Qi Stagnation Foods – and Herbs – to Help or Avoid

What does Chinese medicine offer Qi stagnation?

In developing over around 3000 years, Chinese medicine has had time to reflect on qi stagnation foods. It has a range of possible therapies, including some great herbal prescriptions, but these need to be tailored to you, the individual.

And then there’s Acupuncture for Qi stagnation.

While there is a basic formula for qi stagnation, there are lots of other, better, points and combinations of points, but how you use these depends on the particular patient and his or her idiosyncratic reactions to life.

Four Gates

Here’s the basic formula called the ‘four gates’. Why these points work is explained further down.

• Large Intestine 4 – Hegu

• Liver 3 – Taichong

Finding better points or combinations of points depends on understanding how Qi stagnation is affecting the patient.

Qi stagnation –

• Overall, qi stagnation increases yang at the expense of yin so …
• It increases Heat and Wind and decreases Blood, Nutrition, relaxation
• Heat and Wind create Pressure
• That pressure compresses, constricts and tightens other areas and functions of the body, often creating Heat!
• Heat rises, leading to problems in the shoulders, upper back and head, and mental dis-equilibrium: that rising action creates a draft – Wind!
• Wind creates movement, restlessness, twitchiness, physically and verbally

Over some thousands of years acupuncturists have learned what acupuncture points do, and what can be done with them. Many books have been written on this.

When you read an acupuncture textbook you’ll find points have many properties. Among these are the abilities to

• Move qi
• Release qi
• Descend qi
• Tonify Blood
• Move Blood
• Dissipate Heat
• Affect metabolic processes

Of course they also affect the area near the point and the acupuncture channel on which they lie. Some acupuncture points lie on, or affect, several channels at the same time.

By combining points you may be able to do more than either could on its own.

By diagnosing the patient’s condition you can decide what action to take to help. If there is Heat, you would use a point to clear Heat. Better still, if you recognise on which acupuncture channel(s) the Heat is being generated, you’d choose points on that channel to clear Heat.

Another approach …

But you could do something else: instead of, or as well as, using points to clear the Heat you could use  yin-cooling or Blood-strengthening points. If the patient was typically yin or blood deficient, or lived so as to weaken these sides of his health, it might be more important to boost these yin energies to stabilise them than to dissipate Heat. In other words, you would strengthen yin to ‘control’ or ‘anchor’ yang.

Think of it like a hot bath, its water too hot to enter.

What to do? You could wait for it to cool down, and hasten this process by opening the window and letting it evaporate faster. Or you could pour in more cold water. Adding more cold water is the yin-strengthening approach, whereas opening the window and letting cool air in to remove the heat is the yang dissipating approach. Read our page on balancing yin and yang for more on this.

Just doing that might be all that was needed. They’d feel steadier and calmer and more able to cope with the stress.

5 Elements theory

If the stress causing qi stagnation came from pressure to perform up to imposed targets, then, from a knowledge of 5 Element theory, one would nearly always treat Wood.

If the underlying cause came from a question of control, self-control, hysteria, or getting ‘high’, probably you’d treat Fire.

But if it came from ongoing worries, or caring for others, or dietary problems or poor choices, then you’d treat Earth.

If it arose from inability to relate to position in the world, to let go of what’s gone, to stand back, but also to stand up for principles and standards: Metal.

If the underlying problem was to do with inherent genetic makeup, or the ability to relax, to allow time for the resting phase in life: Water.

So if someone gets qi stagnation from a broken relationship, one might consider Fire and Metal. Fire, because the personal integrity has been breached, Metal because of the changed relationship.

On the other hand, if someone cared for had died, perhaps the more pressing need would be to support Earth as well as Metal.

Qi Stagnation, when developed, comes with other problems

These range from insomnia to headaches to tension to bowel disorders to pain to breathing problems and circulatory disturbances – and so on!

The patient doesn’t realise the cause is Qi stagnation. Their problem is the insomnia or at least, that’s what they want to be fixed! They’re not interested in something you call ‘Qi stagnation’.

