As mentioned before in the previous blog,  harmony of the emotions is essential for health in Chinese Medicine. The paired organ systems of the body correspond to the emotions of  anger/assertion, joy/excitement, contemplation/worry, esteem/grief, and determination/fear.

These are the paired viscera and bowels of the Liver/gallbladder, Heart/Small-Intestine, Spleen/Stomach, Lung/Large Intestine, and Kidney and Bladder. Each of these organ systems intertwine accordingly and balance each other. When one is active, it is yang, when the other is receiving it is yin. One has a tendency to be yang and another would have the tendency to be yin. Both have a mutual interplay that keeps them conjoined for further growth. When there is an excess or a deficiency in one or the other, the interplay between yin and yang either becomes obstructed or separated. This leads to ill-ease, stress, pain, lack of function, not just physically but emotionally. The mind/body continuity losses its strength, and the harmonious balance that was before slackens, then loosens, and may eventually get out of control.

This is where excesses and deficiencies come into play, one emotion is necessary for the other to begin or end, and continue. When one dominates the other in the body`there are counterbalances and countermovements. The fluidity of the body is curtailed or thrown off, and something must be done. This may lead the body to act out and react in ways it doesn’t normally act.

The extreme imbalances in a bi-polar disorder creates these mood swings from mania to depression, as one emotion feeds off the fumes of the excesses of the other. Anger surges in to brief moments of joy that are quickly grasped upon with little to no insight, worry, self-examination, fear or lack of respect.The craving for that release continues the cycle, until there is no drive to continue. The instinctual impulse of flight or fight, the fear and anger moving the cycle in one way or the other, is burnt out, and all that is left is the abject horror of playing dead to a reality that has passed by.

So one may ask how would acupuncture regulate one’s emotions? How would Chinese herbs help the body reconnect with the mind, so that the mutual interplay between yin and yang would not fall out of control?

Acupuncture helps to reconnect the body in ways that it has forgotten. It reminds the body that it was connected in this way before it was stressed out or forced into patterns that it must adjust to in life. The paired organ/vessels express themselves through the acupuncture channels in the body, that can be tapped into through touch, manipulation, or simply a thin filiform needle. Movement then can be regulated to help release areas that may be stuck or impaired.

Chinese herbs aid internally to help unblock the bowels and to aid with circulation. They aid through the use of taste to brighten the senses, lighten the mind, and ground the body.

Feel free to ask any questions or to schedule an appointment.

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