Can Acupuncture help OCD?
Struggling with relationship anxiety that meditation and therapy haven't fixed? This interview with Dr. Tom Ingegno reveals how acupuncture and Eastern medicine techniques can transform your overthinking patterns at a physiological level.
Learn how these ancient practices regulate your nervous system, reduce inflammation, and activate your body's natural "bliss molecules" to quiet intrusive thoughts. Discover why high-achieving women who've tried everything else are finding breakthrough relief through these holistic approaches.
If you're exhausted from the constant mental chatter about your relationship and ready for a different approach, this conversation offers practical insights that go beyond "just relax" advice. #AcupunctureForAnxiety #ROCD #relationshipanxiety
Grab Dr. Tom's book here: https://amzn.to/3SdZwXy
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
00:44 Special Guest Introduction: Dr. Tom Ingegno
01:43 Dr. Tom's Journey into Acupuncture
03:19 Challenges in Traditional Medicine
06:56 East Asian Medicine and Women's Health
11:21 Acupuncture Techniques and Benefits
17:16 Needle Phobia and Alternative Techniques
19:14 Understanding Acupuncture Principles
21:33 The Dodo Verdict in Mental Health
22:03 Acupuncture and the Dodo Effect
22:53 Pain Management and Mental Health
23:55 Cupping and the Vagus Nerve
26:53 Breath Work and Diaphragmatic Breathing
31:16 Meditation and Neuroplasticity
35:21 Ancient Practices in Modern Medicine
36:43 Conclusion and Resources
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Audio file
[00:00:00] Before we dive in, a quick shout out to th thriver more on them later, but trust me, you'll want to hear this episode. Welcome to Bossing Up, overcoming OCD, the podcast designed to help you take control of your life. And boss up to OCD. I'm your host, Aaron Davis, OCD therapist and relationship coach. I'm also a wife.
Mom to three and dog mama. If you're overwhelmed by thoughts that aren't getting cured in typical talk therapy, it's time to climb out of that valley and enjoy the view. Grab your coffee, pop in your AirPods, and join me as we explore proven strategies, personal stories, and expert advice to help you boss up and thrive beyond OCD.
Super excited to have a very special guest today on the show. His name is Dr. Tom Nino and he specializes in acupuncture, east Asian medicine. He's got over 23 years of experience. I love how you [00:01:00] specialize. And the mind body connection. I totally align with that. 'cause I feel like there's so much going on between that mind body dynamic.
And you have been featured in all sorts of places, including CBS. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you've also got a book out, it's called the Cupping book. Unlock the secrets of ancient healing. So very nice to meet you and it's such a pleasure to have you. You're nice to meet you. Yeah. Yeah. You, it's a pleasure to have you here.
So I would love to hear more about what you do and how you've seen it help people, because in, yeah. In my world with OCD folks, like they love any resources and a lot of them are very health conscious. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. So tell me about how you got started in your work. You know, so I, growing up, I guess it was, it was easiest to say, you know, like you wanted to help people.
My my family was saying basically you're, you're gonna be a doctor, you know you're gonna be an MD traditional route, [00:02:00] and I. Later on in high school, you know, I was, I remember having this horrible HMO policy where I had to go to like the, the one center that mm-hmm. They do everything out of, and I had to get to work.
I was lifeguarding at the time, and I said, okay, you gotta give me how funny the 8:00 AM appointment. I'll go see the allergist and I'll bounce out and I'll go right to work. Mm-hmm. So here I am and I show up at 8:00 AM and there's 12 people in the waiting room. Oh wow. And I said, I thought I had the first appointment.
She goes, yeah, you do. So do all these other people. And I go, well, the the doctor, she can't see us all at once. Why would you book 12? So about a half an hour goes by and no one's been called back. And you can see people are starting to shuffle around and everything. And then I go up and I go, look, you know, I gotta get to work.
Can you tell me. You know, is, is the doctor here? No. She's in surgery until 11. [00:03:00] What in the world? How, how dare you book appointments when the doctor's not gonna be here? And she goes, well, that's just how we do it. And I walked out and I was left with that. You know? And, and that's not. I don't want that to sound like an indictment of the practitioners themselves.
That's the system. Right. And, and we see it happen in hospitals. We see it happen all over the place and that really me off. Yeah, because unfortunately, I'm sure that's. You're not alone in that experience, you know, and I, I was a high school kid going, this isn't right. You know, that's not, yes. Not something I should really be worrying about.
