Take It To The Board with Donna DiMaggio Berger
Take It To The Board with Donna DiMaggio Berger
Beyond the Boardroom: Eastern Medicine for Western Problems, with Dr Tai Johnson
Life in community associations can feel like a pressure cooker—board members navigating tough calls, homeowners facing surprise assessments, and industry professionals managing nonstop demands. The common thread? Stress. In this week’s Take It To The Board podcast, host Donna DiMaggio Berger welcomes Dr. Tai Johnson, a specialist in acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, for a fascinating conversation on how holistic practices—and understanding your body’s meridians—can help ease the pressure for everyone.
Donna and Dr. Johnson expertly break down the concept of "chi" – the vital energy that flows through our bodies – and explain how blockages created by stressors can be relieved through strategic needle placement. Dr. Johnson reveals how acupuncture shifts us from the sympathetic "fight-or-flight" state (where most of us constantly operate) to the parasympathetic "rest-and-digest" mode where healing can occur. This transition proves particularly valuable for those navigating the complex interpersonal dynamics of community governance.
Beyond the needles, the conversation offers practical self-care techniques anyone can implement immediately. Learn about tongue diagnosis (what Dr. Johnson calls a "Chinese MRI"), the significance of ear massage, and how different body pains might reflect specific emotional patterns – lower back pain often signaling feelings of being unsupported-perfect for understanding board-related stress. Dr. Johnson also shares insights from her nonprofit work providing community acupuncture for veterans with PTSD, demonstrating the accessibility of this healing modality.
While the tensions of community association living aren't disappearing anytime soon, this episode provides valuable tools to approach them with greater balance and resilience. Whether you're curious about Eastern medicine or desperately seeking stress relief, you'll walk away with practical techniques to incorporate into your busy life. Ready to rethink your approach to wellness? Your meridians might thank you.
Conversation Highlights:
- Common misconceptions about acupuncture
- The effect of acupuncture on the nervous system
- Specific acupuncture points effective for reducing stress and anxiety
- Benefits of acupuncture for sleep quality and mental clarity in leadership roles
- Alternative traditional Chinese medicine techniques for stress relief (e.g., cupping, herbal remedies, acupressure)
- The role of meditation and breathwork in complementing acupuncture for stress management
- Quick and actionable stress-relief techniques for those without time for regular sessions
- Simple self-applied acupressure points for use during stressful moments like HOA meetings or negotiations
- Tips on choosing the right acupuncture practitioner for stress relief
Related Links:
- Podcast: Radical Self-Care Can Change the World with Shelly Tygielski, Founder of Pandemic Love
- Podcast: The Mental Health Challenge with Chris Ayoub, President, RealManage
Hi everyone. I'm attorney Donna DiMaggio-Berger and this is Take it to the Board where we speak condo and HOA Community association. Life can be a real pressure cooker. Board members face tough decisions, homeowners deal with unexpected assessments and professionals like attorneys juggle constant demands. The one thing we all share Stress. But what if the key to managing it isn't just in your mindset, but in your meridians? Today, we're diving into the ancient practice of acupuncture with Dr Tai Johnson. Dr Tai has a doctorate in acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, from the Atlantic Institute for Oriental Medicine. She has devoted her career to providing holistic, patient-centered care while mentoring future generations of acupuncturists. As someone who has personally experienced the benefits of her work, I'm excited to explore how acupuncture and Eastern medicine can help us handle the stress that comes with community living. Get ready to rethink your approach to wellness. The goal today is to give you some practical tips on how to manage the stress in your busy lives. So, dr Tai, welcome to Take it to the Board.
Speaker 2:Hi, good morning. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Well, I have to tell you I was a little stressed getting here this morning due to heavy traffic. So you know, as I said, I'm probably going to be calling you later for an acupuncture session.
Speaker 2:Well, we're all going to learn a little something today, aren't we?
Speaker 1:We are. So why don't we start with the main principles behind acupuncture and how it helps with stress relief?
