This newspaper article is so interesting: here’s why from the perspective of Chinese medicine. I regularly see patients who tell me all their ills but don’t mention how extremely tired they are until I take their pulses and look at their tongues and, consequently, ask, “Hold on, just how tired are you?” Why do I ask this? Because the pulses and/or the tongue display to me that, according to the diagnostic patterns of Chinese medicine these people are exhausted. When I do this the answer is invariably, “I’m always tired,” or “More tired than I’d like to be.” Frequently these exhausted patients are women, sometimes with young children, sometimes not. But this happens with male patients, too. Initially they won’t have consulted me about tiredness because in our society many people accept that they spend their time exhausted. Yep, apparently ‘Knackered is the norm’. This is a very sorry state of affairs. From the perspective of TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) we diagnose each person individually. However, frequently these exhausted individual have something in common: they’re deficient in Qi and Blood. I’ve capitalised these words because I’m using them in the Chinese medical sense, where Qi stands for energy (a bit like the electrics of a person) and Blood means the bodily substance (including the nutrients in the blood). When I talk to someone about ‘Blood deficiency’ I explain that I don’t mean anaemia, though that is a POSSIBILITY as well. I literally mean that their body isn’t taking nutrients into the cells efficiently enough. For some people this means we have to talk about whether their diet is providing the level of nutrition they need. However, FREQUENTLY I find that the person is eating a nutritionally good or very good diet. Then we have to look at why the body isn’t metabolising that good food efficiently. This is where Chinese medicine’s treatment to benefit the Blood (remember, ‘Chinese’ Blood!) comes in. With the use of certain acupuncture points the practitioner works to help the patient’s level of absorption of nutrients. When I talk with patients about Qi deficiency I ask how much sleep they’re getting. Sometimes sleep deprivation is a major cause. However, FREQUENTLY the person has already ‘got’ that they need more sleep. Consequently, it’s often true that they’re getting more sleep than other members of the household and still not managing to shake off their exhaustion. This is where acupuncture kicks in with points that Chinese medical practitioners over the centuries have identified as helping to boost the invisible (you could say ‘electrical’) level of energy. We TCM practitioners are super-concerned about the level of exhaustion people carry; because, though most of us can pick up again after a period of hard work or sleep deprivation, to carry on with this pattern long-term is a major contributor to chronic ill-health. As I said, despite the generalisations in this article about Qi and Blood deficiency leading to chronic tiredness, acupuncturists diagnose everyone individually. So WHY a person is depleted in Qi or Blood is always a question to be answered when the practitioner makes decisions about the treatment plan for that person. I think it would be fair to say that acupuncturists are on a crusade to support Qi and Blood in individuals and so help to wipe out exhaustion and aid the progress of positive health. © Cornelia Davies 2013 acupuncturekingsbridge.co.uk/
Posted on: Tue, 01 Oct 2013 19:15:47 +0000
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