And it wasn't a life or death appointment, but God forbid it was, you know, I mean, I was just going to see the allergist. It wasn't, you know, like I needed open heart surgery or something like that, but that left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. But the thing that probably solidified it, and I tell this story quite often, my grandfather was a pharmacist.
Right? Okay. And back in the day, I would go help [00:04:00] him in the pharmacy stocking shelves, cleaning stuff up, those kind of things. Yes. And you used to have to pour the pills onto this tray. And the tray had like this section where you could separate out the pills you were gonna use Yes. Into like a little fold over thing.
And then they had any extra pills could be poured off back into the main bottle Uhhuh. Um, he's counting 'em out and he says, he looks at me and he goes, you know, these pills are five bucks a piece. The guy happened to be like a day labor, so he was, you know, getting handed cash at the end of the day, whatever.
Whoever decided to pay him, felt like giving him, oh, and he goes, you know, this guy's got a family. He's gotta take three of these a day for the rest of his life. And this is back in like 93, 94. He goes. These pills. Oh my gosh, this, that's 15 bucks a day. This guy's got a family he's trying to take care of and how the hell is he gonna do this?
You know? And, and he didn't say, how the hell is he gonna do it? He, I never heard him say anything harsher than, than darn, uh, but, uh, yeah, [00:05:00] me not so much. Um, but uh, you know, he said, uh, there's gotta be a better way. And I'm hoping you find it. And that got locked away in my brain. 'cause the next year he, he passed away.
Uh, and then I remember being in college classes, all pre-med stuff, and I. That memory came back to me and, and it, it kind of hit me pretty hard. You know, let's hear a word from our sponsor. Ryer transforms the way clients interact with their out-of-network benefits. As you know, clients need to manually submit super bills for their out-of-network sessions and wait months for reimbursement with ryer.
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You can try th thriver completely for [00:06:00] free with my link or go to join.th thriver.com/aaron. In my junior year, I got a postcard in the mail, uh, for an acupuncture college. And it was kind of like, you know, I couldn't have planned that. Wow. I showed up to the open house, which was being advertised. I came home with the application.
I was enrolled my second semester of my junior year. I already started my master's degree program. Mm-hmm. And, uh, you know, it just kind of lined up. I fell in love with the medicine and I, I really liked the fact that it looked at more so than anything else at the whole person. So how many times has somebody been told, you know, when they have a symptom, a physical symptom, and they go to the the doc and they run every test and they do the blood work and they hear, well, we can't find anything wrong with you.
Yeah. You know, I, I mean. Even today, it still happens. Especially the realm of women's health, right? So, yes. No, it must [00:07:00] all be in your head. You know, one of the number one for the longest time drugs that was given for women's health was Wellbutrin. Yes. That's an antidepressant. Right. Mm-hmm. You might stop smoking with it too, but it's, it's mainly an antidepressant, right?
And, and you're, you're basically telling women, we don't believe you because we can't find anything. Mm-hmm. And Chinese medicine never does that. East Asian Medicine as a whole is like, look, if you're having the experience, I don't care. It's valid to you, right? We know that. You know how powerful the mind is, right?
So even when we talk about placebo effect, placebo effect accounts for 30% of positive results. Wow, that's insane. So why would you turn that down, right? Like, why play that down even if I just convince you that you're feeling better and you feel better? Like essentially your problem's solved. Right? Right.
If it's not structural, if it's not a [00:08:00] chemical. Well then it's something else and it's much less tangible. Mm-hmm. And that's something that Chinese medicine still takes into account because it doesn't separate the psychoemotional components from the rest of the physical body. And I think that's a real strength.
And you know, I. As an expression, we, you know, we need people on the ground, we need the snakes looking at the smallest little bit, but we also need the eagles up in the sky to see the whole worldview. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And when you have both of those working together, right. I never say, you know, it's us versus them.
I mean, that was an attitude that I think, uh, is foolish. You know, where when I came outta school, it was like, oh, we're gonna change the world and it's gonna be, you know, everybody's gonna look at acupuncture. And I'm like, no. If you get hit by a bus. Yeah. I want you in urgent care. I want you at the hospital.
Yes. You know, come to me when you're stable. But before that, make sure nothing's really wrong. Right? Yeah. Recognizing how beneficial like these methodologies are. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Also [00:09:00] acknowledging their role. You know, if you have a broken leg, I mean, you need to get that taken care of, but I love the fact that.
