What Three Weeks in Europe Reminded Me About Health, Happiness & Chinese Medicine

I’ve been home for a few days now, and I keep thinking about one question:

Why did I feel so... good?

Not just physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually.

Over the past three weeks, I traveled through Italy and the Greek islands with my family and friends. We ate fresh pasta almost every day. Fresh mozzarella. Seafood caught that morning. Olive oil with nearly every meal. Bread. Gelato. Long dinners that stretched late into the evening.

And yet, I didn’t feel bloated once.

As a Chinese medicine doctor, I couldn’t help but observe everything around me. Not just the food, but the rhythm of life.

The vegetables tasted like vegetables. The tomatoes were sweet. The peaches smelled like summer. The fish had often been caught that morning, and meals were built around whatever was fresh and in season. There was very little that felt rushed, processed, or disconnected from where it came from.