Keep Your Kids Calm, Cool & Connected This Summer

Fire Element Acupressure + Essential Oil Combo

Take matters into your own hands this blazing hot season. Summer is the Fire season and as such is full of fun, fun, fun and countless opportunities for expansive joy; however, as we all know, sometimes it can be just too much for a kid's still-developing nervous system to handle in a regulated way. From the Chinese medicine perspective, it is possible to experience more joy or excitement than you know what to do with :-). When this happens, our kids usually let us know by offloading with the following symptoms and overstimulated behaviors: hyperactivity, anxiety, meltdowns, running too hot in general, low blood sugar, and/or trouble sleeping due to an inability to calm their brain and body enough to allow for sleep to take over.

Keep your kids calm, cool, and connected this summer with these two Fire-regulating acupressure points. Remember, we don't always need to use needles (or "taps" as we call them in the office) to treat your kiddos. Acupressure is a simple yet effective tool to help support a child's nervous system. You can do these points alone or combine with the recommended essential oils to enhance the calming effect. Check out this easy treatment you can perform on your children (or yourself for that matter):

Treatment: 

• Rub one drop of Geranium or Neroli essential oil on each of the acupressure points pictured below
• Press and rub in a circular motion for 30 seconds to 1 minute
• Repeat as needed to calm the mind and cool an agitated Heart

FAQ: 

• What do I mean by "Fire regulating"? 
  • Summer is the season of the Fire element in Chinese medicine. This means that the energy of the season corresponds to the qualities of Fire, including both the delicious, exuberant aspects as well as a propensity to burn out of control. Keep your kids in the chill & happy zone with acupressure, as well as plenty of healthy food, adequate fluids, and downtime to balance the fun.
• Why Geranium and Neroli?
  • Both of these oil are calming and Heart (and thus Fire) regulating. They specifically ease stress and anxiety while enhancing the natural state of the Heart = joy. 
• What can I expect to see post treatment? 
  • Acupressure generally induces a relaxed state of being, and the functions of these points should help your child to balance the heat of excitement with the need for mental and physical rest and recuperation. Repeat a few times a day for best results.

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Acupressure points for Fire regulation during summer:

Heart 3 - located on the inner aspect of the elbow, in the soft spot between the bony protrusion and the tendons in the middle of the elbow crease

This point calls upon the balancing nature of Water to counteract excessive Fire in the body, thus calming the spirit and cooling excess heat.

Pericardium 6 - located in the middle of the inner aspect of the forearm, about two finger-widths (your child's fingers) above the wrist crease

This point protects the Heart and calms a wide range of emotional dysregulation.

Elemental Family Focus on Immunity, Part 2: Do You Know Where 80% of Your Immune System Lives?

Welcome back to immune prep central! Part 2 of our series is about the relationship between your immune system and your digestive system.

The phrase “immune system” might conjure up an assortment of connotations from your high school biology days: bacteria and viruses, innate and acquired, antibody and antigen, and so on.  The science-y talk ends here, but the point is there is an even more salient fact about your immune system that most of us haven’t been taught. One of the most important predictors of your immune function is already within you and can have either a hugely beneficial or a dramatically negative influence on your ability to fight off illness.

Okay people, drumroll please: 70-90% of your immune system actually resides in your GUT. Your gut is host to your body’s largest population of immune cells, and the proper functioning of those cells relies on a remarkable, and largely uncharted, community of trillions of bacterial cells, known collectively as the microbiome. Those coils upon coils of small intestine house all of the intestinal bacteria that play an essential role in doing the digesting that we are oh so familiar with, but it turns out that the small intestine is the site of the majority of your immune response as well.

Your microbiome is a vast, diverse, and unique assortment of a multitude of strains of bacteria and other organisms, that essentially make you, you! Turns out, you are so much more than just what you eat. The microbiome consists of a mix of both helpful and opportunistic bacteria. The microbiome is truly a new frontier within us that is only beginning to be explored, categorized, and understood, with incredible and exciting ramifications for health conditions in a wide range of categories, from auto-immune conditions to ADHD to depression.

Probiotics are all the rage in the health-o-sphere these days, and for good reason. Probiotics comprise the good guys in your microbiome. Although the majority of them live in your digestive tract, probiotics exert a significant influence well beyond your belly. Probiotics are the key players in overall wellness and maintaining a balanced, healthy system. They rule the roost in three essential realms of your wellbeing: digestion, immunity, and brain function.

To go a little more in depth, here are just a few reasons why probiotics are such an integral part of your immune system:

• If you think of your gut microbiome as a garden, then the probiotics are the flowers and the opportunistic bacteria are the weeds. The more flowers there are, the less room there is for weeds to grow. The flowers protect your gut by crowding out the weeds and preventing them from sticking to the gut lining.

• As explained earlier in the post, your gut is host to your body’s largest population of immune cells. Probiotics serve to amplify and enhance the immune activity at these sites.

• Probiotics act as an immune barrier in the gut, only allowing certain things to pass into the bloodstream, and blocking illness-causing pathogens.

How do you know if you need to take probiotics? Well, most of us do. What type and for how long will vary widely, but if you have ever taken an antibiotic (and I mean ever in your life), then you probably want to explore getting on a probiotic.

My recommended brands for general immune and digestive health, and the ones I carry in my office are:

• For infants – Klaire Labs Infant Probiotic (powder) or Metagenics Ultraflora Baby (drops)
• For toddlers and older children – Metagenics UltraFlora Children's (chewable) (or one of the above infant products if your toddler isn't into chewables)
• For teens and adults – Klaire Labs Therbiotic Complete or Metagenics UltraFlora Spectrum (capsules)

If you are interested in learning more about your microbiome, here are two very worthwhile links to check out:

1) Super informative article by Michael Pollan about the microbiome:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-the-100-trillion-bacteria-that-make-up-your-microbiome.html?pagewanted=all

2) Great slideshow about the microbiome:

http://discovermagazine.com/galleries/zen-photo/m/microbiome

(Featured image courtesy of probiotics.org)

Thanks for reading and please be sure to check out Part 1 of the series here: http://elementalfamily.com/fall-focus-on-immunity-preparatory-medicine/. We'd love to have you join our virtual Elemental Family to stay in the loop with these types of posts in the future! You can opt-in on the home page here: http://elementalfamily.com.