About Anxiety: 4 things that the Chinese medicine practitioner wants to share with you

No.1 Triggers, Symptoms, TCM’s understanding
● Common Triggers
1. Living environment (home & office): messy, crowded, stressful
2. Caffeine: if the amount is over your tolerance level
3. Stress:both long-term (eg. relationship-related) or short-term (eg. moving,
changing into a new job)
4. Irregular routine: skip meals, lack of exercise, too much night snack
5. Lack of sleep: insomnia or stay up late
6. Social events: public events, meeting so many new faces
7. Performance: exams, works
8. Conflicts: disagreements, argues
9. Financial burden: debts, unemployment
10. Personal reasons: traumas, past experiences,thinking patterns

● Symptoms
Feeling nervous, agitated, alert, restless
Losing control on worrying
Feeling on edge
Increasing heart rate, palpitation, rapid breathing
Sleep disorders: hard to fall asleep, easy to wake up in between
Muscle stiffness and tension
Trembling, excessive sweating, numbness

● TCM’s understanding
We believe that any types of emotions could trigger imbalance inside the body if the
emotions exceed the tolerance. According to the symptoms of anxiety, we could
identify that there is a core emotion inside: fear. Too much fear accumulated inside
without a proper venting, influencing the functions of different organs. So, we further
categorise some common syndrome-types below:
1. Deficiency in heart and gall-bladder: sensitive to noise and sound, easy to get
frightened, nightmares and shallow sleep, palpitation
2. Yin deficiency in kidney and liver: hard to fall asleep, night sweat, hot flushes,
agitated, dizzy, tinnitus
3. Phlegm-heat distraction: feel nervous and restless, insomnia, bitter taste in
the mouth, chest distress, bloating
No.2 TCM approach to help relieving anxiety
To relieve anxiety based on the features of each syndrome-type, we often follow these
treating principles: pampering the liver, tonifying the kidney, nourishing the heart,
strengthening the spleen and stomach. After we regain the balance between these organs,
we could create more space in the body to regulate emotions and calm down the nervous
system.

● Effective TCM treatments
-Acupuncture: making use of meridians to communicate with imbalance organs
-Cupping: releasing the pathogen that increasing anxiety eg. phlegm, heat, dampness
-Herbal medicine: direct support to tonify the deficiency in the kidney, liver and heart
-Ear seeds: generating stimulus to calm down the nervous system
Although we have summarised those common syndrome-types of anxiety, there is a gold
rule in TCM practice: individual variation values more. We do care about your authentic
feelings about anxiety and your unique symptoms. That’s why we always require an in-depth
consultation before we discuss and choose suitable treatments.
No.3 Useful acupressure points to calm down and manage anxiety attacks
Location Functions
Shenmen (HT7) inner wrist, side of the
small finger
Calms the Shen, tonifies and regulates
the Heart Blood and Qi.
Neiguan (PC6) Inner wrist, 3 fingers
above the wrist line, in
between 2 tendons
Opens the chest, regulates Heart Qi,
calms the Shen, harmonises the
Stomach, relieves nausea and vomiting

● How to press?
1. Choose one side (left/right) each time
2. Use the thumb to apply pressure
3. Deep and firm pressure
4. Cooperate with deep breath: inhale press, exhale release
5. 1-3 minutes for each acupoint
No.4 Herbal tea and soup recipe to bring more peace inside of the mind and body

● Herbal tea (for 500ml)
Ingredients Radix Ophiopogonis 10g, American ginseng 5g, spina date
seed 10g
How to make 1. Put all ingredients into a teakettle
2. Add in 500ml drinking water
3. Boil for 3 minutes then turn down the heat and
simmer for another 10 minutes
4. May add a teaspoon of honey for the taste
Frequency 1-3 times a week, drink it 3 hours before bedtime

● Sweet soup (for 500ml)
Ingredients White fungus 35g, lotus seeds 5g, lily bulb 3g, crystal
sugar 10g, drinking water 500ml
How to make 1. Wash the white fungus and cut into small pieces.
Soak dried lotus seeds for about 3~4 hours
(remove the bitter core). Wash and soak the dried
lily bulbs until they become soft.
2. Boil the water, white fungus and dried lotus seeds,
turn down the heat and cook for about 1 hour, then
add lily bulbs and simmer until they become soft.
3. Finally add in crystal sugar and mix well
Frequency once a week
Caution: all of the recipes may not be suitable for everyone, please consult a TCM
practitioner before you apply it by yourself.