Have you ever heard someone say “make your plate a rainbow”? I have said it a lot to my patients and this is the perfect time of year to implement this principle. Fall is an amazing time of year as the days cool and the leaves begin to crisp changing into a magical world. As you can guess this is my favorite time of year. It’s also easy to create wholesome meals full of nutrients and flavors.

So instead of explaining all of this in detail, I have come up with a warm, hearty dish to give your taste buds an idea of what I really mean and why it’s so important to your body to have this balance.

Hearty Taste of the Rainbow

This rainbow plate is inspired by one of my favorite grain bowls that I cannot get enough of in the DC area. It’s a Mediterranean inspired as I am from Malta it’s fitting, to say the least.

There are a couple of components that need to be figured out first - what kind of grain do you like? And what...

My name is Sabra, and I have PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome).

After three years of no diagnosis, I was finally given the news. To most people, the news would be devastating, but to me, it was finally an answer. An answer that I could analyze and finally start to fight against. With little information from the doctor who initially diagnosed me and my specialist's appointment almost two months out, I decided to figure out for myself what I could do to improve my fertility naturally.

So I dove into the internet to find the best tips and tricks.

The first thing that I started reading about were endocrine disruptors and how PCOS was caused by hormone imbalance. So that was the first thing that I tackled. I started throwing away the beauty products and household cleaners that I discovered I never should have trusted. I started replacing them slowly by essential oil or plant-based products instead. 

Once I had replaced those...

It's that time of the year again, Friends. Whether we are students or not, I think that a lot of people still think of fall as the beginning of the year in a way...a time to get back to business after the loosy-goosiness of the summer. It is also a time when many fruits, vegetables, and grains are harvested. This time beginning in mid-August and ending in mid-to September is considered one of the five seasons in Chinese Medicine.

To most of us, especially those living in hot sticky climates like DC, this time also
coincides with the “dog days of summer.” The dog days used to occur more around July and the beginning of August but now it seems like they stretch all of the ways into the beginning of September.

Self-care is more important than ever because, with our ever-changing climate, we need to make sure that we are transitioning gracefully from one season to the next sometimes with some modifications.

The Fifth Season's Organ Pair

Every...

Do you know what the largest organ in your body is? 

It’s your skin.

What have you put on your skin today? Have you ever really thought about that, everything that touches you or your skin all day. Even things that you didn’t plan on touching your skin.

Household cleaners, pesticides, and fertilizers on your plants, cosmetics, soaps, paints and everything else that you probably don’t realize touches you every single day.

Most people don’t think twice about the things that touch them every day. That’s what our skin is for right? To protect our sensitive inner tissues from the outside world. But while skin is great at blocking bacteria and viruses from entering your body, it soaks in a lot of other things as well. Especially when we touch or put them on our skin repeatedly.

Grab a piece of paper right now. And write down everything that has touched your skin today. What makeup did you put on today? Fragrance? What did you clean with today? 

...

Essential oils are amazing at supporting our bodies naturally. They work with our bodies to maintain wellness and help tip the scales back when our bodies are out of whack. Essential oils can uplift your mood and support you through the rough emotions of the day.

There are two main ways to use essential oils in everyday life; by diffusing or applying topically. For on the go and everyday applications, I prefer using roller bottles and applying the diluted oils directly to my skin. At the end of this post, I’ll share one of my favorite roller blends to use to help through the emotions of your trying to conceive journey and to balance hormones.

Top 4 Essential Oils to Have in Your Arsenal

4 || Lavender

Stress can make your hormones go crazy. Adding in a few essential oils that lower your stress levels are key to helping your body find more balance. It also helps support getting a good night's sleep to help your body. 

3|| Geranium

Geranium works with your adrenal...

I ask myself these questions often; What are my triggers? Where is stress showing up in my body? What can I do at this moment to stop the cycle of stressing out even more?

And I ask this of all my clients too.

Because ladies, your stress tells us a lot about what’s happening inside your body. Sometimes it is very subtle and other times it is so big and awful, you cannot ignore it! It’s a clear cry for help and for a re-examination of your daily life.

So, I will start by asking this: what is the pattern you see in your own life that repeats itself and causes you the most stress?

For me, it’s not having healthy boundaries with others, not communicating my own needs and skipping self-care. Wow, that’s pretty clear now but I can tell you, it’s been a long road with lots of lessons and many of them variations on the same pattern. I do too much with too little in my tank.  When this happens, I don’t exercise enough, my body gets tense and...

The number one thing that I see in my patients who are trying to conceive is that they are in a sense at odds with their body and the fact that they don't have control over their hormones, how they feel or the timeline they place on their journey.

It's hard watching your friends, relatives and practically everyone around you have to ease at conceiving-it feels like everyone has an easier journey than yourself. But I think that deep down, we all feel that it's hard, unknown and that our bodies aren't on our side.

I know, from my own experience and listening to countless women what the struggle is real and very, very lonely.

And I also know what works for my patients is to listen to their own truth. Really listen and slow down and notice all the amazing things that are happening inside of you. Hormones shifting, follicles growing to the right size released at just the right time. It's precise. It's complicated, to say the least, and there are so many, many things that are in your...

Basal Body Temperature (BBT)

If you have started your fertility journey this is a term you may have heard of or be curious about or wondered if it is for you. There are many ways to track fertility throughout the month; BBT, ovulation predictor test kits, cervical mucus changes, Ava bracelets and more.

It can be a stressful thing to be asked for so early in the morning to reach out and grab a thermometer and take your temperature, note it and not move or pee or anything. But it’s a daily task that gives your provider so much information so please bear with me and let me explain why it so important.

Importance of Basal Body Temperature

For me, as an acupuncturist, the data from the BBT chart is the best because it shows us trends through all four phases of your cycle and in doing so, we can see what part of the cycle needs to be addressed the most and what changes have occurred over time. There are subtle patterns in your basal body temperature chart that we as...

Now that your period is over…

It is the ideal time to nourish yourself as your body is now preparing a new follicle for your next cycle.  Specifically, we need to boost yin during your follicular phase from cycle day 3 to ovulation, which is ideally between cycle day 13 and 15.

So what is Yin anyway?

Well, It’s probably a term that you’ve heard before in close correlation with Yang. In Chinese medicine, Yin is the physical substance of the body and Yang is the physiological function. For example, Yang moves the blood through the heart which is Yin and causes the contraction of the muscle.

More importantly, Yin is the general term to include all bodily fluids including blood. And for those of you working on a cycle with Intra-Uterine Insemination (IUI) or In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) or trigger shots this is even more important for you as your body maybe trying to mature multiple follicles at once. This is a big job and we need to honor our bodies and support...

As a fertility acupuncturist, and as an adolescent who suffered from painful periods,  I can tell you that they don’t have to be painful, all-consuming or something to dread. Periods can be just a time of the month. Really! Isn’t that so exciting??

I for one, have been working towards helping my clients reach this life-changing experience. Our bodies are amazing and the pattern of hormones, changes in our physiology can, with little adjustments, be more comfortable. Of course, reducing pain and discomfort is important but really, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. The real magic happens when we look at the whole body and start to heal so that the body can transition from having a period, releasing a follicle to building up the lining again without stagnation or blockages.

Okay so here is the first BIG on

Avoid cold (temperature or raw) foods or drinks about a week before your period!!!

What I mean is, let your lunch warm up on the counter or put some warm...