Ancient Healing Meets Modern Technology at The Shiu Clinic in Manhattan | E10

Dr. Clayton Shiu brings his expertise in treating brain injuries through a unique integration of traditional Chinese medicine and cutting-edge technology, creating remarkable results for patients with neurological conditions.

• Specialized training at Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the First Teaching Hospital of Tianjin
• Transitioned from sports medicine to neurology after recognizing growing trends in neurological disorders
• Uses careful observation and palpation to identify often-missed signs of brain injury
• Implements quantitative EEG (QEEG) to measure brain activity and track treatment progress
• Incorporates advanced red light therapy through the RegenPod to enhance mitochondrial function
• Teaches techniques for "awakening the Shen" - bringing consciousness back to areas affected by injury
• Developing Tai Chi programs that function as vestibular rehabilitation
• Often detects concussion symptoms in patients seeking treatment for seemingly unrelated conditions

Find Dr. Clayton Shiu at The Shiu Clinic in Manhattan and East Hampton (shiuclinic.com), on Instagram @jade_shaman, and learn about his teaching workshops at nanopunctureseminars.com.

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Chapters

• 0:34 Introduction to Dr. Clayton Xu
• 3:16 Dr. Xu's Journey from Sports Medicine to Neurology
• 12:12 Identifying Overlooked Concussion Symptoms
• 18:39 The Art of Observation in Brain Injury Treatment
• 26:05 Modern Technology Meets Ancient Therapy
• 36:23 QEEG Brain Mapping and Light Therapy Benefits
• 43:59 Awakening the Shen: Reanimating Consciousness
• 50:47 Tai Chi as Neurological Rehabilitation

Transcript

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 0:00

In this episode, I interview my dear friend and colleague, Dr Clayton Shiu. Dr Shiu has a PhD from the Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and did his residency at the Distinguished First Teaching Hospital of Tianjin. He specializes in brain injuries, stroke and neurological disorders in his clinics located in Manhattan and the East Hamptons. In our conversation, we discuss his integration of ancient therapies with modern technologies such as quantitative EEG in order to track patients' progress and healing. Thanks so much for listening and enjoy the episode.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 0:39

Because just seeing, like a person's brain awaken which in where I lived and was training in China, we would call that awakening the Shen right, or freeing the Shen that's been buried we can say and oftentimes I've heard neurologists say that that part of the nervous system was asleep and that now it's waking up. And it's a beautiful thing that when we met and maybe I was coining that because that's what I learned in Tianjin, but it made perfect sense to you, right.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 1:20

Welcome to the Life After Impact podcast, where we do a deep dive into all things concussion and brain injury related. We talk about all the different symptoms that can follow a brain injury, different testing methods, different types of specialists out there and different therapies available. I'm Sophia Bowens, I'm here with Dr Ayla Wolf and we will be your guide to living your best life after impact.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 1:51

All right, welcome to Life After Impact the concussion recovery podcast, and today I am interviewing Dr Clayton Shiu, who is a licensed acupuncturist practicing in Manhattan and East Hamptons, and Dr Shiu and I met back in 2016 or 17 at a neuroscience conference and found we had a lot in common and teamed up and have been teaching different continuing education courses, and Dr Shiu has a amazing specialty in brain injuries, involving both stroke as well as traumatic brain injuries and concussions. He gets referrals from many doctors and clinics all over New York City, and so I'm very excited to welcome you to the podcast and have you share more about your expertise and a lot of the unique techniques and technology that you are implementing in your clinic.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 2:48

Thank you, Dr Wolf. Can I call you Ayla you?

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 2:52

can call me Ayla.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 2:53

yes, yeah, thank you for having me on the show. Congratulations, first off on launching your podcast and it's amazing like just out of the gate growth. I'm really proud of you and all your accomplishments.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 3:08

Oh, thank you.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 3:10

get to be your wingman at some of these events and special accomplishments that you, you just keep doing and stuff.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 3:20

So well it's it's been wonderful being a guest doctor at your clinic and getting a chance to work side by side you and your clinics both your clinics.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 3:30

Yeah, thank you, and that's where it's a blessing to have you come and share your expertise. We really have patients asking for you or you know, like always like inquiring about when you're going to return, so it's been a great collaboration there, so. But yeah, so I'm happy to be on your new podcast and even like seeing that you're going to meet. Your new book is going to be coming out soon too, Is that correct?

