The Signs Within: Understanding the Symptoms of Anxiety
Recognizing the signs and symptoms and understanding the ‘type’ of your anxiety empowers you to seek the right treatment that will help you restore your natural balance and achieve lasting relief from anxiety.
Let’s explore how and why our Qi gets blocked or weakened by our attitudes towards life, how it manifests as anxiety, how you can identify the root cause of your Qi imbalance based on your symptoms, and what you can do about it.
The Role of Yang Qi in Health and Anxiety
Different Types of Anxiety Based on Energetic Imbalances
1. Anxiety of the Fire element (Heart) – Denial and Disconnection
2. Anxiety of the Metal element (Lung and Intestines) - Overwhelm and Grief
3. Anxiety of the Wood element (Gallbladder) – Anger and Indignation
4. Anxiety of the Earth element (Stomach and Spleen) - Worry and Overthinking
5. Anxiety of the Water element (Kidneys) - Fear and Existential Crisis
6. Anxiety of the Wood element (Liver) - Irritability and Frustration
7. Returning to the Fire element – the Heart.
The Role of Yang Qi in Health and Anxiety
In this article, we explored the anatomy of Qi, the Life-force energy, and how it should flow in the body for optimal emotional and physical health.
We learned that in optimal health, Yang Qi - absorbed from food, drink, and life experiences - descends through the body, grounding in the lower DanTian (energy center).
There, it integrates, transforming the food and drink into healthy cells and life lessons into wisdom that contribute to our spiritual evolution.
Subsequently, it ascends, enabling authentic self-expression and helping us share this newfound wisdom with the world.
Anxiety arises when Yang Qi’s downward flow is disrupted or prematurely reversed due to energetic blockages or Yin Qi deficiency, both of which are the root causes of anxiety in Classical Chinese Medicine.
These imbalances arise from poor diet, lifestyle choices, and habitual reactions to life, when we resist its natural flow.
Different types of Anxiety Based on energetic Imbalances
Physical and emotional symptoms provide clues about underlying energetic imbalances. These imbalances. These imbalances, depending on their location within the Yang Qi pathway, manifest as distinct forms of anxiety, each with unique physical, mental, and emotional characteristics.
Envision Qi as a flowing river. The smoother the flow, the greater our physical and emotional health.
Conversely, stress, overwork, poor diet, unhealthy habits, and an incorrect outlook on life, create blockages, akin to dams obstructing the river's flow. This stagnation manifests differently based on the affected organ system.
1. Anxiety of the Fire element (Heart)
Denial and Disconnection
Life continuously presents opportunities for growth, for our spiritual evolution in the form of life experiences, other people’s actions and words, things we read and hear about. Ancient Chinese wisdom refers to this as Yang Qi descending from Heaven, symbolizing a universal source of energy. We can think of it as the Source, or God, or the Universe.
The Heavenly Yang first enters the Fire element that governs our conscious awareness, creativity, and the ability to communicate clearly.
In a healthy state, our Hearts are open and receptive to life experiences, accepting them without resistance and seeing them as they are, untainted by past traumas or toxic beliefs.
When we resist a particular experience or refuse to acknowledge the truth about a person or situation, an energy block forms in the Heart energy system, preventing the Heavenly Yang Qi from moving downward. This blocked energy rises, manifesting as anxiety characterized by:
Denial
Compromising integrity for the sake of connection
Pursuing goals imposed by others
Feeling agitated, restless or apathetic
Lessened capacity for joy and love
Difficulty connecting to our deepest self and emotions
Difficulty expressing and communicating our feelings
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Chest pressure or pain
Palpitations
Dizziness
Excessive sweating
Mouth ulcers
Intolerance of heat, hot flashes, redness of the face
Difficulty falling asleep
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Difficulty concentrating, confusion
Memory problems
Impulsive decisions
Incessant talking, jumping from one idea to another
Nervous or inappropriate laughter
Manic episodes
Depersonalization / Derealization
If these symptoms resonate with your experience, you would benefit from:
✓ Cultivating conscious awareness (Mindfulness Meditation, Journaling).
