Two years into the pandemic, we’re back here again… the holiday season! For some, this is a happy time of year and for others it can be difficult. In either scenario, lots of people use food to celebrate or cope accordingly. I’ll be doing my best not to eat my way from Thanksgiving through the New Year, so this list of dietary to-do’s is mostly a reminder to MYSELF on how to avoid overeating…

Someone wasn’t lying when they came up with the phrase “the days are long, but the years are short” in reference to having children. I woke up this week with a 5 month old baby and I’m not really sure how we got here! The truth is, this year has been incredibly busy for me. Between being pregnant, giving birth, keeping a newborn alive, back to work, eat/ sleep, rinse, and repeat, I’ve hardly been in the headspace to think about anything extra. However, to help slow time down, one thing I try to be diligent about is making gratitude a daily practice.

This fall, I have been thinking a lot about space. No, really. I know it sounds absurd, but there are so many ways that space manifests itself in our daily lives, and I am finding myself being uniquely thankful for each one of them…

The leaves are falling off the trees more each day. As we make the seasonal transition, everyone says more and more “Why am I getting so tired?” The energy for our body has just come out of its peak time of year of summer; a time full of connection and outward energy and activity. The natural course for our energy in Autumn is to start the hibernation process. So is it tiredness? It could be… but it is also the fact that we should be looking to that inward time of winter hibernation.

November is Gratitude Month at Alpenglow Acupuncture and Comprehensive Reflex Therapy. Every year, we put out our gratitude jar and invite everyone who comes in to write down what they are thankful for and add it to our jar. It is really fun to see that thing fill up!

We will also be running a daily gratitude challenge over on our facebook group, True Health Revolution so feel free to join us over there to keep your momentum going.

Headaches can be so stubborn… and oftentimes patients will just live with them assuming they’re an ordinary problem that people just live with. While they can be very common for people, they don’t have to be. Headaches are one of the conditions the World Health Organization recommends acupuncture for, because acupuncture has been proven through controlled trials to be an effective treatment. So why oh why do people continue to live with them?!

Hi Alpenglow fam!! I’m so excited to give you an update on how we’re doing...(with pictures of course!). Everyone is great! It was quite an unexpected start to parenthood; my birth story is something we’re still processing, but happy to report we are all healthy, happy and got lucky with an EASY baby after a bit of a rocky start. Long story short, labor lasted about 4 days and ended with some complications that transferred us over to the team at St. Joe’s where we received great care. It always works out the way it's supposed to. I’m still recovering, but feeling better and better everyday!

Are your allergies flaring right now? Whose aren’t! Between the dry climate and the plants, people are consistently prone to having sinus and respiratory irritation in Colorado. Here are some things you can do at home to help with allergies:

We’d like to introduce you to Cortnae Morris, the newest acupuncturist on our team! If you have seen this new face around the office, then you may have gotten a chance to meet the one helping cover Sarah’s maternity leave. She’s been following along, learning the ropes, and we are very excited to have her on board! Sarah is grateful to have some time to spend training Corntae before the baby comes to help ensure continuity of care. She will be leaving her patients in great hands while she’s enjoying the first few months of motherhood.

Tibetan herbal footsoaks are utilized in holistic medicine for many health conditions, including poor circulation, menstrual cramps, PMS symptoms, trauma recovery, aches and pains, sciatica, arthritic conditions, neck and lower back pain, menopause, natural aging, and headaches to name a few.

A rich tea is prepared in very hot water in which you soak your feet for an average of 30 minutes(give or take, depending on your condition). Our goal is to get the herbs to penetrate, clear, warm, and strengthen the energetic channels of the body.

A number of times over the last few years, I have heard concerns from other healthcare professionals that they are worried about fake supplements being sold online. I have to admit that I have been a bit lazy in following up on researching those claims - it just seems too wild to think that there would be people out there either re-labeling cheaper supplements or going through the trouble of duplicating the packaging of well known and trusted companies and putting who knows what into the bottle.

That is, until I came across this article by the Organic Consumers Association:

Wishing you a very Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We start approaching spring and this quintessential Irish holiday. As most Irish, this heritage runs deep for myself. Springtime is upon us and as we have just had another round of snow, spring can seem quite a bit away. The time change will soon be upon us and we will have longer, brighter days ahead. As we have just hit the one year milestone for many pandemic major events, it does feel like we have just had a year that felt like 15. It feels as though we have been running an emotional and physical marathon. But what have we learned? How do we make some sense of this world we barely recognize? After some reflection, here are the lessons I came up with….

Between the wacky weather, COVID ups and downs, and pregnancy, I am getting a first-hand lesson in constant change. Through it all, I’m trying to grasp onto what keeps me grounded.

Surprisingly, our in-office challenges that Karen was talking about last time ACTUALLY work! It’s amazing what a little sticker-motivation will do to the mind. It’s like I’m a toddler learning to potty train… I get so much satisfaction putting a whole sticker down. And yes, if you saw the picture of our chart, I am the one that rips the smiley faces in half when I’ve only completed one or two of the clean eating goals set for myself…

Howdy! You know how we are always harping on lifestyle? It’s so important to our health, after all - such an integral piece to living your best life. Well, truth be told, we are always working on it ourselves as well. It’s always a work in progress.

I’m not sure if you are aware that 2020 was one of the hardest years in most of our lives, and even those of us who generally follow a good healthy lifestyle got a bit tripped up.

So, towards the end of the year, we started doing in-house challenges with the staff…

Hi Friends,

I wanted to share this news with you - I just got an email with the stats for the Jeffco Action Center toy drive that we participated in - it was such heartwarming news in the cold of winter and gave me such a boost. I hope it does the same for you!

I guess it’s time to explain myself or most of you all might think I had an overindulgent holiday season! Hehe.

Yes! I am pregnant!!

December 21st marked the winter solstice and the shortest day of the year. This day marks the lowest energy time of the year the yin of the yin. Oftentimes, our winters are filled with visitors, festivities, endless events and filled with excessive indulgence. This year the picture has looked quite different for most of us. After a year that feels like we’ve been running an emotional marathon, many of us have hit this low-energy time of year with far less umph than we’re used to. From a Chinese medicine perspective, the solstice marks a major energetic transition where the energy has been slowly sinking into the winter and starts to redirect and make the slow crawl towards spring. Yang is beginning to emerge from the yin.

You may have noticed a new face around the clinic the past couple of months, helping us out at the front desk. Topaz, AKA Karen Lauffer, comes to Alpenglow Acupuncture by way of the music industry. She runs and teaches at a music school in Westminster called Silver Strings Academy that teaches violin, viola, and cello in the evenings.

Prior to Covid, she was an avid performer as well, performing in a variety of styles and unique venues. She was the violist with Mile High String Quartet, which played classical and pop music all around Colorado.