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 3:58

It is. I had a great meeting with my publisher just last week and they have a lot on their end to do, and then I will be kind of going through another round of editing, but it shouldn't take quite as long. So we are getting close to the finish line.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 4:12

I think that your book will be a great contribution and providing a lot of light into a very gray and, you know, mysterious path that everyone starts out on from a traumatic brain injury. So bravo to you there.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 4:28

Thank you so much. I do hope that the book accomplishes those tasks. That's definitely the goal of it is to try to cut through a lot of the confusion on what people do or don't need and what kind of tests are out there. And you know, giving people because you don't know what you don't need and what kind of tests are out there, and giving people because you don't know what you don't know. And so some people, if they don't even recognize that they haven't been properly assessed, then they don't even realize that there are tests that are out there that haven't been done yet and that there might be insights that still need to be gleamed from specific exams. And so that's what I'm trying to highlight is to make sure people can read that book and say have have I had all the right testing done, or is there more research that needs to happen to figure out what's driving my symptoms that aren't getting better on their own? So exactly.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 5:17

I mean, this is a funny example, but I had a patient who was probably in their late 50s, early 60s and maybe definitely had some osteoarthritis or arthritis in their hips, you know, and had some past injuries. But they were scheduled to have like a hip replacement, you know, and they came in and I was treating them for their hip and everything their hip and everything but then I noticed a couple of times in the process, as we were going into the pre-treatments, that they definitely had some very strange eye movements, you know, as we were talking or just sitting down. So I ran through the battery of tests that you taught me and I was like, wait a second. I think this person has been suffering from long-term concussion issues and symptoms. So when we treated that, her movement and her gait improved greatly, significantly, and basically she didn't need the hip replacement, that's amazing.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 6:21

Yeah, it's like, do you know what I mean? And so it's funny, because you have to be really sharp and sensitive to see something so random, right? But then to connect the dots and say, okay, now let's check your neck and head and let's go back into, like you know, your history a little bit more before you get that hip replacement operation, cause, let's, let's make sure this is what we're dealing with, you know?

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 6:47

Right, and I think a lot of people don't put concussions down on their intake forms as injuries, as it doesn't occur to them right that if they had a concussion five years ago, 10 years ago, to even put that on a medical intake form and then you start asking people about their history of head trauma.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 7:06

and have you ever fallen off a bicycle, been in a car accident, you know, had a skiing accident and all of a sudden you you elicit from somebody a pretty lengthy history of potential head traumas that they had forgotten about or didn't think were relevant to why they were coming in in the first place.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 7:24

Yeah, exactly and you know, sometimes it's. It's maybe because the patient may have a fear that you know well. You think there's psychologically something wrong with me and we're like, no, we're not even talking about like you're like we're just saying, if you're having subcognitive, you know deficits there that we're checking into.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 7:41

Yeah, I had a fascinating conversation with my dear friend, Alicia, who's a massage therapist that I work with, and she was commenting on the fact that you know, she sees people you know you oftentimes once a month. You know for for years, for you know general wellness and maintenance and overall health, and made the comment that it's really obvious when somebody develops a very mild cognitive decline or cognitive impairment, because she sees how difficult it is for them to flip over on the table. And this is, you know, something that someone's been doing time and time again. And it's like the procedure is you flip over and then you move down about a foot so that your head's not hanging off the table. And this is something that this person has been doing time and time again. And then all of a sudden one day she says, okay, time to flip over, and all of a sudden it's like this big production and they're not moving as well and they don't know where their body is in space, and all of a sudden they they're laying on the table crooked and they don't know where their head is and it's hanging.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 8:45

You know it's hanging off the table and they forget to scoot down and and. So, because she spent so much time with these people. Those things are very important and it's like that. That art of observation is so huge and I think you know if you think about somebody who's being seen for an hour once a month, every month, that's very different from just having a quick little 15-minute annual appointment with your doctor as your annual wellness checkup or whatever. If they spend 15 minutes with you and they don't even see you moving around, they're going to miss those things. You can't pick that up in a 15-minute appointment.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 9:30

