my there's no peristalsis. You know, my large intestine isn't working. But in Chinese medicine, yes. Exactly. Not enough fiber the way we eat. But in Chinese medicine, a huge part of constipation is our emotions, right? And we have this mind-gut connection that is the HPA axis, which we all know in Western medicine. And how does it translate in Chinese medicine? And when we are constipated, you can't neglect emotions because if we are, let's say, stressed, it's holding in everything. If we can't let go, our body is physically trying to hold on to what it has, hence why you're constipated. And so there's this beautiful interplay of a holistic medicine of, okay, these are your symptoms, but also what's happening in your mind and emotions that's causing this.

I love that. I, I once heard the term like, are you an energetic pooper? And I'm like, yes. Yeah, it's like I've gotta like have a calm morning that's like not rushed, otherwise it's not gonna happen. And it's not going to happen the whole day.

It's the rest and digest. It's our nervous system in the parasympathetic. And when people aren't in that state, they're not pooping, they're not digesting.

Right. Oh, it's so good.

So someone comes into your office and they're like, okay, I'm really struggling with my digestion. They're gassy, they're bloated. And let's say it's more like IBS. So then it's constipation, diarrhea. This is like the standard American. presentation, right?

Yes.

And they're like eating standard American diet. So we have an idea of root cause with that, like really inflammatory, lots of sugars, processed foods. They're also really stressed. Maybe they're like very— excuse me— like very Vata, Pitta, like they're just all over the place. So where would you start? You'd look at their tongue, you could look at their pulse, you would get a history. Because people are like, I'm going to go and they're just going to look at my tongue and pulse and stick needles in me. But you do a little bit more. It's more comprehensive.

Yeah. I think with every new patient, I probably chat with them for at least 30 to 45 minutes and I like to hear everything. I'm just like, this is an open conversation. I would love for you to share as much about your health because it gives me an understanding of what is happening. Right. To me, let's say 5 different puzzle pieces that they mention. I'm like, oh, it all makes sense because is all tied to a certain organ. For example, IBS. When someone has IBS, there's— they're absolutely stressed. They absolutely have an emotion that is overacting on their digestion. And in Chinese medicine, there is a pattern diagnosis that matches IBS to a tee. It's what we say the liver overacting on the spleen. It's our wood element overacting on our earth and the liver again, which is our stress, emotions, anger. Physically, it's causing so much stagnation that it's kind of shooting energy to our digestion, which is our spleen and our stomach. And so to me, I'm like, okay, to get a root cause, if we're able to balance this liver energy, a lot of your digestive symptoms are going to start to heal. It's very much similar to Western understanding of our sympathetic versus parasympathetic, and we heal in the parasympathetic. Yeah. So we chat. I mean, I love to figure out, and it's a different puzzle every single time with a new patient because everyone's different.

Yeah. That's also, I mean, such an important part of this is that there is not a one-size-fits-all at all. Like, it's like a totally different treatment plan for every single person and their whole background.

Yeah. And I mean, everyone is an individual. Everyone has different environmental factors, you know, different childhood, different way they process emotions. And it's, you know, this beautiful complexity, which I love about the medicine. It's an art in itself, you know, and you can keep layering things and, you know, everyone's uniqueness makes them, you know, an individual and it's beautiful.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Will you tell us a little bit about, just because it's piquing my curiosity, I've heard of the elements in TCM before, but I feel like people will wanna, you know, wanna nerd out on this if they're anything like me. Yeah,

