Key Learning Points
Qi Stagnation works rather like a roadblock, or a traffic jam. In fact that’s how I describe its action in my book, see sidebar, and below.
Frustration, tension, hindrance and STRESS – all examples! It’s an idea from which many acupuncturists have made a fortune!
And they deserved it!
To understand stagnant qi, you first need to understand Qi. As you’ll realise when reading the linked page there, Qi underlies the universe. It’s a fundamental building block, preceding matter. If you’re reading this, you have it. For health, you must allow it to move and change. Among the worst things you can do are waste it, or block it.
Blocking it, and the symptoms and diseases that arise from blocking it, are what this page is about.
At this early, temporary level, how would you notice it in someone else? That depends on the individual.
How do people show mild, passing irritation? Some people don’t show it all. Others purse their lips, or frown, or tense their jaw, or hunch their shoulders, or stare hard. Some feel depressed.
Others mutter to themselves, swear or twitch. Some scratch (eg their nose), rub their fingers or chins, pull their earlobes or fiddle with their hair.
People used to light a cigarette. Or they chewed gum – they still do! You’ll see why in a moment.
Also, people move with a rhythmic pattern, tapping fingers or feet.
When the cause ceases, they stop doing it.
As the symptoms become more severe, or last longer, there will be some damage.
Here the damage is usually temporary. The body soon repairs the fingernail, replaces skin, grows more nose!
What happens depends on the individual’s
In general, the younger and/or the less healthy or resilient you are, the less well you’ll tolerate it.
Age, experience and good health increase the ability to resist stress or at least to show less signs of it. Self-discipline helps. People with a military background often cope well.
Signs usually intensify first in the upper parts – head and arms. You get tension headaches and sore neck muscles. Then comes swearing, shouting, gesticulating. Chewing teeth together becomes bruxism, grinding teeth down. It takes a while to grow teeth back! So this is more serious.
Click to read what happened to Linda!
Next? Symptoms begin to move towards the centre. People need to smoke a cigarette or swallow, eat or drink something. Sighing counteracts an unconscious tendency to hold the breath.
Some people compress it all inwards: not good for emotional health. Often not good for physical health either! You may get IBS – Irritable Bowel Syndrome – if you stick it in your gut, or migraines if it goes to your Liver.
So far the symptoms are at the top of the body or upper end of the arms. Imagine standing with your arms stretched up above you. Qi stagnation symptoms ascend to hands or head – the upper parts. This is also where Liver qi ascends to when you first get stressed. There is an exception to this ‘ascending’ energy! Some people tap their toes. This displays another aspect of Liver qi stagnation: ‘Wind‘, which shows up as movement. |
Then Stagnant Qi attacks Lung qi, so now not only are you sighing but it’s hard to catch your breath. Your chest feels stuffy, blocked, congested. Sometimes it feels itchy, too. Qi stagnation then transforms into either Heat, or movement and Ascending Qi.
(Think what happens to a balloon as you try to compress it. It pushes out in other directions, between your fingers – assuming you don’t burst it! Compression also makes it hot.)
If it changes form into heat, you feel hot, bothered, red-eyed, irritable, and it’s hard to sleep. If there is also phlegm (see below) then you get sinus, ear and gland problems, with heat too! (That means pain and offensive smells too! Sorry.)
If stagnant qi attacks Kidney qi, not only is there desire to urinate, but noises in the ear – tinnitus. (This is because, in Chinese medicine, the Kidney zang rules your ears and your hearing.) For some the pressure builds into hypertension, high blood pressure.
Qi stagnation presses onto your digestion and bowels.
So in your abdomen, you feel swelling or distension. This isn’t always from gas, but may be. When pressed the area may be sore, and the local distension may appear to move around. Almost like bubbles of stuff deep inside.
With distension comes a feeling of stretching, distension, cramping or burning. You want to loosen clothing and release tight belts. Sometimes you feel a band round your centre.
Circulation: feeling too hot, too cold, sweating even though you aren’t exercising.
Women get the distending, stretching sensations as qi stagnation builds before their menses. They are already under mental pressure. Now it’s physical too. And all the tension down there puts them off sex, a tragedy if they’re trying to conceive.
Until now, stagnant qi symptoms have been more transient. That means they haven’t affected you deeply, though they may have been uncomfortable. But now, the situation develops and you either can’t change or you can’t avoid what’s making it worse. Symptoms move to the interior of your body and mind. |
Sometimes this precedes and sometimes it follows abdominal symptoms.
What would you feel as Qi stagnation pressure expands in your chest?
