The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.
—Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha)
CHAPTER 9
Don’t Worry, Be Happy
What? Me worry? Never.
Worry and overthinking are the two main emotions that affect the Earth element. And who hasn’t spent a sleepless night because you haven’t been able to turn off your brain? What needs to get done tomorrow? What should have gotten done today? My boss is such a jerk. The kids are making me crazy. The proliferation of smartphones and computers has made things even worse by keeping our minds turned on 24-7. There’s almost no chance to escape it and tune out for a while. I’m guilty of it myself, and I know the consequences.
Every time you overthink, or spend too much time studying like I did when reviewing for my licensing exam, your spleen and stomach are weakened. Buddhists call it Monkey Mind. It means the mind is fluctuating, inconstant, or vacillating. The same thoughts keep going around and around in your mind, and you feel like it can’t or won’t stop. If you get upset that the wheels keep turning, it just makes it worse. Sound familiar? Even if you have a pretty easy life, quieting the mind can seem almost impossible.
Meditation and acupuncture are great tools for shutting down your Monkey Mind. Acupuncture is such a powerful tool that it can be used instead of anesthesia for surgery. It has been used during open-heart surgery in China for over forty years. That’s how strong TCM is for calming the mind.
Your Earth element may also be compromised if you did not feel loved or nourished as a child, which was an issue for Terri, one of the case studies later in this chapter. This doesn’t have to mean that what most of us would call actual abuse happened in childhood, just that you didn’t feel loved or supported by your family, especially your parents. Maybe the parents worked a lot and weren’t around, or just didn’t say “I love you” very often (or at all). This type of upbringing can lead to the constant search for love and affection, which sometimes coexists with the attitude that one is undeserving of anyone’s love and kindness.
The opposite situation—spoiling a child—can also have negative consequences, both emotionally and physically. The somatic ramifications are the same as not feeling loved, but the child’s development can be stunted mentally in a very different way. Being overly mothered in childhood can manifest as a manipulative personality who whines to gain attention, complains constantly, has the feeling that no one really “gets” them, or distrusts people in general.
The Earth element is late summer, the color yellow, a sweet taste, dampness, transformation, and the organs are the stomach (yang) and spleen (yin). It’s connected to blood vessels, patience, stability, and is a time to manifest and acknowledge the fruits of our labor (harvesting in late summer). Since it is at the center of the five elements, Earth is the most balanced between yin and yang. This element makes us capable of nurturing ourselves and those around us.
Worrying and overthinking are just two emotions that impact the spleen and stomach or manifest when they are weakened. There are actually several moods connected to them: obsessive thoughts, using your brain too much for work (like writing a book) or studying for school, the Monkey Mind, and being stuck in detrimental patterns, whether it be diet, relationships, work, or how you process your thoughts and feelings.
Being a yin organ, the spleen has a lot of responsibilities, both in Western and TCM terms. It’s located below the stomach along the digestive tract and further aids in metabolism.
In the chart that follows, I’ve used a few strange terms when listing the spleen’s Chinese functions. What do I mean by “keeps blood in vessels”? The spleen helps prevent bruising and varicose veins. Do you have bruises yet no clue where they came from? Does the discoloration last longer than it should? You may be prone to bruising or varicose or spider veins if you have a weak spleen.
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Functions of the Spleen |
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Western Medicine |
TCM |
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Purifies the blood |
Transforming food into nutrients |
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Stores and makes red blood cells |
Moves qi throughout the body |
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Aids in healing injuries |
Dries damp; lifts, pushes out stool |
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Supplies blood in heavy bleeding emergencies |
Makes qi and blood, supports brain function, and keeps blood in vessels |
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Stimulates small intestine function |
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What do I mean by “lifts”? Any kind of sagging or prolapse (drop of an organ), such as a hernia, prolapsed uterus, or premature sagging of skin, can be due to a weakened spleen. Sagging skin does come with age, of course, but some people’s faces start drooping as early as in their twenties. Lifting can also be more figurative in meaning—such as lifting your spirits and energy levels. If you can’t seem to get motivated or are always low energy, it can be the result of a fragile spleen. An example is Evan, who had sagging everything. He was forty when he first came in for treatment, but he looked fifty-five because of his sagging skin. He had two hernias and hemorrhoids that never seemed to go away. Evan’s job as an engineer used a lot of brainpower, and he was also a worrywart. Even when things were going great for him, he thought about the worst possible outcome or wondered when the good would stop. He was never able to completely trust anyone or the potential for good things to come to fruition. He was also always bloated and gassy and had food sensitivities to about twenty foods, including dairy, gluten, pineapple, and shellfish. He also started having spider veins in his early twenties, which is considered quite young, especially for a man. Almost all his health issues were related to the spleen.
