To nurture one’s life and health is mainly accomplished by cultivating one’s mind. If the mind is calm and clear, the spirit is in a pure and healthy world, if the spirit is in a healthy world, how can the illness enter you?
—A Collection of Effective Prescriptions by Liang Wen Ke, Qing dynasty
CHAPTER 11
Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf: Anxiety
Did you know that forty million people will experience high levels of anxiety in the United States this year? Damn, that’s a lot of people. No wonder the number of people taking antianxiety medications has gone up 30 percent in the last ten years. Do these medications really fix the underlying cause of anxiety? The answer for most is a resounding “No!” The primary symptoms are just masked for as long as you’re taking the medication. Not only is the problem still there, but the unresolved issues can make you physically ill as well.
Ask anyone who’s experienced it: Anxiety and panic attacks suck. Luckily, TCM is great for treating and healing why you have them in the first place. Who wants to go through life on edge or fearful all the time, or afraid that you’re going to have a panic attack, causing more anxiety? There is a way to heal them once and for all.
Melanie, age forty-four, was of those unlucky people who had been suffering from anxiety and depression since high school. She had been taking some form of anti-anxiety medication and/or antidepressants for twenty years before she came to my clinic for treatment. Melanie said she couldn’t function or sleep without them, and whenever she tried stopping them (with her doctor’s help), the anxiety would come back. She still had a low-grade fear even with the medication, and her depression never really lifted. Almost every time a new drug came on the market, her psychiatrist would switch her prescription. Sometimes they worked; sometimes they didn’t. She came to me because she was ready to get off the roller-coaster ride. Initially, Melanie’s fear protected her from her abusive stepfather. As an adult, anxiety and fear were controlling her life.
Fear can be a good thing. I realize I might sound crazy for saying this, but think about it: Fear gets you out of bad predicaments or helps you to avoid dangerous situations. Remember the last time you were cut off on the freeway? Your response was pretty quick, and you avoided an accident. Fear is what helped you to safety.
Unfortunately, most people I treat and know feel some level of anxiety or fear on a regular basis. They’re so used to the anxiety that they just assume it’s a part of being alive; being anxious is fundamental to who they are. All of them say they’d love to feel this way less often and less intensely, but they don’t see a way out.
Taking care of the kidneys is crucial for optimal health. The kidneys are the source of yin and yang and our vital essence. If they’re at all compromised, the rest of our organs will be sickly as well. If the kidneys are run-down, the healing process is much slower. Unfortunately, modern living is taking its toll on almost everyone’s kidneys. What weakens the kidneys? Overwork, exposure to toxins, eating too much animal protein, stress, excessive intake of alcohol, drugs and many medications, and poor sleeping habits are some of the key culprits. See what I mean? Who doesn’t experience at least one of these on a regular basis?
The kidneys and bladder are associated with the Water element. Water is connected to winter, its associated taste is salty, and it is thought to open to the ears, bones, and hair. Water is the most yin of the elements, and winter is the most yin time of year. It is a time of rest, reflection, meditation, looking inward, staying inside, rejuvenation, and contemplation. A person with a strong Water element is bright, flexible, and soft without being weak. They will be smart with their time, money, energy reserves, never overdoing it or being stingy with their talents. An imbalanced Water element may manifest as having difficulty keeping to decisions or being fully committed.
“Opens to the ears” means that the kidney’s health is directly connected to your hearing. If you have hearing loss, sensitivity, deafness, or high-pitched ringing in the ears, you could have a Water imbalance of some kind. If you experience ringing in the ears, however, make sure to check that it isn’t a structural issue or damage to your eardrums.
The Water element influences bones and hair as well. Weakened kidneys may show as dull, thin, or brittle hair. The aging process slowly weakens the Water element, leading to osteoporosis or arthritis in many of the elderly. When a child or young adult is afflicted with arthritis, their kidneys mostly likely have been severely damaged.