Yeah, exactly, you won't pick that up just from watching someone walk back and forth, and it takes so much coordination and core strength and then rotation, like you said.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 9:38

I mean, it's like that thing where you know they say that one of the tests for longevity is can you get up off the floor without using your hands, and I think another great test would to be how well can you roll over on a treatment table. So why don't we start with your background and can you share with our audience how you kind of got got into working with strokes and then traumatic brain injuries and concussions, and I know you spent a good deal of time in China at a hospital that specializes in these things and picked up a lot of techniques and insights.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 10:15

Yeah, so originally I was. I was actually in more of the orthopedic sports medicine field when I just got out of school in the acupuncture profession this is probably in the early 2000s and I was relatively, I would say, successful in that I was already treating some different, assisting to treat some different professional athletes in the major league baseball, the NBA, some mixed martial artists, and I would even get flown to certain NBA playoff games with to treat some different players, and that was fun. That was really, really exciting. I actually felt pretty solid, pretty good, very, very excited about that whole field, which has grown into an amazing specialty within our profession. You know, tuning, like MSK or orthopedic injuries.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 11:08

But one of the things that always caught my attention was whenever somebody or a patient or a friend or relative, like if they got a stroke or traumatic brain injury, and then I always felt like I was caught flat footed and whatever things I would try and never felt comfortable. You know, and I really knew in my own personal wheelhouse, being supposedly this very established acupuncturist, I just knew that man, there's there's a couple gray missing pieces there and that really bothered me and and the more I looked at it like and I'm I'm very good at looking at trends and patterns and stuff. Um, so I, the more I looked at it, I was like I think it's getting worse. Like I think I think strokes back in 2000,. You know, actually 2011 or 12, at the time when this idea of me pursuing stroke therapy or the brain was around then and I was seeing that it was getting worse basically you mean that more strokes were happening, it was becoming more frequent.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 12:20

Yeah, it was like this growing epidemic, and not just stroke. But you pull the curtain back more and I saw that, okay, parkinson's is on the rise, alzheimer's and I was like why is this happening and why is it so out of control? And my conclusion is in all three or four disorders where you're talking about stroke or Parkinson's, alzheimer's or concussion, you know you're dealing with the same organ, which is the brain, right, but the etiology changes. So I was always trying different things. I know there's something, there's a technique or a system called scalp acupuncture, which I'm not it's just not in my wheelhouse or affinity towards which I'm not it's just not in my wheelhouse or affinity towards and you're referring to.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 13:09

I mean, I think that system came about in the 1970s, if I'm correct, so it's been around since the 70s, but it's also kind of based on 1970s neuroscience as well, and we've learned a whole lot more since then.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 13:22

Exactly, and because I was a neuroanatomy geek even when I went to Boston University doing my undergrad, like that was my favorite course versus even gross anatomy and other things like so. So as I was finishing the Chinese medicine studies and stuff and had the neuroanatomy I like training in my head from the 90s. But then when I did see the scalp acupuncture principles, it was based on more of like a one-to-one functional relationship of the body, which has its contribution to neuroscience too. It's just that as we got into more and more research and technology got better at analyzing nerves, the tissue, the brain, the brain waves, right, how we even generate like energy in a nerve or what's the brain actually feeding on and all that stuff, we noticed that like the brain isn't just one section of the brain controls one part of the body. Each area of the brain is like a hub, kind of like JFK airport or LAX.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 14:35

Okay, yeah, so you've got like a lot of different tissues running through this intersection and you can manipulate it in many different ways. You know which circulates us back to doing, like you know, exercises like figure eights, right the limb, or or even using um distal points.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 14:59

it makes distal points make sense, you know right, and so if you shut down jfk, it doesn't just affect JFK airport, it affects every single connecting flight out of JFK.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 15:10

Yes, exactly yeah. And then if you, if you did shut down JFK airport, you would have, you would see an increase at LaGuardia airport and Newark airport, and so they would take on the flights and fly the people congested at JFK Airport.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 15:36

you know well and actually you know you bring up a good point in that sense because there was some relatively recent research talking about how, when you get a concussion, certain jobs that the frontal lobe is supposed to perform, if the frontal lobe is basically not working as well because of the concussion, the parietal lobe tries to take over some of those functions. But in doing that, you know, decreased activity in the frontal lobe and perhaps some hyperactivity and other parts of the parietal lobe which then might also translate into somebody developing like motion sensitivity is extremely complicated and you know, going back to that idea of like the 1970s scalp acupuncture you look at kind of like doing acupuncture points over the cerebellum, you know they were talking about it for, say, you know, issues with ataxia or gait problems.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 16:42

