Ni - Second spring : dr. maos hundreds of natural secrets for women to revitalize and regenerate at any age

THIS IS A HEALTH BOOK FOR WOMEN to use at any age. You may be 35 and experiencing low energy, 50 and going through menopausal brain fog, or 75 and waking up each morning with arthritic pain. The good news is that, whatever your age, I will show you the ways to regenerate and revitalize. Welcome to your Second Spring.

I was inspired to write this book by watching my mother go through her middle years. Other women of her generation retired with their husbands and turned away from the world, but this was not her way. My mother energized and revitalized herself with Chinese medicine and refashioned her purpose in life. With her new freedom and the perspective of long experience, she turned her attention to interests that had developed gradually during her householding years. I looked on in admiration as she became a minister in her religious organization and turned her home into a temple to serve her community. In our family, my father, a doctor, was the public face of Chinese wisdom and tradition, while my mother, with all her character and dignity, was a modest woman who remained within the domestic sphere. Yet her personal transformation taught me more about human potential than I have learned from any other individual. It called into question the very concept of aging.

How do you feel about your age? Do you value yourself as you are? Your health at any point of your life depends on both your physical condition and your emotional attitudes about yourself and your life.

You can look and feel younger than your actual years and move through perimenopause, menopause, and beyond with grace, youthfulness, vitality, and health. Aging does not have to be a downhill slide. This book can help you achieve all this naturallywithout drugs, hormone replacement, or invasive surgery. How? Through the wisdom of Chinese medicine, which is sensitive to all aspects of a womans life cycle and understands that every phase affords opportunities to slow or reverse the aging process. This powerful tradition, integrated with Western medicine, can produce the optimum outcome for each individual.

On the emotional plane, Chinese tradition offers a paradigm completely different from the Western vision of midlife and aging. To the Chinese, this is the time when a woman truly comes into her own, when the distractions of the householding, childbearing, and child-rearing years wind down and her inner beauty emerges. A mature woman is a work of art crafted by her experiences and her own inner resources. She now refines her wisdom and finds traditional or inventive ways to make it useful in the world. Far from ceasing to grow, she embarks on a new path of self-realization.

Secrets to Our Success

At the Tao of Wellness, my brother Dr. Daoshing Ni and I, along with our team of associates, have helped thousands of women over the last 25 years. Our success is attributable to three factors. First, women have always been the cornerstone of Chinese society. From its inception thousands of years ago, Chinese medicine has developed a comprehensive specialty in womens health that is unrivaled in the world. Second, we draw on a profound knowledge base in womens health care, passed down through 38 continuous generations of doctors in our family. The third and most important ingredient is our patients trust in our care and eagerness to do their part. Their willingness to inhabit new ideas and behaviors allows us to coach them through their Second Spring and help each one individually to reclaim her personal and sexual vigor.

Womens Cycles and Regeneration at Each Stage

Biologically, the ultimate purpose of human life, as with all living creatures on our planet, is reproduction, to pass on our genes from one generation to another. So, it is no surprise that, when you reach reproductive maturity, the organisms vitality starts to wane. This biological decline is programmed to begin in women around age 35. Of course, you can still live a long and fulfilling life, free from illness and disability, after that age, but you may benefit from some help with the changes your mind, body, and spirit will go through.

Menopause signifies the end of a womans menstrual cycle and a major turning point in her life. Every womans experience with it is unique. Most women stop menstruating between the ages of 48 and 52, but uncomfortable symptoms of perimenopausethe premenopausal periodcan begin as early as 35 and last into menopause and beyond. Some women go through perimenopause in two to three years, but for others it lasts as long as 12 or 15 years. It may start with an irregular menstrual cycle along with an increase in premenstrual symptoms or PMS.

As you get closer to menopause and the cessation of your menstruation, new and more extreme effects appear, which can include hot flashes, insomnia, weight gain, and vaginal dryness. For the Chinese, menopause connotes the emptying of the conception channel and the depletion of the fertility essence, but it is also a time for generation of a new vital energy and the ripening of identity. Chinese medicine, attuned to every phase of a womans reproductive cycle, uses methods tested by time and tradition to reinvigorate the body and mind at each stage.