The longer the stress continues the more likely becomes chronic damage.
For example …
So from being stagnant qi that tried to escape upward, it has now ‘attacked’ the centre, and your ‘spirit’.
That can lead to yang deficiency.
The longer it goes on the more Qi stagnation prevents Blood from flowing smoothly. That leads to Blood Stagnation. (You get Blood Stagnation anyway as you age, but try to delay its arrival for as long as possible!)
Examples of Blood Stagnation? Lots, but check Stomach Blood Stasis.
Qi stagnation can lead to Heart Qi Stagnation. You don’t want that! That can lead on to Heart Blood stagnation.
Well, first of all,
So, certain things make us worse, but to start with they make us feel better.
All such foods are high in calories, salt, sugar or sweeteners. Most are fattening and disturb healthy levels of our blood and acid/alkali levels. Long-term, clothes get tight and we become less attractive.
So: running, competitive sports, weight-lifting, vigorous swimming, skipping (some examples).
But a brisk walk or a quick bicycle ride both work for qi stagnation!
Also excellent are Tai Qi and Yoga, the former being preferable: Qigong is splendid. Why do I prefer Tai Qi to Yoga for qi stagnation? Only because it involves movement, where much of Yoga is static. (However, I confess that I do Yoga, not Tai Qi. But I often cycle, and walk a lot.)
The more you move your whole body and get out of breath, preferably from using your whole body, the better you’ll feel.
Getting out of breath is good. Anything that flexes your spine in all directions and makes you stretch, bend and reach is great.
Sex is good, unless your energy is low: the more movement the better so solitary masturbation may be not so good. If your energy is low or you find it exhausting, sex is not recommended. Read sexual impotence.
Well, of course, you need to change the situation that’s causing your problem, but that’s often easier said than done.
Sometimes you can walk away from it, take the loss – the ‘hit’, but begin to live again.
Social activity? We don’t mean activity using electronics (computer, cell-phone, telephone …Skype, Facebook, email …)!
We mean socialising, with laughter – unforced. Wine and dine, visit the cinema together, go dancing or hiking or cycling or swimming together (some examples!). (Yes I know, not so easy during Lockdown!)
Do it away from work if you can.
You can talk about what bothers you or just enjoy the company.
Yes, we did say ‘wine’ (and dine) up there, although it doesn’t have to be wine. If you can relax without alcohol or other drugs, even better.
As most of us know, the second glass of alcohol always seems a good idea after the first, and then the third? Well, it seems to come right after the second.
Better not to start. But a little alcohol does often temporarily help the symptoms of qi stagnation.
Suppose you have the symptoms of Qi stagnation and tension stops you sleeping?
What might help, besides the above (… did we mention exercise? I think we did …)
So what about …
Of course! They all help. But with meditation, practise before you get Qi Stagnation. No point sitting down to meditate only after you feel tense. Learn to meditate first, then you can use it when you need to.
What if your problem is different: that whether you are tense or not you cannot sleep? Click on difficulty falling asleep.
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When I started it, I expected to write no more than about 80 pages. Even so, rather more than just this page that you’re looking at!
So the book grew. People tell me that it is easy to read. Some say that my various enthusiasms help make it more interesting than you’d expect from the title.
And that title? Why call it such an obscure name, which most people don’t even know how to pronounce?! That’s because I am pretty sure that as Chinese medicine becomes well known in the West, some of its terms – like Yin and Yang, for instance – will come to be part of our language.
If I’m right, ‘Qi Stagnation‘ will become one of those terms and people will want to know what it is. Well, here’s the book!
To get better from a chronic condition needs treatment from outside oneself. For example, I recommend acupuncture. (Remember, Qi Stagnation is the Jewel in the Crown!)
In other words, if you have Qi Stagnation, how should you change your diet and what should you avoid? And why?
Each of us develops not just some of the main symptoms of Qi stagnation, but our own particular variety of them.
For example, if you’re a woman, you may notice symptoms before your menses, when stagnant qi causes swelling and distension, and besides, it worsens your back pain. Around 4pm you also feel very tired. For you, the qi stagnation is putting an extra strain on your Kidney qi which is why you get the back pain and 4pm droop.
For me? Well, first I’m male, so no menses. But along with some bowel pattern changes I get itchy skin on the sides of my chest and keep needing to yawn. In my case, qi stagnation is picking up on my history of chest and respiratory complaints – weak Lung qi.
Everyone has a weak area, something that lets them down under stress. You might not know what it is but sooner or later, it will keep repeating – more often as you grow older.
