Tiredness/Chronic Fatigue and Deficiency

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”

Anne Lamott

What To Do About It; At Home Options:

Perhaps you noticed that all 4 types of deficiency have common causes?

• Overwork
• Recent illness
• Stress
• Diet

This is unsurprising because all dis-ease in TCM has these 4 basic causes. Each of these affects health in unique ways for example:

• Excessive mental work (study) stresses the body in a different way than excessive physical work (exercise)
• A recent bout of pneumonia affects different parts of the body than a recent bout of food poisoning
• Certain emotions such as anger TEND to cause energy to get stuck in the body whereas fear TENDS to drain energy from the body
• Lots of raw and cold fruits and vegetables are GREAT for your liver organ and yin deficiency but actually INCREASE stress on your stomach and increase yang deficiency

Getting a feel for what groups you fit into (the previous page) becomes very helpful in figuring out what is likely to benefit you as compared to someone else. In my experience there is no such thing as “the right diet” or “the right amount of exercise” but rather there is “what is most helpful for you right now”.

What Is Most Helpful For You Right Now (General):

1. Get enough rest!
   1. So many of my clients feel like they don’t have the time to get enough rest. I know that it may feel like you have too many demands on your time but study after study shows that we are more productive and efficient when we are well rested and relaxed.
   2. Try taking 1 day a week where you do nothing based on being “productive”. Do what you love and enjoy your life.
   3. *Note that a 2 week vacation where you hustle from place to place always doing something is not actually resting! Make sure your getting enough “do nothing time” when you “take time off”.
2. If you are struggling to fully recover after a recent illness (such as the flu) you might have some leftover “gunk” in your system that your immune system just can’t quite get rid of.
   1. There are some great TCM herbal formulas to help with this so feel free to reach out.
   2. It is very important to get enough rest even after you recover. Try as much as possible to reduce your work load whether it be personal or professional and give your body time to finish healing. Try asking this simple question…
      1. Is it true that this thing HAS to be done right now?
      2. Is it true that this thing HAS to be done by me?
3. Stress in TCM is often thought of differently than stress in western culture. Check out this links to learn more. I will delve into specifics for this topic in future posts here under chronic fatigue.
   1. Somatic Release (Becoming Human)
   2. The Body Brain (Po): “I Feel”
4. Diet is a complex subject in TCM but the 2 most important things are:
   1. Your Relationship With Food
   2. Eating The Right Food

Up Last: What Is Most Helpful For You (Specific)