Speaker 2:So acupuncture is the understanding that everything is energy, life force or chi, right? So I had a teacher who said a dead tree has no chi. So that was the way of us understanding that that is it's what animates us, right? What? What gives us life. So the chi is supposed to be flowing freely throughout our body. However, different lifestyle effects, stressors, different things like that will create blockages in your chi, even physical trauma, you know. You stub your toe, you have a, you haveages in your chi, even physical trauma. You stub your toe, you have pain in your toe for a certain amount of time until it's able to move freely again. So the idea is, with acupuncture you are helping the free flow of the chi, which is getting your body back into homeostasis, where it should be if we didn't have all of these external factors.
Speaker 1:So I first tried acupuncture years and years ago on a cruise, dr Tai, and to me I felt nothing. Does that mean my chi was completely aligned? I mean, I barely walked out. It was my first ever acupuncture session. I felt nothing, didn't feel different. But now, as I said in the intro, I've had sessions with you and I do feel more relaxed. So was it just? Is it always the same experience, or are there times when you may walk away from an acupuncture session and feel like you know, you were just sleeping for 20 minutes?
Speaker 2:Well, the idea with acupuncture is that it's putting you into what's called parasympathetic. So you have sympathetic, which is fight or flight, which most of us are all too familiar with, and then you have parasympathetic, which would be the antithesis of that. So with the parasympathetic, that's rest and digest. So if you went into an acupuncture session feeling a certain amount of stress and then you were able to go into parasympathetic and relax, that would be a benefit within itself, because now your body is able to go into a restful state and heal what it needs to heal. So is that something that you're going to say? Hey, you know, I went into the gym, I did one set up. I didn't feel any. You know, it's a muscle that we need to flex, because we are always so much in that fight or flight that a lot of times after the acupuncture session you just feel relaxed.
Speaker 1:But you could go in relaxed.
Speaker 2:You could go in relaxed Right. So that's something too.
Speaker 1:It doesn't always. I wanted to ask you that it doesn't always have to be about fixing something. It could be about preventing something too right.
Speaker 2:Prevention is the main mechanism behind the acupuncture. So with the prevention, we're keeping your body at an optimal rate so that if there is an issue that comes in an external pathogen, say somebody sneezes right in your face your body is able to fight it because your immune system is in a good place. If you are constantly under stressors, like we are in a capitalist society, we do have a depletion of our immune system. So if you're generally healthy, you might not need acupuncture on a weekly basis. You could do a monthly maintenance type thing, which is what I like to do. But if there is something happening, say I do catch a cold I will do several treatments in a row.
Speaker 1:How come sometimes I go in and I get like eight needles and sometimes I need 30?
Speaker 2:eight needles and sometimes I need 30. How do you know? So I also teach at the acupuncture college now and I tell the students a lot that once you learn all of these concepts and you have an understanding within yourself, then you create your own techniques and style as how you do it Right. So it's kind of like when you go to those places where you're like everybody's painting the same picture, you know like one of those places and everybody's painting the same picture the sip and draw the sip and draw.
Speaker 2:Yes, right, but you know, everybody looks a little bit different, so everybody has their style. Some people are a little more aggressive with the needles, Some people are more gentle. I tend to be very gentle because I'm not a big fan of needles. Ironically, some people are afraid of them, you know. So I try to be as gentle as possible while still creating an effect.
Speaker 1:So somebody comes to you, dr Tai, brand new patient never had acupuncture before, but they're feeling very stressed. They've always been interested in this modality. Where do you start with them?
Speaker 2:Well, as a physician, the way we do our diagnostics is through the tongue and pulse. So we're going to ask you to look at your tongue and with the tongue. There are different places on the tongue that give us information and the coloring of the tongue, the size of the tongue. Is it swollen in your mouth? Do you have teeth marks? Is there redness on the tip? You know what's your coding looking like. You know, and that'll give us an idea. I call it a Chinese MRI because it'll give us an idea of all of your internal organs, just based on your tongue. So you don't even have to tell me half the things. Once I look at your tongue, I go oh, how's your digestion? Oh, it looks like you don't sleep very well. You know, like all of these things are kind of laid out for us with this. You know thousands year old Chinese practice.
Speaker 1:We're all going to be looking at our tongues after listening, correct, what color should it be?
Speaker 2:It should be a light pink with a thin white coating. That would be the ideal.
Speaker 1:And if it's red or if it's your own?