absolutely. So we have 5, yeah, we have 5 elements. in Chinese medicine, we have fire, earth, metal, water, and wood. And each element is tied to an organ system. So fire is the heart and the small intestine. Those are the yin and yang pairs. And the heart is fiery because it's where we hold our love, our joy, but it's also the center of housing our spirit, what we say Shen in Chinese medicine. And when someone's fire is overacting, they could have insomnia because the heat of the fire is coming out at night when it's supposed to be resting, for example. Yeah. Then we have earth. Earth element is our digestion. It's our spleen, it's our stomach. And I love 5 elements because everything has a color, a flavor, a season tied to it. Mm-hmm. And the color of the spleen and stomach, which is the earth, is yellow. So let's say you have digestive issues. Eating yellow foods is awesome. And when we think yellow, it's not like a bright yellow. It's almost like millet, for example, which is so nourishing for our spleen and stomach. Fire, earth. Then we have metal. Metal is our lung and large intestine, which recently in LA we've seen a lot of imbalance with this because lung breath, you know, the fires, but also large intestine of letting go. And it matches the emotions of grief in the lungs. And there's a lot of interplay between lung issues and constipation. Mm-hmm. And I've been seeing that quite often recently. So I have fire, earth, metal, water. And water is lovely because that's the kidney element. It's how we get nourished. And when we think about the kidneys, it's how we pee, right? It's how our bladder works. And it's so beautiful. And the kidney in Chinese medicine is so important for our essence and longevity. And that's the nourishment we feel, you know, and almost can be tied to when someone hits menopause, they're really dry, they're thirsty because the kidney element is a little bit weaker.

Hmm.

So we talked about fire, earth, metal, water, and now we're at wood. And wood is my favorite because it's a wood year in the lunar calendar, which is the liver. And it's stress, it's frustration. And even back home, I was talking to my mother and in my clinic, everyone's just like, oh my gosh, it's going to be such a wood dominant year. Everyone's going to be so stressed. And I'm like, oh yeah, it is what it is. And it's funny. But anyways, all of these elements together, these 5 elements, they work together. have a pattern and they go in that cycle where the fire generates the earth or the earth generates the metal. But also it works in opposition where the wood, which is the liver, overacts on the earth, which is what we see for IBS. Sorry, that was very complex and a little bit— I wish I had a chart.

Yeah, right. Yeah, it's fascinating because in Ayurveda there's also 5 elements, but they're slightly different. There's the water, fire, and earth, but then we have air and earth. Versus the metal and the wood. So I always love learning about the metal and the wood aspects. So fun.

Oh my gosh. Thank you.

Oh, you're the best.

I found— so for those who are going to be watching the video, we have a picture. For those who are listening to the podcast, you could Google 5 elements and it's going to be kind of the shape of a star. And so, yeah, this is like exactly what you were saying. So yeah, talk more about it. I'm like obsessed with this thing. Oh my gosh.

Thank you so much. Oh, my gosh. For this. So, I mean, a couple of things. You can see the arrows on the bottom left that say generation and support. So the generation key, we can start at the liver, the green on the top, where the liver gallbladder, which is the wood element, generates the fire. So when we need more fire, when we need more heart energy, for example, someone's a little bit sad and they need more joy, we're going to nourish the liver. We're going to start to eat more sour foods, more green foods, sleep before 11:00, and that's going to help with the heart element. of joy. And it kind of works in that star system. And then the supporting as well works in the same way where the kidney, the water, can support the fire. And even in nature, right, water and fire are opposing factors. And the supporting arrow, which is the star system, it can also go backwards. Okay. That's what I mentioned as the overacting. We can look at the spleen and the stomach and earth, which is the yellow. And if you follow the star arrow backwards, it overacts on the— yeah, so the liver, sorry. Yeah, the liver overacts on the spleen, which is what I mentioned as the frustration overacting on the spleen and stomach.

This is so— and so for those who are listening, this will make so much more sense when you get the visual. As I'm looking at this clock, I also see time of day and the number one question I'm getting asked right now is perimenopausal women who are waking up at 3:00 a.m. or 3:15 on the dot, and they're like, what is this and what can I do about it?

It's so common. And I always love to ask because it gives me information of what organ is off balance. So the timing of all the organs, what it says here is when the organ is most active. And when it's supposed to work at its most. For example, the stomach and spleen, it's in the morning between 7:00 and 11:00 because that's when we're supposed to eat breakfast. And that's why breakfast is so important. And then the lung and large intestine, 3:00 to 5:00 is the lung, 5:00 to 7:00 is the large intestine. And the lung being our grief, how we process emotions. And so it's very tied to when menopausal symptoms happen because the water imbalance, the fire imbalance, and the metal is kind of put off its balance. And so that's why you have waking up early. You have the 5 to 7 in the morning large intestine when we're supposed to naturally wake up to go to the bathroom. Yeah. So it's really fascinating and I love it.

So someone who wakes up at 3:00 in the morning, it could be grief. It could be that there's something that needs to be processed. It could be an imbalance.