The more you ‘behave’, the less of a problem it will be. But still, it’s always in the background. Unless of course, you’ve taken action to minimise it, such as with appropriate treatment.
You might not like some of the Qi stagnation foods listed, or your reaction might be unusual!
You might just be the one in 10 million people who, after eating a given food, goes green, sprouts leaves and ends up looking like a tree.
Statistically, they tell me there’s always one. (!)
So … the point is, the foods listed below may or may not suit you. If some don’t, try others!
Qi is a manifestation of Yang energy. If you know anything about balancing yin and yang, you’ll realise that yang takes form as movement and heat: together these form pressure. They overcome yin forms, such as coolness, resilience and resources – and Blood.
So if you think about what happens to you as Qi stagnates, you get one or more of the following symptoms:
There are also some foods that seem to benefit the Liver and Gallbladder, easing their excesses and regulating how they work.
And there are some foods that almost certainly make Qi stagnation worse. I list them below the main table.
| Food | Reduces Heat | Dissipates Excess Yang | Steadies Earth & Supports Blood | Energises Metal | Harmonise Liver |
A-J | |||||
| Asparagus | |||||
| Barley | Barley | ||||
| Basil | Basil | ||||
| Basil | Basil | ||||
| Bayleaf | Bayleaf | ||||
| Bean curd | Bean curd | ||||
| Beef | Beef | ||||
| Beets | Beets | ||||
| Bitter gourd | Bitter gourd | ||||
| Black Pepper | Black pepper | ||||
| Black sesame seed | Black sesame seed | ||||
| Broccoli | Broccoli | ||||
| Brussels sprouts | Brussels sprouts | ||||
| Cabbage | Cabbage | ||||
| Caraway seed | Caraway seed | ||||
| Cardamom | Cardamom | ||||
| Cauliflower | Cauliflower | ||||
| Celery | Celery | ||||
| Celery | Celery | ||||
| Chamomile flower | Chamomile flower | ||||
| Cherries | Cherries | ||||
| Chestnut | Chestnut | ||||
| Chicken | Chicken | ||||
| Chicory | Chicory | ||||
| Chinese dates | Chinese dates | ||||
| Chives | Chives | ||||
| Cider vinegar | Cider vinegar | Cider vinegar | |||
| Cinnamon bark | Cinnamon bark | ||||
| Clove | Clove | ||||
| Corn silk | Corn silk | ||||
| Cucumber | Cucumber | ||||
| Cucumber | Cucumber | ||||
| Cumin | Cumin | ||||
| Dandelion root | Dandelion root | ||||
| Dill | Dill | ||||
| Eggplant | Eggplant | ||||
| Fennel | Fennel | ||||
| Fennel | Fennel | ||||
| Fig | Fig | ||||
| Ginger | Ginger | ||||
| Ginseng (American) | Ginseng (American) | ||||
| Grapefruit | Grapefruit | ||||
| Hawthorn fruit | Hawthorn fruit | ||||
| Honey | Honey | ||||
Job’s tears | Job’s tears | ||||
Kelp | Kelp | ||||
| Kohlrabi | Kohlrabi | ||||
| Leek | Leek | ||||
| Lemon Balm | Lemon Balm | Lemon Balm | |||
| Lettuce | Lettuce | ||||
| Lime | Lime | ||||
| Longan | Longan | ||||
| Loquat | Loquat | ||||
| Lychee | Lychee | ||||
| Malt | Malt | ||||
| Maltose | Maltose | ||||
| Marjoram | Marjoram | ||||
| Milk (cow) | Milk (cow) | ||||
| Milk thistle seeds | Milk thistle seeds | ||||
| Millet | Millet | ||||
| Mint | Mint | ||||
| Mung Beans | Mung Beans | ||||
| Mung Beans | Mung Beans | ||||
| Mushrooms | Mushrooms | ||||
| Muskmelon | Muskmelon | ||||
| Mustard Greens | Mustard Greens | Celery | |||
| Olive | Olive | ||||
| Onion | Onion | ||||
| Peach | Peach | ||||
| Peanuts | Peanuts | ||||
| Pear | Pear | ||||
| Peppermint | Peppermint | ||||
| Pinenuts | Pinenuts | ||||
| Pork | Pork | ||||
| Quinoa | Quinoa | ||||
| Radish | Radish | ||||
| Radish leaves | Radish leaves | ||||
| Rhubarb root | Rhubarb root | ||||
| Romaine lettuce | Romaine lettuce | ||||
| Rosemary | Rosemary | ||||
| Rye | Rye | ||||
| Seaweed | Seaweed | ||||
| Shiitake mushroom | Shiitake mushroom | ||||
| Sour plum | Sour plum | ||||
| Squash | Squash | ||||
| Star anise | Star anise | ||||
| Strawberry | Strawberry | ||||
| String beans | String beans | ||||
| Sweet rice | Sweet rice | ||||
| Tangerine | Tangerine | ||||
| Taro root | Taro root | ||||
| Tofu | Tofu | ||||
| Turmeric | Turmeric | ||||
| Turnips | Turnips | ||||
| Water chestnut | Water chestnut | ||||
| Watercress | Watercress | Watercress | |||
| Watermelon | Watermelon | ||||
| Wine | Wine | ||||
To recap! As mentioned above, the foods you want to eat will:
Nobody will agree with all my following suggestions, of course, but to worsen your Qi stagnation, here’s a list.