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Functions of the Kidneys |
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Western Medicine |
TCM |
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Filter blood and urine (separate waste products from the blood that will go out with your urine) |
Urination, reproduction, growth, supports organ function |
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Conserve water, salts, and electrolytes |
Pull diaphragm down to aid in inhaling |
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Regulate blood pressure |
Main source of yin and yang |
The kidneys are in charge of producing and storing yin, yang, and source qi. This means that if your kidneys are weak and depleted of yin and/or yang, you will probably have deficiencies throughout your organs.
In Chinese medicine, your adrenal glands are actually considered the same organs as your kidneys. There’s no distinction between the two, so I want to spend a little time on them. Your adrenals are two small glands that sit on top of your kidneys and help create energy. They regulate your stress response and secrete hormones, including aldosterone. When they’ve been overtaxed, they become fatigued, leading to the following symptoms: chronic fatigue, insomnia, being easily overwhelmed, craving salty and/or sweet foods, sensitivity to light or cold, difficulty concentrating, poor digestion, irritable bowel syndrome, frequent colds, PMS- and menopause-related problems, low blood pressure, allergies, arthritis, low libido, anxiety, panic attacks, and depression.
You’ll see there is some overlap with kidney symptoms. Any of these symptoms sound familiar? If so, the foods I recommend for the kidneys should help alleviate adrenal fatigue and its symptoms as well. The modern lifestyle I mentioned earlier contributes to the weakening of your adrenals.
The purpose of the bladder is the same in both Western and Chinese functions. It collects urine from your kidneys and stores it until it is full enough to empty. This process of urination is to eliminate waste.
Since the kidneys play such an important role in our general health in TCM, their imbalance can manifest in dozens of ways. Patients who come to me for anxiety are always amazed when I ask if they have any of the following symptoms. It’s not because I’m a mind reader; it’s because their anxiety contributed to their ailments or vice versa. Just as the function of the bladder is pretty simple, so are its TCM symptoms. They include any urinary issues or infections, bed-wetting, incontinence, occipital (base of the skull) headaches, and pain or temperature change along its channel, as well as the following:
- • Low back/knee pain and weakness, high-pitched tinnitus/ears ringing, hearing loss, genetic diseases, impotence, infertility, insomnia, hair loss, excessive or lack of sex appetite, premature graying and aging, arthritis, weak bones/osteoporosis, craving salt, and poor short-term memory.
- • Congenital disorders: developmental disability, slow learning, delayed development, and intellectual disability.
- • Emotional problems such as panic attacks, mental illness, phobias, anxiety, and emotional instability.
Given how the modern lifestyle negatively affects the kidneys, it makes sense that almost every person I see has some kidney symptoms. Wendy and Dawn were two of my more complex cases, with a whole host of health issues related to their fear and anxiety.
Case Studies
Wendy
One patient who will always be close to my heart is Wendy. When she first came to see me, Wendy was forty-two years old, single, and worked part time from home. She initially came in for pain along the bladder channel—along her hamstrings, low back, and knees. When she first arrived, I immediately noticed very dark circles under her eyes and her thinning hair. She was also incredibly shy and nervous.
Wendy didn’t know acupuncture and TCM could help with anything apart from pain, so she didn’t mention most of her other health issues in her paperwork. I had to gently draw her out of her shell to learn of other physical ailments, most of which were related to her anxiety: a weak bladder, insomnia, dry mouth, nightmares, constipation, and environmental allergies. She had a history of very heavy periods, for which she was taking the birth control pill to regulate her cycle.
Wendy had a history of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, which led to her mental health issues. She was also a recovering anorexic and bulimic. She was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic after a psychotic break in 1996 and was taking several medications, including Prozac, risperidone, Wellbutrin, Paxil, and Zoloft.
Wendy was greatly affected by her traumatic history, which anyone would be. She had a lot of anxiety and fear, low self-esteem, and difficulty dealing with any change outside of her routine. She had difficulty keeping to commitments and would often slack off on obligations. Due to her lack of trust in other people, she had only a couple of friends and a job that could be done at home. She worried a lot, feared people would not like her or would be mean, and was constantly afraid of men taking advantage of her. Even with all this, Wendy was hopeful about her future and wanted to improve her health and the quality of her life. I was really impressed (and still am) by her bravery and determination to face her fears.
