The effect that our emotions have on our organs has been known since the beginning of acupuncture, several thousand years ago.
Every organ has an specific emotion tied to it, and when that emotion is present, the organ and its function will be affected.
Sometimes we don’t feel stressed, but the organs don’t lie! Your symptoms paint a picture to what’s going on inside, whether you feel it or not.
Here are a few examples:
- Acne
When we feel angry or frustrated you can see from the diagram that it affects the Liver Qi. The Liver is what moves the Qi (or energy) freely throughout our body.
When we feel angry/irritated/frustrated about something the Liver Qi Stagnates and festers into a ball of hot energy. The Heat then needs a way to escape, so it will often rise up, as heat often does.
As the Heat rises it’ll disrupt the Heart on it’s way, causing symptoms like palpitations, chest pain, and/or chest tightness. As the Heat continues to rise it’ll find it’s escape at our head, often through the skin on our face as red and inflamed acne. Fun fact: our face is like a map, the location of the acne on our face tells us which organ has been affected!
2. Diarrhea/Constipation
Excessive worry and overthinking taxes the Spleen Qi. The word “Spleen” didn’t translate very well from Chinese medicine, and can simply be described as the digestive tract.
So if we overthink things in our lives, a deficiency is created in the digestive system. The digestion may not have enough strength to break down our foods so it eliminates too quickly in the form of diarrhea. Or, the digestion becomes weak and slow and causes constipation.
Other symptoms may include fatigue, gas/bloating, nausea, brain fog, and/or allergies.
Our diseases (or symptoms) are here to cure us. Diseases are the big red flag that show us we have an imbalance, and that we aren’t living our best life. It’s our job to recognize it and address it!
