Spring bulbs are pushing through the soil and catkins are dangling from the trees, uplifting signs that winter is on its way out and spring will soon be here but also heralding the start of hayfever season, which often begins in March. For some people hayfever is a mild irritation, for others it can cause significant misery, severely impacting their ability to enjoy time outside.

Symptoms

• Runny or blocked, itchy nose
• Sneezing
• Excess mucus
• Blocked, inflamed, painful sinuses
• Red, sore, itchy, streaming eyes

Treatment Options
Many people rely on antihistamines along with nasal steroid sprays and eye drops for symptom relief, and for more severe symptoms immunotherapy may be an option, but not everyone is comfortable taking medication. Antihistamines can leave you feeling drowsy, sometimes with other side effects like dizziness and headaches, and they dry the mucous membranes thickening the mucus and often causing greater congestion.

Acupuncture can help without causing side effects, particularly with nasal and sinus symptoms. It is most effective when started before symptoms begin enabling a root cause approach to help regulate the immune response but can also help reduce symptoms during a flare up. A review of 13 research studies which included 2365 people with allergic rhinitis (hayfever), found acupuncture to be a safe and efficacious treatment improving their quality of life.

Reducing exposure
The most effective way to help is to reduce exposure to pollen. Keep an eye on pollen counts and be more vigilant when it is high. According to the Met Office, who publish a pollen forecast. along with other useful information on hayfever, tree pollen allergies generally run from March to mid-May, grass from May to July and weed pollens from the end of June to September.

• Limit time outside, choose where you spend time, head for the coast

• Wear a sunhat with a brim and wrap around sunglasses
• Smear a light layer of vaseline around the rim of your nostrils to trap pollen
• Change top half of clothing and wash face and hands after being outside
• Wipe pets with a damp cloth to remove pollen
• Keep windows closed
• Limit line drying of clothes and bedding
• Wash clothes regularly

Other measures

• Avoid or limit wheat, dairy, greasy foods and sugar which can all encourage mucus
• Diet has an impact on immune regulation, an antioxidant rich, anti-inflammatory diet like the mediterranean diet may help
• Use a Neti pot to flush nasal passages with saline which can help with nasal symptoms and congestion

If you have not experienced acupuncture before then rest assured it is a very gentle relaxing treatment, and for hayfever it is best to start a course of treatment before symptoms begin to flare. Please get in touch if you’d like to book or find out more.

Why does it feel sooo good having a massage? What is it that creates that afterglow and gooey
buzzing well-being? What if we could have it on tap?

A yoga teacher friend of mine exclaims " you gotta participate, be receptive, open", when chatting
about good massage treatment.

The answer is: oxytocin - and yes, you can get it "on tap" in form of a spray. Tough that is not the
best option in the long run.

Oxytocin was originally discovered in 1906 by a British scientist Henry Dale in connection with
breast feeding and child birth and that might be where most of our general knowledge and
familiarity about it lays. More recently you might have come across oxytocin in popular culture being referred to as the "love hormone" advocating hugging.

Research by Swedish scientist Kerstin Moberg Uvnäs over the last thirty years, confirms that
oxytocin not a substance exclusive to mothers, but has much wider existence and importance as
an ingenious substance in all humans as well as in animals.

It's primary function and existence is to create and aid our ability to bond and develop social ties.
But it does have further additional functions that are rather incredible. Apart from a general sense of well-being it reduces fear and aggression, is relaxing and calming, increases pain thresholds and
deepens our relationships. It also supports out immune system, breathing, sleeping and wound healing. A long and impressive list of attributes.

Nature has given us the ability to produce this marvellous (but complex) substance and it is released into our bloodstream when we touch or are being touched. Even being in proximity with others that mean us well will stimulate production. That explains the joy of good company. But our production capacity has individual variations - in some oxytocin flows easily and abundantly, in others not so.

Like everything else nature hands us from birth we have different predispositions but our life
circumstances also play a significant part in this instance.

The last bit here is crucial and why administrating oxytocin as a bliss spray is not best option.

The missing component to experience self-produced flow of oxytocin and well-being buzz is trust.

Trust in being touched. Trust it is safe to be touched.