What do I mean by “dries damp”? The most obvious symptom is reducing water retention or edema. Dampness in TCM can also manifest as eczema, acne, foggy head or lack of concentration, excess weight, phlegm, forgetting dreams, mixing up words, cysts, fibroids, tumors, mucus, yeast infections, Candida, bladder infections, diarrhea, and an enlarged prostate. A healthy spleen would help dry the excess “damp” to reduce or clear these conditions.
One symptom to spotlight here is Candida. You may think that yeast is only a problem “down there,” but it can affect the intestines and digestive tract as well. Candida can be hard to diagnose, because it shares symptoms with other health issues, such as irritable bowel syndrome and gluten intolerance. You might find yourself bouncing between doctors in an effort to find the true culprit of symptoms such as bloating, diarrhea, constipation, sinusitis, or headaches. If you answer “yes” to many of the questions below, you probably have Candida.
- • Have you ever taken repeated or prolonged courses of antibiotics?
- • Do you eat nonorganic animal products, which contain antibiotics and steroids?
- • Have you taken a prolonged course of steroids or birth control pills?
- • Have you been bothered by recurrent vaginal, prostate, or urinary tract infections?
- • Are you bothered by hormone-related issues, including PMS, infertility, menstrual irregularities, or sexual dysfunction?
- • Are you overly sensitive to certain odors?
- • Do you have memory or concentration problems?
- • Do you suffer from digestive issues?
- • Does your skin itch, burn, or rash easily?
- • Do some foods worsen your symptoms?
What next? Eliminate yeast-promoting foods. For a minimum of six weeks, eliminate foods that feed yeast and encourage its growth: sugar, dairy, yeast, fruit, grains, and fermented foods. Eat no more than 40 to 60 grams of carbohydrates a day. Focus on eating vegetables, nuts, seeds, and unprocessed oils, and drink plenty of water. The good news is that Candida is treatable with simple dietary changes and the right supplements. It can take a few months to really eliminate the yeast, so don’t give up if your symptoms don’t go away immediately. As the yeast starts to die off, you might feel sick. This is a really good sign, even though you don’t feel well for a while. Die-off symptoms include nausea, acne, bloating, gas, yeast infections, headaches, muscle and joint soreness, change in bowel movements, fever or chills, abnormal sweating, sinus infections, fatigue, and dizziness. These manifestations will soon disappear. How you feel once the yeast is gone makes it totally worth it.
The spleen can affect several aspects of your health. Even though we can actually live without the spleen, being in charge of digestion and making qi means it’s a pretty important organ.
Other symptoms of spleen deficiencies include irregular bowel movements—in most cases loose stools, but sometimes constipation (due to not having enough strength to push stool out)—fatigue after eating, gas, stomach pain, loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting, and food allergies and sensitivities. A spleen deficiency may also manifest with pain or temperature change along its channel, hemorrhoids, and varicose and spider veins, sugar cravings, pale and/or dry lips, anemia, fatigue, yellow complexion, and puffy eyes (especially under the eyes).