✓ Heart-centered practices such as Loving-Kindness Meditation or Heart-Coherence Breathing.
✓ Practices for dis-identifying from the ego and connecting to the true self (Shadow Work or Inner Child Work, which help in addressing past traumas and toxic beliefs).
✓ Cultivating reacting to life with curiosity rather than resistance.
✓ Gratitude practice.
✓ Service to others: engaging in acts of kindness and service can help keep the Heart open and connected to others.
2. Anxiety of the Metal element (Lung and Intestines)
Overwhelm and Grief
After the Heart receives information, it passes it down to the Small Intestine, where the information is filtered, separating the useful from the harmful.
The Large Intestine further processes information, assimilating and retaining valuable lessons and insights and discarding what's unhelpful.
This downward movement of accepting the information, “digesting”, and assimilating the useful, nourishing aspects and eliminating what we don't need, is how we receive guidance and nourishment for our own evolution.
However, if Qi gets blocked during this stage due to our unwillingness to accept, inability to discern, or too much grasping and incapacity to let go, Yang Qi flares up, manifesting as anxiety characterized by:
Grief
A sensation of ‘I can’t take it anymore’
Existential loneliness and isolation
Difficulty setting boundaries
Issues with self-worth
Difficulty discerning what is good and what is harmful; what is important in life for us; grasping at material possessions
Difficulty letting go of what no longer serves us
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Heat in the upper body, intolerance for warm environments
Strong thirst
Hyperperspiration
Chest pressure with difficulty breathing
Hyperventilation
Nausea or vomiting
Cough
Abdominal pain or distention
Constipation or dry stool
Hemorrhoids
Frequently waking up at night
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Extreme restlessness
Brain fog
Delirious speech, long rants
Difficulty speaking
If these symptoms resonate with your experience, focus on:
✓ Identifying your life’s priorities and setting boundaries.
✓ Cultivating healthy detachment and learning to let go with Mindfulness practices that focus on non-attachment and non-judgmental awareness.
✓ Learning to trust in the Universe and yourself.
✓ Recognizing the lesson you were meant to learn in every life experience and letting go of the suffering.
✓ Breath-focused practices like Meditation or QiGong.
3. Anxiety of the Wood element (Gallbladder)
Anger and Indignation
After accepting and processing life experiences, Yang Qi enters the Earth Element, where the essence of the experience, the life lesson we realized from it, is integrated into who we are. The Gallbladder’s free and correct movement is crucial during this stage, as it helps Qi pivot and root in our DanTian – a key step for its integration.
If we fail to recognize or integrate the life lesson inherent in an experience, if we fail to recognize the love of the Universe in the experience and react to it a s a punishment instead, instead of coming out of the storm stronger than ever, we are weakened by it, as we spend enormous amounts of energy to resist and reject the experience, and never receive the nourishment it was bringing.
As the Heavenly Yang Qi fails to pivot and get rooted, again, it comes up, manifesting as anxiety, characterized by:
Anger and irritability
A sense of injustice
Resistance to life
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Symptoms worsening with stress
Alternating symptoms like constipation one day, diarrhea the next
Temperature regulation issues; chills; cold hands and feet
Pain that comes and goes or changes location
A lump in the throat
Uncomfortable feeling under your ribcage
A feeling of “not getting enough air” when you breathe in
Superficial breathing
Frequent sighing or yawning
Body pains like migraines and fibromyalgia
A bitter taste in the mouth
Difficulty digesting greasy foods
Waking up around 1am
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Shyness, lack of courage
Executive dysfunction
Startling easily
If these symptoms resonate with your experience, focus on:
✓ Accepting change as a natural part of life.
✓ Trusting the process.
✓ Viewing obstacles as necessary parts of your journey.
✓ Cultivating a ‘life-as-adventure’ attitude.
✓ Physical movement: regular exercise, especially activities like dancing or martial arts (e.g., Tai Chi), can help release pent-up anger and improve the flow of Qi.
