Greg Bantick - Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic

29/07/2025

From Dr Dean Onrush, cardiologist.

Unhealthy diets are by far our greatest risk factor for disease and death. However, physical activity is important for our health and longevity and should be encouraged as part of an overall healthy lifestyle.

Population studies have found a correlation between regular aerobic exercise and decreased risk of at least 35 different diseases, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer.

Physical activity can help lower inflammation, as well as decrease DNA damage and facilitate DNA repair. A meta-analysis of cohort studies of middle-aged and older individuals, with follow-ups as long as 20 years, found that exercising adults were more likely to age successfully than sedentary individuals.

Exercise may also improve cognition, enhance mood, and generally improve quality of life. The evidence supporting the overall health benefits of physical activity are overwhelming.

Exercise is such powerful medicine that researchers at Stanford and the London School found that exercise may work as well as drugs for patients with coronary heart disease, heart failure, and pre-diabetes––and even better than some medications for stroke.

Just like any medicine, though, might exercise have an upper limit for benefitting our health and longevity? I cover that in the video “How Much Exercise Is Too Much?” at https://see.nf/3ZM4H6h

Walking is among the safest of physical activities, averaging only about one injury per thousand hours. So if you are just getting started with lifestyle changes, consider walking. For even more health benefits, take a walk in a wooded park for the added benefits of boosting your anticancer immunity.

Always consult your doctor before making any changes to your medication or exercise routine.

To learn more, see the following videos:
“Exercise Is Medicine” at https://see.nf/3XGSyNc
“How Many Steps Should We Get Every Day?” at see.nf/47pIkFd
“Boosting Anticancer Immunity with Forest Bathing” at see.nf/forestbathing

PMID: 29634829, 30640736, 29887832, 32350152, 28438770, 33044541, 28708630, 26476429, 15088246, 31001682, 18336737
doi: 10.1123/japa.8.4.407

25/07/2025

I think it was 1980 when I came across a translation of the Japanese poet monk Ryokan Taigu in London. It was translated by John Stevens. Ryokan Sama has been a companion ever since.

Another one of his many books, one that changed my life, was The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei. It made me question deeply many assumptions of biomedical views of sleep, nutrition and exercise physiology. It is a look at the training of monks living on Mt Hiei near Kyoto. Their lifestyles contradict many assumptions of biomedicine. As does the training of Zen monks.

In the early 80's he was one of the few non-Japanese people I knew with similar interests and who spoke English. I phoned him once when he was living in Sendai and I was visiting Tokyo. I was very shy, lacking confidence, and thought there was no way he would speak with me. His wife answered the phone and called him. We had a very helpful conversation and he generously gave me good advice and further contacts.
Where would I/we be without the help of kindly strangers on the Way? Thank you John Stevens, a remarkable man.

What will remain as my legacy?
Flowers in the spring,
The hototogisu in summer,
And the crimson leaves of autumn.
—Ryokan

https://www.shambhala.com/remembering-john-stevens-1947-2025/?fbclid=IwY2xjawLwzRZleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFLSUNmSkpGUGxCaU5oVnNzAR7f3BFM5x_QYidYGy4d_JA_U3G_Z2tUGE4EspCVd60Ef6_6QJ4CzjJ5bvF08Q_aem_ts0FaL81pmb2m-OCoHkSKQ

Author, translator, teacher, artist, and Aikido master John Stevens passed away on July 21, 2025.

21/07/2025

Another common problematic condition we can help.
"Recent research suggests that acupuncture may offer measurable benefits for individuals living with type 2 diabetes, particularly in enhancing blood glucose control and other metabolic factors."

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/news/2025/jul/acupuncture-shows-promise-in-improving-type-2-diabetes-outcomes.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawLriylleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHsM2mDUvfoqDNxdbBt0GCIzdTfgIrjP-Gi4mBFgSuU6fE-0CQRb4zM58OAg1_aem_m3jPdHNaXCaWZb5WXq9SYA

Recent research suggests that acupuncture may offer measurable benefits for individuals living…

17/07/2025

"A compelling exploration of humanity, morality, religious practice, and leading a good life based on traditional Confucian thought."
I look forward to reading this. Intrigued by a sentence in the blurb, "‘Real understanding requires we become aware of things we believe on such a deep level that we do not even know we believe them.’" I consider this a fundamental endeavour for clinicians.

“‘How Confucius Changed My Mind’ is a necessary provocation. It dares to suggest that Western modernity has not answered all questions; that perhaps our allergy to hierarchy and ritual is a symptom of cultural immaturity rather than enlightenment. As Jones puts it, ‘Real understanding requires we become aware of things we believe on such a deep level that we do not even know we believe them.’ That is the book’s true challenge—and its gift.” –Sri Lanka Guardian⁠
⁠
Click the link to learn more about How Confucius Changed My Mind by Charles B. Jones.⁠
https://www.shambhala.com/how-confucius-changed-my-mind.html

15/07/2025

A reliable, well qualified guide to a more insightful, appreciative and easeful life.

