Dr. Chloé Hom Bañales is a Doctor of Chinese Medicine, Licensed Acupuncturist, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Trainer, and integrative coach who supports burned-out, high-achieving women in reconnecting with their authentic selves so success no longer comes at the expense of their health.
Her work is rooted in a simple but often overlooked truth: anxiety, exhaustion, and depressive symptoms aren’t personal failures but, rather, signs of a nervous system that’s been trained to push, brace, and perform. Through her own experience with high-functioning anxiety and clinical depression, Dr. Chloé learned that mindset work alone wasn’t enough. Real, sustainable change came through body-based medicine and subconscious re-patterning.
Through her 1:1 work and wellness retreats at ASCENDED ALCHEMY, she integrates the Chinese Medicine, Huna, NLP, and Mental Emotional Release® Therapy to help women who recalibrate their energy without sacrificing ambition, learning to work with their nervous systems rather than against them.
Below, Dr. Chloe shares her holistic perspective on nervous system care in a productivity-focused culture, the subtle ways the body asks for support, and the tools she suggests to high-achieving perfectionists.
What’s one belief about healing you had to unlearn on your own path?
That I could want healing more for someone else than they were willing to take responsibility for themselves.
Earlier in my own journey—and especially in my work as a practitioner—I believed that if I cared enough, understood enough, or showed up consistently enough, healing would follow. Over time, I learned that transformation doesn’t hapeen through effort or insight alone. It requires parcitipcation.
I also had to see how over-functioning can masquerade as compassion. When we take on responsibility for someone else’s healing, we often (unintentionally) reinforce the very same patterns—bracing, pushing, self-abandonment—that created imbalance in the first place.
What really shifted everything for me was realizing that the body doesn’t heal because it’s convinced… it heals when it feels safe. And safety can’t be outsourced.
When people ask what you do, what do you wish they understood about your work beyond “acupuncture” or “TCM practitioner”?
I wish people understood that acupuncture is only one small tool within a much larger Chinese medical system that’s been around for thousands of years. It includes nutrition therapy, herbal medicine, breathing and movement practices like qigong, and a deep understanding of how physiology, emotion, and energy interact over time. Acupuncture is powerful, but the real work happens at the intersection of the body, the nervous system, and how someone relates to themselves day to day.
I often describe Chinese medicine as a lens for understanding reality. And as my own healing progressed, my work expanded to include NLP, Mental Emotional Release®, Huna, and occasionally Human Design—not as separate modalities, but as ways integrate insight at the level of identity and behavior.
What people are really seeking isn’t a single treatment. They want sustainable change. And that comes from what happens in between sessions: how they talk to themselves, how they respond to stress, how they make decisions, and, ultimately, how safe they feel in their own body.
If someone could only adopt one TCM-inspired ritual each morning, what would you choose and why?
Get your sunlight, angels. I promise that Andrew Huberman was not the first person to promote watching the sunrise (lol). The Tao Tsan (Treasury of Tao), compiled over 2,000 years ago (!!!), references “administering sunbeams” to support brain health and vitality.
10-20 minutes of letting those beautiful sunrise beams talk to the little retina ganglion brain cells in our eyes every morning is one of the best things that you can do for your health and mental wellbeing— sleep qualitt will improve, sustained energy will increase, and mood will elevate.And if 10-20 minutes of sunrise or morning light isn’t accessible right now, there are some powerful LUX lamps or light glasses that you can use instead. I personally rely on my circadian-friendly desk light during winter morning when meetings start before sunrise.
It’s incredibly difficult to regulate anything else in the body—digestion, hormones, detoxification—without first supporting circadian rhythm. Light exposure is foundational. So whenever possible, let those morning sunbeams do the heavy lifting!
What burnout patterns do you see the most in high achievers?
Definitely poductivity being used as a form of nervous system regulation.
Many high-achievers feel safer when they’re working, producing, or problem-solving. Stillness, spaciousness, or having “nothing to do” can actually feel more dysregulating than a full schedule. So work becomes a coping mechanism and productivity feels grounding while rest feels unfamiliar or even threatening. Underneath that, there’s often an over-identification with being the helper, the guide, or the one who holds it all together. Responsibility becomes distorted into carrying everyone else’s outcomes. Slowing down can feel like failure, loss of relevance, or facing parts of oneself that busyness has helped avoid.
Over time, people optimize their work far more than their health, and the body pays the price. True sustainability requires a different kind of responsibility: feeling, listening, resting, and disentangling self-worth from output.
What’s a very human part of your routine that may surprise people?
Even with all the work I do around nervous system regulation, I don’t rely on willpower in my daily routine. I rely on structure.
If I leave things open-ended, I’ll default to productivity or constant input as a way to regulate. So I build in external support on purpose: alarms to leave the house, timers for tasks, and a nightly reminder that says “BRICK PHONE + WIND DOWN.” Using the Brick app and device has become a must—not just for social media, but also for keeping myself out of my multiple email inboxes. Otherwise, checking or responding can easily become another form of self-soothing.
What body signals hould people never ignore, even if they seem “normal”?
Brain fog is a big one. Difficulty with focus and memory is often dismissed as stress (or multitasking) but in Chinese Medicine it frequently reflects weakness in the Spleen system and the Yi (the aspect of the mind responsible for thinking, studying, and concentration). When we’re undernourished, overworked, or chronically worried, the body doesn’t have the resources to support clear mental function.
Another is feeling exhausted after meals. This pattern usually points back to impaired digestion and poor nutrient absorption, specifically the Spleen’s ability to transform food into usable energy. Over time, this perpetuates low energy, poor focus, and a reliance on stimulants (like a post-lunch coffee) instead of sustainable fuel.
Finally, feeling exhausted during the day, yet suddenly alert or restless at night is a major signal. And no, that sudden burst of “creative energy” at night isn’t always a divine download telling you to do another rebrand in your business (lol). This pattern interferes with Liver’s ability to anchor the mind at night, preventing deep, restorative sleep. When this becomes normal, the nervous system never fully recovers.
These signals aren’t inconveniences—they’re invitations to support digestion, nourishment, and nervous system health before deeper imbalance sets in.
What OO formula is resonating the most with you right now and why?
Perfectionist Drops—for very obvious reasons.
A calming nervine tincture designed for the high-achieving, overthinking, Type-A brain that holds it all together — until the tension hits your jaw, neck, and nervous system. STAR HERB: Blue Vervain 
Perfectionist Drops
Perfectionism isn’t just a thought pattern; it’s a nervous system and identity pattern that lives in the body. I share that not only from my clinical work, but from personal experience as well. It lives in the body as tension, urgency, and bracing. What I love about Perfectionist Drops is how they help soften that grip at a somatic level, making real change more accessible.
They pair so beautifully with acupuncture treatments and subconscious reprogramming work like NLP and Mental Emotional Release®. When the nervous system feels a little safer and less rigid, it becomes much easier to loosen outdated identities around over-performing and low self-worth. The work feels gentler—and it sticks.
Perfectionist Drops are a reminder that you don’t have to be perfect to be powerful and that, sometimes, loosening your grip is exactly what allows things to shift.
