If you do take this route, there are a few things you might like to bear in mind. First of all, has any research been done? If you suffer from something like low back pain or nausea, there is plenty of it, but for other conditions there is not much, or perhaps not much that gives a definitive idea of how effective acupuncture might be. Obviously, this does not mean that acupuncture is or is not effective for your problem; it just means the research has not been done. Of course in China, where acupuncture originated, they may have been treating your problem with acupuncture for millenia, but they just somehow haven’t got round to doing any double blind random controlled trials or anything like that. And the thing about good research is that it does not come cheap; which is OK if you are a multi-national drug company testing your latest product, but who is going to fund research on acupuncture? There aren’t many multi-national acupuncture companies to do that.

Furthermore, research results need to be read critically. Here are just a few of the things you need to bear in mind:

a) In any research study on acupuncture, who was it doing the acupuncture? Traditional acupuncture puts a good deal of emphasis on the skill of the acupuncturist, who knows how to find the right place to put the needle, knows how deep to insert it, knows how much or how little to manipulate the needle for a given patient; in short, needs to have had a good few years of training, and preferably a good few years of clinical experience on top of that; a study which uses people who have just had a few weeks of training (if that) might be a waste of time and money.

b) Was the treatment individualised to each patient? Some trials use the same acupuncture points for each patient, whereas the clinical reality is that a traditional acupuncturist will use different points – will give a different treatment – to different patients even when they have the same medical condition. (There is a traditional Chinese medical proverb: yì bìng tóng zhì, tóng bìng yì zhì, which means “different diseases, same treatment; same disease, different treatments”). One person’s osteoarthritic knee is not the same as another’s, and since the treatment concerned is holistic in nature, it is also relevant that the two owners of the knees are not the same either. So research which uses a standard treatment protocol for a number of patients may be missing the point (no pun intended!) A related issue is the amount and nature of the stimulation the needles are given: again, a traditional acupuncturist might choose to manipulate the needles in one of the patients so as to produce a strong dull achy feeling all around the knee, and to be content with a simple light insertion of the needles in the other patient so that the latter feels hardly anything at all.

c) Trials need to take into account the placebo effect. The placebo effect means that any medical treatment will have a positive effect on a proportion of the patients concerned. If you have a 100 people with headaches and you give them inert sugar pills which they think is medicine, some of them will get better. This means that any research needs to screen out the placebo effect. This is relatively easy if you are testing pills; you can easily give half of your patients a placebo pill and half of them the real thing, and they won’t know which they have got. However, it is not so easy with acupuncture; which is to say, it is not so easy to make someone think they have had an acupuncture treatment, when in fact they have not! There are a number of ingenious ways researchers are now trying to get round this problem, but most of these are not without their difficulties; acupuncture placebos tend to be around twice as effective as pill placebos! To complicate matters further, in a research trial for a pill, not only does the patient not know if they are getting a placebo or not, neither does the administering clinician – this is called ‘double blinding’. This cuts out the possibility that the clinician may inadvertently suggest to the patient whether they are getting a placebo or not. Clearly it is not so easy to have a double blind acupuncture trial, which is to say one in which neither the patient nor the clinician knows whether the treatment is genuine acupuncture or not. Particularly given that in traditional acupuncture the intention of the clinician is considered a crucial part of the treatment!

d) Something else to bear in mind is that a traditional acupuncturist does not look at you and just see an osteoarthritic knee, if that is what you have got; they look at you as a complete person. Their understanding of your health problem necessarily encompasses your whole self. Thus their aim is not only to provide pain relief to your knee, but to enhance your health in general. This is an important point as far as research is concerned. For instance, most people would be less than thrilled with a treatment which reduced their knee pain somewhat but in the process gave them stomach ulcers (as might happen with some painkilling medications), but a research trial might only focus on the knee and simply report the effectiveness of the treatment for knee pain. You need to know more than whether the treatment worked on the knee.

All this might suggest that most research studies on the efficacy of acupuncture may well not give you a definitive answer as to whether acupuncture will help you or not. There is only one way to get that answer of course, and that is to have the treatment.