Speaker 2:So with Chinese medicine, everything is within relationship to the other, the yin and the yang. I'm sure most people have heard of or are familiar with that concept. So it's hot, it's cold, it's up, it's down, it's left, it's right, it's in, it's out right, and so we're trying to find the balance and find that homeostasis. Where's the middle road right? So we're trying to keep you from having like a huge gap to having like a small gap, because we're always going to have variations throughout the day, but we want to make sure that the variations aren't super super high, super super low. So if your tongue was very red, that would indicate heat within the body. And so in Chinese medicine, anything that happens outside of the body can happen inside the body. So heat, wind, fire, dampness, all of these things can happen outside, but it can also happen inside. So the red tongue would indicate heat, A pale tongue would indicate blood deficiency, A swollen tongue would be qi deficiency, you know, and so on and so on.
Speaker 1:So you've looked at the tongue, you've looked at the pulse.
Speaker 2:Now you're going to get started with the acupuncture session.
Speaker 1:Where do you, where do you, can you, just, you know, kind of walk us through where you place the needles?
Speaker 2:Well, it all depends on what I see on the tongue. So if I saw, you know, a very red tip per se, that area, the tip of the tongue indicates the heart, and that doesn't mean that you have heart disease. That means that there's something happening energetically with the heart, and it usually indicates anxiety, right Overthinking, and so this is going to be somebody who's very cerebral. So I would start with points that would get you out of your head and more into your body so that you could have a more relaxed state. Yin Tong is a very popular point. Most people know it. We call it the glass of wine, and it's right in between your eyebrows, it's your third eye. So that's usually where I start with that, and then I like to do auricular points, especially when I'm doing community acupuncture, I don't have access to the whole body, so the ear is a microcosm of the whole body, so there are certain points on the ear that can put you into a parasympathetic state.
Speaker 1:You've done that for me, and then you did this little seeding. Now can you explain what that is?
Speaker 2:So that's like an acupuncture treatment to go. We have these little seeds that we place again on the acupuncture points that we tape to your ear so you can keep those for several days. And within those several days we encourage you to stimulate those points to remind your body hey, everything's OK, hey everything's OK, or work on my digestion or you know whatever it is that we put the points in for.
Speaker 1:So this is take it to the board. I said in the introduction you know, we have people listening all over and we have people in the community association industry. I think when you and I first met and you asked me what I did and I said I represent condo boards and HOA boards, you said oh, that explains your red, swollen, inflamed tongue.
Speaker 2:Very likely, very likely. Let's get started.
Speaker 1:So let's say we're had so many people who are stressed right now. Dr Tai, I've been doing this a long time. There's always been stress and tension in community associations. Whenever you have multiple people living together, you're going to have differing opinions. I just had an emergency meeting yesterday with a full board. The board was just not functioning well. There were personal issues, there was even a death threat, and we got up in one room and we worked it out. I probably should have had you there doing a little auricular acupressure and acupuncture with them. But if somebody were to want to use this as a stress relief modality, how does it compare to like just getting a massage? Because I think most people are very comfortable. They understand getting a massage feels good. It's a method of stress relief. I think acupuncture for a lot of people. They don't know it, they don't understand it. They may be a little afraid of it. Like you said, I don't like needles either. So what's the difference between those modalities in terms of stress relief? The massage which everybody knows, and acupuncture?
Speaker 2:Well, interestingly enough, I was a massage therapist before I became an acupuncturist, and so I understood massage as being a very beneficial treatment, not only for muscular pains and aches but also as a soothing. You know touch is healing right. So like when, when we're feeling really stressed out, all we want is like a hug from mom, you know that kind of thing. So touch is very healing. But I saw acupuncture as kind of like another step forward where not only can I help in that way physically, but I can also create changes within the brain chemistry with the acupuncture. So I think that they're both beneficial. I work with massage therapists A lot of times. When I give an acupuncture treatment I can recommend like, hey, let's get you a couple of treatments with massage as well. I think they work synergistically. I can't say that one's better than the other. If you're doing either one of them, it's a benefit to you.
