New APProach
Get healthy on your phone.
By Colleen Sheehy Orme
Illustration by Jesse Lefkowitz
Life’s hectic pace can often intersect in aches, pains, fatigue or a variety of other symptoms. Fortunately, more businesses are focusing on overall wellness for their employees. Khalsa Integrative Medicine in Reston, has just made it easier to focus on wellness, be it as an individual or a company. It’s a cutting-edge, alternative health care practice whose husband-wife team has developed the immensely successful iPhone app, “Long, Deep Breathing” and is currently developing a second.
The Apple application, “Long, Deep Breathing” went live in October, 2009. It is 99 cents, 20 percent of which goes to charity. “It is a breathing exercise based on yogic teachings, but you don’t have to be a practitioner of yoga to use it,” says Dr. Khalsa. “It’s a very simple breathing exercise that will reduce your stress levels. There are many benefits to reducing stress. It will lower your blood pressure; it will help you heal better; it will help you sleep better; and you will feel calm.”
The practice, with trademarked tag line “WholeHealth Wellness,” opened in 2003 and focuses on preventive health care. “We restore health,” says practice director, Carol O’Donnell Khalsa. “We use natural and holistic non-invasive protocols that include traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, plant-based enzymes, electro dermal screening, homeopathic remedies and nutrition that contribute to whole-health wellness.”
O’Donnell Khalsa has spent over 25 years in healthcare. She is the former executive director of The Alzheimer’s Prevention Foundation, former director of membership for the American Preventive Medical Association and was the founding executive director of the Loudoun Healthcare Foundation. She has also taught “How To Reduce Stress In The Workplace,” in the United States Senate.
Dr. Darshan Khalsa is board certified and licensed to practice acupuncture by the Virginia Board of Medicine. He received his acupuncture degree from The Maryland Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine. He has been practicing and teaching yoga and other various healing modalities for over 40 years and is a doctor of Oriental medicine. His undergraduate degree is from the University of Maryland; and prior to immersing himself in the study of human wellness, he was an engineer. In his own words, he now “engineers the human body.” Dr. Khalsa says, “I try and take a logical engineering approach to healing. That is where we come up with the idea of WholeHealth Wellness.”
“The idea is that if your body has what it needs, it will heal itself,” says Dr. Khalsa. “What we do here is to help people heal from the inside out, which is different from doctors and hospitals treating symptoms. We try and remove the causes of the symptoms. For instance, if someone comes in with migraines we don’t just give them medicine. We try and figure out what is out of balance that is causing the migraines. We use various methods to determine what parts of the body are out of balance, where the imbalance is. Then we try and intervene with acupuncture, herbs, etc., to bring you back into balance.”
“We are in a sense helping to heal the planet. That has always been our goal,” says O’Donnell Khalsa.
What Brings Patients to Khalsa Integrative Medicine?
40% Allergies and digestive problems
35% Generalized pain of one sort or another
25% Stress, mood, insomnia, infertility, etc.
Dr. Khalsa explains acupuncture:
“The basic philosophy of acupuncture is that we are energetic beings and that there are flows of energy throughout the body, and that the cause of disease is our blockages or imbalances in this energetic flow,” says Dr. Khalsa.
The Origins of Acupuncture
Some believe that as arrows sliced into soldiers on the battlefields of ancient China, acupuncture was born. Those soldiers, afflicted with chronic illnesses that went untreated, were suddenly cured. True or not, acupuncture did begin in ancient China. The first certain reference to the treatment in which needles are inserted into specific points on the body to create a better flow of energy is found in “The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine,” dated 100 B.C.E. But sharp stones and pointed bones dating back to 6000 B.C.E. have been interpreted as possible acupuncture instruments. Metal instruments weren’t used until 200 B.C.E. In addition, drawings from 1600 B.C.E. show a man with the underside of his arm outstretched, pricked by dozens of needles. Though the treatment has evolved, all modern practices come from ancient China. –Colin Daileda
Khalsa Alternative Medicine
Dr. Darshan S. Khalsa
11731 Bowman Green Drive. Reston, VA 20190, 703-326-0817, www.KhalsaMedicine.com, DSK@KhalsaMedicine.com
(August 2011)