A patient told me a story about her GP. She had told him she was worried that one of the drugs she was taking (a statin) was causing the muscle pain she was suffering from. Her GP told her she was reading too many articles in the Daily Mail. My Dad gets the Daily Mail, so I know what the GP means.

Nevertheless, adverse effects (also called side effects) are a big problem with a lot of drugs, not least because, as in this case, it is often hard to be at all sure that a particular problem is an adverse effect of a drug, or due to some other cause; or maybe it is partly due to the drug, and partly something else. Or in the case of someone taking a lot of different medications, maybe it is partly one drug, partly another, partly the way the drugs interact….

One of the reasons I like doing acupuncture is that it has very few adverse effects. If you are unlucky (or are taking anticoagulant medication) you might get a little bruise where one of the needles was, or you might feel a bit dozy after the treatment, but apart from that, adverse effects are very rare. (Click here for the evidence). 

It seems to me a form of treatment that has few if any adverse effects is rather preferable to one that might cause a lot of secondary issues. For instance, a recent study¹ compared the use of acupuncture in the treatment of migraine with the drug topiramate, an anticonvulsant medication often used to treat recurrent migraine. In this study not only did the acupuncture treatment give significantly more benefits in terms of reducing the number and severity of migraine attacks than topiramate, but also, whereas 66% of the patients taking the drug reported adverse effects of their treatment, only 6% of those having acupuncture reported such events. 

The reason for this big difference is that the aim of traditional acupuncture treatment for migraine is to restore harmony and balance to the patient’s systems, which are clearly out of kilter if they are suffering migraines. Most drug treatments do not do this, but aim to suppress the particular symptom in question, in this case migraine. From the point of view of traditional acupuncture, just trying to get rid of a single symptom without addressing the underlying disharmony which it is a manifestation of is likely to produce adverse effects, since you are not really solving the problem so much as shunting it to some other place. 

1. Acupuncture versus topiramate in chronic migraine prophylaxis: a randomized clinical trial. Cephalalgia. 2011 Nov;31(15):1510-21).

The news this week is bad for people taking sleeping tablets; a large scale American study of over 1,000 people taking a wide range of drugs such as temazapam and zopiclone to help with sleep problems, found that people taking them were 4.6 times more likely to die over a 2.5 year period than people not taking such drugs. It is unclear why that might be. It’s not much fun being an insomniac at the best of times, but some people will probably have even more trouble getting off to sleep now, since they will be worried that their medicine might be killing them!

The other problem with such drugs is that they don’t really address the underlying disharmony in a person’s being that is interrupting the natural cycle of waking and sleeping, one of the most fundamental natural cycles which are described in the classical Chinese tradition in terms of the dynamic equilibrium between Yin and Yang. Whereas Yang is to do with light, activity, moving outwards, Yin is darkness, stillness, inwardness. Night time, the time to sleep, is the Yin time, and insomnia is strongly suggestive of a relative lack of Yin within the individual‘s body and mind. Sleeping tablets don’t do anything to restore that harmony – if they did, they certainly wouldn‘t be increasing the chance of a premature demise – they just knock you out.

Traditional acupuncture treatment of insomnia begins with an understanding of just how that balance has been disrupted. Once we are clear on that, we can see how acupuncture can help restore it, and we can perhaps suggest other things – dietary changes for example – which may help.

When I treat patients for sleep problems like this, I often mention my own pet way of falling asleep if I am a bit too restless for it to happen like it should (assuming I have not been foolish enough, yet again, to drink too much coffee!). What I do is to imagine myself getting up and going downstairs and out of the house. I do this in as much detail as I can, for instance imagining picking up my key, unlocking the door, locking it behind me, etc. I make my way down the road and on to some nearby spot in the countryside, perhaps by the local river (in my imagination, I can travel quite quickly if I want to go some distance.) Here I find there is something like a staircase down into a hole or cave in the ground, and I descend down these steps. From then on , if I am still not asleep, I let my imagination have a free rein – so I might find myself meeting someone I know down there, or encountering an animal, or really whatever happens. However, I try to keep moving further down. Usually I fall asleep doing this, but even if it takes a while, at least I have an interesting time!

