Pin Cushion: A yin-yang tune-up in progress at Pacific College.   (Photo: Kenneth Chen)

If your winter feel-better routine has run out of juice, let a needle-wielding grad student at the Pacific College Acupuncture Center recharge your Chi, or natural energy, by giving it a little poke. Supervisors at the center charge $60 a treatment, but graduate interns (with at least two years’ experience) cost just $30. First, they’ll dig into your medical history before sizing up the shape and color of your tongue for clues to your natural balance of cold and heat, or yin and yang. Then they reset that balance with a “heart organ” treatment, in which you inhale a lungful of air infused with medicinal herbs cooking in the on-site pharmacy. Finally, close your eyes and exhale as surprisingly steady hands tap and twist wispy needles into heart-stimulating spots from earlobe to ankle. The tingle? That’s your Chi, taking a victory lap around your body—for half the regular rate. (915 Broadway, near 21st Street; 212-982-4600.)

Related:

• Archive: “Sales & Bargains - Deal of the Week”
• Table of Contents: March 8, 2004 issue of New York | Subscribe!