✓ Vision exercises: wood is associated with the eyes, so exercises to relax and strengthen the eyes (like palming or focus shifting techniques) could be beneficial.
4. Anxiety of the Earth element (Stomach and Spleen)
Worry and Overthinking
Once the Heavenly Yang Qi enters the Earth element, the process of integration begins, as the Earth is responsible for receiving nourishment from our life experiences. Just as the food we eat ultimately is transformed into our own cells and physical energy, the life lessons we receive get integrated into who we are, making us stronger, more resilient, and more capable.
A weak Earth element struggles to properly digest both food and spiritual nourishment, causing Yang Qi to uproot and rise, manifesting as anxiety characterized by:
Constant worrying and ruminating
Mistrust in yourself and the Universe
Feeling inadequate, not good enough
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Hardness in the epigastric region, with a sensation that food can’t go down
Digestive difficulties like gas, bloating, frequent burping, nausea
Diarrhea
Excessive weight, as a form of self-protection
Fatigue
Insomnia due to racing thoughts
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Feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted
Overthinking
Mental fog
If these symptoms resonate with your experience, you would benefit from:
✓ Self-nurturing practices as Reparenting, which addresses the Earth element's need for security and support.
✓ Cultivating trust in life.
✓ Seeking nourishing, reciprocal relationships.
✓ Grounding exercises: practices like walking barefoot on natural surfaces (earthing) or simply spending time in nature can be very grounding and calming for the Earth element.
✓ Mindful eating: focusing on slow, mindful eating can improve digestion and help in better integrating nourishment from food and life experiences.
✓ Self-massage: techniques like abdominal massage can help stimulate the digestive system and promote relaxation.
5. Anxiety of the Water element (Kidneys)
Fear and Existential Crisis
The process of integrating life experiences is overseen by the Kidneys, which, according to Chinese Medicine, store our essence, our blueprint, our innate potential in this life.
The Kidney energy ensures the assimilation and integration of life experiences aligns with our deepest truths and our potential, so that we can use whatever happens in our life to ‘upgrade’ in our own evolution, and to use the wisdom we received from the Universe to become the highest version of ourselves.
If Kidney energy is weakened, we lose sight of ourselves, and find ourselves pursuing life following the guidance and opinions of others, rather than our own truth. If we do not make time and effort to connect to our deepest truths, we’ll spend our days engaging in activities that instead of nourishing our potential, drains our life force energy.
If we don´t really know who we are in our core, it is difficult to gain true wisdom. We might have a lot of insights gained from life experiences, but we´ll be unable to use them to reach our highest potential.
This uproots Yang Qi, causing it to rise and manifest as anxiety characterized by:
‘I have everything sorted out: a good job, a house, a husband/wife, a child, a cat and a dog - why am I so unhappy?’
Feeling disconnected from our deepest Self, a sense of ‘I don’t know who I am’
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Incontinence of any type
Frequent urination
Intolerance to cold; cold hands and feet
Issues with fluid metabolism
Hot flashes, blushing
Weak knees and lower back
Tinnitus
Vertigo
Difficulty falling asleep
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Panic attacks
Feeling mentally and emotionally fatigued, empty, and riddled with a sense of a deep seated fear
Lacking mental and emotional strength and resilience, feeling too vulnerable
If these symptoms resonate with your experience, focus on:
✓ Identifying your core values.
✓ Training yourself to act from your core values.
✓ Fear-facing exercises: gradual exposure to fears in a safe environment can help build resilience and courage.
✓ Meditation on stillness: the Water element is about depth and stillness. Meditations that focus on deep stillness and silence can be very nourishing.
✓ Warmth practices: keeping the lower back and kidneys warm (e.g., with warm compresses) can help support Kidney energy.
✓ Slowing down and reconnecting with yourself throughout the day.
6. Anxiety of the Wood element (Liver)
Irritability and Frustration
As we’ve accepted, assimilated, and integrated life, the Heavenly Yang Qi that has been going ‘down and into’ us all this time, has been integrated and used for our spiritual evolution.
