Meet Jennifer Cariño

About Jennifer

With more than 24 years of experience, Jennifer blends gentle Japanese acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, and evidence-informed care to create treatments that are deeply personalized and remarkably gentle.

She specializes in gentle Japanese acupuncture, herbal medicine, cosmetic acupuncture, and body therapies to help people adapt, recover, and feel more like themselves again.

How it Began

Jennifer’s path into Chinese medicine began when her late husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

As his caregiver, she witnessed firsthand how acupuncture, herbal medicine, nutrition, and compassionate care could profoundly improve quality of life.

That experience inspired her career, but more importantly, it taught her that meaningful healing begins when people feel truly seen, heard, and supported.

Seeking to deepen that understanding, she later studied contemplative caregiving at the San Francisco Zen Center, where she developed the mindfulness, presence, and deep listening that continue to shape her work today.

The Cariño Method™

Every treatment begins by listening.

Rather than following a standard protocol, Jennifer uses gentle palpation, Hara diagnosis, pulse assessment, and your body’s real-time feedback to guide each treatment.

This allows care to change as your body changes—creating treatments that are gentle, precise, and uniquely tailored to you.

Experience

Jennifer has contributed to clinical research at Stanford University as part of an NIH-sponsored study exploring acupuncture for depression during pregnancy, reflecting her commitment to evidence-informed care.

She also volunteered at the Charlotte Maxwell Clinic in Oakland, providing acupuncture for low-income women living with cancer.

These experiences continue to shape her belief that excellent care combines clinical expertise with genuine compassion.

Why I Love This Work

Life is constantly changing.

Sometimes those changes are exciting. Sometimes they’re unexpected. Sometimes they’re overwhelming.

Helping people navigate those seasons—and seeing them leave feeling healthier, more balanced, and more like themselves again—is what continues to inspire my work every day.

My goal has never been to make healthcare more complicated. It’s to create a place where you can relax, be cared for, and leave feeling healthier, more balanced, and more like yourself again.

I like to say I was born into the medical field, but I had to find my own medicine.

My mom was a nurse and I grew up wandering around nursing homes until her shift ended. I spent time with the nurses, residents, the staff that provided activities, nutritional and pastoral care, as well as the maintenance team and administration. I felt right at home and saw firsthand how everyone played such an important part of providing care. I also understood somehow that none of these roles were quite for me.

I pursued my other passions of data and finance while continuing to volunteer in various medical settings. I was well into my corporate career when I tried acupuncture for the first time for my recurring migraines. I immediately fell in love with the medicine, realizing it was the role I had been searching for. I loved how the medicine addressed the whole person, how it sought to resolve the underlying root of a problem instead of just the complaint, how seemingly random symptoms were part of a pattern, how taking herbs and supplements and a nap in the acupuncturist’s office once a week helped me start to feel better, how reassuring it was to have someone that took the time to really be with me and listen. I had finally found the medicine that I wanted to practice.

Acupuncture has been my rock in every aspect of my life. My love for this medicine inspires me to continue to its study and use it to address my emotional health, to refine my own sense of well being, to relieve the occasional aches and pains, to put me to sleep at night, ease all matters related to women’s health, and even refine my aging face. I am incredibly grateful to be able to provide this to others.