You increase Heat and Yang with strong spices, chilli, pepper, horseradish etc. Initially these stimulate Lung qi, being pungent, but later they produce Heat, usually exacerbating Qi stagnation symptoms.
Think what they do! If they make you fidgety, hyper, ‘wired’, they increase Yang. Not good for Qi stagnation, at least not the next day!
If social drugs make you feel all powerful, flowing, magnificent, they are temporarily sweeping aside the resistance your body’s qi stagnation has created – their primary effect (you DID read that link above didn’t you?!). When the secondary effect kicks in, you’ll be dying for more of the drug! And not feeling well, most likely: the secondary effect!
What simple action can most people take to ease their qi stagnation? If you’ve read this far (well done!), you should already be taking more exercise.
Here’s the basic formula called the ‘four gates’. Why these points work is explained further down.
Better point combinations depend on how Qi stagnation is affecting the patient.
Over thousands of years acupuncturists learned what acupuncture points do. Many wrote books on this.
They found that acupuncture points have many properties. Among these are the abilities to:
Of course they also affect the area around the point itself and the acupuncture channel on which they lie. Some points lie on more than one channel.
By combining points you may be able to do more than any one point could on its own.
You could do something else. Instead of using points to clear the Heat you could use yin-cooling or Blood-strengthening points.
The patient doesn’t realise the cause is Qi stagnation. Their problem is the insomnia … that’s what they want you to fix! They’re not interested in something you call Qi stagnation.
But to ‘fix’ the insomnia, you need to deal with the Qi Stagnation. Besides acupuncture that means advice, counselling or ‘re-education’.
Another frequent problem that accompanies Qi Stagnation is deficiency of Stomach and Spleen. In fact, this deficiency makes qi stagnation – particularly Liver qi stagnation – more likely.
As already explained on this page of Qi Stagnation, there are various ways of doing this.
Every one of these is a big subject!
Overuse of the same acupuncture points can make them less effective. If the patient always wants more of the same, look deeper and explore a more diverse strategy.
That will make the acupuncturist work harder, but he’ll enjoy his work more. Otherwise it becomes repetitive and he gets bored and resentful.
Taking the Four Gates, let’s examine the points used to see what other points might work. These could be either instead of or better than Liver 3 and Large Intestine 4, depending on the diagnosis.
The more your acupuncturist knows about the points and the theory the more creative he or she can be.
Liver 3 strengthens Blood and Yin, so calms and steadies Heat and tension. Other points that do this include – each in a different way or with a different emphasis:
Here are other points that do something similar.
In addition, there are many points on the scalp that affect the Mind and send energy downwards. Other points on the feet ground it or pull it down.
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.
I also palpate the abdomen before and during treatment as this also gives me great feedback.
So it becomes an active participation, making me react as treatment progresses. When I’m sure there has been as much change as I can expect, I leave the patient to rest.
Between acupuncture and homoeopathy, which is best? Given the choice between these two great therapies, how do you decide?!
Always poor circulation and can’t warm up? You need this page to explain why and what to do! Also, learn what NOT to do – important!
Fermented foods both preserve and enhance a food’s quality, add ‘sourness’ to you diet and help Liver and Gallbladder work better.
Common diseases listed are those you often ask about. Here’s how Chinese medicine explains them, and why it may help. Includes some syndromes, too.
This Spleen channel points list links to individual Spleen points for deeper study. The Spleen: Your Great Housekeeper!
Singing means different things to different people. It can be enjoyable and community-enhancing. What about for health and your mind?