Exactly. It could also be liver, right? Because the liver ends at 3 and the lung starts at 3. So if it's at 3 o'clock, you know, I would be like, okay, is it more liver? Is it more related to these symptoms that they show, such as anger? Do they have eye issues? Are their tendons getting, you know, painful and crunchy, or are they experiencing more dry skin and hair? Are they experiencing some type of grief? Yeah. So every pattern that they show Gives me an understanding of which organ to focus on, hence acupuncture, then to help with that.

Oh my gosh, that was so good. So for those who are listening and they're like, wait, what was that? So pull up the star, look at it, and I'll make sure to include this link in the notes so you guys can go and look at it and look at your symptoms, look at your body. Okay, so now we want to work on— you talked about the domains of helping us get back in balance. And it's not just acupuncture, it's not just herbs. So talk a little bit, if you will, about what people can do to get started as they're finding an acupuncturist in their area. You're in LA area, right?

Yeah.

They could go find you. They're in LA, go and see you. But if they're looking for someone in their network, what can they be doing now to get started?

Yeah, so I love this because Chinese medicine is a lifestyle, very similar to Ayurvedic medicine. It's not just going to get treatment, which I think is a lot of ways or the way that people step their foot into Chinese medicine. But my goal is for someone to find it to be like, oh my gosh, you know, let me figure out the philosophy and what makes sense to me. It's the mindfulness, it's the eating, it's understanding that we're supposed to have a protein-rich breakfast. It's understanding that our body is supposed to be in balance. And the biggest advice I can give if you want to start your journey for Chinese medicine is to find balance. And we all work, you know, a crazy life. We have, you know, a modern world's amount of stress. And so in order to balance that, we should include mindfulness in our day-to-day, whether it's your means of meditation, journaling, you know, breathwork. I love my qigong and tai chi for 5 minutes in the morning because I can physically feel my energy moving. And it's just a gentle movement of breathing, moving my hands. And it's really powerful.

Oh yeah, I love qigong. When you were talking about the kidneys, I was thinking about that movement where you're like basically like hitting the kidneys with your fists, and that always makes me feel so good. I love that.

Oh, I love that. I love that you love it.

Yeah, yeah, it's so good.

Can you show us? Are you talking about like sitting up and like doing that like kind of—

Yeah, like you, you like Do like a twist.

Uh-huh.

Hit the— yeah, hit the kidneys with your hands.

So your arms are— you're like twisting left and right. Your arms are bent, they're kind of swinging. And when the hand in the back arrives in the back, just kind of thump your lower back where the—

It feels so good. There's so much like, like light, like hitting yourself. It's like, yeah, that feels so

good.

It feels so good.

Before I get up in the morning, when I wake up in bed, I tap my arms Arms, all over my body, my legs. And immediately I'm like, all right, I'm awake. I'm ready for the day because everything is opening. Yeah, I love it.

It's so good. It's so good. So I know that we also had wanted to talk about emotions in TCM and why emotions are the center of pretty much all imbalances. And can you talk about that in relation to the gut as well? 'Cause I think, yeah, I think like we know that the gut influences so much for us, but how do then, how do the emotions play into that as well?

Yeah, I'm so happy to share. And I love that you brought that up because it's, I think what geeks me out the most in Chinese medicine is everything leads back to emotions. We're human beings, we feel emotions and it's so beautiful. We feel the heavy, the light, and the way that it makes our body feel Physically and emotionally cannot be ignored. You know, I think there's this interplay of mental health being separate than to our physical body, but we can't do that anymore because we have to understand and tune into our body to figure out what certain emotion makes any imbalance in the body. You know, for example, does the stress create digestive disorders? Is it creating a more shallow breath? Is it giving you a headache? What is it telling you? And what I love is that every organ— I touched upon it very briefly before— has an emotion tied to it. Lungs is grief. Large intestine, you know, is letting go. Spleen and stomach is overthinking, hence our digestion. Kidneys is fear and heart is joy. And so when we think about all these emotions, when we say, you know, overthinking is tied to the spleen and stomach, it's about a balance, right? Yeah. You could have too much of it or too little of it. Too much of it causes digestive issues. And in this modern world, we're always thinking, our mind is always running. I see it a lot with a lot of creatives, for example, especially in LA. Their mind is always running with things to do, ways to be creative, and it impacts the energy that your body truly needs to digest, the rest and, you know, rest and digest phase of the nervous system, because everything is up here. We're all in our heads and thinking. And so that's how, you know, we can almost explain a connection of emotion

That's really cool. And then, so what do you— I'm asking, like, I don't know if it's controversial, but what do you think of dry needling?

