This post and associated audio comes via a Skype interview from the beautiful town of Monzambano in Northern Italy where I started my trip to train acupuncturists in Europe.
Today I want to discuss what is becoming a major scourge of the 21st Century – anorexia and bulimia – eating disorders that are affecting so many bright young people in our society today.
From a traditional acupuncture perspective, we utilise a very elementary perspective. It is an alternative perspective, but it is not the only perspective we use – but it does give us a way of looking at health conditions to give us a different angle and a way of treating people suffering from different medical conditions.
From the elemental perspective, we use what we call the five elements – wind, water, earth, metal and fire. The primary element affected in the case of bulimia and anorexia, according to Japanese Acupuncture, is the earth element. We nominate the organs and the energy meridians controlled by the earth element as the spleen and stomach, which seems quite natural.
What can happen is the earth element is utilised and consumed when we eat and also in deep contemplative thought. So one of the symptoms of the deficiency in the earth element can be eating disorders but it can also be diarrhoea – it does not have to be anorexia or bulimia.
One of the other symptoms of a deficiency in the earth element is over-thinking. This consumes an enormous amount of energy and creates a cycle – almost an endless cycle of going over the same thing again and again and again. It becomes very difficult for the person in this situation to correct or balance their lives. It becomes more prevalent for them to become consumed about one particular aspect of their lives.
They lose the ability to look at the bigger picture and become very honed in on one particular aspect and completely close off. This creates a habitual, mental/emotional condition from the perspective of the anorexia or bulimia digestive pattern where the mental process and emotional process result in the digestive system being completely disorganised and disorientated. As a result of this, there is a continuum of this scenario just evolving again and again. It is a massively destructive wheel.
I’ve found historically in my thirty years of practice that acupuncture, especially the very gentle style of Japanese Acupuncture, to be incredibly effective in helping people suffering from these conditions to correct the mental and emotional pattern which then helps them to correct the massive digestive upheaval that they experience as a result of their condition.
I have great empathy for people in this situation and their loved ones watching these people go through this incredibly debilitating condition.
Please feel free to contact me if you would like to know more about how Japanese Acupuncture could possibly help someone you know who is suffering from an eating disorder. It is quite rare for a person with an eating disorder to be motivated to try traditional acupuncture and usually it is the loved one who asks their son or daughter to give acupuncture a try to correct their eating disorder.
You can contact us at either our Brisbane acupuncture clinic or our acupuncture clinic on the Gold Coast.
