How to regulate health through emotions in traditional Chinese medicine

The core logic of TCM emotional regulation and health care has never been to eliminate negative emotions, but to regulate the seven emotions, calm the mind, and make the emotional fluctuations conform to the rhythm of the internal organs, qi, and blood. By achieving "the beginning and the middle, the passage but not the retention", the body damage caused by emotional internal friction can be avoided to the greatest extent.

Not to mention the 52-year-old Aunt Zhang I met in the outpatient clinic a few years ago. She is the most typical example. At that time, she had just gone through menopause and was sulking. She was holding back her daughter-in-law's cooking and she didn't dare to complain about her son getting off work late. She finally had grade three breast nodules in both breasts and couldn't sleep all night. She took medicine for promoting blood circulation and dispersing stagnation for more than half a year, but the effect was average. Later, I didn't give her a prescription, so I told her not to swallow all her emotions, to express her thoughts gently and gently, and to go to the community park to dance in the square for half an hour when she was unhappy, and not to sit and ponder by herself. After persisting like this for more than three months, she came back for a follow-up examination and found that the nodules had shrunk by almost half and her sleep was mostly better. She said that the relationship at home was now more harmonious than before, and she felt comfortable without having to hold it in.

Nowadays, many people have disputes about emotional health. One group thinks that this is "persuading people to endure". Holding back all emotions without being able to express them will only create bigger problems.； The other group boasts that emotional adjustment is so magical, saying that all diseases can be cured by "thinking a little bit". In fact, both views go to extremes.

You think about it, joy, anger, worry, sadness and fear are all human emotions, just like wind and rain in spring, summer, autumn and winter. Expression of normal emotions will not harm the body at all. What really harms the body is "excessive": extreme joy can easily relax the heart, anger can easily damage the liver, overthinking can trap the temper, sadness for too long can consume lung energy, and excessive panic can damage the kidney.

You really don’t need to think too much about emotional regulation. You don’t need to meditate and cultivate your mind. You can do it in small daily scenes: you are criticized by your boss at work. Don’t sit at your workstation and think about "Is he targeting me?" Stand up to get a cup of hot water and stare at the tree hair outside the window for 30 seconds. Most of the congested air in your chest will be able to go away.； After a quarrel with your family, don’t just lie down and rumour over old debts. Get up, wash the dishes and mop the floor. With your hands busy, your mind will slowly become empty, and the anger will dissipate quickly. If you have suffered a great injustice, it is much healthier to find a place where no one is and cry for two minutes than to insist on being "generous".

Of course, we have to tell the truth. Emotional regulation is not a panacea. If there is a clear organic disease, you should take medicine and treatment. Emotional regulation only provides a good environment for the body to recover. If you really believe in the saying that "a good mood can cure all diseases", it will easily delay formal treatment, which is not worth the gain.