How to use the five elements to eliminate overwhelming stress
You may have noticed that I haven’t been producing much content these past few days. It haunts me, really, because my greatest hope is that this blog will develop into a great community for the exploration of Chinese medicine. It is a labor of love and I’ve worked hard and hope that everyone has enjoyed the results so far.
But there’s more to my life than blogging. Shocking, I know. During the summer, when the external demands on my time were small, it was very easy to produce lots of high quality content. I believe that this is still quite possible - despite the rather heavy load of work school and the resumption of my various non-academic school duties (student government, etc) bring me. So, what’s the hold up?
No matter how well prepared you are for a change, it inevitably shakes you. In this particular case, the intense workload has begun to produce a condition of overwhelm that has made me quite numb. I know I’m not the only one - my fellow classmates have experienced something similar. So, instead of freaking out I’ve decided to take charge of the situation and find a solution to this crippling sensation. Here’s five things - one for each of the elemental phases - I’m doing to rectify my balance.
1. Fire - Laugh and have fun with the people you love
Fire has a lot to do with our ability to experience joy and ease, as well as our connections with other human beings. In overwhelming situations, we often let all of this perish. When I’m stressed, I find myself frowning more, getting angry with those close to me and neglecting my need to just relax and have a good time. It’s vital for me to remember that while the work I’m doing is very important, it’s even more important that I stay balanced and connected to my friends and family.
To this end: take your significant other out on a surprise date, watch a comedy (like Kung Fu Hustle!), invite your friends over for a potluck meal, dance to your favorite song in the living room, take your dog on the longest walk ever, laugh every time a new piece of work rolls in, call your mom and tell her that you love her.
2. Earth - Nourish your body
Possibly the most important thing you can do in a period of increased stress is to take care of your physical body. Particularly when a lot of your work is mental, you can quickly burn away any resistance to disease you may have had along with disordering your emotional states. DO NOT NEGLECT REGULAR MEALS OF A NOURISHING NATURE. For me, this is the first thing to go. I eat on the run, I stop paying attention to what I eat, sometimes I simply forget to eat altogether. So bad.
To this end: sit down right now and plan out a whole week’s worth of meals then go buy the ingredients, if you have extra time cook a bunch of meals ahead of time and freeze them, make extra certain to eat your meals at regular times and sitting down, splurge a little and buy your favorite foods so you’ll be more inclined to enjoy eating. Also - drink a lot of Pu-Erh.
3. Metal - Cut out unnecessary activity and get organized
Metal is all about cutting things away, paring down, getting ready for the time of difficulty in the Winter. It’s so easy to add things to your plate most of the time, and so difficult to clear them. Use the easy availability of Metal energy here in the autumn to take a calculating look at your list of “to-do’s.” If you can delegate something to someone else, do it. If you can drop something, drop it. If you can delay something until a later time, do that. When you have the list of “have to’s” get them organized. When are your deadlines? When will you have time to work on it? Prioritize! There are of course a hundred ways to deal with these big issues - I use Getting Things Done
4. Water - Cultivate, cultivate, cultivate
Right behind eating well, the second thing to go when I get overwhelmed is my self-cultivation. I think it is utterly vital to force yourself to take care of your spiritual health in stressful situations. I would even suggest doing this if it means losing sleep. I know, crazy. Deepening into the water element will allow you access stores of energy and inspiration you didn’t know you had. It will also help replenish your depleted stores and help you to remember why you’re doing all this crazy stuff in the first place.
To this end, I: throw the Yijing daily, spend half an hour or so in the morning drinking tea outside and contemplating, step up my meditation practice, do a little QiGong every day and focus on the subtle things around me like the calls of birds and the rustle of leaves. Do whatever works for you, but for the love of God, do it. I promise you it will help.
5. Wood - Get out in nature
This doesn’t necessarily relate to the Wood elemental phase on a metaphorical level, but it does on a more basic level. Even though it’s autumn where I am, the evidence of Wood energy is everywhere. In Oregon, things never stop growing. Refreshing myself with the boundless energy of nature helps remind me that while I may feel pretty depleted, there’s a whole world out there just conspiring to fill me full of hope, purpose and drive.
To this end: go for a walk at twilight or dawn, go for a hike in your nearest natural area, hang out by the river, play frisbee in the park, lie on the ground with your bare feet contacting the Earth and just….
breathe.
Got it?
Eric
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Tags: Blogging, erics-habits, habits, Home remedies, lifestyle-counseling, nutrition, overwhelm, stress, studentsRelated posts
Living in harmony with the seasons: Introduction - Part I
This is the first part in a ten part series about living in harmony with the seasons. I do not have a solid timetable for the release of the other nine parts, only promising that the two parts on Fall/Autumn will be released shortly. I recognize that for some folks, the release of the Fall series will be out of step with their environmental reality (hello Australia!) and I apologize for that. Further, some of you may living in places where seasons are simply not the same as they are in China, where the Chinese theory of seasonal living was conceived. I am unclear as to what folks living in these areas should do - perhaps that is a discussion for another post.
