 So I was reading this paper the other day and was very surprised to find that the father of psychosomatic medicine himself said that certain emotions affect certain organs when they're stressed. So excessive anger, excessive worry, excessive sadness affect certain organs in a predictable pattern. Now this blew my mind because this is very much what for thousands of years Chinese medicine has noticed and why emotional states were specifically allocated to specific organs and specific symptoms that could demonstrate when they were breaking down what organ was out of balance. Now in this video I want to share a very very interesting exercise that has helped me understand when stress is coming from, where it's coming from, and how I can fix it in order to help heal myself. Hey I'm Alex Hine, author of the book Master the Day. Now don't forget I've included the first link below as for a free PDF on 5 daily rituals that can possibly help you add 10 years to life with traditional Chinese medicine. Check it out right there, first link below. So this idea of emotions being associated with certain organs that they affect or they damage or even organs when they're pathologically affected or disease themselves can then produce those emotions is very very fascinating to me. You know a good example is anyone who's ever had a panic attack or anyone who's ever had a heart attack or anyone who's had pericarditis can share this experience of intense dread like one is feeling like one is dying. It's a very very common emotional state associated with pathological, structural heart illness. If you're having an MI, you're having a heart attack and you are dying it's interesting how consistent of a reported sensation people feel. The same is true of people who wake up in the middle of the night with panic attacks. This feeling of intense dread I think I'm dying this is it. And then finally pericarditis and other afflictions that affect the heart. Now I think this is really really interesting because in many different ways you can associate certain emotions to certain organs in Chinese medicine. You can say for example anxiety and worry is associated with the spleen pancreas primarily digestion but also anxiety and worry are also associated with the heart. You could even say because the emotion or the emotion of fear which is typically associated with the kidneys and we know that physiologically you could say the kidneys and the adrenal glands closely linked. So excessive fear puts one in fight or flight and affects HPA access. So it's really interesting to me to understand these patterns of stress hormones, emotions and the organs that are affected. But this is why it's very very interesting and important to me. The first thing is that you can learn how your body and your physiology breaks down uniquely under stress so that you can recognize when it is coming and when you're really setting yourself up for a doozy in terms of serious illness down the line. So for example people tend to break down in predictable ways. Let's say you're more of the anxious nervous type in Chinese medicine worry or pensiveness or overthinking is associated with the spleen pancreas. So you worry too much if you're excessively working while eating you're also affecting your digestion in that same way. If you're just in general a worrier then you're also affecting your digestion in that way. And we know even from studies that people who even listen to a radio while eating secrete less pancreatic enzymes less digestive enzymes. Pretty cool. Everyone knows the feeling though of being deeply emotional over something and having a knot in your stomach and not wanting to eat. So these kinds of correlations are often really easy to observe they're not like some great mystical mumbo jumbo they're usually very clinical. So let's go back to this spleen type again for example. This kind of person when they are excessively stressed may lose their appetite altogether may lose weight without trying may have problems with insomnia specifically sleep onset insomnia can take them hours to fall asleep. They may struggle with bloating lower no appetite constipation or loose stools. So this is a very predictable and extremely generalized kind of somatotype for lack of a better word and how this kind of person breaks down. Now another type may be something that we associate historically as like a livery type right. Someone prone to agitation under breakdown anger being short. Maybe if you're female maybe changes in menstruation. Maybe you're also waking up at 3am. These are very consistent liver patterns in a very TCM way to look at these patterns of breakdown. But this is another example of a consistent way some people break down when they're under stress they don't get sad they don't get worried they don't buckle down they get agitated which is different from other people when they're put under a lot of pressure or they're put under a lot of stress. Now why is this so useful it's useful because you can then begin to track how you respond to stress in a constitutional or unique way. You know for me when I respond to stress it's exceptionally rare for me to feel sad or cry it just doesn't really happen that much. But I very much get a lot of digestive problems and I get prone to agitation so when I start to experience a lot of overwhelm in my work life or overwhelm in my personal life what tends to happen I tend to lose appetite tend to not want to eat tend to get indigestion easily I tend to get constipated and I can get insomnia that pattern I mentioned previously and so I know now huh am I have I been having kind of a really low appetite this week I haven't noticed myself eating that many meals have I been missing days of bowel movements have I been feeling like I'm just not I'm getting this fragmented light sleep maybe it even feels like I'm not sleeping at all these are all my canaries in the coal mine so then I can know if these eight signs are my warning signs they're like my physiologies unique manifestation of depression or anxiety I know this is my scorecard I have to watch closely my sleep my digestion my bowel movements essentially and as long as those are okay I know that that the canary is not singing I know that everything's okay but that's what I watch out for for other people it may be completely different they may overeat and easily gain 20 pounds that almost never happens for me they may also experience intense sadness or feelings of depression that almost never happens to me so it's so valuable because you're coming up with a unique to you understanding of how stress affects your physiology and what specific organs are even affected so that again it's not just this generic feeling of stress not everyone has problems sleeping with the stress some sleep great sleep even longer when they're stressed so by understanding your unique constitutional type your unique breakdown you can then know that and then be prepared for it and then dial things back in your life so this idea that unique emotions and unique stressors affect a very specific organ system in most people in Chinese medicine when they're getting broken down and stressed and overworked and there's too much and they can't take it anymore that's very very useful to know so you can understand your symptoms where they're coming from and kind of find that path back to healing I hope that helps before you go again check out that link below which is for a free guide five daily rituals that can possibly help you add 10 years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine and then I have a video on this exact topic right over here