But now we know the cerebellum also plays a huge role in coordinating our thoughts as well, and there's this huge cognitive component to the cerebellum. And so, yeah, I think the beauty of what you do now is that you you're appreciating the modern day understanding of how the brain works and how it's all these different hubs that are all integrated, and then you can start to play around with okay, well, what happens when we increase activity over here? Do we see positive downstream consequences over there? And I think that's where acupuncture is huge and I also.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 17:19

One of the things that I think is really unique to you is your power of observation of the actual human body and your ability to actually see patterns in the human body. And in your courses you talk about you know the shape of the neck being very significant and the shape of the skull being significant, and even looking at somebody's back and how their scapulas are positioned and how much you know kind of inflammation you're seeing between the shoulder blades, and so what I really appreciate about what you teach is that your power of observation is not just even in neurological exams, it's also in palpation skills and in just physically looking at a person's neck and saying this there's something wrong here in terms of like where they're holding tension or where this is sunken in, or, and I think that that's like really beautiful, and I see that as kind of this real specialty of yours that you've you've developed like on your own, like that's, that's yours.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 18:26

Oh, thank you. That's extremely kind, especially coming from you, cause I respect everything you've taught me too and I think, yeah, I my my approach in life is is not to discard things that works, even if it becomes like a little bit obsolete in the current modern times. It has its place when the situation is right, you know so, meaning like like the Walkman didn't stop being made because it couldn't play music. You know?

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 18:58

So are you saying that, even though we have all of these incredibly modern forms of technology, which you also utilize in your clinic, you recognize the power and the significance of basic human observation, of simply looking at somebody and saying I'm seeing a pattern here with all of my patients that come in with X, y and Z, and that pattern in their skull or their neck or their back is significant and important and should be paid attention to?

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 19:32

Yes, exactly. So meaning like oh yeah, it's like. This is where I was going with this analogy. Sorry, I get out. You know me, I can get.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 19:41

I'm trying to circle you back.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 19:43

Yeah. So let's say, we have like a super advanced patient imaging machine, you know like an ultrasound or or like sonogram device or something right?

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 19:54

Or a seven Tesla MRI.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 19:57

Right, or a seven Tesla MRI and then and it works great and it gives us these images right, but what happens later is like sometimes, that doctor or specialist, they kind of stop touching the patient, they stop using their senses and their hands because I got this mega million dollar machine that can, that can tell me everything in the inside seven inches inside the body, when I should have picked up something right on the surface. That would have saved a lot of tests and got us right there. You, you know immediately. So. So that's what I mean by like that, that palpation or observation still has significance. And yeah, I think what I've done to circle us back to your, your observation of me is I've categorized the normal shapes of things like the neck, the scapulas, the tone of the trapezius, the shape of the skull and also the degree of palpation, what I'm feeling as I push gently onto like different surfaces. Much in the same way we use like pulse diagnosis which, as we know, with just three fingers touching one section of the wrist, there's 24 plus qualities, right? So you can imagine then, if you take your three fingers on each side and push it through and follow the path of the skull back to, like the occipital ridge right, like how many different qualities of things you could possibly notice with during the session when you're diagnosing or assessing, like a mysterious brain disorder or traumatic brain injury case.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 21:43

And what I did was I don't know if it was instinct, but even when I was just doing sports medicine and regular wellness acupuncture, I would just write it, write down what I was observing on post-its. You know, so I and been doing that for since my first year of acupuncture practice. So I was just, I would just notice like man, I'm drawing the same picture on this post-it and I keep observing the same bumps that would come up, maybe behind the ear, so, for instance, like when we palpate, even behind the helix of the ear. In my practice there's like 10 things you could observe and it can tell you the quality of the person's hearing, it could explain to you if they're having tinnitus, if they have a toothache, if they have blurry vision, if they, you know, are just having like a hard work week. All that stuff can be done just with that pass.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 22:45

