Cupping

Have you ever had cupping? You may be familiar with this as a modern sports therapy, but it has been around for millennia with its origin in Chinese Medicine. It soothes tense, achy muscles and treats pain of various types throughout the body. It feels kind of like a strong massage but has the added bonus of pulling toxins out of the skin. As a result, it's also really helpful for treating more acute conditions like cold & flu, but it also can treat chronic cough by helping to clear the lungs.

Cupping promotes circulation, reduces swelling, warms the channels, helps expel pathogens, and disperses blood stagnation. I use the traditional method of fire cupping, which involves using heat to create a vacuum in a glass cup that is then placed on the skin to produce suction. Fire cupping has the additional benefit of gently warming the skin, which can further ease pain and help resolve conditions caused by cold.

There are various forms of cupping that we may use depending on the patient’s needs: sliding, retention, and flash cupping. With sliding cupping, we are gliding the cups over oiled skin to release tension and cover a particular area for treatment. Retention cupping is when we leave the cups in place in a certain area for a period of time, usually 5-10 minutes. This is the most common type of cupping performed. Finally flash cupping involves placing the cups very briefly on the skin and removing them over and over until the therapeutic effect has been achieved. This is often the modality used for more deficient patients. We may use a combination of these techniques depending on the patient’s needs.

At Sangha, you can book a cupping session on its own or you can request to add it onto your acupuncture treatment at no additional charge. Visit our services tab above or click “book now” to see a full list of our services.

Congee: An Eastern Superfood

Congee is a healing rice porridge from China, also known as "jook" in Korea. Congee is slow cooked in large amounts of liquid, allowing the rice to break down. It can be eaten at any time of the day. I like to throw mine in the slow cooker at night so that I can have a delicious, nourishing breakfast ready for me in the morning. For extra healing benefits, I recommend cooking in bone broth. Bonafide Provisions makes an excellent bone broth that you can find in the freezer section of most natural grocery stores. I like this one because it is frozen, requiring less preservatives, and it has plenty of the collagen that makes bone broth so good for you! Bone broth is also super easy to make! There are a ton of great recipes out there, like this one from “The Forked Spoon.”

Congee supports the Spleen, which in Chinese Medicine is the main organ associated with digestion. When your Spleen is weak, it can lead to difficulty digesting with symptoms like gas, bloating, abdominal pain, poor appetite, and loose stools; as well as fatigue, weight gain, and so much more. Considering that so much of our health starts in our digestion, this neutral dish can be supportive for just about any condition! Cooking the rice for a long time breaks it down so that it is really easy to digest. Contrary to some standards of Western nutrition, Chinese Medicine believes that we should not overtax our digestion - by eating easy to digest foods, we can strengthen weak digestive systems. If we then add in healing herbs and foods, a simple breakfast can become medicine.

You can make congee sweet or savory. Sweet congee can be prepared similarly to oatmeal. If this is your intention, I suggest cooking it in water or a nondairy milk instead of broth. I personally prefer to make it savory and top it with leftover veggies, a soft boiled egg, and a drizzle of coconut aminos and sesame oil. Check out the recipe below!

Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup rice

• 10 cups water or bone broth

• optional (these will be removed so no need to finely chop):

• 1 large carrot, chopped in a few large pieces

• 2 celery stalks, roughly chopped

• 1 half an onion

• ginger (highly recommended - very supportive to the digestive system)

• chinese herbs:

• da zao (Chinese red dates - strengthens qi and blood)

• huang qi (Astragalus - boosts your qi)

• dang gui (Angelica root - nourishes the blood)

• toppings (choose as many as you like)

• sweet version

• walnuts (good for the brain)/pecans

• berries/banana

• goji berries (another Chinese herb - good for nourishing blood)

• honey/maple syrup

• savory version

• leftover meat

• eggs cooked to your preference

• sesame seeds

• green onions

• coconut aminos

• sesame oil

• everything bagel seasoning

• spinach/kale/mushrooms

• any leftover veggies you might like!

Instructions:

1. Combine rice, water, nondairy milk (if making the sweet version) or bone broth, and other optional ingredients in a slow cooker. Cook on low for 10-12 hours.

2. When finished cooking, remove optional ingredients

3. Place congee in a bowl and add desired toppings.

4. Enjoy!