Join renowned scholar and translator Thupten Jinpa as he unveils the practical wisdom of Abhidharma. This ancient Buddhist psychology offers profound insight...

12/07/2025

While it is clear that every body gets sick, that is, it is not our fault that bodies get sick. Sometimes we see, if only vaguely, some cause and effect from our lifestyle to our health. This piece may offer some useful reflections.

Developing reflective practices, toward the end of the list, to me is the path to true peace and ease in unstable bodies and environments. From that grows restraint and refraining, also on the list.

Causes of prolonged disease:

1. Patients do not abide by the doctor’s instructions. There are no prohibitions for etiquette and conduct. Ingestion of medicine does not fit in with the method, to the point of making it difficult to get rid of diseases;

2. Work and rest are inconsistent;

3. Desires and pleasure are immoderate;

4. Emotions are hard to control;

5. Diet is without constraints;

6. Living on grounds not meant for houses or that dwell from a Feng Shui perspective;

7. Interior arrangement without taboos;

8. Society’s partial and prejudiced understanding is hard to remove;

9. Family relationships are hard to resolve;

10. The stress and pressure in life is hard to disperse;

11. The old and everyday habits are hard to alter;

12. Lack of cultivation of the Way and Virtue, lack of reverence;

13. Self-profit comes first;

14. Disbelief in Cause-and-Effect; disobeying Heaven, going against the Dao, to the point of making Heaven lose its calculations for life. Herbs and minerals have difficulty to cure, spirits and ghosts do not agree to heal.

15. Seeking the doctor not genuinely. In emergency situations patients anxiously and blindly trust in the doctor. Under acute pain, patients seek medicine disorderly.

05/07/2025

Chinese herbal medicine is not based on the active ingredients of herbs, such as berberine mentioned here. It is based more on the selection of the tastes, directions and other functions of individual herbs, put together in formulas or families. The 3 yellows mentioned here are commonly prescribed in our clinic.

01/07/2025

Fù Yánlíng 傅延龄 principle student of Liú Dùzhōu's, shares some thoughts on his teacher. Part of Eran's recent translations on Liú Dùzhōu.

Before I undertook my recent translation of Liú Dùzhōu's work, I reached out to his official successor and long-time disciple Professor Fù Yánlíng, who I had the honour of meeting many, many moons ago in Beijing. Professor Fù was so delighted that his teachers work was being translated, gave me his blessing, and even offered to share a few words that now grace the inside of the text. I am so honoured to have Fù's blessings and that I get to play a small part in keeping the legacy of the brilliant Liú Dùzhōu alive through this work. For those that have not seen the text, I would like to share Fù's words here.

"Liú Dùzhōu was my master. In his later years, he once told me that his approach to formulas had reached a realm of boundless creativity, like a heavenly steed soaring across the sky. Thus, his writings are always concise and to the point, mastering complexity with simplicity, returning from vast knowledge to fundamental principles.
He guides us as if we were transported back to Zhāng Zhòngjǐng's era, teaching us to perceive the world through Zhāng Zhòngjǐng's eyes—to understand complex physiological and pathological phenomena through simple physical principles, to grasp the properties of medicinals, and to formulate treatment strategies.
The great Dao is ultimately simple, and so is the Dao of medicine."

Fù Yánlíng 傅延龄
Běijīng University of Chinese Medicine, Běijīng Jīnfāng Academy(北京金方书院)

29/06/2025

"World’s earliest steel acupuncture needles found in 2,000-year-old Chinese tomb"
"Needle-like artifacts unearthed from the famed tomb of the Marquis of Haihun in East China's Jiangxi Province have been confirmed to be the world's earliest known steel acupuncture needles, marking a pivotal moment in the history of traditional Chinese medicine, according to a document from the provincial cultural relics and archaeological institute..."
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202506/1337002.shtml?fbclid=IwY2xjawLOji5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETE0MURsNHZXdzZrMVFpdDlnAR4LCoQYKQRXNgw6kSjBMYZhBP5zAiAMCZQoGKaT3UFQefI5epSSYcb4DSycHA_aem_tz8K8YH76UAnulUWT2wGwg

Needle-like artifacts unearthed from the famed tomb of the Marquis of Haihun in East China's Jiangxi Province have been confirmed to be the world's earliest known steel acupuncture needles, marking a pivotal moment in the history of traditional Chinese medicine, according to a document from the prov...