VIE HEALING FOUNDER Mona Dan, LAc., MTOM has had enough of people looking outward to maintain their youth. As a double-certified licensed acupuncturist with over twelve years of real-world, hands-on experience in the wellness industry, Mona combines her passion for Traditional Chinese Medicine with modern wellness practices.
With VIE HEALING, Mona has developed a wide range of products, spas, and programs designed to help people achieve optimal health and wellbeing without feeling like they’ve entered a space of woo woo. Nicknamed “Queen of Ear Seeds” by Harper’s Bazaar, Mona is known for being the first person to build a branded system for Chinese medicine to make this ancient healing medicine understandable, approachable, and most importantly, actionable for absolutely everyone.
“I don’t even use the word Qi in my practice. I tell my clients what energy is, how your heart creates blood flow, and explain that that is all energy is so people can really understand it and become one with it.”
We were lucky enough to get her to spill the green tea and share easy, functional ways to keep our blood flow circulating at optimal levels throughout the day (and our lives).
How Mona Dan Uses Traditional Chinese Medicine To Preserve Youth
WAKE UP TO SOMETHING WARM | You want to preserve energy and build blood in the body throughout the day. Always start your morning with warming foods and beverages to support your adrenals. For example, you might be tempted to kick off your morning routine with an ice cold beverage or to extend your fast for an hour longer. However, these types of actions build distrust between you and your body. If you want to stay young for a long time, you need your body to trust that you will nourish it and not deny it because it sends the body into a stressful state. You don’t need a complex breakfast with 50 different components. Just have warm eggs or warm oatmeal to prevent your adrenals and kidneys (which also help to build blood) from running on fumes.
PUT CAFFEINE SECOND | You especially want to give your body nourishment before you introduce any caffeine. When you give the body caffeine after fasting for (hopefully) eight hours while you’ve slept, your body crashes because you’ve either waited too long to introduce something supportive or the caffeine forces the body to leverage energy from the adrenals, which leads to a nervous system crash. Would you pour ice cold water on a car when you’re just trying to warm up the engine? No.
MAKE TIME FOR JOY | In Traditional Chinese Medicine, restrictions lead to imbalance, which can hurt your metabolism and overall flow of the body. One of my biggest learnings during my education was that the world around us affects us, and we affect the world around us. That is all a part of our internal-external connection to the world. If you want to go out for a meal and enjoy your friends, go! That actually can boost your metabolism.
BUILD YOUR BLOOD FLOW | At VIE HEALING, we believe that the whole principle behind Chinese Medicine is to bring blood flow, which—in turn—brings youth. If you are tense or your mind feels anxious or stressed, you reduce your blood flow.
When you’re not eating in the morning when you get up, are you more tense or more relaxed? You want to give fuel to your body. So vibration therapy, ear seeds, acupressure mats, gua sha, these are all tools we’ve created to bring blood flow at home so that you can keep your nervous system alert enough to process emotions, food, reduce inflammation, and keep things moving.
ADD IN WEEKLY ACUPUNCTURE | A weekly acupuncture session is a self-care workout for your nervous system. We do everything for our physical body to look good, but what do we do for the internal body beyond working out? Your central nervous system needs specific attention, which you can achieve with acupuncture, reiki, and different types of massage for a deeper mind-body connection. For anyone who comes to VIE Healing, we focus on fusing your nervous system with intentional support for a total nervous system workout.
NOURISH YOUR MUSCLES (EVEN IN YOUR FACE) | Keeping your skin youthful has way more to do with muscle toning than it does with topical products. So, how do you keep your facial muscles (or any of your muscles) from atrophying? You have to make sure you’re incorporating toning and nourishing exercises for the body. So many people go so hard with themselves, but that is counter to how Traditional Chinese Medicine operates. Look at Tai Chi. It’s about keeping muscles gently activated, so that you can have blood circulation that flows seamlessly throughout the body.
With blood flow, you can support the tendons and the sinews, which then help the internal organs, which then help the spinal chord and the brain. Rigid compound movement puts stress on the body in order to achieve “results.” We hold our emotions in our blood, so if you’re moving freely and more gently, you’re able to process your emotions better.
DRINK WARM TEA THROUGHOUT THE DAY | Drinking warm tea keeps the body and blood warm (which we love!). Again, that doesn’t mean you can’t have ice cold drinks, but they’re certainly not for everyone. If you have any chronic pain or any hormonal / fertility issues, avoid them like the plague. But if you feel pretty balanced, enjoy an ice cold drink! Just make sure you’re also enjoying warm drinks.
Organic green tea is wonderful and helps remove dampness in the body, so you can avoid any stored inflammation. I also have lines of teas at VIE HEALING specifically to support a range of needs, depending on where you’re at. We make teas with lovely ingredients like goji berries, raspberries, dandelion, lemongrass—all clean, synergistic components that clean and build the blood, which helps the body detoxify without stripping or depleting it. Rather than pushing detoxification, Traditional Chinese Medicine looks to promote the body’s own detoxification process with delicate, gentle herbs. Avoid casually taking things like ginseng and ashwagandha (no matter what mainstream wellness says!). They are really intense and shouldn’t be taken unless you are working with a practitioner.
GET YOUR MIND RIGHT | Focusing on mental health for whole-body wellness is one of my top priorities. Rather than always looking for externally-driven wellness modalities, start internally. Instead of doing a million cold plunges, saunas, and smoothies, ask yourself, “How do I get my mind right?”
One of the best quotes that I live by is “Ask and you shall receive,” which is all about the power of manifestation and having trust in the world around you (which can also promote bodily trust and better blood flow). Starting there creates such a different movement. You can speak to it throughout the day in moments of taking care of yourself or needing to reconnect with the world around you.
WAKE UP TO YOUR VISION | We get so swept up in our lives and with our feelings, that we’ve become a total mess in how we are in society. Have a direction. If it’s wellness, have a vision for that. It doesn’t have to be a crazy focus that chokes you to death. It’s about being relaxed with your vision. I like to journal and meditate either right when I wake up or right before I drift off to sleep because that’s when your subconscious is the most activated.
TAKE TIME FOR YOU | At VIE HEALING, I’m all about having tools that allow you to take care of yourself without overdoing it. Right now, there seems to be a focus on being social as a form of self-care, which is great. But understand that self-care is really about connecting with yourself and your body, which a lot of people don’t have the time (or desire) to do.
Our newest VYBRA is like a mini acupuncture session at home. You don’t need a huge percussion gun pounding you, shaking your spine. When you bring gentle movement to the body, the body wants to come closer to you. Don’t get me wrong, these vibration therapy tools are effective, but they’re also delicate and gentle, allowing people to get the full benefit of acupressure at home while staying in lock step with VIE HEALING’S core philosophy.
Begin healing from within with 10% off any VIE HEALING purchase, using CHALKBOARD10.
*The Chalkboard Mag and its materials are not intended to treat, diagnose, cure or prevent any disease. All material on The Chalkboard Mag is provided for educational purposes only. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified healthcare provider for any questions you have regarding a medical condition, and before undertaking any diet, exercise or other health-related programs.
