Sub-Health Conditions
Suboptimal health (or sub-health) status refers to an intermediate state between health and disease. It is characterized by conditions such as lower back pain, insomnia, and constipation. Although they are not exactly diseases, they affect the quality of life, and result in emotional stress at work. They will eventually drain a person’s vitality. Hand reflexology and acupressure are accessible and effective means of improving these conditions, conducted either in the office or at home.
1. Lower Back Pain
Lower back pain refers to the pain one feels on one or both sides of the lower back, or pain involving the back and the spine. It can also trigger pain in the lower abdomen, or a painful sensation involving the hipbones and legs.
There is a variety of reasons for lower back pain. Most often, it is caused by kidney deficiency, herniated lumbar disc or swollen disc, degenerated lumbar muscles, lumbar hyperplasia, lumbar spinal stenosis, and diseases of the reproductive organs. Women suffering from diseases such as rheumatism and rheumatoid arthritis are susceptible to lower back pain triggered by vertebral hyperosteogeny resulting from invasion of wind, dampness, and cold during menstrual periods, childbirth, and post-partum periods. It may also be triggered by fatigue during pregnancy and the puerperal period.
Manifestations and Symptoms
In the elderly, lower back pain caused by degenerative problems in the joints can have the following manifestations: Lower back pain and stiffness, which may worsen after some rest, during the night, or when getting up in the morning, but may subside after some activities; excessive activity or heavy fatigue will worsen lower back pain; when the weather is cold or damp, the pain may be aggravated.
Signs of lower back pain caused by strain or sprain are as follows: The pain becomes so severe that the sufferer is afraid of coughing and deep breathing; some may not even be able to stand up. In this case, the point of pain is often identifiable when pressed.
Lower back pain caused by strain on the soft tissues has the following signs: Dull pain, distending pain, and soreness; the points of pain have fixed locations.
Lower back pain in pregnancy: During pregnancy, as the fetus grows, the mother may suffer from lower back pain because of softened ligaments in the lumbosacral region; also, the increasing weight of the fetus puts a lot of pressure on the uterus, so the center of the body tends to tip forward and the lower back protrudes forward. A lack of rest can make a pregnant woman susceptible to lower back pain.
Hand Reflexology and Acupressure
Hand Exercises
1. Open your palm; abruptly bring the middle finger down to the thumb while keeping the index finger, ring finger, and little finger straight.
2. Use your right thumb and index finger to pinch the skin at the root of the left index finger along its metacarpal bone line extension.
3. With the palm facing inward, bring the tip of the middle finger down to press the root of the middle finger. Bend the remaining four fingers inward to form a fist, and bend the thumb to hold the ring finger so the middle finger does not close in too much, forming a fist with the knuckle of the middle finger sticking out.
Particularly susceptible to lower back pain are those who work long hours sitting down, drive or bend over for extended periods, maintain a fixed position in their waist at work, and women with extremely thin waists. These people should take preventive measures, such as keeping their backs in the right position, avoiding excessive fatigue, preventing external trauma to the back, avoiding the invasion of cold in this area, and exercising the back muscles to make them stronger.
Pregnant women can use a belly belt or a belt designed exclusively to support their backs. Avoid standing up abruptly. When standing up, hold on to a table or a chair for support to prevent an excessive burden on the back. These measures will effectively decrease the chances of lower back pain.
2. Headache
A common clinical symptom, headache is a subjective sensation brought about by various pain factors. It often happens in the upper half of the head, above the brows, the upper part of the helix, and the external occipital protuberance. Headache involves a number of systems, and is often associated with neurological diseases.
The causes of headache vary, but they are generally divided into primary headache and secondary headache. Primary headache is not a symptom of an underlying disease, and often manifests as a tension-type headache or migraine. Secondary headache is usually associated with pathological changes in the head and body.
Manifestations and Symptoms
Headaches vary greatly in severity, and last for different periods of time.
They come in a variety of forms. Most commonly they are dull, distending, electrifying, splitting, tearing, and pricking. They are sometimes accompanied by a pulsing of the blood vessels and compression of the head, as well as nausea, vomiting, and dizziness.
Extreme headaches may result in the loss of ability for life and work.
Hand Exercises
1. Place a ball on the back of your hand and roll it back and forth, left and right.
2. Gather the five digits of your right hand together and wrap them in the palm of your left hand. Squeeze and release them repeatedly.
3. Bend the five digits of your right hand to form a hollow fist; align the thumb with the middle finger and these fingertips jab against each other.
