My name is Phonexay Lala Simon, and I'm a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist. I've been practicing acupuncture and herbal medicine for twelve years, and a few years ago I began weaving seed cycling into how I support my patients.
What pulled me toward seed cycling was a question I kept returning to: How can I help people support their hormonal wellness in a way that feels nourishing rather than clinical?
Seed cycling answered that in two ways at once. It supports wellness from an herbal, food-as-medicine perspective, and it offers a gentle ritual — a way to connect with the moon and with our own menstrual phase as we practice it. That combination of physiology and meaning is exactly what resonated with me, and it's what my patients seem to appreciate too.
Why Integrative Care is Having a Moment
Intuitively, we can understand why more and more people are looking for ways to care for their health that make them feel whole. We’re looking for approaches that pay attention to us as whole people, honor our body's innate intelligence, and fit into our daily lives as a sustainable practice. Integrative medicine, which brings time-tested traditions together with modern wellness, has moved from the margins into mainstream conversation. Part of what's drawing people in is a desire to feel more connected: to our bodies, to nature’s rhythms, and to a sense of self-agency in how we can live well.
In my own practice, three tools sit at the center of that work — acupuncture, seed cycling, and Chinese herbal medicine. Individually, each offers something meaningful. Together, they support the body in finding and keeping its own rhythm. And rhythm, as you'll see, is really the heart of everything that follows.
A Few Ways This Shows Up in My Practice
When I work with women's health and fertility, one of the first things I focus on is supporting the body towards a smooth and healthy menstrual process. A couple of common situations where I see this integrative approach shine:
Supporting the body after long-term birth control.
When someone is coming off long-term birth control and getting ready for the fertility season of their life, I've found it helps to begin seed cycling right away, alongside acupuncture and herbal medicine when appropriate. Rather than rushing anything, the goal is simply to support the body as it finds its way back into a new natural rhythm. Patients often describe the process as feeling smoother and more supported.
Supporting the system postpartum.
After giving birth, the body moves through an enormous transition. Here, too, the aim is gentle support — helping the system find its way back to its natural rhythm at its own pace, with acupuncture, seeds, and herbs offering steady, nourishing support along the way.
Acupuncture — What it is And What to Expect
Acupuncture involves the placement of very fine, sterile needles at specific points on the body. From a Chinese medicine perspective, this helps guide the flow of qi and supports the body's natural balance. From a contemporary lens, many people find acupuncture helps settle the nervous system, reduce inflammation, relieve pain, ease tension, and create a sense of calm and reset.
In a typical session, we'll talk through what's going on for you. I perform a pulse and tongue assessment according to Chinese medicine theory to understand your particular patterns, and then you'll rest with the needles in place for a while — this is the most relaxing part of many of my patients’ weeks.
Many people describe a deep, restful stillness during treatment, and some go into a deep power nap. I think of the acupuncture process as setting the paradigm for the nervous system. It gently tunes the body's underlying structure, so that everything else we do has a steadier foundation to build on.
Chinese Herbal Medicine — Supporting the Body's Ecosystem
Chinese herbal medicine offers a way to support a person's individual constitution. Rather than treating a symptom in isolation, we look at the patterns showing up across the whole person — and think of the body as an ecosystem. Once we understand that ecosystem, we can choose a formula, often one that has been refined and used over a thousand years, to support and nourish the body's own balance.
The philosophy here matters: we aim to support the body's ecosystem rather than control it. A well-chosen formula acts like a bigger-picture blueprint — offering the body both direction and the resources it needs to do its own work.
Safety Basics for Chinese Herbs
Chinese herbs are powerful, and like anything powerful, they deserve respect and care. A few basics worth knowing:
- Work with a trained, licensed herbalist rather than self-prescribing. Formulas are chosen for your patterns, and the right formula for one person can be wrong for another.
- Source matters. Quality, sourcing, and preparation all affect safety, so herbs should come from reputable, tested suppliers.
- Share your full picture. Let your herbalist know about any medications, supplements, pregnancy or postpartum status, or health conditions, so your care can be tailored safely.
- More is not better. Formulas are meant to be taken as directed, for as long as they're appropriate — and then reassessed.
Seed Cycling — A Rhythmic Ritual (and an Herbal Medicine)
The idea of seed cycling has some roots in Chinese medicine nutritional therapy. Seeds are part of the Chinese herbal repertoire, and they are exactly that – the seeds of life. According to Chinese medicinal theory, they carry Jing energy, which is the vital source energy that begins life. As a result, certain seeds were consumed according to the cycles of the moon to support feminine health. It's simple in concept, and that simplicity is part of its beauty.
