Avoiding Bodily Evils

Thousands of years ago, Chinese Medicine began with shamanistic roots where a man (or woman, rarely but sometimes) would dance in front of a fire with a spear to scare “evils” out of the body and thereby heal.  

Over millennia the evils were defined, the dance and spear became a precise method of pattern diagnosis with needle insertion, and Acupuncture as we know it today came to be.

What many people don’t know, is that illness is STILL defined in terms of “evils” in modern Chinese medicine today.  The evils we refer to are internal and external factors that can occur separately or together to create various patterns of illness.  They are:

• Wind
• Damp
• Cold
• Heat
• Dryness

They can occur at different energetic levels, in different organs, and in combination with different constitutional factors (Yin, Yang, Qi, Blood) to further complicate things.  Identifying evils - also called “Evil Pathogenic Invaders” or EPI’s for short - and constitutional factors allows Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine to get to the root of illness and create long term healing.

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Stress and Inflammation - Big Brother Evil

In Springtime, Wind is key because it is also knows as the “Big Brother Evil
 that can pick up and carry other evils into the body.  The Liver is also especially sensitive to wind externally, and can generate wind and heat internally when out of balance.  

Something else the Liver is sensitive to? STRESS, and stress - we know - contributes to inflammation in the body which can be defined as heat and can create internal wind when unchecked from an energetic perspective.

By this energetic mechanism, stress can cause all sorts of symptoms, such as 

• Headache
• Insomnia
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Loose Stool when Stressed or Nervous
• Gas, Bloating
• Anxiety
• Red Eyes
• Ringing Ears
• Heart Palpitations
• Dizziness or Vertigo
• Fatigue

to name a few.  Any of those things sound familiar? 

In this way, stress and inflammation are the root of many illnesses and keeping stress and inflammation managed and in check is a primary focus and concern in Acupuncture treatment, especially in Spring - the season of the Wood Element and the Liver specifically.

Finding Ways to Manage Stress

If you can only choose one health focused activity this Spring, I highly recommend you focus on stress management.  The sooner you learn to manage stress, the more of the bodily evils above you will avoid and the healthier you will be long term.  

Also realize that stress is something all of us encounter - we can’t avoid it, its part of human life.  The important things are to:

• learn how to minimize stress in your life as much as possible
• learn how to recover from stressful events and situations efficiently
• realize that the bodies’ stress response is natural and avoid being stressed about stress (seriously, the stressful event/situation is probably enough to deal with).  See an enlightening TED talk about that above or by clicking HERE. 

Tips for Stress Management

Everyone has to find their own combination of what works for them around managing stress to a degree, but I can share some tips from professional experience that are proven methods for success.  I encourage you to explore the options below and experiment with different combinations until you find the most potent stress and inflammation  managing recipe for you:

• Get Acupuncture - Research has proven that Acupuncture can decrease the fight or flight response.
• Meditate - even 5 minutes a day can completely change your landscape, though 10-15 or even 20 is ideal if you can learn the focus and find the time. For a simple meditation, try breathing deep into the belly while counting your breaths like a chant to help you focus.  
• Get Exercise - even 10 minutes of walking 3x/week can clear your head, improve your mood, increase Qi and Blood flow to improve immunity and help you sleep.  
• Increase B Vitamins - Stress is particularly hard on the nervous system which requires B vitamins to function properly.  A simple B complex or a B12 lozenge can help you be prepared for stress and recover faster.  Foods high in B vitamins? Asparagus, Brewers Yeast and Brown Rice!
• Hydrate, especially with Green Tea - Stress and inflammation happens, stress hormones will cascade through your body.  Staying well hydrated will help your body flush and recover from the cascade faster, and the antioxidants in green tea can protect your internal organs from some of the damage.
• Take good quality supplements - supplements are an amazing gift, but poor quality supplements (tablets especially) can contain unnamed fillers and tableting agents.  Better to spend your money a few high quality supplements from trusted brands (like a multi and fish oil) than take a bucket of stress-reducers and energy-enhancers that your body might not like or be able to absorb.