I suppose this is something like a deliberate attempt to enter the dream world, or the unconscious. In classical Chinese terms, going down into the dark is definitely moving from the Yang to the Yin, which is what needs to happen to fall asleep.

Anyway, I don’t suppose this works for everyone – perhaps you need a fertile imagination – and there have certainly not been any clinical trials to support its use – but at least it is not likely to be fatal!

Many of our patients are content merely with the removal of pain from their arthritic joints. Some, however, realise that they have become what they have through their choices and actions. They then make different choices and experience different outcomes as a result.

Of course, this doesn’t just apply to old people. These same processes occur in younger age. At the time of writing, I’m 43 and setting myself physical and mental goals that my contemporaries have clearly convinced themselves they can’t achieve. Of course, they can achieve them!They just need to engage in the lifestyle that supports their achievement. They’ve succumbed, like the majority, to societal norms and assumptions that say “you’re getting old now and so you’re going to be weaker, have poorer health and generally start going downhill”

Of course, age does play a significant role in our wellbeing. The older we get, the more time we have had to practice the habits that have determined our health in the first place. In turning things round, it might be a slower process because of this. You’ve been letting yourself go over a longer period of time. However, change you certainly can!

Our minds are far stronger than most of us are willing to admit. One just needs to watch a few episodes of Derren Brown to get an idea of this. Countless studies on the placebo affect also provide fascinating food for thought. Even ignoring the obvious dietary, exercise and lifestyle choices that are proven to affect our health, our minds can convince us into high or low levels of physical and mental performance or health states. So, its not enough to just regulate our diet, and lifestyle. We have to train our minds too. Good health is not a matter of luck, its crafted! I’m  reminded of what Gary Player is noted for having said: “It’s funny, the more I practice the luckier I seem to get”.

And that’s not even considering the amazing folk with significant, life-limiting circumstances who still remain positive.  Like Chris Moon, 49 at the time of writing, the ultra runner who had one leg and one arm blown off by a land mine, then ran the London marathon within a year of the incident!!! Check him out at:

http://www.ultralegends.com/chris-moon-bathurst-to-sydney-1997/

Geneticists estimate that our genes are responsible for about 15% of our health outcomes. The other 85% is down to our lifestyle. In other words, the choices we make in life have the largest effect on our health, by far.

So, check out your self-limiting beliefs, engage in some positive thinking training, and start releasing your latent potential now. Commit to a programme of regular exercise, whether it includes Tai Chi, running, squash or whatever. And guess what, once you’ve got over that initial inertia that inevitably exists when you’ve been inactive for so long, its really enjoyable and feels great! Go get some…you’re more than you think you are!

One of the advantages of such categorisation is that it begins to help make things like medical or spiritual advice more specific – a melancholic person may need a different kind of medical treatment to a choleric one, even if they have similar symptoms; an introverted thinking type may need to do a different kind of meditation practice to an extroverted sensation type.

In the classical Chinese tradition, one way of classifying people is in terms of the ‘Wu Xing’, the five Elements of Chinese thought: wood, fire, earth, metal and water. As in the western ‘humoural’ system, each person may be thought of as dominated or governed by a particular element; but each element is present in each person to some extent, in a one-off blend that makes that person the unique individual they are. This way of making sense of people is particularly useful for Traditional Chinese Medicine in helping us to decide what kind of treatment a person needs, even what kind of life they need to live to maximise their health and well being.

The Wood element represents solidity and pliability, as symbolised by a tree which bends a little in the wind so as to maintain its form. Furthermore, just as a tree grows upwards and outwards, Wood connotes expansion, and is particularly associated with the springtime and new growth. Fire, of course, stands for heat and combustion, and upward movement. Summer is the time of Fire. The Earth (as in mother Earth) represents nutrition and stability, and is sometimes represented as lying at the centre, with the other elements around it at the points of the compass; Earth is the centre. Metal is something that can be worked and moulded; it is dense and represents contraction as opposed to expansion. Autumn is the time of Metal, when nature begins to turn back inwards to prepare for winter. Finally, Water means fluidity and flow, and downward movement – water always flows down. Water is associated with winter.