Speaker 2:I just I fell in love with acupuncture as I saw it work for my father as he was in his transition time, and it just it shifted my perspective of it. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer and then the radiation actually burned a hole through his large intestine and I was just newly in acupuncture school and I had learned the large intestine meridian, which is on the arm, and I started massaging those points. He was in a lot of pain when I started and he was able to fall asleep with me just massaging those points on his arm and I said wait a minute, there's something really amazing about this because it works by sending signals to the brain, you know so. So that to me I think they're both amazing and I can't I'm not going to poo poo one or the other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that's. That's an amazing story. And you're right, A lot of people do look to acupuncture as pain relief, right, I think even more, you're a doctorate of Eastern medicine, but I think even a lot of Western doctors now Western practitioners now do refer patients to acupuncture for pain relief, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I also have a lot of patients who are nurses and physicians who come to us when all else has failed. A lot of times we are the default. But I think that the mindset and understanding around acupuncture is shifting, especially since I began in the early 2000s to now. You know where it's a lot more sought after because people are understanding hey, this actually works. How long does the effects last? Dr Tai, it depends.
Speaker 2:So acupuncture is accumulatives. The more you do it, the less you need it. So in the beginning if you had an acute problem, hey, you woke up and you have a stiff neck, you know I would say, hey, let's get several treatments in a row in a short amount of time, and once your pain level goes down, then we can go on to. You know, we can back off a little bit. A lot of times the first treatment might be, you know, maybe 24 hours, and then other times I could put one needle in and that's it. You know, my mom had sciatica. I put one needle in her butt and that was it for her. She never had it again.
Speaker 2:So you never know One time and you know so, it's really a crapshoot as far as how it's going to work for you. Also, if I put you into parasympathetic and everything's nice and beautiful and then you go out in traffic and drive a crazy person. It's like there's a balance, there's a lifestyle. That's there. Also, if we're working on digestion and you have dairy issues, you can't have dairy, but you go home and you eat a tub of ice cream. You know there's, I do my part, but you have to do your part.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're going to counteract the positive effects. I still don't understand how putting strategically placed needles in my body affects the nervous system. Can you, can you help me?
Speaker 2:understand body affects the nervous system. Can you help me understand? Absolutely, I can. So that is definitely a question that we, as Western society, we need to see the facts, we need to see the data like how does that actually work, whereas, like I said, acupuncture has been around for thousands of years. So what they're doing now? When I was in the doctorate program, I heard of a study where they were doing MRIs and so they would put someone in an MRI machine and then they would put a needle in to, you know, li4, which is in the hand. That's a pretty popular one for headaches, right, because it's a master point for your head and your face. So they would put a needle into LI4 and then they would see what parts of the brain lit up. So we're communicating directly with your nervous system. Wow.
Speaker 1:Once I had a needle it started vibrating almost. What would that be? Is that just you hit a certain, we hit a certain, like like pressure point, or yeah, so full disclaimer. You didn't do this to me.
Speaker 2:I don't think it was a bad thing, it was maybe it wasn't.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's a good thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so again, working with the nervous system. The nervous system is what controls motor control, right? So when we're sending signals, signals are coming back. It's a loop. I'm talking to you, you're talking back to me, so that could be the mechanism. If you asked, you know one of my Chinese practitioner doctors. They would say that's the cheat. But I would say that that is your nervous system working.
Speaker 1:You kind of touched on it before. You know this is holistic right. So acupuncture is one part of the puzzle. The other would be you talk to your clients about diet and nutrition, lifestyle, sleep, all the other stress management tools.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, there's a lot, there's a lot. Again, holistic is looking at the whole picture. So it's like if I do my part but you don't come and do your part, we don't have a full functioning. You know treatment going on If you're, you know if we're working on insomnia and you're up late on your phone scrolling through TikTok. You know there's only so much I could do. You know, did you just do the side?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're only catching. We're only catching audio. But yes, I did. I did a bit of a eyebrow raise with that. I mean, look again. I'm going to get back to our audience, which you know. You have people in very high stress jobs and high stress roles, so there's only so much they can do and, by the way, a lot of these are retired people, so you know, who have decided to jump into these leadership roles in their communities, and it comes with a certain level of stress. So, for people who can't avoid the stress associated with their lifestyle okay, I'm talking about diet and nutrition, but they can't escape the stress in terms of the roles that they play during the day Any recommendations?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that at the end of the day, it goes back to also you're the only one in there, right, like you're the only person inside of you. So that means that you actually do have the control. And it's about watching that internal dialogue. But it's hard to catch it a lot of times because we're so accustomed to it. You know, we've told our mind keep me safe right From childhood. Keep me safe, mind. So then the mind goes oh, what's that? Who's that? Who said that? Why? Why'd you say it like that? I have a ketchup on my shirt. You know all of that kind of stuff and it's like a constant dialogue of you know, is everything okay? Is everything okay? Is everything okay?
