Inner beauty : looking, feeling and being your best through traditional Chinese healing

291 Pages·2011·6.58 MB·English

by  Couture

Also by Xiaolan Zhao, CMD
Reflections of the Moon on Water: Healing
Women’s Bodies and Minds through
Traditional Chinese Wisdom

PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE CANADA COPYRIGHT © 2011 XIAOLAN ZHAO
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED UNDER INTERNATIONAL AND PAN-AMERICAN COPYRIGHT CONVENTIONS. NO PART OF
THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS, INCLUDING
INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS, WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER,
EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER, WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW. PUBLISHED IN 2011 BY RANDOM
HOUSE CANADA, A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE OF CANADA LIMITED, TORONTO. DISTRIBUTED IN CANADA
BY RANDOM HOUSE OF CANADA LIMITED.
WWW.RANDOMHOUSE.CA
RANDOM HOUSE CANADA AND COLOPHON ARE REGISTERED TRADEMARKS.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
ZHAO, XIAOLAN
INNER BEAUTY: LOOKING, FEELING AND BEING YOUR BEST THROUGH TRADITIONAL CHINESE HEALING /
XIAOLAN ZHAO.
eISBN: 978-0-30735882-0
1. BEAUTY, PERSONAL. 2. WOMEN—HEALTH AND HYGIENE. 3. MEDICINE, CHINESE.
4. ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE. I. TITLE.
RA778.Z528 2011 646.7′042 C2010-904236-0
v3.1
To all my colleagues at Xiaolan Health Centre,
whose care helps our patients glow
with inner health and beauty
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword by Dr. Sandy Skotnicki
Introduction by Dr. Zhi Gang Sha
Author’s Introduction
One W B
HAT IS EAUTY?
Two T B T
HE ASICS OF CM
Three T B L
HE REATH OF IFE
Four R T W L
ELATIONSHIPS: HE EB OF IFE
R S G
EFERENCE ECTION AND LOSSARY
R S
EFERENCE ECTION
Five S E
TRESS AND NERGY
Six N L
UTRITION AND IFESTYLE
Seven S S G O
ECOND PRING AND ROWING LD
Eight C
ONCLUSION
Acknowledgements
Appendix
About the Author
FOREWORD
Collaborating with Dr. Xiaolan Zhao and becoming her friend and
patient has been a journey of learning and opening horizons, in
more ways than one.
It took me twelve years of post-secondary education and experience to
become a dermatologist and a scientist. Armed with this background, I
am able to help hundreds of people every week: workers with
occupational skin diseases, teenagers with severe acne, women
concerned with protecting their aging skin, students eager to become the
next generation of doctors.
And yet I am also keenly aware of the many things for which Western
biomedicine does not yet have satisfactory answers; the limitations of
treating patients through the narrow lens of a specific specialty rather
than as whole beings; and the difficulty in really knowing what patients
are experiencing in the short windows of time I have to spend with
them.
My colleague Dr. Xiaolan Zhao is an admirable physician and a gifted
healer. As an abdominal surgeon in China and a university researcher in
Canada, she shares a connection with me to the body of Western medical
knowledge. But she is also a highly qualified practitioner of Traditional
Chinese Medicine, about which I knew very little until I met her. She
tells the story early in this book of how I became her patient. We have
also become friends and co-conspirators, enjoying each other’s company
at work and at play.
Not only has Xiaolan helped me personally, but she has opened my
eyes to the depth and breadth of knowledge that TCM has to offer. While
my inner scientist continues to want peer-reviewed evidence, my own
experience and observation of Xiaolan’s practice tell me that thousands
of years of traditional knowledge have much to offer that is of great
value. I have come to believe that it should be a priority of Western
medicine to devote some of its resources to better understanding why
TCM analysis and solutions often work as well as, or even better than,
the remedies we can offer our patients.
Better still, I think that Xiaolan’s ambition of joining hands, East to
West, which she has begun to do in her beautiful new wellness centre in
midtown Toronto, holds the key to better outcomes for many patients.
We have begun to treat some patients together—so far, with excellent
results. I have come to feel that there is much promise in this
collaboration.
For example: during my twelve years of training and education, I can
remember only about six hours of nutrition courses. Now that I have
spent more time thinking about the various factors that influence
wellness and disease, it seems obvious to me that what we put into our
bodies and how we live are crucial determinants of health. Until I got to
know Xiaolan, it would never have occurred to me that the condition
and beauty of the skin could be linked to the quality of a person’s
breathing, as this book explains in a whole chapter on breathing—a
subject that we take entirely for granted.
And while no Western dermatology manual tells me to do this, I now
tell acne and psoriasis patients to avoid spicy foods—because TCM is
consistently adamant about this. I have seen Xiaolan’s remarkable results
with patients who suffer from these and other conditions.
TCM views every patient individually; each treatment is designed for
the person, not only for the condition, based on thousands of years of
empirical knowledge. Western medicine takes a completely different
approach, treating conditions rather than individuals, based on rigorous
scientific evidence that can be replicated over and over again. Both
approaches have their merits but it can be difficult to reconcile them,
and many physicians never attempt to do so.
This book contains many stories from Xiaolan’s life and her patients,
as well as the patients we have begun to treat together. It also contains
much practical information about skin conditions, Xiaolan’s treatment
approaches and detailed herbal remedies, as well as elements of dialogue
between us where we believe there is potential for collaboration
between TCM and Western medicine and where we diverge.
This book is intended primarily for an audience of lay people, and it is
mostly written in direct language, often using non-medical terms.
Despite this, I think that my Western colleagues will find it interesting
and revealing. I hope that they, as I have, will welcome this journey of