But to ‘fix’ the insomnia, you need to deal with the Qi Stagnation. That means – depending on the personality and receptiveness of the patient – some advice, counselling or ‘re-education’.

Another frequent problem that accompanies Qi Stagnation is deficiency of Stomach and Spleen. In fact, I think this deficiency makes qi stagnation – particularly Liver qi stagnation – more likely.

As already explained on this page of Qi Stagnation, the acupuncturist has various ways of doing this.

• Acupuncture
• Massage (Tuina, Shiatsu, Reiki movements)
• Diet
• Herbs
• Exercise
• Counselling
• Cupping,
• Moxibustion etc.

Every one of these is a big subject.

Four Gate alternatives

If an acupuncture treatment is used too often on a given patient, it may become less effective.

In any case, if the patient always wants more of the same, probably the acupuncturist should look deeper and explore a more diverse strategy.

That will certainly make him work harder, but he’ll enjoy his work more. Otherwise it becomes repetitive and the practitioner gets bored and resentful.

Taking the Four Gates, let’s examine the points used and see what other points might work, either instead or better, depending on the diagnosis.

The more you know about the points the more creative you can be.

Liver 3

Liver 3 strengthens Blood and Yin, so calms and steadies Heat and tension. Other points that do this include – each in a slightly different way or with a different emphasis:

• Stomach 36
• Spleen 6
• Pericardium 6
• Bladder 14, 16, 17, 17, 20
• Gallbladder 41, 42
• Liver, 4, 5, 6, 8, 13, 14

Large Intestine 4

Large Intestine 4 disperses Wind and Heat, helps to balance fluids and restore balance between inside and outside (which is why it is used for attack by external pathogenic factors, like a cold) and sends energy downwards.

Here are other points that do something similar, although each with a different emphasis.

• Large intestine 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 11
• Stomach 30, 41, 42, 44
• Small intestine 3, 7, 8
• Bladder 11, 12, 41, 43, 58, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65
• Three Heater 2, 3, 5, 6

In addition, there are many points on the scalp that affect the Mind and send energy downwards and a few on the feet that ground it or pull it down.

Then there are the names of the points. For Liver 3 (Taichong) one might choose points with the word ‘chong’ (passageway) in their name to strengthen the Blood.

For Large intestine 4, if the main aim was to clear Wind, then points with ‘feng’ (Wind) in their name might be chosen.

Using one of the Command points

Some points affect particular parts of the body. If you know where a problem lies, adding the appropriate point may increase the effect of our treatment.

• Lung 7 affects the head
• Large intestine 4 affects the face
• Stomach 36 affects the abdomen
• Bladder 40 affects the back
• Pericardium 6 affects the chest

These Command points come down to us from antiquity. They do work, but sometimes by palpating the area, say the abdomen, I have searched for and found an even more effective point, which often lies along the same channel as the Command point for that area, but not where expected. In other words, the point I’ve used is perhaps on the thigh or more distal on the leg distal to Stomach 36.

Ear and other points

Similarly, there are groups of points in the ears with similar qualities, also on the forehead and hands.

As you see, there are many ways of treating qi stagnation with acupuncture.

How I do it

When I’m doing the acupuncture treatment, I take the patient’s pulse carefully before and usually during treatment, and keep an eye on their colour, demeanour and breathing, adjusting what I do as I go.

I also palpate the abdomen before and during treatment as this is also gives me great feedback.

This means it becomes an active participation between us, making me react as the treatment progresses. When I’m sure there has been as much change as I can expect, I leave the patient to rest and even doze if possible.

My preference, if I’ve made a good diagnosis, is to utilise 5 Element practice as much as possible. It’s economical and elegant and gives good results. However, it does require accurate diagnosis.

But – back to qi stagnation foods! – unless the patient makes an attempt to improve his or her diet, improvement, even from good acupuncture treatment, may be slow.