You're also honoring the patient and what the patient is experiencing. Because all too often someone with like health OCD mm-hmm. I mean, they are perpetually feeling like something is wrong. Something is wrong. Yeah. And it sounds like even in your approach, if all of their labs check out or whatever, I mean you're still telling them like, let's try to get you better, let's try to help you better.
Yeah. There's still feeling better. Still something we can do. You know, I always talk about this now too, right? So my doctorate was, was a little bit unique where the focus was on bridging that gap between eastern and western medicine. So a lot of it was focused on research and we talked about a term that, you know, they throw around all over in the medical field.
Not too many people hear it outside of that, but it's evidence-based practice or evidence-based medicine. Oh yeah. Right. And we do it in therapy too. Most people, you know, most people will look at that chart and go, oh, it's [00:10:00] double-blind placebo controlled gold standard studies. And you're like, well, the Venn diagram's three circles.
I. Certainly research is a big portion of that. But the other two are practitioner experience. What you and I have seen work. Mm-hmm. What we, you and I draw from our knowledge basis. Mm-hmm. And then what does the patient want? How does the patient view this? Right. And that can come down to cultural issues, societal issues, their experience.
And all of that. When we get that, right, when we find that sweet spot where all three of those things meet, that's best patient outcomes, we know that. Oh. You know, so yes, the research is there, the experience is there, the patient wants those things. Mm-hmm. And a lot of times, you know, at least in our clinic, right, we, I don't put on a therapist hat.
I'm not claiming to be a psychologist, psychiatrist. I'd never do that. And normally I will say, do you have somebody to talk to? Mm-hmm. [00:11:00] Unfortunately, now there's not enough people to talk to globally. And everybody that comes by and drops off cards calls me a week later and goes, all right, I can't take any more patients.
Uh, it's kind of a shame, but within that, we're, we're still working with the emotions. We're still working with that psychology. Well, yeah, I've heard with that in those acupuncture meridians. I've heard that acupuncture can release a lot of mm-hmm. Um, negative emotions or repressed emotions, so I'm super curious about all that.
I've done acupuncture one time. Mm-hmm. And I did it mostly for the experience and I don't know, the doctor wasn't very personable like you are, you know. It was just like, Hey, how you doing? Okay, this is what we're gonna do. And then like, I mean, this procedure, it's rough, it's rough. Some, sometimes there's a language barrier, right?
And it's, it's funny. So coming at it, you know, as an acupuncturist, like, I want the guy that's treating [00:12:00] above the, you know, the Chinese restaurant that doesn't speak any English, that like, he's, he's been doing it for 80. That's what want, yeah, because, because I, I know what, what he's doing. But you're gonna get laid down.
Yes. That's what you're gonna get in English, right? Yes. Now what I'm, what Westerners want, and I think this is a, like, I'm not trying to brag here. I think this is where I excel. I wanna explain to you everything that we're doing, right? I don't wanna say, oh, I'm demystifying Q, but we hear this word chi and we're like, oh, it's this mystical source of energy.
And No, no, no. It, it's, it never was that. No one in Asia refers to it like that. The word she does mean energy uhhuh, but even the word for, even the phrase for atmosphere, weather has the word she in it. Oh, in Japan, when they ask how you're doing, they ask, how is your source chi, how are you, how are you feeling?
How are you feeling today? Oh, cool. Is basically what we're doing and, and what we're talking about when we talk about Qi is energy. And some practitioners will [00:13:00] fight me on this, but it, it is a tangible. Does your body, much like physics, have the ability to do the functions it needs to do when it needs to do it right?
Mm-hmm. We don't do everything that we can, right? We're not always going to the bathroom. We're not constantly eating. We're not constantly, you know, moving. Sometimes we're still, but do we have the potential to do those things when we need to? So we, we talk about it like potential and kinetic energy. In physics, and when we look at how this term XI came to be associated with the meridians, mm-hmm.
We have a cascade of functions that happen. It's not just one thing, so that needle goes into the body, right? Mm-hmm. And we're increasing circulation. But we're also regulating the autonomic nervous system. That's vagal tone, right? Oh, lovely. We switching you out, fight or flight and putting you into rest and digest, and you know this as well as anybody, there's a laundry list of functions that happen when I'm in rest and digest.
