Checking one emotion with another

Natural Therapeutic

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• Regulating emotions ( 1 2 3 4 5)
• Environments, daily life and clothing (7 8 9 10 11 12)
• Life cultivation and rehabilitation with the diet (14 15 16)
• Health Care Methods in Sexual Life (18 19 20)
• Therapies with sports (22 23 24 25 26)

Checking one emotion with another

This is the method mentioned more than 2000 years ago in “Discussion on Principles of Yin Yang Doctrine and its relations with Nature Things and phenomena”, a chapter of plain questions. The content includes “anger impairs the liver while grief restricts anger”; “joy impairs the heart while fear restricts joy”; “anxiety impairs the spleen while anger restricts anxiety”; “melancholy impairs the kidney while anxiety restricts fear.” This method of checking one emotion with another is based on the principle of excess. Zhang ZhiHe, a medical expert of the Jin and Yuan Dynasties, introduced it specifically as follows: “checking anger with grief with joy using crack jokes to please one; checking joy with fear using fear and death to frighten one; checking anxiety with anger using insulting language to excite one; checking fear with anxiety using worrying words to make one forget to fear.”

Fear Restricts Joy

This is a method to restrain great joy impairing the heart and restore mental function by applying fearful factors to astringe the dissipated cardiac spirit. The method is often applicable to diseases of scattered cardiac qi duo to endless laughing as well as emotional disorders due to excessive joy.

Anger restricts anxiety

This is method to restore functions of the heart and spleen by using irritating factors to restrain excessive anxiety. This method is often applicable to melancholia, insomnia, epilepsy, etc. caused by impairment of the spleen and consumption of spirit due to excessive anxiety.