Speaker 2:So, reframing that telling A, telling your mind hey, you did a great job keeping me safe. I'm still here, but now I'm an adult and I have autonomy, right, and if I need to leave or I don't feel safe, I can leave and being able to catch that. So that's the other part of it. Do I even catch it when I start spiraling out of control in this mental turmoil that we all go through? Right, everybody's guilty of it.
Speaker 2:So meditation is a huge one and a lot of people are afraid of meditation because they say, oh, I can't meditate, my mind won't shut up. But it's not about telling your mind be quiet, it's about observing that. That's separate than you. That's my mind. I'm watching, so my mind is a tool that I'm using. And if I stay too close to that mind, it's like, you know, staring too close at the TV, right, so you feel like you're inside the TV. But if you're able to just take a few deep breaths and say, hey, I've noticed that my mind is racing, that doesn't mean I'm racing and I can separate myself from that and give yourself some space from that. And becoming the observer is what helps us kind of manage that. Over overthinking, over doing, over whatever, stress the observing.
Speaker 1:We've never talked about meditation. Do you teach meditation?
Speaker 2:as well. I do not teach meditation, but I am a huge proponent and if you ever want to do meditation, just get on the YouTube. Okay, there are so many, there are so many meditations and for a lot of the patients I just say, hey, find somebody that you like the sound of their voice, find somebody that is going to talk you through something, cause a lot of times when we're starting to flex that muscle of the observer versus the mind, we need somebody to keep our mind busy. So if you do a guided meditation, you can listen to. You know somebody saying, hey, relax your shoulders, you know, calm your, relax your jaw, and so you have something that your mind can focus on while you're focusing on your breathing and actually letting some of this stuff go.
Speaker 1:You know a lot of the points you just mentioned were. You know, I was listening to another one of my favorite podcasts, which is Mel Robbins, and she was talking about how people can disrespect each other and how to handle that. So I do feel that in my line of work, where people do get very riled up, is disrespect right If they're at a board meeting and they can't be heard or somebody's using profanity, people are talking over each other. Immediately, it's that I'm being disrespected, the tension rises and you know we're off to the races from there. One of her key points was protect your energy and what are we talking about? And so it's like some things you have to just let it go. It's not worth expending a great deal of energy on. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2:A hundred percent I would, because you know our energy is our only commodity, right? Like if you don't have your health, you have nothing. That kind of thing, you know. And a lot of times like, like I said, overthinking that will spend your energy, that will make you cheat efficient. But also I read something that said you're either coming from a place of fear or love. So I think that a lot of times, when people are, you know, getting riled up like that it's, it's a fear, like you know, is it going to be okay, am I safe? That kind of dialogue so being able to have that quiet time where you're meditating and you're telling yourself, even affirmations are good too. Hey, I am safe, I am loved, I am okay, you know cause a lot of times the dialogue is, you know, is it going to be okay, is everything okay? I'm afraid you know that kind of thing. So shifting that dialogue also kind of turns off all of those warning signals that are happening within the brain that make us feel unsafe.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, there are people that you're. You're one of them. I'm just going to say where you're around them and you just feel better because they have great energy. Yeah, you are, absolutely have that effect. Let me ask you, Dr Tai does chi, or energy, does it have to naturally be depleted the older you get?
Speaker 2:So there is a practice in Chinese medicine called qigong. That's also a great one, especially for older folks who are not able to do more vigorous workouts and things like that, and it's a practice. I'm not I'm not proficient in it. My friend, Dr Walker, is fantastic with it. If you ever want his phone number, I'm happy to share it.
