Do Emotional Disorders Lead to Stress?
Our liver plays a very important role in
stress-related problems. In fact, liver fire is a
common problem when we are stressed; a good
diagnosis according to Chinese medicine would be
excess liver fire. You may be asking yourself
what the heck is liver fire, anyway? It's a common
diagnosis in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)
with symptoms like red face and eyes,
irritability, outbursts of anger, dizziness,
ringing in the ears, dry mouth, thirst, and bitter
taste in the mouth. There is muscle tightness in
the neck and shoulders, and one will get headache,
especially on the sides of the head. The person
always feels hot, has high blood pressure,
migraine, dark, scanty urine, insomnia, and
constipation. I hear these problems in the clinic
daily and it's no pleasure for the person
suffering from these symptoms.
Repressed anger is a common cause of liver fire.
When the anger is suppressed, it is explosive, and
the heat will attack and drain the kidneys. What
exactly does that mean? If you look at it from the
Five-Element concept, the Wood element is the
liver. Wood feeds fire, the heart, and the heart
fire dries up the water or the kidneys. There is
no water to balance the fire. Patients will
experience migraine headaches, itching, not being
able to sleep, and low back and knee pain.
I had someone come in this week, and she was
stressed to the max. She is only getting a few
hours of sleep at best, and she is exhausted and
depressed. She also has migraines a few times a
week for which she is taking a traditional
medicine that stops the pain for a few hours but
is drying her out, leaving too much heat in her
body. We all know that heat rises and, when that
happens, it disturbs the mind and dries things out
which can result in depression. Basically, she is
a wreck. She was almost crying as this has been
going on for weeks.
What can be done? It takes two to tango the
treatment and a change in the patient's lifestyle.
I'll start my treatment by calming out the
patient's liver channel and tonifying her kidneys.
But there is some homework for the patient. I
taught her the Yin Set
http://rechargingqigong.com/yin-set.html
to clear the liver and strengthen the kidneys. I also
suggested that she stops eating fried foods and
drinking coffee. I told her to include yin foods
in her diet like plums, pears, watermelons, and
sweet potatoes, and drink a lot more water. The
Yin Set http://rechargingqigong.com/yin-set.html
will calm the mind and help to put more moisture
into the body.
I wish you the best in your Health, Wealth, and
Happiness.
Dr. Wu Dhi