The 'formula' for wellbeing (and all benefits of oxytocin) is simply put:
Rubbing skin + trust = oxytocin production

You might have noted, if you are still with me, that oxytocin also increases trust and a feeling of safety. It's there for us to strengthen the bonds between those who means us well, but not to be reckless and unbounded. It can take some building up to, but in the long run it is preferable to encourage our own capacity by gaining trust rather than override our natural abilities with an external administration, better stimulate our own production. Massage is fantastic and a top choice for this and all body therapies are beneficial in encouraging the production, provided of course, the recipient feels safe and trusts the therapist.

The touching of soft materials, stroking animals, yoga, even singing in a group will also
have a positive effect and can be a place to top up your oxytocin and could be a starting point for
those who are not comfortable with touch.

I might be preaching to the converted here but it might be good to try to understand when others have reluctance and resistance to touch and how important it is to go easy, but also to remember how beneficial it is.

Returning to my yoga friend who has it worked out that for maximum benefit of massage she needs to be open to receive. In other words, to trust and the bliss will be there. This, I know, was not always the case but rather developed over time.

We are never alone truly.
We are born from two (biological mother and father), brought up by at least one if not half a village.
People do not choose solitude to thrive in life. It is their last choice for survival when they have been mistreated one too many times.

Or they choose it for the purpose of transformation. A form of challenge for spiritual cultivation.
 
Touch is medicine

Therapeutic touch is consensual structure in which the client and the therapist give each other space so the therapeutic qualities of change can emerge.
It is chosen and developed as a container, in which one can allow themselves to be exposed. To give up their thriving and fighting against discomfort.

True rest requires safety.

Just like yin and yang are complimentary, one needs a safe environment in which they can free up their defences (muscles and nervous system for an armour).
A good massage or Acupuncture treatment is based on non-verbal communication. Although the practitioner may seem to be in a place of power, it is their priority and responsibility to keep listening to their clients. Both via touch, sight and hearing.
A good session is like a non-stop dialogue in which the therapist gives just the right amount of stimuli, which allows the person lying down to fully relax. To dissolve into the new structure that is being co-created.
Of course this can look in many different ways. Yet, a firm and steady hand can provide so much relief.

Rest is so vital. Especially so today, when our society is geared towards productivity via burnout.
In a time when we feel challenged, burnt out or more sensitive than ever, therapeutic touch can make a world of difference. It can be a puddle of safety in the ocean of turbulence.

As we are approaching the energetic year of the Yang Fire Horse, it becomes even more important to tune into that quality of rest that our being craves so much.
We can find this in many different forms, in poetry, Tai chi, nature walks or massages.

A good thought to keep in mind, is that rest also requires effort. It is by far not the same as zoning out whilst watching digital content.
Rest is best described in the meditative world as “calm abiding”. A state where we are present yet simply abiding in peace. In the lake of consciousness undisturbed by thoughts and feelings.

I strongly advise you to put time aside for rest regularly. Whether it’s in meditation or during an acupuncture session, frequent ‘abiding’ makes a world of difference. It leads to deeper and longer baseline of a calm, safe, confident sense of self.

If you need some support with Rest in your life, do not hesitate to reach out to me or the rest of the fabulous WNT team.
 
PS: Perhaps Confidence is something you wish to work on this year? Please read my other article on Starting the year right: with positive emotion and community. 
 

Hi everyone,
Hope you all had a lovely festive period!
I am back in London. Recharged with inspiration and ready for 2026.

So let's start the year with something positive :)Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Maitreyabandhu (a Buddhist scholar and practitioner), who shared many lifetimes' worth of wisdom around positive emotion.

Why is it so important?I think we can all agree that life is often challenging.
Yet it is also immensely beautiful.

Depending on the state of our mind, our experience can be of beauty or of suffering.
Positive emotions allow us to have a deeper capacity to stay present, appreciate and act creatively in our everyday life.

What sort of positive emotions are we talking about?Maitreyabandhu believes that our generation has been gradually losing its natural access to positive emotion.