Craving sugar is probably the most common symptom I see in my clinic related to spleen deficiencies. It really does become a vicious cycle of eating it, feeling low, and wanting more. A majority of my patients are addicted to the white stuff. I have to highlight craving sugar again because so many people are hooked on it, sometimes without even realizing it. You don’t have to drink two liters of soda a day or eat a batch of cookies in one sitting to be dependent on your daily dose(s) of the highly addictive white stuff. As you learned in chapter 7, sugar is hidden in a lot of foods. Make sure to read labels and look for these ingredients: barley malt, beet sugar, brown sugar, buttered syrup, cane juice crystals, cane sugar, caramel, carob syrup, caster sugar, confectioners’ sugar, corn syrup, corn syrup solids, date sugar, demerara sugar, dextran, dextrose, diatase, diastatic malt, ethyl maltol, fructose, fruit juice, fruit juice concentrate, galactose, glucose, glucose solids, golden sugar, golden syrup, grape sugar, high fructose corn syrup, honey, icing sugar, invert sugar, lactose, malt syrup, maltodextrin, maltose, mannitol, maple syrup, molasses, muscovado sugar, panocha, raw sugar, refiner’s syrup, rice syrup, sorbitol, sorghum syrup, sucrose, treacle, turbinado sugar, and yellow sugar. That’s fifty names for sugar. Fifty. Only a culture obsessed with sweets would have so many options. Are you ready to just say “No!” to sugar? Remember, whatever you call it, it’s still sugar.
Other spleen problems include excessive bleeding during menses, pale menstrual blood, and bleeding between periods; frontal/forehead headaches (usually with a dull ache); clouded thinking or mixing up words; slow metabolism or thyroid dysfunction; and weight gain, mainly in the belly.
As you can see, the health of your spleen is crucial to your general health. Without healthy digestion, nutrients can’t be absorbed and used for energy, organ function, and immunity.
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Functions of the Stomach |
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Western Medicine |
TCM |
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Stores food, aids digestion |
Makes qi and fluids |
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Metabolizes nutrients and breaks down food into liquid |
Metabolizes food and transports nutrients |
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Empties into small intestine |
Regulates appetite |
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Controls dissension of qi to small intestine |
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The stomach basically does what you would expect. Its functions are all related to digestion, but you may be unfamiliar with one phrase used in the chart above: “Controls dissension of qi to the small intestine.” Basically, this means the stomach helps you poop. The stomach pushes digested food into the small intestine. If the health of the stomach is at all compromised, you may experience constipation.
The stomach is the organ most of us equate to digestion, and we would be correct. After the mouth and esophagus, our food goes into the stomach. We need a happy tummy to metabolize and absorb all those nutrient-rich foods. Like all yang organs, there are just a few symptoms related to an imbalanced stomach. A depleted stomach often shows up as nausea, vomiting, acid regurgitation, hunger without the desire to eat (nothing sounds good), excessive appetite, pain and temperature change along the channel, bloating, thirst, and hiccuping.
Overconsumption of food and drink has become all too common, leading to both stomach problems and weak spleens. If you tend to overeat, reducing your intake, even if it’s vegetables, is the first step to a stronger spleen and digestion in general. Adding mood-boosting foods for the spleen and stomach will help even more.
Case Studies
Terri
Let’s go back to Terri, aged thirty-nine, who was diagnosed with hypothyroidism just before our first visit. She definitely did not feel warmth and support as a child, but it took several weeks before she opened up about it. I think a part of why she didn’t want to talk about her parents and upbringing was because she felt wimpy for thinking her early years were at all challenging. She was never hit, always had a belly full of food, clean clothes, friends, and a roof over her head. Life wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. Terri’s dad was a workaholic. He wasn’t mean to her, he just wasn’t around. He missed holidays, some birthdays, and recitals at school. Terri felt like her dad didn’t care about her. She doesn’t remember him ever hugging her and showing any affection. Terri’s mom, a housewife, was home much of the time, but she was usually busy with friends or organizing the next fund-raiser for church. Terri’s mom loved her sugar and would bake every day. Terri thought the sweet treats were her mom’s way of showing love. It’s no wonder that Terri developed an Earth imbalance at a young age and was addicted to sugar.
Terri did not want to go on the thyroid medication prescribed by her general practitioner due to her concerns about potential side effects. She also felt that drugs wouldn’t permanently fix her thyroid, making her dependent on them the rest of her life. Her hypothyroid symptoms were a forty-pound weight gain in the last sixteen months, thinning hair, low energy (especially in the afternoon), feeling cold all the time, irregular menstrual cycle, and cracked skin on her heels.