I embraced seed cycling immediately because seeds are already a form of herbal medicine.
We sometimes think of "herbs" as something exotic or intimidating, but the plants on our plate carry real properties. Seed cycling is a lovely on-ramp to that idea — food that supports the body, practiced with intention.
Why I Love Seed Cycling
What I love most is that it invites you into a rhythm. It's a small, repeatable act that reconnects you with where you are in your cycle, and with the larger cycles of the natural world. That sense of participation — of doing something for and with your body — is genuinely meaningful for a lot of people.
A Word on Consistency (and the Real-World Barrier)
In both Chinese medicine and seed cycling, rhythm and consistency is the key. The benefit comes from the consistency of the practice, not from any single day. The body responds to steady, repeated signals over time — which means the most powerful thing you can do is simply keep going.
And this is where I have to be honest about what I see. For many modern women (myself included), the biggest obstacle isn't motivation — it's logistics. Seeds are dense with rich nutrients and oils, but that means they can go rancid quickly. Freshness is important. Grinding raw seeds fresh each day, keeping track of which seeds go with which phase, dealing with the mess and the storage and the time... those small frictions add up. They're often the reason a well-intentioned practice quietly falls away after a couple of weeks. Or why it’s hard to get started at all.
It was important for me to find simpler ways to maintain the ritual. Anything that lowers the barrier — that makes daily practice easy, clean, and quick — helps us stay consistent. Incidentally, this is exactly how I found out about Two Moons. I was searching for something that would provide my patients with easier access to the practice of seed cycling because convenience and consistency are what lets the rhythm actually take hold.
Why These Three Work Beautifully Together
I often combine acupuncture, seed cycling, and Chinese herbal medicine because they work synergistically. Each one plays a distinct role:
- Acupuncture sets the nervous-system paradigm and helps balance the body's energetic structure — the underlying coding mechanisms the body runs on.
- Chinese herbal formulas address the deeper constitution — the "bigger picture" blueprint the body can follow, along with the resources to build it.
- Seed cycling gently encourages the body into a rhythm while supporting how it manages its own hormonal cycles. And because seeds are themselves a form of herbal medicine, it is nourishment woven into the everyday.
Layered together, they cover the nervous system, the person’s unique underlying constitution, and the daily rhythm all at once. Other herbal traditions can be helpful too, and I want to be clear that my own training is in Classical Chinese herbal formulas — that's the lens I bring.
Why Lifelong Cycle Support Matters — Especially Now
Finally, it's easy to think of hormonal wellness as being only about fertility, but its reach is much broader. Holistically, hormonal balance affects every other system. A good example is how estrogen affects bone density and the many symptoms of perimenopause. Supporting these natural processes with care, sooner rather than later, and throughout life can contribute to a better quality of life across many seasons.
There's also the everyday quality-of-life piece. Feeling more at home in our cycles — with a more predictable rhythm and fewer disruptive symptoms — is its own meaningful kind of wellness. That's a form of self-agency I want more people to experience.
If you'd like to stay connected, you can find me, Phonexay on Instagram (@phonexaylac). I practice in Seattle at Rebel Med NW (@rebelmednw), where I work with deep somatic healing, chronic or elusive pain, and integrative aesthetics. My newest passion project is Original Qi Community Acupuncture & Ritual Space (@originalqi), an affordable community acupuncture clinic with room for intuitive practice and ritual.
Stay in touch if you love the idea of deep spiritual and psychological healing or simply living well with self-agency. That's the work I care about most, and I'd love to share it with you.
With care, Phonexay
While this blog discusses health topics, it is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult your doctor or other qualified healthcare provider regarding any question you might have regarding your health.
About the Author
Dr. Phonexay Lala Simon, DAOM is a Licensed Acupuncturist and herbalist in Washington State. She practices in Seattle at Rebel Med NW, an integrative medicine clinic she co-founded with her husband. Her newest project is Original Qi Community Acupuncture and Ritual Space, which offers affordable community acupuncture alongside self-guided intuitive practice and ritual for deep inner healing. In her private practice, she works with psycho-somatic integration and release, addressing challenging or elusive conditions like chronic pain, nervous system rebalancing, and holistic aesthetics.