Laughing Tao Acupuncture

Laughing Tao Acupuncture We offer acupuncture treatments, herbal medicine, qi gong classes, and self defense classes.

At Laughing Tao, we offer Chinese medicine acupuncture and herbal medicine in East Peoria with a gentle, root-focused approach that helps you feel more supported, more regulated, and more at home in your body.

04/13/2026

Tension headaches, irritability, and neck pain? Classic spring! Watch Glenn getting in some needles for a nagging spring season headache - and wait for that smile on his face after the needles are in. 😄

04/10/2026

How does Chinese medicine acupuncture support hormonal health, fertility, and pregnancy? We have been getting lots of questions - your FAQs answered!

04/08/2026

Healing doesn't have to be about doing more. Often, it's about doing less.

You're not just your symptoms. You're not just a laundry list of diagnoses. We know that. We see you.

Book a free 15-minute phone consultation to learn more about how Chinese medicine acupuncture can support your whole health. Link in bio or at www.laughingtao.com/acupunctureconsult

One of my favorite simple spring tea blends is chrysanthemum, goji berries, and mint. This combination feels like spring...
04/03/2026

One of my favorite simple spring tea blends is chrysanthemum, goji berries, and mint. This combination feels like spring to me: a little lighter, a little brighter, and works wonderfully for allergies, especially for tearing and itchy, red eyes.

It’s a simple little trio, but it’s one I come back to every spring. We sell this combination in our clinic as loose herbal tea as well as tablets, or tea pills, to take daily with food.

In Chinese medicine, chrysanthemum is often used in spring to help clear heat from the head, support the eyes, and ease that foggy, tense, congested feeling that can come with allergies, screen strain, or too much “upward” energy. Goji berries add a gentle sweetness and nourishment, helping support blood and yin so the blend feels balancing. Mint brings that fresh, uplifting quality that helps open things up and gives that spring, refreshing quality to the whole blend.

As part of our nonprofit activities, we offer low-cost, donation-based acupuncture in partnership with local holistic he...
03/30/2026

As part of our nonprofit activities, we offer low-cost, donation-based acupuncture in partnership with local holistic health organizations.

We have not 1, but TWO community acupuncture events around the corner. Your body needs a spring clean, too. These two sessions will focus on supporting the Liver and cleansing the Gallbladder. Even if you don't have a Gallbladder, these treatments will work on nourishing, purifying, and easing bodily tension.

REGISTRATION REQUIRED. Register on our website at www.laughingtao.com/community or head to the link in our bio.

FRIDAY, APRIL 24 we will be partnering with Soulside Healing Arts in Peoria once again for a guided gentle, restorative yoga session. We will be placing a few press tacks, or tiny taped needles, on the body to gently stimulate areas that provide immune support and release any stagnant energy as we fully delve into the spring season. Think of it as spring cleaning for the soul. 6 to 8 p.m at Soulside Healing Arts Studio in Peoria. $30 per person.

FRIDAY, MAY 1 we will be partnering with Hope and Healing Wellness Center for community acupuncture. Participants will enjoy a 60-minute ethereal, live sound bath with needles inserted in the limbs to help guide you into even deeper meditation. 6 to 7 p.m. at Hope and Healing Wellness in Peoria. $30 per person.

Community acupuncture is given in a public setting. You will need to fill out informed consent paperwork. We will insert 5 to 10 needles on your lower legs, feet, arms, hands, or neck and scalp. You will not remove your clothing for treatment, though we do ask you wear shorts, t-shirts, or loose fitting clothing. Treatments are 20 to 30 minutes.

WE DON'T REALLY CARE ABOUT YOUR DIAGNOSIS.We care more about you.One of the things that sometimes surprises people is th...
03/29/2026

WE DON'T REALLY CARE ABOUT YOUR DIAGNOSIS.

We care more about you.

One of the things that sometimes surprises people is that we don’t spend much time focused on their diagnosis.

Not because it isn’t important, and not because we dismiss Western medicine. It's because diagnosis often tells us what something is called, but it doesn't tell us why it’s happening. Many people feel frustrated when they receive a diagnosis but still don’t feel better. The label may explain what’s happening, but it doesn’t always illuminate the path forward.

Two people can walk in with the exact same diagnosis and have completely different bodies, histories, nervous systems, stress patterns, and emotional landscapes. From a Chinese medicine perspective, that means they’re experiencing entirely different internal patterns, even if the label is the same.

A diagnosis is a name. A pattern is a story.

Chinese medicine is less concerned with categorizing symptoms and more interested in understanding how your body arrived here. What has your nervous system been carrying? How has your digestion adapted? Where is your energy strained or depleted? What cycles have been disrupted? When we understand those deeper patterns, treatment becomes far more precise and personal. We’re no longer chasing symptoms, but restoring balance.

REGISTER! Your body needs a spring clean, too. This yoga + community acupuncture session will focus on supporting the Li...
03/25/2026

REGISTER! Your body needs a spring clean, too. This yoga + community acupuncture session will focus on supporting the Liver and cleansing the Gallbladder. Even if you don't have a Gallbladder, these treatments will work on nourishing, purifying, and easing bodily tension.

Community acupuncture is given in a public setting. You will need to fill out informed consent paperwork. We will insert 5 to 10 needles on your lower legs, feet, arms, hands, or neck and scalp. You will not remove your clothing for treatment, though we do ask you wear shorts, t-shirts, or loose fitting clothing. Treatments are 20 to 30 minutes.