Yes. Many of them are physical, many of them are psychological. [00:14:00] Mm-hmm. I know that my brainwaves change when I'm in rest and digest. Right. I don't have that mental chatter going on. I'm making brainwaves that look more like meditation. I know that I'm increasing circulation throughout my whole body, and by doing that I'm flushing out tissue that has inflammation in it.
And sometimes that's, that's central nervous system tissue too. Well, inflammation is a big part of my conversations with patients because inflammation in the brain can create depression, anxiety, even OCD, forgetfulness, all yes, and, and not, not necessarily heavy duty things, but they can be underlying symptoms that you can't trace to an individual disease.
Exactly. Yeah. So we talk about, you know, different foods and probiotics and protein and different things to help with inflammation just on a, like, you know, over the counter kind of surface level. But I had no idea that acupuncture helped with circulation. Inflammation. Yeah. I think that would be [00:15:00] powerful for women because we struggle with inflammation so often.
And, and this is, this is another weird fact. Uh oh, I love it. One of the largest areas written about in East Asian Medicine is women's health. Oh, now it wasn't this, we love women and this real kind of like idea of like, yeah, but this, it's real. We need to produce babies, right? We need people to work farms, the emperor needs heirs, those kind of things.
But it gave us this really amazing knowledge base over thousands of years of experience and looking and measuring and writing it down and comparing it with other practitioners. Mm-hmm. On how to treat women's health issues. Wow. So the function might be fertility and whether or not somebody wants to have kids, I don't care, but you should be able to have healthy cycles and go through even menopause comfortably.
I know that's a, a crazy statement, especially coming from like a, a bald. You know, bearded dude. But these [00:16:00] transitions in life are not things that we should avoid or be afraid of, but they shouldn't be something that we dread, right? Mm-hmm. They should be a transition that we can go through with relative comfort.
And that happens in men too. We do have Andrew Paws I'll, I'll fight that fight as well. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, being almost 50, I, I can say yes, it happens. Yeah. Yeah. But within that. You know, being able to honor where you are and work on the body as a whole. Right. You mentioned something, even probiotics, gut health.
Mm-hmm. A lot of gut health is tied to inflammation. Yes. We call gut the second brain. Technically it's the first brain because in, in lesser species, they only have a gut. Right. That gut reaction is what they go off of. Yes. So our higher brain came after our gut developed. Yes. Um, and if that's outta whack.
Of course we're gonna have issues right now. I know most of the serotonin that's produced in the gut actually stays in the gut. And serotonin is a signal that's used throughout the body. Mm-hmm. But [00:17:00] those feel good neurotransmitters are not being produced accurately. Of course, we'll have depression, anxiety, OCD, these kind of things.
So gut health is, is right, uh, central in all of this as well. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, let me ask you this, Dr. Tom. So if someone has a fear of needles Yeah. How do you overcome that? How do talk them through that? So I, you know, we, we can do education, we can do experience and, and I tend to see a lot of first timers who are really afraid.
Yeah. One, there's a lot of techniques within East Asian medicine that are needleless. Right? So acupressure is one of those interesting. A modern day ING adaptation, which you might be familiar with, is emotional freedom technique. It plays on acupuncture principles, but we call it tapping, right? Yes. And it taps areas that hit the, either the start or the end of acupuncture points, right?
So the IT channels. So we have this idea that I'm clearing that whole [00:18:00] channel while I do this. And like I said, he went very heavy into the psycho emotional components. So, oh, this is grief loss, anxiety. Those kind of things are, are regulated by that channel and by tapping at it or pressing on it, we can treat those things.
Uh, we have techniques like cupping where we put cups on the body, not Chinese in origin. Yes. But part of East Asian medicine since about 300 ad um, guad is a tool that we scrape. Right. So a lot of times we see it for facial stuff. Mm-hmm. But traditionally it was to treat the body. Mm-hmm. All of these things, all of these manual therapies that we're doing.
Do stimulate the body in a similar way acupuncture does and can have a psychoemotional response. Yes. Well, so we don't necessarily need to go in with needles if somebody's needle phobic, but slowly we'll get them there and then they see that these needles are nothing like a syringe. And based on the skill of the practitioner, they can go in quite painlessly.
Yes, yes. [00:19:00] I agree. Because I remember the needles were super tiny. Mm-hmm. And barely noticed them. You know, but, uh, it reminds me of even thinking about like the tapping and the vagus nerve. There's so much information out there, but no one's saying like, these are the pressure points. Yeah. Like, this is why we do what we do.