This shows up as:
- a disconnection from nature, including our physical body
- a loss of community. the lack of feeling seen, loved and appreciated
- a missing cosmic connection. The experience of being part of something much larger, like the universe, humanity or the divine
Happiness, appreciation, and love, amongst others, are extremely potent positive emotions, yet they are not so readily available for someone living a busy metropolitan lifestyle.

Why do people struggle with positive emotion?There is a genetic predisposition to prioritise any sense of danger for the sake of survival. Unfortunately, this strategy has become maladaptive with our current lifestyle. As most of us are living up in our heads, overflooded with information. Boosted by a hyperactive nervous system, which is also overfilled with the energy of a multitude of (negative) emotions residing in the body.

The most commonly regarded positive emotions are not something we can easily (if at all) generate when we are isolated, overly cerebral or have no time to simply be.
Of course, there are countless practices out there which can be utilised in order to generate loving kindness or compassion, yet they fall short when we do not have genuine connections in our lives.
Connection to others and to ourselves.

What is the solution?
The Buddhist answer is simple:
- Live a slow life
- Stay deeply embodied and present
- Live in a community with individuals who share the same values as you

Now, that is beautiful, but this might not be available to you if you are:
- not a person of faith or interested in Buddhism
- do not know how to connect with such individuals
- have a full-time job and other responsibilities
- already living at your capacity

Perhaps you have a really supportive group of friends. Some deeply loving family members. Potentially a job that allows you to spend more time on your own. Yet there is something still missing.

Here is an alternative solution:

Whilst this is not a better solution than actually walking on the (Buddhist) path of dedication itself. It is also not exclusive of that.
What I am presenting to you today can be an excellent (and free!) alternative or addition to your preexisting journey towards a better, deeper, loving life.

Here is what you get:

Imagine a place where you can naturally unfold all the shapes, identities and habits that keep you away from experiencing joy and love as your everyday baseline.

A community where, instead of ‘working on yourself’, you are actually having fun with like-minded people.
Where goofing around allows you to truly be yourself as you are
right now.

A magic toolbox, stuffed with all the goodies that lead you to positive emotion.

A completely practical approach. Where you can finally get out of your head, down into your body. Where pen and paper become your friend. Where your phone actually brings you slow, nourishing content, instead of a wired nervous system.

In this community, we only have three laws to abide by:
1. Have fun
2. Be kind,
3. Keep the momentum

The best part?

It’s all free!

All it costs you is to bring a little bit of passion with a little bit of effort. 
So you can be present with other individuals who pretty much want the same things as you do.

Living a life free of Shame and full of confidence so you can be as Free as a bird.

What am I really talking about?

What ‘it’ is is an Online Community, run on a platform (Skool), which is naturally geared towards interactions, thus building a community.
With access to a free Academy designed to help you become the most Confident version of you that you can be.

What is the catch?

The catch is that I cannot do it without you. I cannot build and maintain a community without people who prioritise their own well-being, so they can make the most of their lives, whilst also being truly helpful to those around them.

So what I am asking you is to come, join us, and give each other a chance to build a community where we can experience what Maitriyabadhu talked about:

An embodied community filled with love and belonging.

What this is not:

It is not a miracle cure. It does not substitute in person friendships and connections.
It doesn’t make all the wars stop around the world.
But it is a start towards living a life more connected and deeply loving.

It is also not complete. 
I am currently putting together the materials for the academy, which are going to be quite extensive -and deeply transformational- as we head towards summer.

The amazing thing is, is that the more you interact in the community, the more you can influence the material I am putting out there.

It will be personalised to the needs of the group. So the "funding members" have an excellent opportunity to shape the material.

How can you join?

You can click on the button below, which will take you to the Skool website. 

The community is currently called the Beyond Shame Academy.

I am putting a little extra focus on getting people from a state of Shame to a sense of Confidence. However, it will be a truly holistic experience. Perhaps with some Tai chi material in there, in the future. :)

It will ask you to create a free account. Where you can be yourself. Otherwise, you are welcome to take up an alias if you would rather contribute without your real identity.

Because you matter!I hope to see many of you there!
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to drop me an email or to ask me in person.
Have a wonderful start to the year!
Compassionately,
Miha, the Acupuncturist