TCM Basics 101: Root for illnesses: Worry
Now lets go to the next emotional factor that can result in illnesses if imbalanced: worry.
When one is worried, definitely it is over a certain matter that is considered important to the person’s life and too much concern and attention is given to the matter.
As the saying goes, “a day of worry is more exhausting than a day of work.”
That is because worry saps the energy from the digestive system, also known as Spleen and Stomach in Traditional Chinese Medicine terms. Digestive system is also the gut system. Interestingly you will realise people who think and worry too much often lose their appetite as well. That is because the digestive system is being overutilized and the energy is channeled to worrying instead of digesting food.
Too much and too long a period of worry will hurt the digestive system ultimately. As a vicious cycle, when the digestive system is hurt, it will cause the person to be ungrounded and think and worry even more.
In scientific terms, the gut is the second nervous system in the body. It holds the enteric nervous system which is equipped with its own reflexes and senses. When people say “gut feeling”, that is exactly referring to this gut system. So when you worry too much or when this gut system is imbalanced, you lose your gut feeling, which means you lose your intuitive senses, the ability to feel and ‘just know’. When this happen, it is difficult for one to make the right judgement about things, people and matters. In fact, the worry that you are constantly feeling is just driving the delusion of a world crumbling around you.
How then to resolve this endless circle of worry and pull yourself out of the wreckages you have created for yourself?
The answer is to strengthen your gut. With herbs, with acupuncture treatments, with gut soothing food, with exercise, with logic, plus a pinch of drive to carry these solutions out.