Applying the Wu Xing to human personalities gives us five different types of people. Because Wood is associated with expansion, the Wood type likes action, movement and adventure, seeks challenges and enjoying pushing his or her limits. Wood types can easily be intolerant and impatient, and can become inflexible, not knowing when to yield a bit. This can be associated with physiological problems such as migraine, irritable bowel syndrome and hypertension – inflexibility on a mental level leading to tightness and tension on a more physical one. Of course, just because you are this type of person does not mean that you are bound to have these problems; it means that, if you don’t look after yourself, these are the likely consequences.

Someone whose governing element is Fire looks for excitement and intimacy; they are intuitive and passionate, and desire is often strong within them. If things go badly, they can become anxious, neurotic and agitated. Insomnia and palpitations can also follow, and Fire types may get into trouble with addictive substances which give them the excitement they crave, but at a heavy cost.

People ruled by Earth, the central element, want to be involved and needed. The link between Earth and the digestive system shows itself in Earth types’ desire to nourish and nurture. However, sometimes they forget that they too have needs and become the person who looks after everyone else (whether they want looking after or not!), but fails to look after themselves. Typically they suffer from digestive complaints, failing to nourish themselves properly, and may develop eating disorders or become overweight.

Those under the influence of Metal like things like definition, structure and discipline. They are often rational and self-controlled, but can lack spontaneity and become isolated. This isolation often shows in respiratory problems, as the breathing process is the most basic way in which we interact with our environment.

Water and metal are often confused, but Water types are typically articulate and clever, their minds running smoothly like water flowing over pebbles. They can develop problems in the genitourinary system, and suffer from chilliness, loss of libido, infertility – too much water putting out their fire.

To get more of a sense of these, consider the following classroom scenario. Wood probably sits towards the back of the class, and at his worse can be a bit of a bully. He likes to push boundaries a bit and needs fairly firm control by the teacher. If he gets frustrated, he can explode into anger, and he can be obstinate too. But he has plenty of outgoing energy which, if it is channelled well, can make him a high achiever. Fire is also a bit explosive at times, but if her enthusiasm is engaged she can be very creative. She has a circle of close friends who vie a bit for her attention, and some people think she is a bit full of herself. She needs good communication, including from the teacher. Earth is the person who looks after everyone else in the class; if someone is in trouble she will be there to offer her help. Part of this is because she wants to be liked, but also she is naturally caring. Sometimes she is put upon, especially by Wood, but often she is the peacemaker. Metal sits at the front of the class and does not get involved with all the goings on further back. He is conscientious in his school work, and always gets good marks (but not brilliant ones). The teacher may be in danger of not giving Metal enough attention, because whilst in some ways he is a model pupil, he needs some gentle encouragement to explore beyond his boundaries and engage with the other kids more. Water is one of the brightest of the kids; she can turn in really good work at times, and is thoughtful and questioning, in a way that makes her quietly popular with her class-mates. Sometimes she is the one who can articulate what is going on for the whole group. The teacher needs to meet Water’s intelligence and help nurture it, even when she is asking difficult questions.

The way that, in nature, the different elements interact with each other in a dynamic and harmonious balance, can provide a model for human harmony. Just as in the classroom above, in a work situation each element needs to find its own place and play its own role. For example, a Fire type may provide the inspiration, and a Water type will be good at articulating and clarifying that inspiration, whilst a Metal type will provide the structure and discipline to harness that inspiration. A Wood type may bring ambition and drive to the party, whilst an Earth type will make sure everyone is involved and looked after. Knowing what type you are, and what type your colleagues are, helps you understand each other and work together more effectively, and more enjoyably.