They just, it's almost like how you go to the doctor, they'll say, take this pill and you'll feel better. Like, yeah, you don't, and and we never questioned that. We never questioned that. But you, you come to somebody like me and now you're like, what's in the herbal formula? I'm like, dude, you just, you just listed 16 prescriptions.
Did you look up one of those when they gave it to you? You know, did you? Yeah. Alright. Why are you giving me the third degree? This has been around for 9,000 years and you know that pill that you're taking, I'm not saying it's good or bad, I'm just saying I don't think you did the research on that one.
Uhhuh Uh, you know, I, I don't, I try not to call people out like that, but you know, if, if there is pushback, that conversation needs to be had. I get it. [00:20:00] Well, I love to understand the why because you know, I've heard about tapping and I've even incorporated tapping, but I've never been told. It's because it's related to these pressure points.
So they're, go ahead, please. Well, it reminds me of like e mdr R too, you know, EMDR. You hold a paddle, one in each hand. Yeah. Or something like that, and helps release some of the emotions and. Makes total sense. And, and it, it, we're, we're, we're triggering the same effects. And this is the beauty, right? You have so many redundant systems in your body that Right.
Like even, even with MDR r if you don't have the paddles, there's a light bar. Right. I move my eyes. Yeah. Yes. You know, so we, we can trigger these things within us. Through so many different modalities and, and the expression all roads lead to Rome kind of, kind of rings true there, right? Uh mm-hmm. I had, I had a social worker that came in to see if our clinic was the right place to refer her, her patients.
Mm-hmm. So we had this long course and she started asking me some pretty [00:21:00] savvy questions. Specifically, like I heard there's different styles of acupuncture. Oh yeah. Wow. There's family systems, there's major systems. Every country that acupuncture went to in Asia throughout history, developed theories, and even talking to other practitioners, the way they talk about acupuncture, I go, oh, you practice these systems, you know, incredible.
Which is super cool. But I said, look, here's, here's the, here's the thing. Mm-hmm. Every one of them works as long as you understand the principles and why you're doing what you're doing. And she mentioned something called the dodo verdict, which is from your side of the side of medicine. Oh. Which is this story about, it comes from Alice in Wonderland, right?
The Dodo. Okay. Hosts this foot race. Right. Everybody's gonna run the race. The dodo gets distracted, he turns around, the race is over. Everybody's already crossed the finish line. Mm-hmm. He doesn't know who crossed first. So he declares everyone, the winner [00:22:00] and the dodo verdict when it's applied to mental health.
And I would argue, I actually got an article published in an acupuncture journal. Mm-hmm. About the dodo effect as it applies to acupuncture in East Asian medicine. As long as you're doing something that has sound principles, the patient has a positive outcome. Oh yes. So what we're doing matters less.
Then the fact that the patient is doing something right. So whether it's DBT versus CBT versus EMDR versus, well, as long as the patient is active in that process, absolutely they have a positive outcome. Yeah. And the way you get them active in that process is you help them believe that change is possible.
Mm-hmm. That things can be different. And I get so frustrated at these doctors who say, well, you're just gonna have to live with it. Like, thank you. Well, uh, you know, I think that shows the limitations of that particular system [00:23:00] of medicine right there, right? Mm-hmm. Look, if I'm on my deathbed or if I have a life or death situation, you bet your ass.
I want a modern Western hospital. Mm-hmm. Once I'm stable, though, they've got really nothing for me. You know, once, you know, and I'm, and that's not an indictment. Mm-hmm. Pain management. What was the pain management? Opioids. Well, oh gosh. Yeah. That's terrible. What did we do there, guys? Yes. You, you know, and, and we see that mental health.
Well, I'll give you this pill. Well, I should, I, I should be talking about how I feel. Oh yeah. That's not us though. Yeah. You know, and it's like, well, that needs to be a cornerstone of, of recovery for anybody. Yes. Regardless of what it's, you have to release these emotions some way somehow. Yeah. Well, and now I've done coping quite a lot.
Yeah. It's been a while. Yeah. How does. The cupping help with [00:24:00] some of this vagus nerve stuff and inflammation. So this is, this is proximity to tissue, right? Vagus nerve is called the wandering nerve. Vagus means wandering. Mm-hmm. It hits every system. Once it leaves the cranial nerve like comes down the body, right?