Wendy had been taking medication to help her sleep for almost twenty years. She never tried to go without it, because it was thought that lack of sleep could trigger another psychotic episode (and I fully agreed). Even with sleeping pills and a solid eight hours of sleep, Wendy normally woke up tired. This may have been partly due to a side effect of her medications.
Because she came in looking very depleted and pale, I suspected she had anemia and elevated liver enzymes. I immediately sent her in for blood work to check due to her long history of medications. My suspicions were right on target. Like most people with a history of eating disorders, she was anemic. Wendy’s digestive tract was unable to absorb nutrients because of the use of diet pills, laxatives, and binging and purging. The anemia affected her energy levels, and it also played a part in her mood and tight muscles. Because her liver enzymes were also elevated, I normally would suggest a five-day liver cleanse, which reduces solid food intake for a few days, but you still get all the nutrients you need through soups and smoothies. I knew this wouldn’t be a viable option for Wendy given her eating disorder history. So I just incorporated some options into her meal plan, including some liver-supporting herbs in her formula and some foods that naturally clean out toxins.
Along with acupuncture and food suggestions, I created a very simple Chinese herbal formula and prescribed some supplements, including probiotics (healthy bacteria for digestion and immunity), digestive enzymes, iron, and a vitamin B complex.
I asked Wendy to eat iron sources that were easy to digest, including pumpkin seeds, chard, broccoli, lentils, and tofu. She started eating many of the foods that nourish the kidneys and flush the liver of toxins. Also with Wendy’s history, absorption of nutrients from some foods was a challenge. Since she was found to be anemic, many of her doctors then insisted she had to eat beef several times per week. Wendy said she felt sick after eating the beef and was constipated for a few days, but she felt pressured into eating it once a week. Being told she had to do something she was uncomfortable doing, especially in relation to food, triggered a major anxiety episode. Luckily Wendy recovered pretty quickly and learned some alternative and better sources of iron.
I talked extensively with Wendy about what would be a realistic meal plan for her. I wanted to make sure she felt comfortable with one that she would actually follow through on. Wendy had to be an active participant in her healing for it to really work. Again, these foods were created specifically for Wendy, but they can help anyone with similar issues.
Breakfast: tofu scramble with ginger, yellow curry, spinach, shredded carrots, and squash.
Lunch: sushi with seaweed, brown rice, avocado, daikon radish, black sesame seeds, ginger, and miso soup.
Snacks: watermelon, plums, blackberries, boysenberries, blueberries, grapes.
Dinner: baked purple potato, steamed asparagus and string beans, and millet with black beans.
After just a few short weeks, Wendy’s progress was pretty incredible. Her long-term goals were a bit slower to be realized than some patients, because as I wrote earlier, I was very careful not to overwhelm her with changes. A few years later, she is now in less physical pain, with only occasional muscle tightness. Wendy has a healthy level of self-esteem and is able to speak up for herself, is less shy, has a fulfilling job, and has made some new friends. She was able to reduce the dosages of a few medications and only rarely takes a sleeping pill. (Wendy stopped taking the pill after two years with no negative consequences.) She still sees me for monthly tune-ups and is feeling great.
Recap of Wendy’s Water-related symptoms: pain along her hamstrings, insomnia, mental illness, dry mouth, weak bladder, dark circles under the eyes.
Dawn
Panic attacks are more common than you might think. About 3 percent of the US population (six million people) experience them. Women are twice as likely to be afflicted with them as men. Panic attacks can so debilitating as to drastically reduce one’s quality of life. Poor Dawn was one of those people.
When I met her, Dawn was a married, thirty-eight-year-old mother of two with a full-time job. She had started having panic attacks about two years before coming to see me, sometimes as often as three times per week. Despite taking Xanax every day, she had no relief, and she had been hospitalized twice in the month preceding her first treatment due to the severity of the attacks. The chest pains terrified her. Basically, she was a wreck, overwhelmed, and unable to function in her day-to-day life anymore. Who could blame her?