Yeah, I think one of the kind of patterns that you pointed out to me that I have seen time and time again is, you know, when I'm palpating the back of somebody's skull, normally you should have a nice kind of sloping transition from the occipital bone into the neck, and for people that have cerebellar diseases, it's like instead of this nice little gradual slope, you just you hit a cliff and it's like wait, this does not feel right, like this is not normal.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 23:19

And so it's like I think that's something that really clued me into like this is important and this is significant, and then like to say can we make a change here? That's what I love is that you're utilizing the timeless skill of palpation and then you're also pairing it with very high tech things like your quantitative EEG readings and your super fancy region pod.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 23:47

Yeah, I know those are great, amazing, modern devices that we have at our SHU clinics and we're very fortunate to have them. Part of the reason why I got them was when I started to work with you and we would go to these amazing neural symposium events, and my favorite place about all those kind of events are the vendors.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 24:12

The toy room.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 24:15

Like you know where's Dr Shu? He's like probably in some kind of laser device getting zapped right now or something.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 24:22

Well, talk a little bit, cause I know you just changed your QEEG from one service to another, so you've got a new QEEG and tell me a little bit about, maybe, some of the patterns in brainwave activity that you see with people who have persistent post-concussion symptoms, and kind of how you're utilizing that as a before and after means to track people's progress with their brain healing.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 24:52

Sure people's progress with their brain healing. Sure, as I was getting into skull palpation and observing different patterns, which I was pretty sure that we were correctly observing, and then we would actually come up and create different acupuncture protocols to treat those different inflammation bumps that we were feeling. To make sure that I knew that what I saw was real or what I thought was significant was like not deceiving myself. That's why I got into getting modern equipment and things like the QEEG, the quantitative electroencephalogram brain scan, or or things that would kind of quantify what I was doing, you know. So the one reason why we wanted to get a QEEG that was one of the first real significant modern pieces of equipment that we got for the office way in the beginning was because if our points that we were using were actually working and improving the person's cognitive functions, then we should be able to see a change in a brainwave scan right, because it's objective?

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 26:03

Yeah, absolutely, and it's live and the machines that are created today are so sophisticated, created today are so sophisticated. Um, the the one we used, uh, that we first got. Uh, you could put the device on and see a live image of the brain as it's firing on the screen, you know. And we could put points in like spleen six, pc six, and see the brain lighting up differently. You know, awesome, yeah, and so that's so. Every time we we got some, some nice modern equipment to debunk ourselves, we kind of instead justified no, that's the right point, meaning if you put this point in, you're going to have a higher probability of affecting the brain than you could even realize. I love using modern equipment, actually to confirm Chinese medicine to almost one, like confirm it and two, further explore it, you know, using our tools.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 27:08

So yeah, I think there's a whole untapped world of research that should be looking at QEEG and acupuncture's effects on brainwave activity and you know that modulating what's happening in different parts of the brain, like you said, even based on different points, have that concept of like acupuncture point specificity One point is not doing the exact same thing as another point.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 27:33

Yeah, exactly, and if you have the time and the equipment and the right patients, you can definitely flush that out. It's great. So we got a. Recently we acquired a new QEEG machine. It's called a Wabi W-A-V-I and that's specifically a QEEG machine that's focused on concussions and for concussion patients, and I like it because it's very objective.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 28:02

When you scan anyone with a QEEG helmet or headset, there's usually at least 19 electrodes which are dispersed around the helmet to cover the head and the different lobes, and not only do they measure the electricity or voltage that that area of your brain is outputting, but they also can observe how one hub talks to another of the other 19. And you can see those relationships. Those are called coherences, so you can see the coherent relationships of the electrodes or or the lack of coherence. The interesting thing with the Wavi is that it gives you this more patient like almost like a CBC blood result like. It gives you a nice itemized list of different data it's collected and part of it is also the total absolute number of voltage that your brain can generate during the test and it rates it for you.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 29:05

So what I like about that is let's say so it tells you if your brain battery's low. Right, exactly, yeah, exactly it's like hey, your brain is in the yellow zone. You only have two bars left.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 29:16

Yeah, plug it in and hit the recharge. And that's great, because a lot of our patients, especially if they're very driven and whether it's in business or sports or their profession, they don't think they're tired. They may not let themselves take a break, but if you get an objective test like this, you know that validates what we're recommending and that it should kind of help the patient come to terms of.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 29:48

