Yang it!

My second round of acupuncture went very well. This time I decided to try to relax - and it helped that I knew what to expect.

I sat down as the woman who was about to jam needles into my back went over her notes. I remembered that last time she had asked me to stick out my tongue about five different times. Each time she would scrutinize my tongue and then make notes in Chinese on a piece of paper. I decided to ask her what was so interesting about my tongue.

Her answer: it has nothing to do with Western medicine - it is Chinese traditional medicine. She was looking at my tongue to determine my overall health (I let her know that I had just eaten some chocolate, so my tongue color might be tainted). I asked her what my results were. According to her (and my tongue), I have a yang imbalance - an excess of yang (I guess my yin is just fine). This means that something is out of sorts with my bones, muscle, heart, or liver, and that I have anxiety and stress from it. She said that this was most likely caused by herniated disc.

I asked her what I should do to correct this imbalance. Yes, I knew I was opening myself up to a sales pitch. To her credit, though, she said that if I wanted, down the road she could do a whole work up and perscribe me some herbs. However, she didn't want to do that until she was done fixing my neck.

I've got to find out more about the whole yin/yang thing. Any tips on where I should look?