Dawn had gone to the emergency room at least a dozen times. Medication did almost nothing to relieve her symptoms. She had difficulty working and taking care of her children and was afraid to drive. Before the panic attacks she said she felt fine emotionally. According to Dawn, they “came out of nowhere.” Most panic attack sufferers say the exact same thing. Her sleep had been erratic for as long as she could remember. Dawn slept well maybe four nights out of seven. She woke up with her heart racing a few nights per week. Dawn’s nightmares would awaken her in a completely overwrought state. The more tired she was, the worse the panic attacks would be.
On top of suffering from panic attacks, Dawn had some other medical issues, including thinning hair and premature graying, irregular menses with heavy bleeding and severe cramps, rosacea on her nose and chin, weight problems, fatigue, low back pain, and headaches at the base of the skull at least once a month. Dawn told me she never felt completely well. She almost always had the sense that something was going wrong with her healthwise. If it wasn’t her period, she was exhausted, or her back hurt. Dawn was never at 100 percent.
When it came to eating habits, Dawn unfortunately consumed the SAD diet. She ate lots of white bread, white rice, nothing organic, and rarely any fresh vegetables. She lived off cream cheese and bagels, cheese sticks, ice cream, french fries, diet soda, and macaroni and cheese from a box. Occasionally Dawn would eat a salad, usually from a fast food restaurant. Fast food or frozen dinners were the norm in her home. Coffee, in her mind, was as necessary as water, and a pot a day was the norm. She added several tablespoons of cream to each cup. As you learned earlier in chapter 7, coffee and caffeine can exacerbate any anxiety symptoms. Clearly her food choices needed a complete overhaul.
I focused on getting the panic attacks under control at first because they were so debilitating. Suspecting that food allergies might be a contributing factor to her panic attacks, I had her tested, and Dawn immediately stopped eating anything she was allergic to. She was allergic to all her favorite foods, so the elimination process was a challenge for Dawn, but she was willing to say good-bye to anything that was detrimental to her health.
She also gave up white foods except for potatoes. No more Wonder Bread or microwaved Uncle Ben’s rice. Dawn started having fresh vegetables every day. Quinoa and root vegetables became her favorite things to eat. She actually looked forward to her morning green juice and lunchtime salad. The thought of McDonald’s or nuking a frozen dinner was totally gross to her after a while, proof that your tastes can change.
Since she was highly motivated to feel better, Dawn was eager to incorporate kidney-boosting foods into her diet. “Anything to feel better” was her attitude. Here’s just a sample of the foods I recommended Dawn incorporate into her eating routine.
Breakfast: smoothie with blackberries, unsweetened hemp milk, Vega One powder, chia seeds, and mango.
Lunch: vegan coleslaw with red and green cabbage and Vegenaise; half sandwich with sprouted Ezekiel bread, broccoli sprouts, and black bean hummus.
Snacks: miso soup with carrots, radish, sesame seeds, and tofu. (Dawn brought a thermos of it to work.)
Dinner: chili with black beans and a beet salad.
Dawn’s progress was astonishing. There was an immediate reduction in the frequency of the panic attacks. The intensity diminished within a few weeks. Dawn never felt the need to go to the hospital again after coming to see me. Whenever she felt the hint of anxiety, she took her herbs and instantly felt relief. Last I heard from her, she hadn’t had a panic attack in five years. She also lost fifteen pounds and was getting her periods regularly. She continued therapy to help deal with the issues that led to her attacks.
Recap of Dawn’s Water-related symptoms: panic attacks, headaches, adrenal fatigue, premature graying.
There are plenty of delicious, healthy options for supporting your kidneys and reducing anxiety. Whether it’s purple potatoes or quinoa, give something new a try every week! (But please consult your doctor before stopping any medications.) You’ll feel the fear lift and an abatement in any kidney-related issues. Anxiety and panic attacks don’t have to last a lifetime. Wendy and Dawn were able to experience some relief right away. I used them as examples because they were proactive in their healing process and both overcame so much. And so can you!