Balance Your Emotions, Heal Your Body: TCM’s Guide to Organ Health

How Emotions Affect Major 5 Organs

In TCM, the major 5 organs form a close system that stores and produces energy and ‘qi’. Extreme emotions can negatively impact these organs.

Emotion: Elation
Corresponding organ: Heart

Extreme elation can cause exhaustion of ‘qi’, which can result in reduction of attention, dizziness, palpitations, and difficulty in falling into deep sleep.

Emotion: Anger
Corresponding organ: Liver

Extreme anger can cause the reduction in liver blood and affects the well-being of liver and other supporting organs. The reverse in liver ‘qi’ causes erratic flow of blood, affects the digestive system and often results in bloating and diarrhea.

Emotion: Worry
Corresponding organ: Lung

Constant and extreme worry emotion affects the respiratory system, causing the ‘qi’ in lung to be congested. The person may feel discomfort at chest area and short of breath.

Emotion: Thinking too much
Corresponding organ: Spleen

This refers to person who spends a lot of time in elevated attention state. For prolonged period, both ‘qi’ and blood are blocked and unable to flow around the body, which leads to sickness. When the spleen is not functioning properly, digestive system goes disarray. This result in reduction in appetite, feeling bloated after meals, indigestion, constipation or diarrhea.

Emotion: Fear
Corresponding organ: Kidney

Not only does extreme fear affects the heart, it also directly impacts the kidney causing imbalance in blood and ‘qi’. The person may feel tired and sleepy. This may also result in chaotic immune system and palpitations.


Author: P. Sze

P. Sze P. Sze is the founder of TCM Tips and Dragon Acupuncture®. She graduated from the National University of Singapore with a first-class honor in Civil Engineering. S he also holds a master’s degree in Engineering and is the brain behind the innovative TCM products of Dragon Acupuncture®. She is the author of The Beginner's Guide to Auricular Therapy: Application of Ear Seeds (ISBN 978-1520451398) and Facial Gua Sha - Fight the Signs of Aging Naturally and Inexpensively (ISBN 978-1980678922). She has dedicated her life to ensuring that the complex theories behind oriental medicine and the seemingly dangerous techniques that involve needles and fire do not scare you from trying oriental medicine. This is why she writes endlessly about acupressure and its countless health and wellness benefits.

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