Okay, I am giving myself adrenal fatigue, my body is in fight or flight and yet I maybe now should listen, you know so when I think to with the patients who who do know that after their concussion they they experience that, you know, cognitive fatigue and that lack of cognitive reserve where they used to be able to have really great focus and attention for eight hours a day and now it's like after two hours their brain just does not want to work anymore. I imagine that you're seeing that as well on this type of test.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 31:27

Yeah, exactly, and interestingly enough, it has, like you'll have to put a set of headphones on and it'll have like a test where it'll play a sound and you have to hit a button and it'll test your reaction time too, which is really cool, yeah, and it measures not only your reaction time but which part of your mind was activated too.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 31:50

So are you using the right parts of your brain to do the cognitive task Exactly, very cool.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 31:56

So that's why we like for concussion, all our concussion patients. We we would recommend it if we felt like it's necessary, and also for patients that we find that they just plateaued and we're not sure. So we would use a QEG type scan to give us direction too.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 32:16

And then you also have a region pod, which is a light therapy bed that you can lay in, and it is incredibly powerful. I mean, it's not like you. It's not the same kind of bed that you go to at the tanning salon that has red light therapy. It's, it's next, it's next, it's next level yeah, it's not.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 32:37

It's better than the one at planet fitness. Okay, when you have the black membership and I'm not dissing planet, I have a planet fitness membership too, because there's one near my mom's house and when I have to visit her and I need a break and I need exercise, I'm like I'm gonna go to the planet fitness. Yes, we have a. We have what's called the regen pod, which is one of the, I would say, the most sophisticated, well thought out, low level laser light beds that's in the market. And, um, I had the fortunate opportunity to meet the creators and the engineers that designed it designed it because they're based out of Colorado through some close colleagues of ours. We wanted to use it to help treat patients who we felt systemically had neural issues and needed more energy, more ATP, more nourishment through the red light to treat their nervous system and their bodies. So so, not just the stroke patients, but patients with Parkinson's, als and even the weekend warriors they, they love it too because they'll they'll wear out their knees skiing or playing now like pickleball, which is the new Taibo, you know like ankle injuries and stuff, and it's amazing at just like inflammation recovery, um, so any kind of inflammation. There the region pod helps to treat it. But the coolest thing about the region pod is that it actually takes in. The computer software takes into account your skin tone, your shape, your size. If you're an ectomorph mesomorph, to be honest, it is a lot like working out like you want to do it on a routine or you're doing it whether it's weekly or twice a week.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 34:32

What? What is low level laser? Like Basically any red light therapy, or what we call today photobiomodulation. It's when you have wavelengths of light that's in the 630 to 880. And those are the therapeutic wavelengths that a lot of research and science has been performing and finding incredible results. So red wavelength can actually penetrate past the flesh into the muscle tissue, get to the nerves. And what sunlight is to plants right, that creates chlorophyll, which is their energy, red lights is to animals, to humans, so so that red light actually will make it to the mitochondria, which are the batteries of our body, and from the batteries, when it receives the red light, it'll create more ATP, which is the building blocks of energy in our body.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 35:31

I when I laid in the Regenpod. I didn't want to get out, it felt really good.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 35:35

Yeah, especially right now in the wintertime, it feels even better. It's just like I remember you were like Ayla's not getting out of the room. I think she's doing a double session and you know.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 35:48

Well, yeah, the Regen pod read my mind and said, oh she, she needs, she needs a long time with me, right? Well, and mitochondria, I think, are kind of like the forefront of the next wave of scientific research, because so many people, after getting COVID and developing long COVID, are having mitochondrial disorders and a lot of fatigue physically and cognitively and a lot of the research now on Alzheimer's is pointing to the effects on mitochondria and so we're recognizing now the importance of the role of mitochondria in the brain. Yeah, and how you know, when people have had concussions and repetitive concussions and head injuries and then these other neurological disorders and neurodegenerative diseases, that the mitochondria are playing a big role in a lot of the pathology, underlying a lot of it and driving a lot of it. So I think that you know the role of the mitochondria is kind of the unifying theory for a lot of symptoms that people are experiencing and that's really going to be what we hear the most about in the next probably decade of neuroscience research.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 37:03

Yeah, definitely. Well, you use a special mat right that you've introduced to me too, that you've got some high tech technology in your wheelhouse too, Dr Wolf, You've got some high-tech technology in your wheelhouse too, Dr Wolf?