Terri was also concerned about overeating, eczema, and pain along her inner calves and the spleen channel. Her skin condition made her very insecure, and she covered up with clothes as much as possible. She had been overweight as long as she could remember and had stayed about the same weight for almost eight years. But the forty-pound gain in just over a year was significant.
Her job as a computer analyst required constant brainpower. Terri was worried all the time. Although not diagnosed with OCD, her actions and mind-set were borderline obsessive. She was stuck in a pattern of constantly thinking about her problems but doing nothing to make changes in her life. She stayed in damaging romantic relationships out of insecurity, feeling unlovable, and thinking there was no way out. Her inability to be proactive was incredibly frustrating to her, a frustration that made her feel even more stuck.
Although she tended to overeat, Terri actually ate a pretty healthy diet, very California-style with lots of fresh organic produce. She ate a salad every day. She didn’t eat any fast food or drink soda. But she was addicted to refined sugar and would eat large quantities of candy, chocolate, and cakes daily. Her need for sweets got to the point where she’d eat an entire cake in one sitting. Terri tried to give up her sweet treats, but couldn’t. She eventually gave up even trying.
I focused on Terri’s thyroid dysfunction, mental health, and sugar addiction. She came in for weekly treatments the first three months. She felt so great after that she was able to come in for monthly “tune-ups.” I gave Terri very simple dietary suggestions and herbs to support her thyroid and spleen. She was tired of feeling tired and was willing to make lifestyle changes.
My suggestions for Terri included increasing her water intake, taking a multivitamin and an iodine supplement, and cutting out all refined sugar. Why more water? I actually have to encourage 95 percent of my patients to drink more water. (If you’ve forgotten why, take another look at chapter 7.) I also advised her to make sure all animal products she consumed were organic.
Here’s a sample of her meal plan.
Breakfast: oatmeal or hot quinoa cereal with berries.
Lunch: brown rice with black bean chili and pumpkin.
Snacks: juice with cabbage, carrots, pears, kale, ginger.
Dinner: quinoa topped with any steamed veggies, including bell pepper, cauliflower, and squash, a little tofu, ginger miso dressing, hemp seeds, sprouts, and nutritional yeast.
Terri was amazed by her improvements, and so was her endocrinologist. She lost fifteen pounds over three months. Her energy levels increased immediately, and her hair started to thicken within a month. Terri’s eczema was also gone in just over a month—this made her just as happy as the weight loss—and she definitely worried less. Giving up sugar took a bit longer, but Terri was ready to say goodbye to oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies after about eight months of coming in to see me. She transitioned into a more carefree person and was able to start making decisions that benefited her and to be proactive in making positive changes. Her family and friends all commented on how much happier and laid-back she was. Terri still comes in for nutritional guidance, herbs, and treatment. She knows it helps her to keep stress levels to a minimum and stay on track with her eating habits.
Recap of Terri’s Earth symptoms: obsessive worry, sugar cravings, hypothyroidism, weight gain, eczema, pain along spleen channel, fatigue.
Kristen
Now imagine a Type A personality with a weak spleen, an ambitious and high-strung overachiever and workaholic, always wanting to improve. All these traits compromise the Earth element. This was Kristen to a T.
Kristen was a fifty-five-year-old married mother of two who worked seventy hours a week in a very high-pressure job in a large multinational corporation. I see this trend of overworking more and more with my patients. Overwork and excessive stress from work is the norm, at least with the people I treat. They’re so busy that oftentimes they don’t even have an hour per month for a treatment.
Kristen’s chief complaint was edema, or water retention, which she thought had been going on for eight months. She had it all over her body, including around her heart, which sometimes was very painful. Occasionally her feet and ankles swelled up, or her belly would look like she was five months pregnant. She started to have chest pain a few weeks before I first saw her. A stress test, a Holter monitor, and an electrocardiogram (ECG) all came back normal.
