In Chinese medicine stomach Qi is the function of postnatal energy. Stomach and spleen act like a couple. They are together to receive and digest the food and transfer the nutrition to every part of the body. Once we are born we depend on food to survive and the nutrition we receive from the food depends on the spleen and stomach energy together. Without the stomach spleen Qi, life would be very difficult or impossible.
A few years ago I treated a young lady as a patient. She had irritable bowel syndrome which always made her feel very bloated after eating. Some days she would have diarrhoea, some days she couldn’t go to the toilet at all. She always felt tired, couldn’t concentrate and on top of that she was also depressed. After a few acupuncture treatments to strengthen her stomach and spleen, the stomach got better very soon and she stopped feeling depressed.
I had a similar experience with a young man a little while ago who came in to see me for treatments. He told me he was very depressed, tired and didn’t have appetite but felt bloated. At that time it was very hot and humid outside. When checking the tongue and pulse I noticed there was a lot of dampness in his stomach. This problem is often caused by stomach and spleen Qi deficiency. The spleen energy is the energy moving the fluid in your body. Sometimes when it’s humid and you drink cold drinks or eat too much, your body will store dampness. This dampness can make you feel very tired and depressed. The acupuncture treatment helped him remove the dampness and he started feeling much better.
Stomach Qi goes down, and so should the food, making its way into the lower stomach and finally go out of the body as waste. Spleen energy does the opposite and goes up, brings the nutrition to every part of your body. When those functions don’t work, you are deficient or have too much dampness in your body, your body is off balance and you feel depressed and tired. Your body will either store too much dampness or won’t get enough nutrition. Strengthening the stomach spleen Qi will help you have a stronger stomach and will also ease or prevent Depression.
How to treat and prevent Depression
Make sure you eat regularly and healthily. Avoid eating late and big dinners. When you eat late, food stays in your stomach over night and you store a lot of dampness in your body and you will most likely feel very heavy in the morning. Overall this can also make you feel depressed.
When you are angry and stressed don’t eat too much. The stomach is very tight when stressed or angry, which means the stomach hasn’t got enough Qi to digest the food. So when eating a lot you damage the stomach Qi. Try eating little and light. What you should also avoid is cold icy drinks and food. This also damages the stomach Qi and has to make the body work harder having to warm up the food and then on top of it digest it.
Exercise is a great way of preventing and helping depression. It’s also a great way of getting rid of body fat, fluid and dampness, helping strengthen the stomach Qi.
Stomach problems should be treated as early as possible. We recommend Tai Chi, Qi Gong or other exercise. Chinese medicine has lots of ways of helping stomach problems
Prevention and wisdom are the two principles of Traditional Qi.
Written by Angela Zhu, Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner, Qi Gong & Tai Chi instructor.
© Copyright Angela Zhu 2010
That addrssees several of my concerns actually.