Identifying Your Flavor of Anxiety

4 June

Did you know anxiety has different flavors?

I have a lot of patients coming to me with anxiety. Often the sensations are so overwhelming, we try to disconnect from them. All we know is we have anxiety.

But reconnecting with our body, and what happens to our body when we experience anxiety is incredibly helpful in learning what tools will be most successful in helping someone work with their, individual anxiety.

The symptoms or physical experiences are clues to what organ systems are driving the anxiety.

What is the tangible physical feeling?

Is there shortness of breath is your heart racing?
Does it feel like chaotic energy?
Does it feel like you just wanna burst out of your skin

OR—

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Do you get a knot in your stomach? 
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Do you get nauseous? 
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Are your thoughts racing and getting more stressful?

OR is it a combo?

Different types of anxiety can also be related to other emotions—that’s what I mean by flavor of anxiety.

Sometimes the anxiety has an irritable, aggressive, angry flavor to it.

In Chinese medicine, this is governed by the liver.

Sometimes anxiety comes out of feeling overwhelmed with racing thoughts, and over-thinking. It has a worry flavor to it. The worrying is the trigger for the anxiety to start, and that anxiety actually comes from the spleen and stomach organs.

Anxiety that has a strong physical feeling where the heart is racing and there’s shortness of breath without the other emotions involved tends to be the anxiety associated with the heart.

And finally, there can be one with a fear component— that ties into the kidneys.

*****Remember, in Chinese medicine, the organs are a larger concept -not just the organs themselves.

So if I say your anxiety has a kidney flavor to it, your actual kidneys are most likely fine. This is more of an energetic situation that shows up mentally emotionally.

Helping your acupuncturist identify how it feels in your body when anxiety takes hold, as well as what other emotions might be playing a role in the anxiety, will really help identify getting you the most successful individualized treatment you can get.

The organs driving your anxiety require different care to support them—and reduce the anxiety

If you have a liver driven anxiety— stress management becomes key, as well as eating more sour flavors, and naturally sweet flavors.

(Sour = citrus, vinegars, sour berries, sour apples, kombucha)

(Naturally sweet = root vegetables, winter squash, some fruit—but don’t over do it on fruit)

If you have a heart driven anxiety— The flavor to eat more of is bitter. Bitter greens specifically, or things like broccolini, radicchio, chicory tea.

If you have a spleen -stomach driven anxiety—The flavor is naturally sweet. See above. AND learning how to talk yourself out of worry or further worsening thoughts is key.

If you have a kidney driven anxiety—the flavor is salty. First, if you have high blood pressure, you’ll need another option. If you do not have high blood pressure, or if you even have low blood pressure—eat some more salt!

Stay tuned for our next blog, where we’ll talk more about our inner monologue related to anxiety.

To learn more about food therapy:

Check out my video series teaching you all the physical and mental emotional connections to the organ systems, how to listen to your body, and then a deep dive into what to do in the kitchen for it. This is a comprehensive video series of all the things I wish I could teach everyone about there body. Check it out here.

Lindsey Thompson