This same kind of synergy takes place within the individual between the main organ systems; indeed the organs can be viewed as a team working together. When they work well together, there is health, when that harmony is lost, there is illness. For example, there is an important relationship between Wood and Earth, which correspond within the individual to the Liver and the Spleen/Stomach. If the Liver starts to lose the pliability and flexibility that is essential for the Wood element, it starts to ‘invade’ the Earth element, causing disruption in the digestive system such as nausea, abdominal pain and loose stools or constipation (or both). This is also more likely to happen if the Earth element has been weakened, perhaps by poor digestive habits or a general lack of self-care. Similar important relationships exist between other organs; for example there needs to be a dynamic balance between Fire (the Heart) and Water (the Kidneys); too much Water douses the Fire. These ideas form part of the complex web that practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine use to understand why someone is not as well as they could be, and to get at the root of the problem, restoring the dynamic balance between the elements that is health

If you are, by now, wondering which of the elements is your element, you can try following this link to a click questionnaire which might throw some light on the question.

http://www.longevity-center.com/five_element.html

Thus, especially if we have a serious and chronic illness such as ME or cancer, we need to work out our emotional response to the question, “Why me?” This response needs to avoid the extremes of, on the one hand, beating ourselves up about it all and, on the other, of taking up the role of helpless and resentful victim. In fact this is an issue which every human being has to face, as every one of us reaps the consequences of how we have lived, and few of us have lived like an angel or a sage. Most of us have made mistakes, and have to live with the consequences of those mistakes, whether those consequences manifest as illness or in some other way.

So what should our attitude be to the past? Perhaps we need to acknowledge it, and, in the context of illness, acknowledge the ways in which we may have contributed to our getting ill. However, we may instead say that we have not the faintest idea why we are ill. This is especially so when our health system is so technical and specialised. How can we, a mere layman, understand why we have the illness we have? Something is going wrong, and we do not understand it, and do not understand why it is happening. This may tend to put is in the victim camp.

On the other hand, perhaps we can free ourselves from the shackles of technical medicine, and use our intuition. The more self-awareness we have, the more likely our intuition, or even our common sense, will tell us why we are the way we are. If I go around all the time in a constant state of fear, with my shoulders hunched up, is it not possible that I may end up with a headache or an arthritic neck? If I am always angry and frustrated, is it not possible that my blood pressure gets too high? If I always gobble down my food whilst doing something else, not chewing it properly, is it not possible that I will get some kind of digestive problem, like a stomach ulcer or acid reflux? In some ways the illness we get may be giving us some kind of feedback as to how we have lived our life to date, and if we endeavour to be receptive to that feedback, we may learn something crucial about ourselves.

Traditional Chinese Medicine is often very helpful in helping us to understand why we are ill in the way we are. For instance, it makes useful connections between different emotional states and the way they affect the individual. For example, it says that anger makes Qi rise. (Qi cannot be easily translated, but means something like ‘vital energy’) This means that anger often causes symptoms in the upper body, especially the head and neck – think migraines, headaches, tinnitus etc. Of course everyone gets angry from time to time, but problems arise when we become habitually angry, or when we repress or deny our anger. Prolonged sadness, on the other hand, depletes the Qi, and may especially affect the lungs, leading to shortness of breath, fatigue, a weak voice, even asthma.

Of course these kind of ideas need not to be applied too literally, but they give us a clue, give us a framework to ponder on the connections between our emotional lives and our illnesses. Perhaps they can stimulate us to become more sensitive to the way that emotions manifest in our body – if we are really aware, we can begin to feel how, for instance, excessive worrying is tying our Qi in knots.

If this kind of process leads us to acknowledge that our illness may in part be due to how we have lived, then , knowing that we cannot change the past, we can come back to the present, where we do have a choice. That choice may not include the option of freeing ourselves totally from the consequences of our past actions, but it does include the choice to live in such a way as can at least mitigate the effects of the illness, at least to some extent.

I hear a crowd of people disagreeing with me, or at the very least starting to feel uncomfortable. If you are one of these, right now, is it possible that you’re feeling that way because of the responsibility I bestow upon you for your own life experience? Is it just too uncomfortable to admit that the discomfort and pain you have experienced in your life is of your own making?

