 One of the interesting parts of Chinese medicine is that the organs are associated with certain emotions and I've covered pieces of this in some of my videos before, but I thought I would actually go through and share what emotions are associated with what organs and why that's that important clinically and for you to know. Hey guys, Dr. Alex Hine, author of the health book Master of the Day, Chinese Medicine Doctor. Now I've included two links right below this video. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally or online via telemedicine the first link below will have a link to my clinic somewhere and you can contact me and the second is for a free download which is four daily rituals that can help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine so those are both right down below. So an interesting aspect of the organ-emotion connection is that typically speaking in these ancient books they usually describe what emotions what pathological emotions affect those organs but the most interesting one to me is that emotion that damages the heart is considered excess joy. Now I think it's interesting because the other four emotions the other four solid organs as they're called are typically negative like we understand that anger usually has a negative side and fear has a negative side or negative connotation but joy excessive joy is linked to damaging of the heart in Chinese medicine. Now I think it's interesting regarding this idea that on some level when people talk about something being heartwarming or like someone sees a really cute puppy people often do this like they'll put their hand on their chest but at the same time when people go through severe heartbreak they will actually also like clasp their chest or they'll hold a child tight to their chest. There's this gesture that is very seems to be intuitive throughout cultures around the world so both this aspect of pathological joy like a kid that's like super amped up super excited and can't fall asleep that that affects the heart negatively but it's interesting to me that the flip side that humans have this instinctive excessive happiness and excessive sadness this kind of reservoir the good and the bad it's this flow that operates here for some reason I find that to be very interesting so the heart is viewed as the emperor in Chinese medicine meaning it's one of the most serious organs to be diseased and damaged for obvious reasons but that usually the other organs will be affected before the heart and that the heart is kind of like the last word so all the organs are there to protect the heart in some sense almost like you have to you know get on your knees and kowtow to the emperor type thing and it's also interesting to me that people can actually die or have serious illness from broken heart syndrome harvard actually has a page discussing broken heart syndrome on it so the emotion of the spleen the next organ is really anxiety worry or overthinking now an obvious clinical example of how this is related is that if you are worrying about something at work or you've just had a difficult conversation and then you eat a meal you can experience you know acute indigestion and that's a really clear linear link but I also find that people you know most of my patients with clinical anxiety even on antidepressants usually have a history of digestive problems that we would diagnose as spleen cheat efficiency the lung organ is associated with grief now this is pretty obvious because someone who's wailing because somebody just died or something just happened or they were just injured it's really clear to see the clinical link between the lung and this aspect of grief where like somebody's gasping and they're crying and they're wailing so the lung is a pretty linear link pretty easy to observe the kidney is associated with the pathological emotion of fear and the reason why that's so linked in chinese medicine is that usually the symptoms of adrenal exhaustion or hpa access to circulation or hormonal imbalances often or nervous exhaustion as it was called throughout the past which is usually anxiety depression these days we often treat it through the kidney so from the chinese medicine perspective the formulas used to treat the kidney are effective for anxiety and for depression both the kidney being diseased from a chinese medicine perspective reflects fear anxiety depression these pathologically affected states of fear and also the opposite so prolonged stressing and worrying and fear to a high level will damage the nervous system in that sense and manifest with what we consider kidney disease now the last organ that's a solid organ is at the pathological emotion of the liver is associated with anger and an example I often give is that one of the presentations of hypertension or high blood pressure is someone who has a lot of heat manifesting so there's someone who has often a red face they may feel hot and they may be more agitated or more rushed and they're more of like a pushy kind of cliche person so this is like the overweight sweaty red-faced businessman who's having these heavy greasy meals every day comes in and he's hypertensive that's not all of my hypertensive patients there are many different presentations but that's just one of them these are the five pathological emotions associated with five of what we call the zong or solid organs and they're important to know because clinically you know it's not always easy to know is it chicken or egg did this cause this or is this secondary to this but sometimes it helps in the unraveling of pathology now before you go you guys I have two important links don't forget below if you want to be a patient of mine there's a link to my clinic and my email info below whether it's in person or online via telemedicine and there's a free guide on daily rituals that can help you live longer with Chinese medicine and then before you go I have two related videos right here