Although stress seems to be just an accepted part of everyday living in our modern society, it certainly is nothing new. In fact, one of the oldest Chinese medical textbooks, written over 2,000 years ago, was advising people on how to lower their stress levels so that they could live healthier and better lives.
In Eastern medicine, stress can be roughly categorized into 2 types – physical and emotional – although there is quite a bit of overlap between them because Traditional Oriental Medicine views the body, mind, and spirit as being inter-related to each other.
Calories. Carbs. Fats.
Words quite familiar to most dieters. However, in Traditional Oriental Medicine, the approach to weight loss is quite different.
According to Eastern Medicine, the digestive system, referred to as the Spleen-Pancreas system, includes many other organs such as the stomach and intestines and has the 2 primary functions of “Transformation” and “Transportation“.
For those of us looking to make our health a higher priority in our lives, one of Traditional Chinese Medicine’s oldest books, compiled in approximately 200 B.C. and titled Huang Di Nei Jing (The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine), continues to provide us with a wealth of information for improving our health.
In a particular section of this acupuncture textbook, the Emperor was asking his court physician why people of their day weren’t living as long, compared to those of ancient China.