Where do emotions live? Traditional Western thought has informed us that emotions are concocted in the brain. However this can make them seem less real and more easily dismissed. Hence the phrase “it’s all in your head”.
I assert that different emotions inhabit different locations of the body and are of fundamental importance to your health. When emotions are extreme or prolonged, they create an imbalance, left to fester; negative emotions become the seed for chronic illness.
Let’s start with grief. In Chinese medicine it is said that sadness in an emotion of the Lung. When we are grieving we tend to adopt a slumped posture with neck jutted forward and shoulders raised and rolled forward. This posture compresses the lungs and makes it difficult to take deep breaths. Shallow breathing, using muscles like pectoralis minor to elevate the upper ribs is an inefficient way of getting air. Rapid, shallow breathing like this will actually make a person feel anxious and vulnerable. It is common to feel constriction of the throat when you are feeling sorrow, as the energy of the lung channel ascends to the throat.
If you are feeling sad, notice your posture. Tuck in your chin so that the cervical vertebrae (the bones of your neck) are straight and elongated. Roll your shoulders down and back and take three deep breaths, using your diaphragm. Imagine your breath descending into your belly. The improved posture and increased oxygen will benefit your body and mind and elevate your mood.
Next, let’s consider worry. You’ve heard the expression of having butterflies in the stomach. Chinese medicine considered worry to be the purview of the Spleen and Stomach, also known as the Middle Jiao, or the area of the abdomen above the belly button. Western mental health experts have noticed that long term worry and anxiety can turn to depression and that is exactly what can happen with a troubled Spleen. People who experience irritable bowel syndrome can attest to stress worsening their symptoms. Why is this? The majority of the body’s serotonin receptors are in the gut, or Middle Jiao.
As a Chinese medicine practitioner, when I see patients who are consumed by worry, I ask them to consider their diet. Reducing inflammatory agents such as sugar, processed foods and alcohol and increasing warm, nutritious, easy to digest foods such as soups can make a huge difference in a person’s mood and digestion.
If the worry is prolonged, depression can set in. The Spleen, which is normally busy transforming food into energy (Qi), and transporting it to the rest of the body, gets bogged down by dampness. A person feels the dampness as heaviness in their legs, general fatigue and a foggy mind.
At this point I would recommend the patient remove cold, damp foods like dairy from their diet and to receive weekly acupuncture treatments.
Finally I’d like to address anger. Anger has a bad reputation and so people tend to repress it. Repressed anger is trouble and hangs out in the Liver and is called Liver Qi stagnation.
Many people don’t know that issues related to repressed anger affect them. Patents with Liver Qi stagnation describe themselves as often feeling irritable and tend to sigh frequently. They tend to hold tension in their neck and shoulders and experience frequent headaches. They are plagued with muscular pain, and women with Liver Qi stagnation often have debilitating menstrual cramps.
What can be done to help with this situation? The first thing I recommend to patients is exercise. That Liver Qi is stuck and needs to move! Next I recommend Chinese herbal medicine. There are some great herbs like Chai Hu, radix bupluerum, that can free stuck Qi, relieve pain and irritability. I also like to remind people that the Liver is strong, like a mature fir tree. Its strength comes not only from being tall and wide, but also from being able to bend in a windstorm without breaking. The real strength is in flexibility.
Other organs are affected by different emotions. The Kidneys are affected by fear, and the Heart is affected by all emotions especially Joy, but even Joy can get ramped up too much and become mania.
In a healthy, full, life one experiences all emotions: anger, fear, worry, grief and joy. It is just when one emotion takes over that you loose balance and your health will falter. So consider your emotions, especially ones that seem too abundant. Next, observe your own posture, diet and exercise patterns, you may be able to make positive changes today, that could help you restore balance and enable you to live the life you were meant to live.
Katherine Annala LAc.
Annalaacupuncture.com