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 37:18

Yeah, the mat is a PEMF device, so a pulsed electromagnetic frequency device, and where I see that really excelling is in restoring healthy vasomotion to the cardiovascular system, to all the arteries.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 37:32

And so when we think about the circulatory system, I think a lot of people make the assumption that the heart is beating and it's the heart beating that's driving blood flow everywhere.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 37:45

But the heart isn't powerful enough to pump blood to every single little capillary, and so the way that the blood is actually reaching all of these extremities and also in the brain is through vasomotion. And when we lose vasomotion because of trauma, that can really impact circulation. And so there's, I think, a lot more research now too on the importance of healthy vasomotion. And when people get concussions or brain injuries and they develop exercise intolerance and they can't exercise well, then they're not moving, and then that over time can also lead to a further decompensation of the cardiovascular system and potentially make dysautonomia symptoms worse as a result of that ongoing loss of healthy vasomotion because of the lack of mobility. So there's a lot to it, but I do think that exercise and if you can't exercise, using something like a PEMF device to help restore healthy vasomotion is important and something that I think a lot more research is going to be focused on again, and I think the next 10 years of neuroscience research is going to be exciting.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 39:04

Yeah, definitely I think so too, because just seeing like a person's brain awaken which in where I lived and was training in China, we would call that awakening the Shen right, or freeing the Shen that's been buried we can say and oftentimes I've heard neurologists say that that part of the nervous system was asleep and that now it's waking up and it's. It's a beautiful thing that when we met and maybe I was coining that because that's what I learned in tanjin, but it made perfect sense to you right with, yeah, your background.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 39:48

So well, and so you were teaching a very specific kind of technique for waking, waking up the shin and unburying the consciousness, as you might like to call it.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 40:03

And so when I started implementing that specific technique that you were teaching, a lot of times like if I had a patient come to me who had had a concussion and it was the very first time I was treating them A lot of times my examination is so lengthy that it's very fatiguing to people, and so not only did I just do a very long exam, but the last thing I want to do is overstimulate them or do too much in my therapy, and so I would often do this very gentle, simple technique and protocol that you taught, and then I would watch the patient change in front of my eyes, and they would go from not volunteering information, not wanting to talk very much, not really making eye contact, you know, looking very kind of sleepy or just not really present, and then, after the treatment, all of a sudden they would smile for the very first time, they would start volunteering information, or even telling a bit of a story, or they would laugh, or it's like I was, it felt like I was engaging yeah.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 41:12

I felt like I would engage with like a completely different person after just one treatment and it really was just such a phenomenal thing that was happening over and over and over again. And so, like you know what you teach, I think you you made a really good point once where you you know you're learning something, but then you're seeing like a hundred people a week and so you're seeing thousands and thousands and thousands of patients and you're doing these techniques on so many people that you know what works and what doesn't work, because you've got the volume to be able to gauge that. And so it's not just like, oh, I did this one thing this one time and got a good outcome. It's like, no, I've been doing this thing thousands of times.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 41:59

And it's repeatable.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 42:02

Yeah, I mean it's. It's true, we, our office, probably does over, probably over four or 5000 sessions a year.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 42:10

Well, we've covered a lot of ground here. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast sharing your insights, and I know you have a project that you've been working on to bring Tai Chi to the masses. So why don't we end with you a letting people know where they can find you and your socials, your clinic, your website, and then also tell us a little about your Tai Chi project?