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5 Responses
Hello, nice article, especially thank you for the list of recommended foods, I would just like to know why there are foods in the list that support yang, such as qinoa or cinnamon, thank you for the explanation.
Hi Lubomir
Thanks for your question and I’m glad you like the article on Qi Stagnation.
Quinoa does indeed tonify qi and yang, but if you look at the channels it enters, Kidney and Pericardium, these are often under strain when Liver qi stagnates. Kidney is the Mother of Liver and Pericardium the Child. Think of a tense twenty-year-old mother who lives at home with her Mum and has already had a child. If either Mum or child – or worse, both of them! – are undernourished or having problems it will tend to make the 20-year-old mother worse.
But if you can keep the Mum and child well it will, one hopes, help to stabilise the mother. Were Mum and child also going off the rails, it would be harder to steady the mother.
Also, the nature of quinoa is sweet and sour. The sweet taste helps to stabilise Earth and the sour taste benefits the Liver.
Cinnamon is different.
It’s a herb, not a food, like quinoa. So you need much less of it and Chinese herbalists classify it among herbs that warm and release the Exterior.
This means that it disperses symptoms like wind-cold-damp which often bind the gallbladder channel, easing out tense shoulders, for example. The same function helps dysmenorrhoea, especially from cold or tension.
More important is that it adjusts the balance between the protective (wei) and nutritive (ying) energy functions. Read more about this on our page https://www.acupuncture-points.org/nutritive-and-defensive-qi-disharmony.html
It also eases the flow of yang qi in the chest, helping one to breathe more freely, often a problem if you’re tense from qi stagnation.
Usually one takes cinnamon as part of formula of herbs, each of which helps the others. The cinnamon one buys as a cooking herb is less powerful, but even so, one would usually combine it with other flavours in a dish.
One would not use the herb cinnamon in a strong excess yang condition such as when there was Heat in the Blood, or for a warm febrile condition. It is a herb for cold, tense conditions.
Your question exposes the problem of making lists! Really every item listed should have a longer description to explain its presence. Like acupuncture points, every food or herb has its own qualities and the two thousand-plus years of experience is there for our potential benefit.
Best wishes
Jonathan
Absolutely clear 🙂 Many thanks Jonathan
thanks a lot for this information. i have suffered from phlegm since my 20s as a result of second hand smoke from a stove which destroyed my sinuses, throat and lungs. i cannot sleep todate as phlegm is still a problem. i am off all fats and fried foods; i use olive oil and little. phlegm cannot go away and worse when finished eating! i have halitosis as phlegm is stuck in my head, tonsils, throat that i REMOVE it using fingures!!!!!!!!! ENT doctors have failed and made it worse by removing my nose turbinates!!!!!!!!! i only use honey. Please, do you have anything that can cure or help me? I am now 52yrs old female. Please reply. i also need to buy your books on managing stress.
Sorry to hear about your phlegm. It seems the smoke and Heat damaged not just your sinuses but also your Stomach’s ‘descending’ energy and your Lungs’ dispersing/diffusing facility.
So stuff that should descend and pass out through your digestion fails to descend – a kind of nausea or reflux of phlegm. This Stomach function of ‘descending’ and your Lungs function of dispersing is easily worsened by stress, anxiety and other emotions which upset your Liver energy. (Your Liver energy then overwhelms your Lungs’ and Stomach’s normal functions, so all this probably affects your appetite too. Read my page on the Five Elements, in particular the paragraph on the ‘ke’ cycle.)
There may also be an accumulation of ‘Damp‘.
Probably, all this phlegm is an attempt by your body to apply a kind of salve over the burnt tissues.
Of course I’d be very happy if you bought my book on Qi stagnation and Stress (!) but on this occasion I would instead suggest that you bought Andrew Sterman’s book “Welcoming Food’ volume 1 and look up the pages on phlegm (check its index). He lists the kind of foods and herbs that might hinder or help you. My book “Yuck Phlegm” may help too.
However, you’ve had this problem a long time and I think you may need some individual treatment, probably with Chinese herbal formulae, though acupuncture may also help.
If the underlying cause was indeed ‘Fire’ this may also be an occasion to see a homoeopath who may be able to find a homoeopathic remedy that matches the damage originally done to you.
However, I doubt you’ll get sudden cure, whatever you try. Phlegm of your sort can be difficult to treat, even with a solid theory behind it, because your body tissues were so badly damaged originally and then possibly also by the surgery: it makes it difficult for your body to navigate its way back to health over so many damaged bridges.
Sorry not to be more positive.
Best wishes Jonathan