Booking link below.

Happy Spring Equinox! Spring is traditionally associated with birth, renewal, and new life. Around the world, many sprin...
03/20/2026

Happy Spring Equinox! Spring is traditionally associated with birth, renewal, and new life. Around the world, many spring traditions celebrate fertility and rebirth. In Chinese medicine and Taoist philosophy, fertility is viewed through a similar lens.

Rather than forcing conception, the goal is to prepare the internal ecosystem so life can arise naturally.

I often explain it with a simple image: we are prepping the soil for the seed.

Healthy soil has nourishment, warmth, and moisture. In the same way, the body needs good and consistent blood flow, happy hormones, optimal digestion, and a regulated nervous system. When these systems are supported, the body becomes a welcoming environment for new life.

But just as in nature, the timing of the seed sprouting is not entirely within our control. Taoist philosophy recognizes that conception involves both human effort and something larger: the unfolding of life according to its own timing.

Our work in Chinese medicine is to create the best possible conditions for that unfolding.

Every spring I feel the urge to move. After a long winter indoors, the emotional heaviness that can come with the holida...
03/19/2026

Every spring I feel the urge to move. After a long winter indoors, the emotional heaviness that can come with the holidays, weeks of gray skies, and honestly just too much rich food, my body starts asking for something different. I want to walk more, stretch more, open the windows, breathe deeper, eat lighter, and just feel things start moving again.

In Chinese medicine, spring is the season of movement, growth, and renewal, so this makes perfect sense. What I’ve learned is that the best thing I can do is follow that intuitive energy in the body instead of ignoring it. The body often knows where it wants to go if we actually listen.

Sometimes health doesn’t begin with a strict plan. Sometimes it begins with honoring the simple nudge to get outside, loosen up, and let what feels stuck begin to shift. That’s spring, and in a very Taoist way, sometimes the wisest thing we can do is follow the season instead of fighting it.

If you’re feeling that same spring urge, here are a few simple Chinese medicine-inspired ways to support it at home: take a brisk walk outside, especially in the morning, to help your body wake up and get energy moving.

Do gentle side stretches or twist through your ribcage to help open the sides of the body, which is often where we hold that “stuck” spring tension. Roll your shoulders, loosen your neck, and take a few slow deep breaths before you start your day instead of jumping straight into your phone or computer.

Eat a little lighter, but still warm and nourishing—think sautĂ©ed greens, soups with fresh herbs, lightly cooked vegetables, or warm lemon water if that feels good to you.

Open the windows when you can. Step outside for even five minutes. Mop or scrub your home using added scents or essential oils like lemon, eucalyptus, and mint.

Put your bare feet in the grass if the weather allows. Gently stretch before bed or first thing in the morning. It doesn’t have to be dramatic. Spring health is often less about doing more and more about letting the body do what it has been wanting to do all along: move.

Have you been feeling that spring shift too?

But, have you?
03/18/2026

But, have you?

Before the needles, there is a conversation.In Chinese medicine, healing begins not with inserting the needles, but with...
03/15/2026

Before the needles, there is a conversation.

In Chinese medicine, healing begins not with inserting the needles, but with listening. A full health history isn’t paperwork; it’s how we understand the unique way your body is moving through the world.

From a Taoist perspective, symptoms are not mistakes. They are messages. And messages need space to be heard.

Quiet observations we listen for before acupuncture begins:

-How your symptoms change — not just when they appear
--Where stress settles in your body
-What makes things better
 and what makes them worse
-The quality of your energy, not just how much you have
-Your emotional landscape — steady, stuck, overflowing, or withdrawn
-Old illnesses, injuries, or losses the body may still remember
-Patterns that repeat across months or seasons
-The story you feel is most important to tell

In Taoism, health is alignment between body, breath, emotions, and the life you are living. Acupuncture works best when it follows your pattern, not a diagnosis alone. This is why we take time. This is why conversation is medicine.

Healing doesn’t rush. It listens first.

Painful periods and irregular cycles are often your body’s way of saying, “Something needs attention.”In Chinese medicin...
03/12/2026

Painful periods and irregular cycles are often your body’s way of saying, “Something needs attention.”

In Chinese medicine, we don’t see this as a problem to "fix." we see it as a pattern that is asking to be understood. Cramping, clotting, heavy bleeding, or cycles that feel unpredictable usually point to blood flow that’s stuck, hormones out of rhythm, or a nervous system that’s been running too fast for too long.

Acupuncture works quietly with all of that. Over time, treatments can help the body soften, move more freely, and settle into a steadier cadence so your cycle feels less chaotic and more like something you can trust again. Many people find their pain eases, their timing becomes clearer, and they feel more at home in their own body.

If your period has felt painful, unpredictable, or just not like you, you don’t have to navigate it alone. Book a free 15-minute phone consult. We’ll listen to your story and you'll learn how acupuncture can support your cycle.

Address

209 Keayes Avenue
East Peoria, IL
61611

Opening Hours

Monday 8:15am - 4pm
Tuesday 8:15am - 8:30pm
Wednesday 8:15am - 4pm
Thursday 8:15am - 4pm
Friday 8:15am - 4pm

Website

http://www.laughingtao.com/about, http://www.laughingtao.com/acupunctureconsult, h

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