Often I hear in clinic, “I’m not a morning person.” A client will say, it takes me a while to get going. I could go straight back to sleep as soon as I wake up. Then I might ask, “so, how long does it take you get going?” The client might say a few minutes, half an hour up to even an hour. Often it can be so hard for them to get moving and feel clear in the morning.
So what does this mean for your energy? In Chinese medicine, we see this as being stagnant. This means you have lots of energy but it’s all backed up and stuck in your body, not moving. You need help to get it moving.
If you’re a person who wakes up full of beans but then who fades in the afternoon, then you’re someone who needs more energy and we’d look at ways for your body to make more effectively.
So what can you do about it? If you’re the stuck and stagnant one, don’t take supplements to supposedly add more energy as you can end up feeling more stuck. What you need to do is to move more, especially in the morning but also before bed. Try not to eat too late as that will also stagnate in your digestive system and don’t eat too much! You can also look at taking herbs that help your Qi to move. Get acupuncture, and do more exercise. All of these things together will be helpful. Foods that are more moving are good too, so more vegetables for you and make sure your bowels are moving regularly too. This means more water, more fibre and even more exercise. Are you starting to get the picture?
In our culture if we feel low on energy, we are so used to taking something to give us more energy when in actual fact, often you have it and just need to help it MOVE!!
I see this picture so often in my fertility clients, clients with painful periods, pregnant clients, kids with too much phlegm. Stagnation is so common in clinic and of course it presents in many different ways and with different organ systems and meridians but when it all boils down, it’s often an issue with stagnation that is causing most of the client’s problems.
If you’re someone who needs to make more energy effectively, that’s when I look at your organ systems to see what needs to be improved and we work on that. There are times when I tell clients to do less exercise as it’s draining them of their energy. If you feel tired after your exercise you maybe doing too much for your body type. If you feel great after, hooray you’ve moved your stagnation!
There’s not a one size fits all approach and sometimes it can be complicated to work it out.
Either way, if you’re stagnant or deficient, it’s important to know what one you are so you can improve your energy effectively.