Other Methods
Those who suffer from headaches can also alleviate them with a change of lifestyle:
1. Choose a quiet environment and a room with gentle lighting.
2. Drink tea that is conducive to relieving headache. e.g., tea made with the white bulb of a scallion and Sichuan lovage rhizome, and tea made with chrysanthemum flowers and angelica dahurica.
To make tea with the white bulb of a scallion and Sichuan lovage rhizome: Take two lengths of white scallion, 10 g Sichuan lovage, and 10 g tea leaves. Put them in a cup, pour in boiling water and let it rest, then remove the solids and drink the tea while it is warm. Drink once daily. This tea helps to dispel wind from body and relieve pain.
To make tea with chrysanthemum flowers and angelica dahurica: Take 9 g chrysanthemum flowers and 9 g angelica dohurica; grind them to powder; pour in boiling water, stir, and drink. This tea helps to dispel wind and sooth the liver, and also relieves involuntary muscle spasm and pain.
3. Treatment by massage. Work on Yangbai acupoints (GB 14) if the headache occurs in the forehead; on Baihui acupoint (GV 20) if the headache occurs on the sides; on Fengchi acupoints (GB 20) if the headache happens on the vertex.
3. Insomnia
Insomnia is defined as trouble falling asleep or trouble remaining asleep. It is often accompanied by a lack of energy in the daytime, slow responses, physical weakness, and fatigue. When severe, it affects the everyday life of the person affected.
It can be caused by physical discomforts or unhealthy habits such as drinking strong tea and coffee before bed and smoking. Negative factors in life, such as struggling with conflicting thoughts, stress from work, difficulties in studies, loss of hope, and the departure of loved ones, or even positive factors such as jubilation from success can also cause insomnia. This is referred to as “insomnia due to mental stress.” Excessive excitement or worries due to particular events will cause “opportunistic insomnia,” resulting in an inadequate amount of sleep.
Manifestations and Symptoms
Difficulty falling asleep or remaining asleep; waking up easily during the night; waking up too early and not being able to fall asleep again; waking up feeling unrefreshed and fatigued; waking up frequently due to nightmares or the feeling of having nightmares throughout the night.
The duration of insomnia varies. For some, it is over within a few days, but for others, difficulty sleeping may persist and normal sleep may never return. Severe insomnia can worsen or trigger other conditions such as palpitations, chest pain due to blockage in the blood vessels leading to your heart, dizziness, headaches, and stroke.
Hand Reflexology and Acupressure
Hand Exercises
1. Use a stick to jab the palm side of the middle finger evenly, with the stick leaning towards the fingertip.
2. Use a stick to jab the little finger evenly, starting from the tip along the metacarpal bone.
3. Spread the fingers out, and turn the backs of the hands against each other.
1. Do not overeat at dinner. Avoid stimulating drinks such as tea and coffee before sleep. Maintain a diet that is light and rich in protein and vitamins.
2. Create a quiet and comfortable environment that is conducive to good sleep. Prepare a bed of adequate firmness for you to sleep on, and a pillow of adequate height for your neck.
3. Have a fixed bedtime and make it into a routine. Always do the same thing before going to bed: e.g., take a hot bath, and then read for ten minutes before trying to fall asleep. Soon your brain will be tuned to sleep. These activities will help to induce the sleepiness you need.
4. If you cannot fall asleep within 30 minutes, get up and go to another room and sit quietly for 20 minutes before going back to your room to sleep. If you still cannot fall asleep, do the same a few more times until you fall asleep.
4. Vertigo
Vertigo refers to dizziness, blurred vision, or blackout, when you feel that your surroundings are spinning or moving, and you cannot stand still.
Faintness and a spinning sensation are often symptoms of neural dysfunction in the brain. If it happens only once in a while, it could be the result of staying up late at night, excessive use of the brain, or poor ventilation in the room causing inadequate oxygen intake. If it happens constantly, it may be associated with conditions such as anemia, hypoglycemia, orthostatic hypotension, high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, reduced intracranial pressure, neurasthenia, cerebral thrombosis, rhinitis, and side effects of medication. Many diseases will share symptoms with vertigo. It is important that you seek proper medical advice.
Manifestations and Symptoms
Vertigo falls into the following categories:
Spinning: A false sense that the sky and the ground are spinning.
Syncope: Often occurs when you yank your head backward suddenly, or stand up suddenly from a sitting position.
Floating: Feeling as if you are standing on a pile of cotton.
Shaking: Feeling like an earthquake, moving up and down.
Hand Exercises
1. With your palms down, withdraw the thumbs and keep the two hands attached side by side. Abruptly spread out the remaining four fingers. The move should be explosive.