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 42:38

Yeah, thanks. So the other thing that happened over the last 20, 25 years is a lot of my patients they always want to learn Tai Chi and a long time ago I did used to have a Tai Chi school in New York City so, but my private practice was a lot less busy then. So right now we're in two different offices and managing staff, so it's been harder to teach tai chi and it really was my first love, even before Chinese medicine. I followed a tai chi master around the world for almost like 20 years and had the fortunate experience to travel with him to Greece, australia, asia, and it was great. It was very like I would take carefree days and just being a student and having that long time and quality time to to have a clear mind and practice. And so I want to.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 43:43

I wanted to make something, um, that I could give to not just my patients and students but to anyone who just wants to delve into it, and so I'm going to be making like a teaching course of Tai Chi lessons.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 44:01

It'll come out something like four episodes at a time and it'll be like one posture that will clearly teach how I was taught posture and I'll give my personal perspectives on the posture too, and I'll give my personal perspectives on the posture too, as well as share the gems of where you focus, things like your, your Shen and your Yi, which is like the spirit of where you focus with your eyes versus where you're thinking.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 44:28

And then, after we practice the posture, I'm going to end each class with a little bit of a Tai Chi lesson to think about for that week. You know, and a lot of these lessons actually come from just great sessions that I've had with patients that I thought, wow, you know, I think we really hit something really important that helped me that week too, and I think it's great to include that into the, into the Tai Chi lessons. So that way, I feel like for the modern Tai Chi practitioner, if you want to be introduced to Tai Chi, this is a great way to meditate, to relax, to focus on the concepts and then to get like some gems of knowledge that I've learned from my private practice and from practicing Tai Chi. So it'll be like an ongoing kind of thing.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 45:22

So excellent. Well, I think that's going to be a great resource. And you know, when I was learning vestibular rehabilitation, and we talk about distinguishing between an eye movement and a head movement, and you know this idea of like I'm going to move my body in a way where my eyes are not moving in their orbit but they're maintaining gaze on something, versus I'm going to keep my head stationary, like Tai Chi is all of those things. It's, you know it's. You're basically remapping your body, you're learning how to move through space. You are, you know, practicing different movements that involve your eyes. You know, staying still, or versus your eyes moving one way and your hand is moving another way, Like there's just there's so many things to the Tai Chi movements that are are really a way of doing vestibular rehabilitation without calling it vestibular rehabilitation.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 46:26

Exactly, and it's it's because it's so specific, right? So it's one of those few. In a way. Somehow they designed a very controlled environment type of moving meditation and when you keep it up for 15 minutes or 20 minutes, it is like a standing core workout, because you're holding your hips and your waist in a certain place, then you're just moving specific body parts and stuff. So, and that's a great way to, that's a great way to interpret it as vestibular, ocular, motor training and and resetting, and that's why you move so slowly. You're giving the brain a chance to readjust everything back to normal, like control spots, instead of being at this high, high over beta, like you know. Yeah, you can see.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 47:18

Absolutely, and those slow, deliberate movements are very powerful. I mean, I had somebody come in my office the other day and said she said, you know, I woke up and I felt like my body was rocking and that was one of the initial symptoms that she had had after her concussion. And it had gone away and then for some reason it came back this one morning and so I did a little bit of testing with her and then all I did was turn her head in slow motion to the right and back to center twice and then the rocking was gone. And she was like what on earth did you just do? And I said this is we just did a very gentle kind of recalibration of your system. That's all it took to make that rocking go away. But like that's what tai chi is, it's this very gentle, slow motion recalibration of the system in and, like you said, a very controlled, safe, peaceful, relaxing environment.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 48:18

Yeah, exactly, and they're even finding that it can help moderate medications like levodopa. They've done studies now where they had two group of Parkinson's patients and the group that didn't practice Tai Chi had to increase in dosage, while the group that did practice actually didn't increase dosage.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 48:42

Interesting.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 48:42

Yeah, so it was very clear about that. So.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 48:47

So why don't you let people know where they can find you? Yeah.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 48:50

So, um, you can find me at the Shiu clinic S H I U clinic. com, for my private practices in Manhattan and East Hampton and for any workshops that I teach and also co-treat with Dr Wolf. Uh, it would be at nanopuncture seminars. com. Um, my Instagram is, uh, Jade shaman I guess that's my, my superhero name we joke about. So I usually post a lot of things I'm up to or what I'm working on there, and then I'll announce later.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 49:23

That's your alter ego.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 49:25

Yeah, that's my alter ego. And then I'll probably have a new website for the Tai Chi lessons and stuff that people can take for wellness.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 49:35

Okay, love it, excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time and I'm sure we will do this again.

Dr. Clayton Shiu: 49:42

Yeah, thank you for having me and good luck to the podcast and everything. It's awesome, thank you.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 49:50

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