Yes. Love that you asked. It's funny because dry needling is acupuncture. It's something that PTs or chiropractors learn how to do. And to be honest, they learn how to do it in like 3 days. They take a 3-day course. Whereas Chinese medicine school, it's a 4-year master's program and people continue to a doctorate. Dry needling, you learn how to insert a needle. They don't even teach like a clean technique around that. I've seen like some chiropractors needle through clothes. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's— Yeah. It's not great. Also, like, so unsanitary. But they basically learn how to get a needle into a muscle knot. You know, we call them Osher points in Chinese medicine because it's so effective when you have pain and you get a needle in a knot. It releases the lactic acid and it starts to move the lactic acid. So then the pain stops. But dry needling and the concept of that, it doesn't learn anything about the energetics of the body. For example, if there's knot in your shoulder, which we feel, getting a needle in there is awesome. You get the little twitch, you get that release of that lactic acid, and it feels so good afterwards. However, this point energetically also sends all the energy down to our feet. Sometimes when people massage this point or this point is used or even dry needling, people tend to faint if they're a little bit deficient, if they're almost anemic, for example, because the energy of this shoots to your feet. Everything goes down, right? We think about the energy or blood going down. So I think it's really important to understand where you're dry needling, what the energetics mean, and whether that point is great for the person you're seeing.

Yeah, that's, that's how I feel too. And also when you go through clothing, it dulls the needle a little bit and it hurts more.

Oh, yeah. And no needle should go through clothing. It's— I mean, it's dirty. You like— needles are all single use. You have to have clean skin and clean needle. Yeah, that makes no sense to me. But I've seen that and I'm just like, wow, you know, if the acupuncture board saw that, the clinician would be discontinued.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So another question that I have for you, this is just like me getting into like my fun nerdy self, is Because when I was trained in acupuncture, my teacher was always like, no pain, no gain. And then when the needles were in, he was always like, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. He was really funny. Yeah. And so he's like, wiggle the needle, wiggle the body, move the chi. And then other places where I've gone, like, I've received acupuncture treatment, they just want to put you in parasympathetic. It's like painless insertion. You lay there. you sleep. But so it feels like very different. And so I'm kind of curious if you could talk about that.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I think first of all, there's so many different modes of acupuncture, right? Traditionally, it was learned through masters, and over time, the lineages get carried on. Not to say that master 1 versus master 2 or the lineage you're learning is better than each other. It's just a different way to approach And there's some needling styles that are more aggressive, more painful, but equally effective to a gentler style. Some patients also like to receive, ooh, that's a great painful needle. I want to feel it in my glute muscle. That's painful. Other people are like, oh my gosh, I don't want that sensation at all. But both methods, in my opinion, move the Qi. It does its job. And I think it's also dependent on the person. If a person comes in with extreme pain and let's say their constitution is more an They can take more intense needling. If someone comes in and they're really thin, they're deficient, they're fatigued, they're tired, I wouldn't put a lot of needles and I would do thinner needles, right? Yeah, it changes. And again, it's back to the individual.

I love that. Do you do any electro or moxa in your practice?

Yes, I love electro. Electro is something that is more modern in the TCM world. But I love it because it's so tied to neuroscience. It's so tied to our neurons firing at different frequencies. There's so much— there are a lot of studies now that show that certain frequencies of when you attach electrodes to needles start to fire different things. At a lower hertz, for example, 2 to 10 hertz, it fires your dopamine and serotonin, which is awesome for mental health. When you're higher, like 80 to 100 hertz, it's awesome for pain because it releases your endogenous opioids. So I love it. I use it a lot in clinic.

Okay, I— that's so cool.

Hadley's over here like, wait, what?

Amazing. Yes,

yes,

I love that. Ah, so cool. Okay, so then, so then when, when you are working with a patient, are you obviously like, you're doing acupuncture with them, and then do you like give them a plan for their, for like lifestyle changes and stuff afterward that they can go, go out with?

