How your actions help your body
Did you know that many gestures that we do instinctively can really help alleviate stress?
Chinese Medicine explains the link between touching a part of our body and its effects. The energy flow through our meridians governs a particular type of emotion in our bodies and placing a hand, massaging or tapping certain points can help reduce those emotions considerably.
For example fear is associated with the kidney and bladder meridians, often associated with an urgency to pee when we are frightened.
Stress can affect our stomach meridian causing us to have butterflies or feel sick. It also affects our brain which reduces our capacity to think clearly.
Anxiety is associated to our meridian that governs our adrenal glands.
Our large intestine is related to the issue of control. When we overly try and control something or our emotions we can become constipated.
We often touch points on our body in a reaction to something upsetting but we have forgotten the significance of this, and the action is usually only brief. By understanding how these actions can help us we can use them better to help ourselves.
Laying a hand over your collarbones when you are shocked
Shock can affect the flow of energy in your meridians and can even throw them into reverse. Your kidney meridians end just under your collarbones and touching or tapping these points helps to rebalance your energy helping focus you and energise you. It can even help with dyslexia.
Pinching the bridge of your nose between the eyes when you are feeling anxious or fearful
The bladder meridian is a major regulator of all chi functions and begins at either side of the bridge of the nose. Holding these points balances this meridian. So when you pinch the bridge of your nose under stress, what you are really doing is stimulating your bladder meridian to help calm yourself.
Clenching your hand over your mouth when you are shocked or surprised
This helps link two of your major meridians, the "central vessel", (regulates yin energy) and the "governing vessel", (regulates yang energy). The former runs up the front of your body ending at your lower lip and the latter runs up the back of your body and over your head ending at your upper lip.
Clamping your hand over your mouth helps keep all the meridians connected and harmonises energy flow.
Placing your hand on your forehead when you are stressed or have forgotten something.
When you have an unpleasant situation to deal with, or you are shocked or distressed by an event, your body energies can become blocked or scrambled. The frontal lobes of your brain shut down more than the back.
Your forebrain is involved with forward thinking and new ideas. When you are frightened or upset you rely on your back brain, which is your reptilian brain that responds in an automatic way. This explains why people act in an uncharacteristic way when emotionally stressed.
By placing your hand on your forehead encourages blood flow to the front of your brain which helps give you better perception and reduces stress.
Smoothing our hands around the sides of our head above our ears when we are stressed
Your Triple Warmer Meridian governs your adrenal glands and initiates the fight or flight response. It is usually overactive when we are stressed or are ‘on the go’ all the time and often doesn’t come back to its normal balance easily at these times.
The Adrenal Soother runs from your ring finger, up your arm, around the back of your ear to your temple. Encouraging the energy in a reverse direction helps sedate your Triple Warmer Meridian making you feel calmer.
So the next time you find yourself performing any of these actions automatically, keep your hand where it is and observe how you feel. Your natural reactions are your body’s way of helping you but we have forgotten the benefits of these techniques throughout evolution. By learning to do them properly we can help ourselves immensely!
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