Yin Yang Balance for Menopause

A practical guide to using your Korean Sasang body type to optimize your health during menopause The ancient Korean art of Sasang medicine explains how each of us is born with a specific body type that establishes our physical and emotional strengths and weaknesses. These traits have a direct influence on how we interact with others and react to stress and life’s transitions. Discovering your type will enable you to understand why you are prone to certain symptoms and not others, choose the most compatible remedies and treatments, and make the best choices regarding your health and well-being. Applying the wisdom of Sasang medicine to the major life transition of menopause, Dr. Gary Wagman explores how each of the four Sasang body types has its own unique menopausal challenges, as well as opportunities, and how the natural remedies and diets that work for one type might not work for another. Providing guidelines and tests to determine your type, he details each type’s emotional tendencies, physical strengths and weaknesses, and their balance of Yin and Yang energy within the organ systems, explaining why hot flashes occur when they do, why insomnia is suddenly an issue, or why you feel depressed. Revealing the impact our emotions have on our physiological health, he describes how different emotions, such as anger and sadness, correlate with a particular type’s inborn energetic patterns. Presenting natural remedies, exercises, supplements, and diet and food recommendations for each Yin-Yang body type, Dr. Wagman also includes body-type-specific Sasang herbal remedies for the most common challenges related to menopause, including hot flashes, osteoporosis, depression, mood swings, hormone balance, urinary health, fibroids, frozen shoulder, brain fog, and loss of libido. Offering specific ways to take charge of your own emotional, physical, and sexual health, this practical guide provides a compass to help you smoothly navigate the sometimes turbulent waters of menopause and harness the spiritual and emotional strengths of this life transition.

Gary Wagman, Ph.D., L.Ac., is an acupuncturist and doctor of Oriental Medicine. He was the first foreign student at the Daejeon University of Oriental Medicine in South Korea and lived in Asia for more than 8 years. The founder of Harmony Clinic and the American Institute of Korean Medicine, he lives in Oregon.

Foreword by Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D, CNS Acknowledgments INTRODUCTION Myths and Misconceptions about Menopause and How Sasang Medicine Can Help PART ONE Beginning the Sasang Journey 1 Setting Sail The Basics of Menopause and Sasang Medicine 2 Discovering Your Yin Yang Body Type Physical and Personality Tests to Uncover Your Type 3 Weathering the Storms Emotions and Menopause PART TWO Addressing Nine Common Menopause-Related Challenges 4 Fire Aboard Hot Flashes 5 Sealing the Portholes Osteoporosis 6 Woman Overboard The Depths of Depression 7 No Wake Zone Improving Your Sleep 8 Minding the Waterline Urinary Health 9 Untangling the Fishing Net Uterine Fibroids 10 Shouldering the Ropes Frozen Shoulder 11 Rocking the Boat Libido 12 Sailing through the Mist Brain Fog Continuing the Voyage Useful Resources for Your Menopausal Journey APPENDIX Five Nutritional Guidelines for Optimum Menopausal Health Notes Bibliography Index