Sure, external things might be seen to happen by chance, but I’ve seen that my experience of them is of my own making. And, certainly, the choices I make as they happen certainly are. I’ve watched myself descend into the depths of depression because of choices I have made or, worse still, not made. I’ve felt my mood change in an instant because of thinking choices I have made. I’ve told myself, “get a grip, Sean!” and then acted.

This is not to say that it’s an easy process. Indeed, I’ve really struggled on many occasions; had some really dark nights of the soul. However, difficult as it may be, though, it is simple!

My own formula is straight forward: do things that make me feel good about myself. This may involve making choices and taking actions that require great courage. However, these choices must be made and when they are, I feel good about myself.

The tools I use for refining my character and building my confidence are mostly modes of physical culture: martial art, running, golf, and squash. I augment these with meditative practices, although all of these activities involve an aspect of meditation. Even my work I treat as a path of self-discovery rather than just a method of making a living. In all these activities, I need to ensure that I continually reinvent my approach so I remain fresh. On numerous occasions I have let this slip only to pay for it in how I feel about myself.

Try doing something new! You can start with with simple things. Let me give an example. This year in June, I started running competitively again. I hadn’t done so for twenty years. I have pushed myself through mental barriers repeatedly since I started again. Each time I do that, I feel better about myself. With each victory over self, and note that the real competition for me is against myself, my confidence grows. Of course, physically I’m in fantastic nick. Mind and body being one, this is bound to make me feel better emotionally. Each time I set myself a challenge and achieve it, I feel better about myself and my confidence grows.

So, my invitation to you is to choose something, or several things, that challenge you personally and refine your character through their practice. Make sure you set challenging but achievable goals. I have no doubt you will feel fantastic!

Of course, if you’ve never experienced this you won’t be able to relate to it. You’ll will just have to take my word for it. Why not make the decision to change and invest in the effort based purely on faith. Hopefully, what I have said makes enough sense and instils enough faith in you to move you to act. I really hope my experience will help a few other people that read this to follow a path that makes life feel better.

Let me leave you with a couple of examples that may further illustrate my point. Both are stories of men who have lost a leg. If I feel down, I think of these men. I have no room to moan! What will you do today to live life magnificently? Please come back and tell me what you have achieved.

Chris Moon

Manuel De Los Santos

This is a common experience. We don’t like uncertainty. We don’t like to be in the no-man’s land of an undiagnosed condition. After all, if doctors can’t find a handy label for us, we might start to wonder if there is really anything wrong with us at all; or we might start to wonder if other people are thinking that we are malingering. Furthermore, we might start to fear that perhaps we have got some really dreadful illness, that we are really only months away from death. So I can see why this lady was pleased and relieved. Bumping into an acquaintance in Tesco’s, she can tell them unequivocally “I’ve got mild depression”. And whatever you think about mild depression, it beats the hell out of cancer, multiple sclerosis or heart disease.

I’m reminded of another patient who came for treatment for an occasional achy numbness in her limbs. She’d had various investigations which had ruled out things like multiple sclerosis. Acupuncture, as one might expect, proved pretty effective at relieving this mysterious pain, but she still had the occasional relapse. However, she remained worried that she did not have a clear diagnosis.

Or rather, she was worried that she didn’t have a western medical diagnosis. It wasn’t too difficult for me to give her a Traditional Chinese Medical diagnosis, but, somehow, that didn’t reassure her. I guess if she bumped into someone in Tesco, telling them she had ‘Damp Painful Obstruction Syndrome’ wasn’t going to cut much ice. Like many people, her assumption was that conventional medicine is the real medicine, and any other form of diagnosis does not really count.