Speaker 2:But it's a way of harnessing that energy and really focusing it and being aware of it. Because you know, once you put your attention on something, then you, you notice it more. You know, it's like I've I've been obsessed with getting a white Volvo, so I see them everywhere. I it more. You know, it's like I've I've been obsessed with getting a white Volvo, so I see them everywhere. I'm like, oh, there's my Volvo, there's my Volvo, so that's the thing. So if you're focusing on your chi, then you feel it more. And I mean, there are some people you are actually one of those people where I'm like, you're, how old. That can't be Right, Because I think that that, that, that energy, that life force, is very strong within you. You know, and that is the chi, is what's nourishing your skin, your vibrancy, making you so incredibly beautiful.
Speaker 1:Oh well, that is very nice, it's very nice of you to say but so we can protect. It's not just look at some time we're all going to run out of chi, right? It's just, it's the cycle of life, but it doesn't need to be such a steep drop off, if I'm hearing you correctly.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I actually somehow by default, ended up specializing in geriatrics. I just so happened to resonate with the older community and my oldest patient is now 92 years old and he is fully cognitively functioning 92 years old. He walks into the office, he's got a great sense of humor, he is on it and popping. So I don't think that 92 has to look decrepit and invalid. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's encouraging. My mom is 92. My dad is going to be 96. They're stubborn and they're going, but they don't have the vibrancy that you're talking about. I would love to have them embrace something like acupuncture, because my dad's in a lot of pain, he's in constant pain, but again, he's the type of person he's never going to do that. So are there other modalities people can use, other than if they just can't do acupuncture? What else would you recommend?
Speaker 2:Massage, qigong, meditation, all of those things help us kind of turn off that panic that happens in our brain, even with pain. We start to panic, right, what is this thing? Is it going to be here forever? Am I ever going to get better, you know? So all of that feeds into the pain loop as well. So I think that those three things I mean there's acupressure is an option If acupressure.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about that. And then because I think breath work is easy because everybody breathes right. Meditation is even me and I've been practicing meditation for years and I'm still not good at it. It's intimidating. But breath work right, that's easy, that's pretty accessible.
Speaker 2:Well, one thing that people don't realize is, a lot of times when you're breathing, we're breathing in our chest, right, we're doing these shallow breaths and that can contribute to neck pain, shoulder pain, because everything is up here, you know, and so just focusing your breath and letting it go down deeper into your stomach is just just that mental shift can, can help calm you. So, yeah, everybody can do breath work. But look at a baby. You know, watch a baby. When it's sleeping, the belly is going up and down, not the shoulders.
Speaker 1:You know everything about the baby is is comfortable unless they're screaming for right and unless they're hungry or sleepy.
Speaker 2:there's always just a few mechanisms, though, but that's that follows us through life too, Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you mentioned acupressure.
Speaker 2:Talk to us about that, right? Yeah, so you mentioned acupressure. Talk to us about that. So acupressure is just using the acupuncture points and applying pressure as opposed to putting a needle in. So any place that you are feeling pain, just applying pressure to that area can help relieve the pain.
Speaker 1:So busy professional I'm sitting at my desk later. Are there certain places where I can be applying pressure that's going to affect maybe my digestion or my you know different organs? Are there different pressure points that somebody sitting in an office can apply to themselves?
Speaker 2:Yes, you know, the one that would encompass everything would be to just massage your ear Because, like I said, it's a microcosm of your whole body. So if you're massaging your ear, you're basically working on your everything your internal, external, mental, emotional. Yeah, massage your ear, it's easy, nobody will notice.
Speaker 1:I do that. I actually love to have my ears massaged.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, people think you're just flirting with them.
Speaker 1:All right, that is a really good takeaway. We've been talking. I know a lot of people talk about pain relief, physical pain relief, when they're thinking about acupuncture. Can it also help mental pain? Somebody's sad, somebody's depressed?
Speaker 2:somebody's afraid. Yeah, so again, it's holistic. So even when we're working on your physical pain, we're also working on the mental, emotional, we're also working on the external stressors, those kinds of things, because it's not just this one-sided issue that you have right. So even pain in different locations of your body can indicate different thoughts and beliefs that you have. Like, lower back pain has to do with feeling unsupported. So I like to tell people you know, a lot of times with that lower back pain, the calls coming from inside the building, so it's not necessarily that your spouse is not supporting you or you know your family is not, or your friends. It's more about your internal dialogue and saying like I have to do everything myself.