From a Chinese medicine perspective, is essential that we learn to live in harmony with the seasons. There is, of course, no monolithic “Chinese medicine perspective” but regardless of your ideological preference, the reality of seasonal energy and the importance of flowing in step with it is practically irrefutable. There are many mentions of seasonal energy in the Neijing
The recent movement around local and seasonal foods is a nod to the importance of this timeless principle. People are recognizing that living in accordance with their immediate spatial and temporal environment is not just for hippies (although, for them too). Food tastes better, is more healthful, is less expensive and somehow just FEELS better when it is eaten at the right time for the place that one is in. The macrobiotic movement also took note of this and suggested that one eat food that is grown in one’s region.
But the Chinese philosophy on living in balance with seasonal energy goes farther than food choices. In fact, most of what I have found in Classical texts has nothing to do with food but instead focuses on various aspects of a person’s lifestyle. Read more
Tags: Classical Texts (general), dietary-therapy, fall, food, habits, lifestyle-counseling, nature, neijing, seasonal-living, Seasons, spring, summer, winterRelated posts
Book review: Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford
I’ve been hoping to do book reviews for a while, but the idea of delving into an entire new content type has been daunting. I’m going to do my best! I’ll be using elements of book reviews that I have found to be helpful and hopefully the result will be helpful. Please let me know if there is any information you found to be useless, or if there was something you would have liked to see included that isn’t here. Thanks!
We had this book assigned to us during our first year of Classical Chinese medicine training at NCNM. The first year of our program is designed to get you “thinking ancient Chinese” and can be a bit overwhelming for many of us. One thing I found myself yearning for, however, was solid information about the theory and practice of Chinese medicine! It sounds paradoxical, I know, but learning the nuts and bolts of the clinical medicine simply isn’t the aim of that first year. The saving grace during this time, for me, was Paul Pitchford’s Healing With Whole Foods
Chinese Medicine Theory in Healing With Whole Foods
The first part of the book is devoted to elaboration of the basic principles of Chinese medicine: Yin-Yang, Heat-Cold, Interior-Exterior, Excess-Deficiency, Qi and the Six Qi/Six Conformations. While I feel that Pitchford could have made more references to classical texts and sometimes oversimplifies certain concepts (ala TCM) the explanations are straight forward and useful to people new to this system of healing. Later in the book, he provides some excellent summaries of the five elements, relating each element to the flavors in specific foods. He also uses these five element sections to discuss specific health concerns - for example, discussing water fluoridation in the Water section. Near the end of the book he provides Chinese medicine explanations for some common Western diseases and provides specific dietary information for each of them.
This was one of the best parts of the book for me in my first year. It’s hard to find a simple, yet rich, explanation of the five elements or any of the other basic theoretical elements of Chinese medicine. While there are other books that attempt this, I think Pitchford does the best job in the least amount of space. This along with the other great benefits of the book make it one of the best values for basic information on the medicine available.
Western Nutritional Information, especially for vegans and vegetarians
As you read the book, you will find that Pitchford has a strong bias to vegetarian and vegan diets. Some people find this off-putting, but I don’t find that he is overly preachy in his endorsement of the lifestyle. He does recommend some animal products, discussing their relative benefits and drawbacks. This combined with the ample information on grains, vegetables and fruits that is helpful for everyone regardless of their animal product consumption status makes his dietary advice relevant to all people. That being said, Pitchford provides some excellent advice for vegans concerning protein and B-12 with ample references to reputable Western scientific sources. Read more
Tags: books, chinese-medicine, dietary-therapy, five phases, food, lifestyle-counseling, nutrition, seasonal-living, veganismRelated posts
6 Ways for Chinese medicine students and practitioners to learn lifestyle counseling
After yesterday’s introductory post about Chinese dietary therapy and lifestyle counseling as one of the profession’s available modalities, I got to thinking about the difficulty of lifestyle counseling. It is undoubtedly an important part of our medicine - it’s in the Classics! The Neijing began this proud tradition in Chinese medicine when discussing the way that a person should behave with regards to shifting seasonal energy. Here is an example from Maoshing Ni’s translation of the Neijing
“In the three months of summer … One may retire somewhat later … while still arising early. One should refrain from anger and stay physically active, to prevent the pores from closing and the qi from stagnating.”
Later, in the same chapter, “Emotionally, it is important to be happy and easygoing and not hold grudges, so that the energy can flow freely and communicate between the external and internal.”
So, while lifestyle counseling can be a very challenging part of any Chinese medicine doctor’s practice - we should all be motivated by the fact that it is a key to unlocking health as well as being something advocated from the very earliest times of our medical tradition. But how can we learn how to do this? I have some preliminary ideas.
1. Doctor heal thyself: Your best experimental laboratory for new techniques is yourself! I’ve got a long standing policy of not asking others to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. If you can’t demonstrate by your own life experience the importance, effectiveness and do-ability of what you are recommending - why are you recommending it? Now, it may be that some of you out there lead a perfectly healthy life - good for you. ;) For the rest of us, going through the experience of changing your own behaviors to benefit your health provides valuable information on the best strategies to do so. It also gives you anecdotal evidence to share with your patients, which can help them to trust you and to feel like they are not alone in their struggles. Of course, every person is different and what works for one person may not work for another - but working through your lifestyle troubles is a great starting point for research and development.
Tags: Learning, lifestyle-counseling, Personal Development, professional-development, seasonal-livingRelated posts
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