2. Put your palms upright, facing each other; stretch the thumbs towards you; the two palms push against each other with force, and the fingertips swing from left to right six times while the palms are in confrontation.
Other Methods
1. At the onset of vertigo, the patient should lie down, relax, and be free of all emotional tensions.
2. The patient is advised to eat light, fresh, and nutritious food, and refrain from stimulating drinks such as alcohol and coffee. Eat more fruit that is rich in Vitamin C, such as lemons, grapes, and kiwi fruits; eat more eggs, lean meat, and green vegetables. Avoid spicy and fatty food such as fatty meat, fried food, alcohol, and hot chili pepper.
3. Pay attention to mental health, as emotional stress and anger can trigger vertigo. The patient should develop a broad mind, be happy and optimistic, and maintain emotional stability.
4. Avoid excessive fatigue or inadequate sleep.
Shock can be caused by such events as external trauma, loss of blood, burns, extreme emotional stimulants, and fear. If left untreated, the patient can suffer from loss of consciousness or a sudden drop in body temperature. Worse still, the patient may die.
Manifestations and Symptoms
Shock is an emergency cardiac and circulatory malfunction. Common clinical manifestations include low blood pressure, weak pulse, cold and clammy limps, grey-bluish skin, and a state of delirium.
Hand Reflexology and Acupressure
Hand Exercises
1. Close your hands to form two fists; position the palms facing down, and interlock the knuckles so they press against the depressions of the other hand, and press hard against each other.
2. With the palm facing inward, fold the middle finger so the fingertip touches its root; then bring the remaining four fingers inward to form a fist, and bend the thumb to stop the middle finger closing in too much, thus forming a fist with the middle finger’s knuckle sticking out.
3. With the right thumb and index finger, pinch and pull the skin on the back of the left index finger along its metacarpal bone until you reach the wrist crease.
Other Methods
1. When you see someone in shock, first calm them down and offer some emotional comfort.
2. If the patient is feeling cold, move them to a warmer place and cover them with a quilt. Make them lie down to rest with their feet elevated.
3. If the person feels nauseous, push their head to the side to stop them from choking on their own vomit. If they feels thirsty, give them some warm water or sugary drink. If they are in a severe condition, take them to hospital as soon as possible.
6. Coma
Coma is the most severe stage of impaired consciousness.
It occurs in the following diseases: Intracranial infections such as meningitis, encephalitis, and brain abscesses; cranial brain disorders such as traumatic brain injury, brain tumor, parasitic brain diseases, cerebral malaria, and epilepsy; infectious diseases such as septic shock, septicemia, and toxic bacillary dysentery; endocrine and metabolic disorders such as thyroid disorders, hepatic coma, uremia, and diabetic ketoacidosis.
Manifestations and Symptoms
Different degrees of unconsciousness in a coma have different symptoms:
Mild coma: Some responses to intense stimulation inducing pain; basic physiological responses (swallowing, coughing, corneal reflection, reaction of the pupil to light) and vital signs of life, but may be accompanied by delirium and restlessness.
Moderate coma: No response to pain stimulation but basic physiological responses exist, and there are vital signs of life.
Severe coma: Except for vital signs of life, the patient has lost all response to the external world and all physiological reflexes are gone. The patient may still have irregular breathing, decreased blood pressure, urine and bowel incontinence, relaxed muscles all over the body, and decerebrate rigidity.
Hand Reflexology and Acupressure
Hand Exercises
1. With your right thumb and index finger, pinch and pull the skin on the back of the little finger along its metacarpal bone until you reach the wrist crease.
2. Use your right thumb and index finger to pinch and pull the skin on the root of the back of the left ring finger
3. Open your palm and spread the fingers out; use a stick to jab the center of the palm in evenly-spread dots.
Other Methods
1. Position the patient’s head sideways for easy removal of respiratory secretions. If the patient brings up phlegm, vomit, or other secretions, remove it immediately with suction or manually.
2. Keep the patient’s airway unobstructed, and make sure they do not catch a cold.
3. Patients in a long-term coma usually have a weakened immune system. Prevent them from developing bedsores and any other secondary infections.
4. Please note: Some patients fall asleep very easily, and find it hard to stay awake. However, they can be woken up, and can respond to questions asked when awake. This is called “extreme sleepiness.” It is not a coma, and the patients tend to have mildly impaired consciousness. In many diseases, extreme sleepiness and deep slumber can be a prelude to coma. It is important to differentiate between the two, and to keep a close eye on the patient’s consciousness. Monitor closely if extreme sleepiness lapses into a coma.
