The Seven Emotions

What are the seven emotions?
The five yin-organs of the human body produce five kinds of essential qi, which bring forth joy, anger, grief, worry, and fear.” TCM also believes that certain organs are related to emotional activities, i.e. the heart is related to joy, the liver to anger, the spleen to pensiveness, the lungs to anxiety and the kidneys to fear.

The seven emotions in TCM are:
Joy, Anger, Anxiety, Pensiveness, Grief, Fear, Fright

The emotions are considered the major internal causes of disease in TCM. Emotional activity is seen as a normal, internal, physiological response to stimuli from the external environment. Within normal limits, emotions cause no disease or weakness in the body. However, when emotions become so powerful that they become uncontrollable and overwhelm or possess a person, then they can cause serious injury to the internal organs and open the door to disease. It is not the intensity as much as the prolonged duration or an extreme emotion, which causes damage. While Western physicians tend to stress the psychological aspects of psychosomatic ailments, the pathological damage to the internal organs is very real indeed and is of primary concern of the TCM practitioner.

Excess emotional activity causes severe yin-yang energy imbalances, wild aberrations in the flow of blood, qi (vital energy) blockages in the meridians and impairment of vital organ functions. Once physical damage has begun, it is insufficient to eliminate the offending emotion to affect a cure; the prolonged emotional stress will require physical action as well. The emotions represent different human reactions to certain stimuli and do not cause disease under normal conditions.

The Pathogenic Features of the Seven Emotions:
Directly impairing organ qi (vital energy)

Affecting the functions of organ qi (vital energy)

Deteriorating effects of emotional instability

喜 Joy
In TCM joy refers to a state of agitation or overexcitement.
“When one is excessively joyful, the spirit scatters and can no longer be stored,” states the Lingshu (The Vital Axis). However, in TCM, joy refers to a states of agitation or overexcitement, rather than the more passive notion of deep contentment. The organ most affected is the heart. Over-stimulation can lead to problems of heart fire connected with such symptoms as feelings of agitation, insomnia and palpitations.

怒 Anger
Anger, as described by TCM, covers the full range of associated emotions including resentment, irritability, and frustration. An excess of rich blood makes one prone to anger. Anger will thus affect the liver, resulting in stagnation of liver qi (vital energy). This can lead to liver energy rising to the head, resulting in headaches, dizziness, and other symptoms. In the long run it can result in high blood pressure and can cause problems with the stomach and the spleen. It is commonly observed that ruddy, “full-blooded” people with flushed faces are more prone than others to sudden fits of rage at the slightest provocation.

憂 Anxiety
Anxiety can block the qi and manifest in rapid, shallow breathing.
“When one feels anxiety, the qi (vital energy) is blocked and does not move.” Anxiety injures the lungs, which control qi (vital energy) through breathing. Common symptoms of extreme anxiety are retention of breath, shallow, and irregular breathing. The shortage of breath experienced during periods of anxiety is common to everyone. Anxiety also injures the lungs’ coupled organ, the large intestine. For example, over-anxious people are prone to ulcerative colitis.

思 Pensiveness
In TCM, pensiveness or concentration is considered to be the result of thinking too much or excessive mental and intellectual stimulation. Any activity that involves a lot of mental effort will run the risk of causing disharmony. The organ most directly at risk is the spleen. This can lead to a deficiency of spleen qi (vital energy), in turn causing worry and resulting in fatigue, lethargy, and inability to concentrate.

悲 Grief
The lungs are more directly involved with this emotion. A normal and healthy expression of grief can be expressed as sobbing that originates in the depths of the lungs – deep breathes and the expulsion of air with the sob. However, grief that remains unresolved and becomes chronic can create disharmony in the lungs, weakening the lung qi (vital energy). This in turn can interfere with the lung’s function of circulating qi (vital energy) around the body.

恐 Fear
Fear that cannot be directly addressed is likely to lead to disharmony in the kidneys.
Fear is a normal and adaptive human emotion. But when it becomes chronic and when the perceived cause of the fear cannot be directly addressed, then this is likely to lead to disharmony. The organs most at risk are the kidneys. In cases of extreme fright, the kidney’s ability to hold qi (vital energy) may be impaired leading to involuntary urination. This can be a particular problem with children.

驚 Fright
Fright is another emotion not specifically related to only one organ. It is distinguished from fear by its sudden, unexpected nature. Fright primarily affects the heart, especially in the initial stages, but if it persists for some time, it becomes conscious fear and moves to the kidneys.

