Chinese Medicine acknowledges multiple causes of imbalance and disease.  That being said, the category of causes seen as most significant is emotion.  Emotions (also referred to as "Internal Causes") are normal and healthy, but when they are negative in nature, and especially when they are intense or prolonged, they can have a major impact our health.

In addition to often being the underlying cause of our ill-health, CM also sees negative emotions as the EFFECT of other causes and imbalances. The common moodiness associated with PMS is a prime example. Thus, CM sees a reciprocal relationship between a physiological, functional imbalance and negative emotional states.

What's a person to do?  The phrase "free and easy wanderer" (or "relaxed wanderer") refers both to a classic herbal formula and to what should be happening with the Qi circulation in our bodies. It should be descriptive of our dispositions as well, if we wish for stress and negative emotions not to get the best of us.  But, when they do, CM is a wonderful tool to treat these imbalances and return one to a relaxed state.  Of course treatment cannot address the stress you are experiencing at home or work, but it can provide an effective technique for stress reduction, and identify and treat underlying functional imbalances that may be contributing to our emotional reactions.

It should seem obvious that emotions have everything to do with our health. In the history of Western thinking, however, the body and mind (and emotions and spirit) have often been seen as separate entities, one not impacting the other. With the work of Candace Pert PhD and others in the late 1980's, Western science caught up with the insights of ancient medicine through the discovery and investigation of "molecules of emotion," and was able to identify the physiological pathways through which stress and emotions impact our health.

The term stress is pretty vague and general and has come to mean many things. I see it as a blanket term for any excessive impact on our systems, whether it be emotional, psychological, or physical. And, stress can be good or bad, depending on how we react to it.  Sometimes it can make us more energized and productive, and other times it can send us in to a negative spiral. On the negative side, excessive emotions, lack of sleep, poor eating habits, bad body mechanics, overwork, addictions, in-laws, watching the news, being too hot or cold, that extra margarita, and many other possibilities can all take their toll. Regardless, stress has an impact, and we must be vigilant to control it as it can have a very real effect on our health and quality of life.  For those of you who want to know everything there is to know about stress but were afraid to ask, www.stress.org is the place to go!

And speaking of stress, what better way to reduce it than through the company and love of our favorite pets!  They can get sick and imbalanced too, though, and can also

be treated with CM.  There are a handful of vets in Austin I am familiar with who do acupuncture and even prescribe Chinese herbs.  Short of going to a vet with our pets (cats hate that) there is a book I highly recommend called Four Paws Five Directions, by Cheryl Schwartz, DVM. It is written for lay people and describes much Chinese Medical theory and practical detail on how to deal with our pets ourselves through acupressure, diet, and commonly available supplements and herbs. I give it five stars.  I also like  to recommend www.petsage.com as it is a great resource for  herbs, homeopathy, supplements, and other natural products for cats and dogs.

And, in case you were wondering, the very handsome photographic model for this section of commentary is my own stress reducer (and sometimes creator, I admit) Izzy Moose, who himself has been the recipient of a few well-placed needles on two or three occasions that were able to entirely alleviate symptoms of kitty bladder infection.