Mm-hmm. So we know it regulates heart rate, breathing rate, uh, immune system function, digestion, uh, sexual function in some cases too. And when we put these cups on the body. They're doing a lot of, they're increasing circulation locally, but also systemically. Right. So you're creating a little bit of local inflammation right under the cup.
Right. We're pulling blood into that area. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We're filling tissue up, but the overall net effect, 10 to 15 minutes into that treatment. And that's normally the treatment time. We'll keep cups on one area we trigger. That parasympathetic, that rest and digest function, right? We've told that vagus nerve, Hey man, nice.
Calm down. Yes. So even though it's a [00:25:00] very physical thing, that cup goes on, you feel the suction, you feel the pull. Uh, sometimes when it goes on initially it can be quite intense. After a couple of minutes when that tissue relaxes. Right, and this is the weird thing about the vagus nerve. If you start doing, and this is why breath work works too.
Yes, yes. If you start triggering one of those, I am in rest and digest mode functions. Yes. Your brain goes, oh, I'm breathing slower. I must be in rest than digest. Yes. Oh, I've triggered. I've, I've mentally, you know, through deep meditation, you can lower your heart rate. Oh, mm-hmm. I must be in rest and digest.
So all of those other rest and digest functions occur. Absolutely. We've tricked our brain into going, oh, I'm at a fight or flight. Everything's calm, everything's cool. Do what you're supposed to do. Right? Serotonin and dopamine levels normalize. Oxytocin is released, uh, endocannabinoids. Anandamide, which we only knew about since [00:26:00] 1991.
Wow. Ananda, Sanskrit for bliss. We have these cannabinoid receptors, and this is why we've had this love affair with, with marijuana since the beginning of time. Oh, our body is covered. Uh, cb CB one receptors and CB two receptors. CB one receptors are even in our lungs. Right. So when we smoke, oh. One compound, an endogenous, we make it ourselves.
Cannabinoid is called anandamide. Mm-hmm. Anand is Sanskrit for bliss. It's the bliss molecule. So when people get cupping, when people get massaged, when people get acupuncture mm-hmm. They leave and they feel a little high, right? They, they're not. Yes high, but that is your body's endogenous cannabinoids, flooding those receptors, making you feel better.
Wow. Well this, everything is chill. Yeah. And this reminds me too of, you know, when I'm introducing breath work to a patient mm-hmm. They may even say like, [00:27:00] oh, breathing doesn't work for me. I've tried these breathing techniques, it just doesn't do it for me. And I'm like, well, you haven't done it probably the way you need to.
Mm-hmm. To stimulate that vagus nerve and help calm your nervous system. 'cause you can't do shallow chest breasts. Like that's gonna No, no. Aggravate your nervous system like that doesn't calm you. So I teach deep diaphragmatic breathing. Do you have other breathing techniques? So, yeah. Yeah. So, so deep diaphragmatic breathing, uh, is another cornerstone of East Asian medicine, right?
Oh, wow. We hear acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, but it was lifestyle. It was Qigong, which is like breathing exercises. We're literally saying. Ex gong is practice. Qi is that energy. So we're, we're making the energy circulate. Diaphragmatic breathing is, is central to not, not only just Q gong, but Chinese martial arts.
Especially Tai Chi and, and the internal martial arts. But the idea is if we really want to, and and their theory was if I stretch that [00:28:00] diaphragm and get that deep breath, yes. I'm also putting pressure on the organs. I'm giving them a little bit of a massage. Exactly. I'm moving some stuff in that interstitial tissue around to get it into the lymph and processed.
Um. These are, these were exercises that were given by practitioners as well. You go home, you do this every day, right? So gentle movements to open joints, like we would do rehab or physical therapy now, but the breath work was really what controlled that. Now we have people, holotropic breath work is amazing.
Uh, you know, they'll call it shamonic or they'll rebrand all of this, but the idea that you could actually have. A psychedelic trip without taking a psychedelic compound. Mm-hmm. Was cornerstone to Stanovsky gr when they took away LSD from his research. He said, well, what else do shamans do across the globe to trigger these experience?
Uh, rhythmic, uh, you [00:29:00] know, drums, music chanting, yes. Breath work. And, and depending on what we're trying to do in those cases, they're trying to actually increase internal CO2. Okay. Uh, in the deep d diaphragmatic breathing, we're trying to increase oxygen. We're slowing concentrating that, and that's why square breathing works so well.