Speaker 2:You know that's usually the mechanism behind it mentally, emotionally, with the shoulders the left shoulder is repressed, grief, the right shoulder is repressed anger. You know, anything from the knees down has to do with not being able to move forward. Anything with your neck is like not wanting to see your surroundings. So even when you're telling me hey, I just got, I slept. Funny, it's my neck. It's like uh-huh, uh-huh. What else is going on? You know.
Speaker 1:What about addiction issues?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Uh-huh. Yep, there's two. There's two protocols. There's one called the battlefield and the other one called NADA. Those are two that help with well. The NADA in particular helps with addiction. Battlefield helps more with like a PTSD. You know we use that a lot on veterans, but the NADA protocol is five points in the air that have been proven to be effective on treating addiction. I do have one of my best friends, dr Tahina. You might've met her before, but she worked in a clinic, a drug rehab clinic, doing the NADA protocol.
Speaker 1:Well, I wanted to ask you. You work with a nonprofit that supports veterans suffering from PTSD. Can you tell us about your work with that organization?
Speaker 2:Well, currently I work with Eastern Acupuncture and Wellness Dr Jennifer Cruz, but in 2020, she came to us and said hey, I want to start a nonprofit. Covid is running rampant and you know the stress and anxiety is through the roof. And we said, okay, great, that sounds awesome. How are we going to keep ourselves safe? But sure, let's figure it out. So we rented a space and we were able to fit 10 chairs you know, spacing them apart, we were wearing our masks, we did all the things we needed to do and it really took off and it's still. It's still thriving, which I think is just so amazing.
Speaker 2:So what we do is we offer community acupuncturists community style acupuncture, and that way it's affordable. There's a lot of people who don't have insurance and it would be considered a luxury for them to get acupuncture. So we said, hey, how do we make it accessible to everybody? So we do it in a, in a group setting. Um, currently, I take up to five patients at a time. Um, and for our veterans any veteran that we have they they go through the VA so they're able to see us at Eastern acupuncture, which is our for-profit, and they get a certain amount of treatments. But once their treatments run out and they're waiting for another series. They're more than welcome to join me in community acupuncture pro bono.
Speaker 1:And I have participated in your community acupuncture. I paid and I was let me tell our listeners. So you're in a room, you're in a comfortable lawn chair, dr Tai comes over, she does her thing, puts her needles in, turns out the lights. It's very nice and it is just yeah, it's just really peaceful and it's amazing. That is one of the things that made me such a fan of you and Eastern acupuncture is because you were doing this as a community service for vets and I assume that there's a lot of scientific data on how it does help vets with PTSD.
Speaker 2:Absolutely it does. Again, it goes back to how is it working in the body? It's putting you back into parasympathetic. So you know, if anybody's in sympathetic it's somebody who's been in a war zone, you know. So that fight or flight is really hard to turn off, you know. And even the mind chatter and am I safe? Can you imagine? So yes, it's very effective. I have some of my veterans are my absolute favorite people.
Speaker 1:Okay. So, dr Tai, is there anything else that you want to leave our listeners with when it comes to acupuncture?
Speaker 2:Yes, try it. Just give it a try. It's not going to hurt you, especially if you come to me. I'm very gentle, but give it a try, see if it's something that resonates with you. You never know until you try.
Speaker 1:Love that, and I was going to echo those sentiments as well, to say that, look, the stress that comes with community living it's not going anywhere, it's going to be here. Stress that comes with community living it's not going anywhere, it's going to be here. So why not try a modality that might help you cope with?
Speaker 2:it.
Speaker 1:A little better at least, dr Tai where can people find you.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm at Eastern Acupuncture and Wellness in Plantation Florida and I also do the AcuMontres community style acupuncture there.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for joining us. You may be seeing me later today due to my traffic-related stress this morning, but I really want to thank you for coming on.
Speaker 2:It was such a pleasure, donna, thank you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us today. Don't forget to follow and rate us on your favorite podcast platform, or visit TakeItToTheBoardcom for more ways to connect.