Tags: anger, anxiety, essential qi, fear, five yin-organs, fright, grief, joy, pensiveness, TCM, The seven emotions

The Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica Classic 神農本草經 (Shennong Bencao Jing)

The original Shennong herbal is long gone, but a version that was four chapters long (the first being general essays; the last three were sets of herb monographs) was used by Tao Hongjing (456-536 A.D.) to produce the Shennong Bencao Jing (published around 500 A.D.) that comes to us in copied form today. This text has twice as many herbs as the original, arranged by type of material (e.g  minerals, trees, herbs) and by categories of “upper, middle, and lower” grades.

Tags: Shennong Bencao Jing, The Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica Classic

The Six Evils Of TCM

What are the six evils?

The six climatic evils are:
Wind,  Cold,  Summer Heat, Dampness,  Dryness,  Fire

Evil assosociated with season changes:
Spring – Wind
Summer – Summer Heat
Late Summer – Dampness
Autumn – Dryness
Winter – Cold

The  six climatic evil enters the body and causes disease mostly through the spaces located between the skin and muscles, or the openings like nose and mouth. For thise reason, they are also termed “the six exogenous or outside evils.”

Evil enters through the openings of the body surface alone or together. A build up of evils inside the body can cause an increase in the internal heat or fire which can in turn cause organs to malfunction or diseases to occur.

The Six Evils Table

Related to the seasons or working environment.
Generally, there are wind diseases in spring, summer heat diseases in autumn and cold diseases in winter. In addition, peoplewho live for a long time in a damp environment tend to be easily attacked by the damp evil, and those who worked long in an environment of high temperature tend to be easily attacked by the dry heat evil or fire evil.

All evil can work alone or in combination of two more attacking the body.
Syndromes like the common cold of wind cold type, damp heat diarrhoea, and wind cold blockage are examples of medical problems caused by a combintaion of evils.

In the course of causing disease, any one of the six evils can influnce the others and can also transform into another kind of evil under certain conditions.
The cold evil that enters the body interior can be tranformed into heat evil, and the long persisting summer heat with dampness can be tranformed into dryness evil.

Special Conditions

The six evils do not affect every person in the same way. Exceptionally healthy persons are not adversely affected by any of them. An “evil excess” will attack the body only where it is weak and only when the protective qi is deficient somewhere along the surface of the body. Protectice qi is a kind of qi regulated by the lungs. It flows between the skin and the muscles in order to guard against invasion of exogenous evils. One of the purpose of preventive medicine is to keep the body resistent to such outside attacks.

Diseases of the six evils are most likely to occur under abnormal weather condition, when the body is prepared for dominant season and suddenly faces an opposite force. Sudden cold spells in mid-summer often causes epidemics of influneza. Similarly, people who travel or move from a cold place to a warm damp climate are more vulnearable to invasion by local meterological excesses than the natives of the region.

Tags: four seasons, health, qi, Six evils, TCM

TCM Remedy For Nourishing The Lungs

Ingredients

2 Fuji apples

100 grams dried lily bulb (Bai He)

10 grams honeysuckle (Jin Yin Hua)

3 blocks of rock sugar

3/4 litre of water

Preparation

Clean the apples, strain the dried lily bulb and honeysuckle free of dirt and soak in 3/4 litre of water. Bring the water to boil in a large pot together with the apples.

Simmer the brew in low fire till the apples turn soft and pulpy. Add the rock sugar to taste.

This preparation soothes and promotes well being of the lungs and liver. It is good to drink any time of the day.

Tags: apples, dried lily bulb, honeysuckle, TCM brew

The Five Elements

The five elements, also known as “Wuxing” represents the processes which are fundamental to the cycle of nature and therefore, correspond to the human body.

In relation with the five elements, the cycle of process can be represented as:

wood – liver

fire – heart

earth – spleen

metal – lungs

water  – kidney

Elements which compliment each other -
wood -> fire, fire -> earth, earth -> metal, metal -> water,
water -> wood

Elements which requires some handling or imbalances occur -
wood —> earth, earth —>water, water —> fire,
fire —> metal, metal —>wood

A balance of these five elements is necessary to ensure  all the organs are functioning in harmony and not overworked.

earth can also rep the human bones,
water – water/ blood counts
fire – body temperature
wind – oxygen/air

Tags: five transformation, The five elements, wuxing

Recipe for reducing cholestrol and body fats

Ingredients
Half a dozen of dried Shiitake mushrooms (Chinese Black mushrooms)
15g wolfberries
I large bowl of water
Clean the shiitake mushroom and wolfberries by running them under  tap water till the water is clear. Soak the ingredients in a large bowl of water overnight. Bring the preparation to boil the next morning.   Serve clear with no condiments.

Best drank in the morning before meals.

Tags: herbal soup, Natural remedies, TCM