 I had a conversation with this person the other day that was very very frustrated that despite all the things she was doing for her health she was still having this insomnia and this kind of anxiety that she had for a long time. Now she said that she'd been seeing many different healthcare practitioners and one practitioner that she really liked and she really respected he said that you know you need to stop being in fight-or-flight so much and she said you know I've stopped being in fight-or-flight I'm relaxing I'm taking it easy but it's been several months and my insomnia is not fully going away. Now having lived through this scenario myself I want to share an analogy and or a metaphor that would have really helped me when I was a patient in that situation and I think can really help you today. Hey I'm Dr. Alex Hine Chinese Medicine Doctor author of the health book Master of the Day and licensed acupuncturist. Now I've included a free link down below this video which has four daily rituals that can add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. Also if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally or online via telemedicine if you sign up for the email is below that'll notify you of my clinic and how to find me and book an appointment as well so it's the first link in the description. Chronic symptoms are often like the sprained brain analogy. Now I heard this in an interview and I really really loved it. It's been helpful to describe this to my patients and for me to understand it. So this person was being interviewed on a talk show and he was saying how he was telling a story of developing pretty severe depression for the first time and he was describing what it felt like and how difficult it was to get on with his life and just exist daily. Now what he was saying was he was confused as to why it was still happening even though he was meditating and he was exercising and he was eating healthy while this stuff was still happening to him and his physician said something very wise that you could think of it almost like a sprained brain where the body like in a sprained wrist it takes time to heal and regenerate it's taken this hit and now it has to heal and it's a certain fixed time period you can adjust it a little bit but that time period is what it takes the body to regenerate and restore itself. So he then thought of his brain as depression he thought of it as his brain because that's what we're taught you know biometically but his brain had been sprained and it's going to take a certain time period to regenerate and to heal. Now I find this metaphor to be very very useful because sometimes you are doing everything right you are on the right path but your symptoms still are not going away and beyond it being frustrating and discouraging you can at its worst feel quite scary and hopeless because you feel like well am I going to feel like this forever and I don't know if I can live like this if it's going to be forever. So in Chinese medicine what's going on here one of the things that's very useful to think of it as is an organ imbalance in Chinese medicine. So in Chinese medicine for example a patient comes in and let's say they have insomnia or anxiety I find that these conditions are most often the largest chunk are successfully treated through the digestion so these patients frequently also have digestive problems but ironically you don't treat the depression or anxiety you treat it through the body and the most common pattern that I'm treating it through is through digestion. So if the person's doing all this work they're meditating they're eating right they're doing all this stuff why is it that months later they still have these symptoms and these symptoms have not fully gone away. In Chinese medicine we think about like organ deficiencies right like you say like spleen chi deficiency or kidney yin deficiency these kind of zong fu terms and I think it's helpful to think let's just say you experience a lot of bloating you never have any appetite you're thinner you're losing weight and that's part of your anxiety depression or insomnia picture. So your acupuncturist may say you have spleen chi deficiency and that your quote spleen it's probably spleen pancreas currently is in a state where it's not functioning properly and it's going to take a certain period of time for that deficiency let's just say it's been brought down in here for that deficiency to be brought up more towards a normal level now that just may be time it may be actively working on your diet and it may take a couple months it may be Chinese herbs it may be something else but it's helpful for me to think why is my patient still experiencing this why am I still feeling this this organ is in the process of healing itself again that's a Chinese medicine organ this organ is trying to reestablish homeostasis whether it's the kidney or it's the liver or the spleen or the stomach and as long as I plant the fertile seeds it'll get back to normal now another very useful analogy is that chronic symptoms are a flywheel gone out of motion gone just out of control so this is most applicable in illnesses of the nervous system so for example let's say you're an entrepreneur you're hustling you're running around you work long hours this is your baby you're going to make it happen you're working like crazy now you're good for a few years but then maybe after a year three or your four or your five you start to experience a little bit of sleep problems a little bit of acid reflux a little bit of anxiety never had those before so you slow it down a little bit slow it down a little bit but you're still working you're still making this happen you got this excitement there's stress there's all this stuff so eventually it gets a little bit worse a little bit worse a little bit worse until like you actually cannot sleep you have like debilitating anxiety or depression you cannot get out of bed but you've been exercising and meditating and doing all the right things and why is it still happening why is it even getting worse because that whole time as an entrepreneur you are pushing this wheel this flywheel this imagine this massive heavy wheel you're pushing it pushing it pushing it and after three years this physiological process has gained momentum and it's now it's this behemoth so heavy there's no human on earth that could stop it right away and it's just spinning and spinning and spinning and that's your nervous system and now you're having anxiety and you're having panic attacks and insomnia and no matter what you do you can't stop it at least not acutely right away and that flywheel has gotten out of control and it's going to take a certain period of time of you stopping and stopping everything as possible as much as possible before that flywheel will slow down before your nervous system can unwind before your digestion can balance itself the anxiety the panic attacks the depression the insomnia when the nervous system when that stops finally the nervous system is back in balance and those symptoms will begin to heal or go away but that momentum has already been attained through potentially years and so it can take a long time to slow it back down so if you're going through something like this that's scary and you feel like you're doing everything right you may be you just have to give it more time because you may be in a winter season of your life right now but you have to sow the seeds to make the fertile soil with these seeds so that when spring and summer comes and this is all this food and all this fruit is blooming and blossoming that's where you can harvest the rewards of which is really your healing but you may be in winter and there are a couple seasons before the peak of summer to get to where you can actually fully feel well again so don't lose faith remember these analogies because i hope they'll help you be patient and keep doing the right things to help you heal all right now again i've included a free link below this video it's a free download for daily rituals that can help you add years to your life with traditional chinese medicine there's also info if you sign up for email on how to become one of my patients locally or online via telemedicine all right before you go i have two related videos right here