You know, four in four hold. Mm-hmm. Four out. Yes. Four hold. And we make a little square with our breath. Mm-hmm. But that slows that down. Or, you know, not shortened exhale, but an exhale of like four an, an inhale of four, an exhale of eight. Right. Extend that exhale. Yes. You know, so I love all of those, but diaphragmatic breathing is so easy, and we even talk about it when the patient is laying on the table, right?
So many times they're coming in anxious and you're just watching their chest rise and fall. Mm-hmm. Okay. Here's what I want you to do, right? Put your fingers below. Put your hands below your belly button. Exactly. Breathe into that, right? Yes. And a big [00:30:00] thing, and this is kind of a test of, of their stress anxiety levels, can they even do that?
Mm-hmm. Sometimes that takes a few treatments before we can even get them to that point, I. Yes, because they're not used to it. And yeah, they're so tight in their muscles and they're just hard. It's hard to even have their mind connect with their body in a way of like, oh, let me see if I can get my belly to rise.
Like, yeah, it's just lack of communication there. But what I encourage them over time, it's like you're walking on a new. Path in the forest and eventually it's gonna become a trail. Mm-hmm. Because you're gonna keep doing this and it's gonna become easier. And it's really incredible to see their transformations.
And I'm sure you see that a lot Yeah. In your patients. Yeah. Uh, you know, you, I think you touched on it well with that, that path analogy. 'cause I, I mean, this is how our brain works, right? Yes. We, we, we wire what we, what we focus on. Absolutely. And, and being able to do that, you're, you're making new neurological.
Connections [00:31:00] and retraining your brain. Yes. Which retrains your body. Yes. I love it. And I love the concept of like, neuroplasticity. Mm-hmm. Like we're never done with our brain cells. Like they used to tell you like, oh yeah, you're gonna kill your brain cells, you have brain damage, and that's it. Or, yeah.
You know, I, I, I particularly love, and this is, this is part of, of, of East Asian medicine, uh, and it's probably one of the, the older modalities within it. But meditation. Right? How much of a cornerstone that is of my life right now. I haven't missed a day in over six and a half years. So tell me what your meditative practice looks like.
I'm curious. So, so it, it has changed uhhuh. My main one, uh, came from my mentor and his Qigong teacher, uh, who was a man named Master Cher. Kay. Lou Lou. Uh, he immigrated from China right around World War ii. When he, he, he came up in San Francisco, but he was a Daoist priest. One of the one last ones before, uh, Japan bombed that [00:32:00] temple.
Uh, um. He was teaching Qigong and martial arts since then, and my mentor met him I believe in the, uh, late eighties, early nineties. My mentor introduced me to this really simple Taoist meditation uhhuh. The unique parts of it are more that it has an opening and a closing. Okay. You know, get your, you know, the induction, if you will.
Yes. Um, but sitting there and really just focusing on the sensation. Of the air moving through your nose. Right. So we're not trying to focus on anything. Right. It's not mindfulness, a mindfulness practice where we're, you know, I'm picturing this happening. Right. So it is mindfulness, but it's not a guided meditation.
Exactly. Um, but more the here and. Through the years. It, it has changed so much. Uh, mainly, and I'm not trying to plug this product, and this is my little sticker on the front, uh, muse Meditation Headband. Oh. If anybody is interested in meditation Yeah. And wants to quantify it, this is a lab grade, EKG. Um, [00:33:00] oh my word.
My patients will love it. EG Sorry. I apologize. They have several versions. Yeah, this one's their newest one. Uh, the owner of the company told me a new one's coming out, uh, in March, but, uh. Fabulous. This one we can wear for sleep and tracks sleep. It tracks motion. It tracks heart rate. So the app itself has different meditations for all of these, including guided meditations if you have a hard time getting started.
Okay. And I like to, every once in a while play with a different meditation. I even do the Monroe Gateway experience ones, which are all like. Supposedly invented by the CIA and all this crazy stuff. Oh my goodness. But, but I like playing with all of those because we know that meditation, talking about relating it to OCD, anxiety mm-hmm.
These things. Mm-hmm. Continued meditation makes the amygdala smaller. Amygdala is that fight or flight? Fear center. Right. Specifically the right side. But we also know, talking about [00:34:00] neuroplasticity, it thickens the frontal cortex, our ability to think and rationalize. Yeah. Right. So you will get smarter if you do regular meditation.