7. Eye Fatigue
When tired, your eyes may hurt and your vision may blur. Eye fatigue may also trigger symptoms such as headache, heaviness of the head, and stiff shoulders. Eye fatigue due to refractive errors and unbalanced eye muscles may cause myopia, astigmatism, or presbyopia with different prescriptions for both eyes.
Primary causes of eye fatigue include:
• Excessive use of the eyes, e.g., staring at the computer screen at work. Prolonged use of the eyes without blinking will make the corneal surface become dry and irritate the cornea.
• Reading in strong and dim lights for prolonged periods of time.
• Wearing the wrong prescription eye glasses, either higher or lower than needed.
• Refractive errors, including myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism, which are not corrected in a timely manner.
• A severe difference of diopter between the two eyes, e.g., one at -2.00 and the other at -6.00.
Manifestations and Symptoms
Symptoms of eye fatigue include dry eyes, a gritty sensation, heaviness of the eyelids, blurred vision, increased sensitivity to light, watery eyes, bursting pain in the eyes, and redness. In more severe cases, the patient may experience light-headedness, headaches, nausea, lethargy, trouble concentrating, memory problems, poor appetite, and general symptoms such as soreness in the neck, shoulders and back, and numbness of the finger joints.
Hand Reflexology and Acupressure
Hand Exercises
1. Bend the fingers of your left hand slightly, forming a hollow fist; the tip of the thumb and the tip of the little finger jab against each other.
2. Keep your hand flat with the back against you, and then abruptly withdraw the thumb, the middle finger, the ring finger, and the little finger, leaving only the index finger pointing upward, as if signaling the number “1.”
Other Methods
1. People with eye fatigue should develop a healthy lifestyle and good habits to maintain eye health. These include preventing exposure to strong light in particular, and adjusting the brightness of the computer screen to a comfortable level. Give your eyes adequate rest: take a 5- to 10-minute break if your eyes have worked for an hour; do not read or watch TV in a moving vehicle.
2. You can try the following to relieve the symptoms: First, blink your eyes quickly while taking a deep breath. Open and close your eyes quickly as you are breathing out. Second, stare at the tip of your nose while taking a deep breath. When inhaling, look at your own nose tip as if you had a lazy eye, making sure you see the sides of your nose too; when exhaling, return your eyes to the normal state and look at an object in the distance until you have breathed out completely.
3. Increase your intake of Vitamin A and carotene, which are “panacea” to protect your eyes and maintain good eyesight.
8. Constipation
There are two types of constipation: Organic and functional.
Organic constipation: Organic disorders of the internal organs lead to a reduced number of bowel movements and excretion of stools, dry stools, and difficulty with excretion.
Functional constipation: No evident cause is found. The primary causes may include:
• Insufficient intake of food, or food lacking in fiber and water, causing insufficient bowel movement.
• Colon movement disorder is often found in irritable bowel syndrome.
• The habit of resisting the urge to defecate due to fast-paced work and study, a change in work routine and schedule, as well as emotional stress.
• Weak abdominal muscles and pelvic floor disorders can make it hard to empty the bowels.
• Frail elderly people may have trouble with bowel movements due to inadequate exercise, intestinal spasm, or an excessively long colon.
Manifestations and Symptoms
Constipation usually manifests itself as decreased number of bowel movements, which occur only once every 3 to 5 days, or even longer. Sometimes the number of bowel movements remains the same, but the consistency of the stools has changed: Dry and hard stools are difficult to pass. In the meantime, you may suffer from headaches, dizziness, a bloated abdomen, fullness of the stomach, regurgitation, poor appetite and sleep, and irritability and anger.
Hand Exercises
1. Use the thumb and the index finger of one hand to twist and press the ring finger of the other hand in a spiral rotation, starting from the root to the fingertip.
2. Make fists with both hands, palms facing down, and interlock the knuckles of the metacarpal bones so the knuckles press forcefully into the depressions.
3. With palms facing inward, interlock the fingers of both hands; press into and pull away from each other 20 times.
Other Methods
Cultivate a healthy lifestyle and eating habits. A healthy diet will help you to alleviate the pain of constipation. Here are two recommended recipes:
Honey drink: 60 g of honey makes two drinks, 30 g each, for morning and evening daily; dilute the honey in warm water and then drink it. Applicable to the elderly, and to pregnant women.
Honey and royal jelly drink: 60 g honey, 6 g royal jelly; mix them together, and drink with warm water in the morning and the evening every day. Applicable to those suffering from habitual constipation.