Yes, absolutely. I think it's really important that someone's able to continue their healing journey outside of the treatment room, because in reality, the one treatment a week or twice a week, depending on what someone comes in for, it's not going to heal them if they continue a lifestyle that is, you know, dampening all of that treatment, right? Because again, the treatment, the whole purpose is it's moving our qi, it's moving our energies, moving our blood. And if they do something that stagnates it, for example, let's say someone comes in with gut health and I help dissipate their bloating because everything's moving. I'm warming their digestion and they go home and have ice cream that night. Yeah. To me, I'm like, oh my gosh, you're literally doing the opposite and completely undoing the treatment. So to me, I think it's really important to set an understanding of what's great, right? And in clinic, I'll explain to my patients and I'll be like, okay, everything I'm explaining to you, I'm going to send you a big email with a gut health ebook with some tips and tricks that you can continue at home so that what you're doing in clinic is not kind of wiped out, right? Not to say in itself it's so powerful if someone, let's say, were to go back to all of their inflammatory habits and still get acupuncture, they're still going to get better, but at a slower rate. So it's really dependent on how much or how quickly someone wants to get better.

Yeah. Oh, that's so cool. I love it. So is there— is— are there like a couple of little tips that our audience can walk away from this with, like, to incorporate some of these TCM principles into their lives?

Yeah. I was just making a reel on this the other day. Warm water is your best friend.

Yeah.

Warmth over cold.

I've got mine. Oh my God, me too.

I have my warm lemon water. Yes.

Cheers.

Cheers. Warm is your friend because warm moves, cold stagnates. When you look at an ice glass of water, right? Ice is physically hard, and that's what's happening in your body when you're putting it in your body. And I was just making a reel about digestive health and even the enzymes that work in our digestion. They can't work as effectively when it's cold because they work when your body's at 37 Celsius or 98.6 Fahrenheit. And if it's not, it's diminished.

Totally. Yes. Okay. I love that. That's my number one hack for people when they're traveling. I'm Like, get warm water as much as you possibly can.

Yeah. On the plane, I'm drinking tea. I'm drinking my decaf tea. I bring my little tea bag and I just ask for hot water.

Me too. Or if I don't have tea, I just will ask for hot water and like mix it with some cold water so it's not like, you know, so hot.

And then I'll put—

Yeah, yeah.

I have the water from my fridge and my kettle going on always at the same time. And I always mix

it. Yep.

I saw this video on Instagram recently where the mom was like, the kids are outside playing and I'm gonna make them some water. And it's like a 10-step process where she gets the ice, she's like shaving the ice down, and then she's, she's like straining the ice, and then she gets this other kind of water, and then she runs it through like blue light. And it's like—

Fascinating.

It's so funny. And it was probably like a A water version of the onion, like crunchy apple making water. But I love that. I like to just get like a nice hot cup of water and I'll just drink all day just hot water. And people are like, that's weird. I'm

like, it's great. And when I think about culturally, when I grew up in Hong Kong and everywhere you go, it's room temperature hot water. And that's all I grew up drinking. Yeah.

You

don't see any ice cold water. When I have friends visit me, when I go home to Hong Kong and they ask for ice cold water, they have to go outside to buy an ice water from a fridge from a grocery store. It's not given at all. And I think it ties into the amazing gut health in Asian countries, to the longevity in Asian countries, to the reduced amount of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. All starts in the gut.

Yeah. Even in Europe, they make fun of Americans for asking for ice. They're like, what? Why do you want ice? Hadlee, what about pitta?

types, though? Like, would you still give a Pitta warm water?

Just not as hot. Like, so I still drink warm water in the morning and then in the summertime.

Yeah,

because in the summertime I'll just drink room temperature water when it's— when I'm really hot, I'll just drink room temperature water. Sometimes I'll do a tiny bit of ice as a little treat, but it's like,

yeah. And that's okay. And I mean, I love how you brought that up because we are nature beings and we respond to the environment. And when it's so hot outside, it's It's fine if you want a room temp or colder glass of water, but it shouldn't be your baseline. You shouldn't be drinking ice cold water in the winter if you live in a snowy city. That's just going to send your body way on the cold side and put you off balance. So it's, again, tuning into your body, understanding what feels right.