Your ability to deal with stress and fear response will get better. It's not a magic bullet. This is a practice. Exactly. Uh, consistency is important. A few minutes, every day is better than trying to grind out 60 minutes once a week, you're, you're gonna get so frustrated and you're gonna be horrible at it.
I'm still horrible at it. I've been doing it since 94. Right. But it's great. And you're not putting judgment on it, you know, like you're doing the practice. And um, you know, kind of going back to that trail analogy, I tell them with these old paths that they were walking down, if we're no longer walking down this path, like the grass is gonna grow over, there's gonna be brush and like, we can't go there anymore.
So it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. We're just not gonna go there anymore. And with this, um, meditation, it reminds me of like the here and now mindfulness. Mm-hmm. [00:35:00] And I feel like this conversation is, is so like, interesting and also gives me more mo motivation to share this information a lot more like passionately with my patients because I know it works.
And I, I get that it works, but. I love that this is like part of ancient medicine. Like I had no idea. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, you know, I, I gave, uh, I've been fortunate enough through the Walter Reed Hospital system to give lectures, right? They asked me to do these little hour long lunch and learn things, and I've done four of them, and one of them, uh, I, I was trying to.
To gross out the doc that, that booked me. I'm like, do you know how crazy I am? And I threw out, Hey, you're gonna have me present in October. Let's talk about some really gross stuff from ancient history that you guys are using today. And it, it, it was amazing where, you know, eating human placenta sounds sounds so gross.
It does. Oh my goodness. And, and Gwyneth Paltrow had a little thing about it, and I'm like, oh God, you [00:36:00] know, but really that's, that's Chinese medicine. And, and that's stem cell replacement. Wow. If you look at it, the cord blood has stem cells in it. Yeah. Right. So maggot therapy, leach therapy, these things that sound so gross.
Every one of those doctors are like, oh yeah, we use that today. We use that for wound healing. We use that to debride dead tissue. And I'm like, I know. Here it is in a textbook 6,000 years ago. Wow. You didn't invent it. You know, Western medicine went through criticizing all of this, and now we're looking back and we're going, yeah.
What's there's actual value here? Mm-hmm. Here's clinical, modern studies. Yes. This is definitely EBM. This is evidence-based medicine. Mm-hmm. Well, Dr. Tom, I'm fascinated by that. EEG mm-hmm. Machine. Like where do they, where can someone find that? Uh, yeah. I'll, I'll give 'em a plug, uh, directly. You don't have to buy it through me.
I, I'm an ambassador. They just gimme credit for their store. But, uh, it's choose [00:37:00] muse.com. Okay. And if somebody did want to buy it through me, I think it's choose muse.com/dr. Tom. Okay. Okay. I'll try to put that in the show notes. And I, I wasn't trying to plug anything. I just, I, I genuinely, we, we had her on my podcast, the, the co-founder and I just, I basically fanboyed out, I just gushed over her for an hour.
Yes. Uh, yes. And I'm like, I love this. You don't understand. This helped me so much and, and the fact that NASA uses it in MIT and Harvard and, uh, the Institute of Noetic Science is currently running a study through the app itself that I signed up for. Uh, it, it's just so amazing. Mm-hmm. Okay. And so your book is readily available on Amazon.
Yep. So I'll link that up in the show notes. Oh, thank you so much. Yes. And your clinic, it's called Charm City Integrative Health. Yeah. Yeah. So we're in Baltimore. Uh, charm City is [00:38:00] the, uh, the, the pleasant nickname for, for Baltimore. Okay. Uh. So that's what we went with. Uh, I was talked outta Mob Town. Uh, hilarious.
I don't know, I think the edge in Baltimore, I could probably get away with it, but, but it wouldn't, it wouldn't track with, uh, people that relocate. Okay. And any other way that the audience could connect with you, you know, check out our website, charm city integrative.com. Uh, you can contact me there if people wanna book me for presentations, lectures.
Uh, consulting and opening your own centers. I'm, I'm more than happy to do that. I love doing that kind of stuff. Wonderful. Well, I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much for your expertise and sharing your experience. I feel like you've just got so much great knowledge to share with the world, and I can't wait to bring this to the listeners.
So, oh, Aaron, you so much, Erin. This is so much fun. I, I am honored to be on here. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right, well, thank you.
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