Herbal Stress Relief

Chinese herbal stress relief formulas mostly work on your liver. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), your liver is responsible for keeping you feeling easy-going and relaxed. When you feel stressed, aggravated, irritable or angry, it's your liver that is most affected.

Impaired liver function from emotional stress can also affect other organs, such as your heart, digestive organs and bowels. How does stress affect your overall health? The effects of stress on the body are many and varied. Physical signs of stress and emotional effects of stress on various organs and body areas are listed below.

Physical Signs of Stress and Organs Affected

• Palpitations, poor sleep (Heart)
• Poor appetite, abdominal bloating (Digestive organs)

• Constipation and/or diarrhea (Bowels)

• Headaches, migraines (Liver, Gallbladder)

• Stiff neck, shoulders and upper back (Liver, Gallbladder)

• Sore, red eyes (Liver)

• Swollen, tender breasts (Liver)

• Period pain (Liver)

• Chest pain or discomfort/fullness in chest (Heart/Liver)
• Upper abdominal pain, pain in sides of body (Liver)

• Irritability, frustration, anger (Liver)
• Mood swings (Liver)

• Depression (Liver)
• Anxiety (Heart)

• Muddled thinking (Heart)

• Fear (Kidneys)

In TCM each organ is actually an organ system with related body areas and emotions. If you excessively experience a particular emotion it can damage the related organ. The above list of emotional effects of stress shows links between organs and emotions. For example, people who are often angry or frustrated, their excessive anger over time damages their liver.

And vice-versa, a damaged or under-functioning liver, from such things as excessive alcohol consumption, consequently make you more susceptible to liver emotions, i.e. anger, frustration and irritability. It's a two-way path, and the same for all your other organs.

Proven Chinese Herbal Stress Relief Formulas

Fortunately, if you have stress in your life and you need help, Chinese herbal stress relief formulas have a proven track record of eliminating stress and related problems.

To find out which herbal formulas are best for you, you should consult a qualified Chinese herbal medicine practitioner who will also give you specific lifestyle and dietary advice.

A Western medicine (WM) diagnosis is NOT enough to prescribe (or buy over the counter or online) Chinese herbal formulas. WM and TCM are two completely different systems.

Other Ways to Stop Stress

TCM also offers other ways to eliminate stress. For instance, traditional Chinese exercise reduces stress very effectively. There are exercises to reduce the effects of stress on the body (stretching, loosening and self-massage exercises) as well as the mind (deep breathing exercises and acupressure). Chinese acupuncture is another well-known stress buster. My other site (Chinese-health-exercises.com) offers many simple, highly beneficial exercises and techniques for stopping and preventing stress. Two programs that may help you are the long life exercise program and the acupressure and breathing exercises program.

If you have questions or comments about herbal stress relief formulas or exercises for stress relief let me know.

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