Yeah. And it's seasonality. I mean, for all of us, we don't have as much season as where we're living.

Yeah, thankful.

But I'm from Michigan, and so, like, you know, my clients will be like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm eating all these salads, but I— my digestion, like, almost feels worse when I'm eating, like, quote unquote healthy. And I'm like, okay, have you tried eating, like, soups instead? Because, you know, middle of winter, I'm like, have you tried eating soups instead? And then they're like, oh, I had no idea that salads and smoothies, these frozen smoothies were—

Oh my God, smoothie culture. It's— yeah, I'm trying to trend broth culture. Instead of smoothie culture.

Yes. Oh my gosh. My clients will send me like reels of people being like, like talking about soup, like funny reels about soup. Because I'm like, it's soup season.

Yes, exactly.

Oh,

I love

that one. Erewhon just needs to have like a $20 cup of soup.

There you go.

Like,

yes, it's so funny because there's— they do so many collaborations with smoothies and I hope someone at Erewhon listening to this, but I would love to see more collaborations with broth because there's so many ways you can make it instead of a Hailey Bieber smoothie, a Hailey Bieber broth. So people start to drink that because they're going to feel so much better.

Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Because obviously bone broth is so amazing, but there's also like, you can make really nourishing broths that are vegetarian as well. So they could bring that in too. Yeah, I love that.

Yeah, 100%.

So yeah, we just started something. This has been so good. I feel like I'm just getting started with the curiosity. And so we're definitely going to have to have you back. Thank you for coming. This has been amazing.

Oh, thank you for having me. It's been such a fun conversation. I feel like we could talk for hours and hours.

Yeah.

And I'd love to also pick your guys' brain in the future too. I'm so curious.

Oh yes, please. And so tell people how they can find you. We'll for sure include it in the show notes.

Yeah, so I'm in Los Angeles practicing. You can find my clinic in Culver City. My website is feliceacupuncture.com, and I do share a lot of free educational tips on my Instagram channel, which is felice.acupuncture.

And your Instagram is amazing.

Thank you. It's been a lot of fun to create that platform, and a lot of people I mean, it's amazing when I get DMs, they're like, wow, I have no bloating for the first time in my life. Like, oh my gosh, my period came back after 10 years with just little changes from little videos I share. I'm like, that is so powerful that it's able to reach people who need it. But yeah, that's where I post educational content from acupressure to food to supplementation to holistic living. Everything's on there.

Oh my goodness. Well, you are such a gift. Keep doing your awesome stuff. Everyone be sure to follow her, and we'll see you next time. Thanks, everyone.

Thank you so much.

And then we just cover it for the editor.

That's it.

That's our fancy—

perfect.

Our fancy, like,

tips. Yeah.

Thank you. And this, this is so fun. I'll make sure to include the image unless you have an image that you made that would brand you back to you of the 5 elements. Yeah,

we could link that to you.

Oh, interesting. I could make a little 5-elemental chart. I can get that to you in the next week. Or when would you need it?

Oh, for sure, like the next couple of weeks. Because I think we're decently— we batch all of our podcasts, and so I think it'll be a couple months till this actually goes live.

Perfect.

But it would be awesome if it was yours.

And yeah, I can have here— I can absolutely make my own version of the 5 elements for sure.

That would be really, really perfect. And then we'll share all that on social and we'll do collab posts because apparently the algorithm likes that better. So the 3 of us will do a collab if that's all right.

Great. Yes, absolutely.

Awesome. All right.

And I just want to ask, whatever footage that is put together, would you be able to send that to me as well?

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Do you want the raw footage or do you want us, like, to send you the edited stuff so that you can post?

Yes, the edited stuff would be awesome.

Done. Yep. We will for sure get you all of that. I'll make sure Paul sees that note.

Thank you so much.

Amazing, my friend. Well, enjoy the rest of your day. Have a good patient.

You as well. You as well. Thank you so much for this amazing chat. It's reinvigorated me.

So good. Oh my gosh.

Thank you.

And so great to meet you. You're just, like, wonderful.

You're so welcome.

Likewise. You guys are too. Thank you so much, Hadlee. Thank you so much, Nicole. It's been amazing.

Hey, bye.

Bye.

See ya.