I’m slightly suspicious of this craving for certainty, for a label to attach to ourselves. Labels, after all, are our creations; they are not part of the fabric of the world. And as the second example mentioned may make clear, they are relative. If you live in a different culture, with a different medical tradition, you get a different label. And labels also change with time. Bear in mind that, apparently, the label ‘heart attack’ (or, rather, ‘crise cardiaque’) was not used in French medicine before 1968. Presumably if you collapsed in Paris in the early 60’s, complaining of pain in your chest, you would have been given a different label. And of course there are plenty of people for whom there just is not a suitable label. People are it seems far more complex, and pathology is far more complex, than any system, any language even, can quite cope with.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine we have a saying: “Same disease, different treatment” which means that just because ten people have the same label, it does not follow that they will need the same treatment. One person’s migraine (or, in Chinese medical context, one person’s Pian Tou Feng, which might translate as ‘unilateral head wind’) is not the same as another’s. One person’s mild depression is certainly not the same as anothers’. Medical practice needs not to be too foxed by convenient labels. If we think, this treatment worked for that person who had migraine, so we will use it on this one, we might be making a mistake. We need to look beyond the labels (although what we will find, perhaps, is more labels!).

Anyway, I would suggest that we should maybe loosen our desire for a nice convenient label. In the Zen Buddhist tradition, there is a saying (they are full of wise sayings, these orientals!), “Small doubt, small awakening; big doubt, big awakening; great doubt, great awakening!”) Which perhaps means, in effect, that a refusal to categorise and label everything in a nice tidy way allows for openness to a broader, more satisfying experience; an awakened experience. In pressing for a label to fix on ourselves, whether a medical label or any other, we may deprive ourselves of the full richness of what being human is. Humans can’t be tied down and packaged up in a label. They are too complex for that. Sure, labels are useful, but only up to a point. If there isn’t a suitable label for us, maybe that is no bad thing. If your medical practitioner, after doing all their diagnostic stuff, can’t tell you what you have got, and assuming they are not just incompetent, it might not be such a disaster. Welcome the uncertainty. Welcome your uniqueness. Maybe it is telling you something important about life.

As with society at large, so with the human individual – most of us value some kind of order in our lives. Interestingly, classical Chinese medicine evolved in part by thinking of the human individual on an analogy with the wider society. The heart, for instance, is spoken of as the emperor, and the other organs compared to government officials, the liver being the general of the army for instance. The meridians which traverse the body are like the waterways of ancient China, which made possible communication and trade between the regions of that vast country. Just as unhindered waterways facilitated such exchange, so do clear meridians make possible the body’s harmonious functioning.

Some kinds of illness, in fact, are like riots, like chaos breaking out within. Internal disharmony affecting the liver, for instance, can lead to an eruption of stagnant energy, or Qi, which courses violently upwards to the head causing, for instance, migraine or even stroke. The natural functioning of the stomach if interrupted can lead to “rebellious stomach Qi”, manifesting as heartburn, acid reflux or vomiting. Notice the political metaphor. Perhaps one of the most common kinds of inner chaos is the panic attack, which in some cases is also seen as rebellious Qi, this time in a meridian called the Chong Mai.

However, whilst mob rule and anarchy may be bad, the other extreme is also to be avoided. As the German philosopher Nietzsche puts it, “one must have chaos within one to give birth to a dancing star.” Too much control and order stifles creativity. Think of totalitarian regimes. Within the individual, if afraid of inner chaos we seek to impose too much order, illness may also follow. Indeed the first example above, the migraine attack or stroke, might be due to a long-term habit of excessive control, particularly of anger. Eventually the pressure becomes too much, and too much order becomes too much chaos.

On a more subtle level, there may be an excessive controlling of what the ancient Chinese referred to as the ‘hun’, sometimes translated as ‘ethereal soul.” This ‘hun’, which is associated with the liver organ, is responsible for a sense of direction and purpose in life, inspiration, dreaming, moving towards our life’s goals. Whilst an uncontrolled ‘hun’ manifests in wild and vivid dreams (so that we wake exhausted rather than refreshed), or more seriously in manic behaviour, an over-controlled ‘hun’ leaves us depressed and apathetic, with no direction or creative spark. The hun’s relation with the liver means that liver pathologies may cause these kind of problems, one way or the other.

So just as in society there needs to be harmony and order, but not excessive control, so too in the life of the individual. Whilst achieving exactly the right balance may be nigh-on impossible, we need to avoid swinging from extremes and tread a middle path so that we have enough freedom to express ourselves and envision our future, but also a well regulated life (regular sleep and meals for instance!), so that anarchic chaos does not overwhelm us.