What is edema exactly? Edema occurs when capillaries leak fluid and the fluid builds up in surrounding tissues. You can sometimes reduce edema through changing lifestyle habits, like reducing your salt intake. Edema can be the result of sitting or staying in one position for too long, pregnancy, PMS, medications for pain, diabetes, beta-blockers, and estrogen imbalances. The more serious medical causes include kidney disease or failure, congestive heart failure, poor lymphatic drainage (usually from cancer surgery), varicose veins, or liver cirrhosis usually caused by alcoholism.
Kristen’s doctor ruled out all of the possible causes for her edema and was stumped. Every test was done. She only drank alcohol a couple of times a month and didn’t take any medication. She was postmenopausal, so no PMS. That’s when Kristen called my office.
Kristen also complained of bruising very easily, gas and bloating, low back and shoulder pain when stressed (most of the time), and frontal (on her forehead) headaches, usually after meals. She was constantly thirsty, no matter how much water she drank. This was probably from her body’s inability to properly absorb and excrete water.
With her high levels of stress and overwork, Kristen couldn’t stop thinking or shut down her brain, especially at night. As a result, her spleen was very weak, and her sleep was poor. It was rarely restful, and even when on vacation, Kristen only slept five hours a night. She would have nightmares about missing important deadlines. Some of that was due to insomnia and some because of her work schedule.
Kristen ate one of the cleanest diets out of any of my patients. She had several food allergies and sensitivities, so she avoided most high allergen foods like dairy and gluten. She was a pescatarian (ate seafood rarely because of concern about mercury poisoning, but no meat) and ate plenty of organic vegetables and fruit daily.
Since her doctors were at a loss as to what to do for Kristen, I tested her for food allergies through a simple blood test done in my office. She was highly allergic to over thirty common foods. Some of these she knew about, because the allergic response was immediate and obvious. Almond butter on a piece of rice bread would immediately cause her to swell up and have bloating and gas. A glass of organic red wine would immediately result in a headache. But some of the results came as a surprise, such as sesame seeds, lentils, and blueberries (which were in her daily smoothie). Kristen had never felt sick after eating these foods.
Even with her hectic schedule, Kristen came to me twice a week for treatments the first two months, then weekly for three more months. She now has treatments every two weeks to make sure she stays healthy and keeps her stress to a minimum.
I put Kristen on a Chinese herbal formula to support her immune system, aid digestion, reduce stress, and reduce edema. I also had her take probiotics—healthy bacteria—daily. Probiotics are great for boosting the immune system and restoring the digestive tract to reduce food sensitivities and aid in digestion and metabolism of nutrients. Recent studies show that having enough healthy gut flora reduces anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders. Remember that if you get probiotics from a dairy source, they must be organic; if not, you’re wasting your money. Nonorganic animal products have antibiotics and steroids in them that will cancel out the benefits of probiotics.
Since Kristen’s diet in general was very clean and healthy, I only had to encourage her to eat more spleen-nourishing foods, eliminate seafood, and to avoid completely the foods she was allergic to while I treated the allergies. I also had her add lemon to her water to help with metabolism, detoxification, and water absorption.
Breakfast: juice made with celery, ginger, carrots, kale, romaine lettuce, beets, and pears.
Lunch: squash soup with ginger and steamed green beans, or split pea soup.
Snacks: veggie sticks (like turnips and celery), fresh cantaloupe and grapes or dried apricots and berries.
Dinner: baked sweet potato and a large salad with garbanzo beans, garlic, daikon radish sprouts, sunflower seeds, and peas.
Kristen’s healing process took a few months, due to the severity of her symptoms and allergies. But she saw an almost immediate reduction in her stress levels, and she was able to sleep restfully through the night within three weeks. She was also obviously much calmer after every treatment. The constant concern about work was almost gone. The edema was mostly gone after six months, but she is careful to prevent a relapse. Kristen gave up seafood after six months.
Recap of Kristen’s Earth symptoms: edema, constant worrying, gas and bloating, frontal headaches, food allergies, shoulder tension, bruising.
There is a proliferation of weakened spleens in Western cultures. The way to a healthy spleen and stomach can take some lifestyle changes. Eating Earth-nourishing foods will give you more energy, contribute to weight loss, and help you shut down your brain a little more. If you find yourself obsessing about your day or the day to come, take the time to make yourself a soothing mug of ginger tea.