In this stage, the Yang Qi pivots again and starts moving ‘up and out’, aided by expansive, explosive, spring-like Wood energy - so we can share your authentic self and wisdom with the World, expressing that which we learned during our life’s journey: bravely, freely, unapologetically.
Here, the problems arise when we suppress our authenticity, when we don’t give a channel of expression for what we hold inside, and the wisdom that is trying to express itself from the depths of our true self is unable to do so.
This blockage manifests as anxiety characterized by:
A feeling of being trapped
A sense of injustice
Angry outbursts
Frustration and resentment
Hypervigilance and tension
Overwhelm
If we don’t pay attention, our soul’s scream for freedom will get louder, condensing into:
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Muscle tightness, especially in the neck, shoulders, and back
Fatigue
Thinning hair and weak nails
Dry skin
Menstrual disorders
Dizziness; lightheadedness
Black floaters in your vision
Any kind of lumps or tumors
Trembling or shaking
Nightmares, restless sleep
Frequent waking at night, especially around 3 am
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Social anxiety
Difficulty making decisions
A feeling of being unable to be yourself
If these symptoms resonate with your experience, you would benefit from:
✓ Shadow Work.
✓ Creative outlets: engaging in creative activities like painting, writing, or music.
✓ Journaling.
✓ Learning to prioritize yourself.
✓ Practicing voicing your wants and needs.
✓ Anger management techniques: practices like punching a pillow or screaming can help release pent-up anger in a healthy way.
7. Returning to the Fire element – the Heart.
The cycle of receiving, accepting, learning, letting go, integrating, and evolving never ceases. How we navigate each stage affects our overall being and our Heart’s ability to see reality clearly.
Every resisted experience, every rejected life lesson, thickens the veil through which we view the world, obscuring our vision with incorrect interpretations, perceived injustices, and triggers.
Only when we’re able to accept life without resistance or judgment, and our Hearts remain calm, bright, and open, able to receive experiences as they are, without the influence of past traumas or toxic beliefs, can we be completely free from anxiety.
Summary: Root Causes of Anxiety
Understanding the signals of your body and the ‘type’ of your anxiety is the first step towards finding effective ways to restore balance in your mind and emotions, effectively manage stress, and get rid of anxiety.
In essence, according to the ancient Chinese wisdom, anxiety can often be traced to one of three root causes:
Difficulty Accepting Life Experiences:
Blocks in the early stages of receiving nourishment from the Universe.
Difficulty Integrating Life Lessons and Letting Go of Suffering:
Blocks in the middle stages of processing and assimilating experiences.
Difficulty Expressing Your Authentic Self:
Blocks in the final stages of transforming and using received nourishment.
It's important to note that anxiety is rarely caused by a single imbalance.
Our bodies are complex, interconnected systems, and this cycle of receiving, assimilating, integrating, and transforming Qi is one continuous movement. The delineations between the stages overlap, and the Qi movement in any point depends on its movement in all the other points.
It is absolutely possible to have blockages in several of these stages, with overlapping symptoms.
How a particular blockage affects and manifests in our body will also depend on pre-existing weaknesses, our diet, and other life-style choices.
How Chinese Medicine can Help you with Anxiety
Acupuncture, herbal medicine, and other techniques can unblock stagnant Qi, regulate energy flow, and strengthen organ functions, bringing balance to your physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
Balancing the body with Chinese Medicine treatments helps your psyche to start reacting differently to life, giving you more energy and strength to process life, helping you feel safer, more grounded and centered.
For instance, if you're experiencing an imbalance in the Earth element (affecting the Stomach and Spleen), Chinese Medicine treatments can improve not only your digestion but also your ability to process and integrate life experiences.
Coupling it with internal spiritual work and learning to take care of yourself by correct diet and other healthy habits, you will not only get rid of your anxiety – you’ll completely change your life.
Looking Ahead:
In my next Article, I will explore why and how the difficulties accepting and processing life arise, leading to anxiety. I’ll explore the concept of negative stress and offer practical strategies for protecting yourself from its toxic effects on your body and mind.