Got brain fog, bloatness, and general fatigue?

You slept 10 hours. Been eating a textbook “clean'“ diet. You work out. Then, why are you still feeling so cloudy, bloated, and tired? Mind you, with the holiday season - this is commonly seen around this time of year! Then again, if you have a high stress job - well, this is not foreign to you either. But I digress.

In Chinese Medicine, the connection between the mind and gut has been long established. As mentioned in previous posts, we have 12 major pathways that are connected to one another. While the pathways in one way or another are all interconnected, paired pathways have a stronger connection with each other. Impairments in any of the major pathways may lead to signs and symptoms of illnesses. What you call brain fog, bloatness, and general fatigue are commonly seen in deficiencies or defects in the pathway governed by the Spleen and Stomach pathway. Remember, we’re talking about the pathway, not necessarily anything is wrong with your Spleen or Stomach.

What does the Spleen and Stomach govern?

The correspondences of the spleen and stomach with general digestion and nutrition, muscles, mouth and lips.

Signs and symptoms when the “TCM Spleen and Stomach” are affected?

This is by no means a complete list. It gets a little more complicated when you look at the bigger picture. For fun, here are some things to think about:

Common symptoms: heart burn, bloatness, diarrhea or loose stools, heaviness, lethargy, sluggishness, feeling tired after eating (FYI: this is not normal)

What can damage the Spleen and Stomach?

Poor eating patterns, eating foods that are not for your body type or individual constitution, excessive worrying or pensiveness, eating cold foods (all the time), too much sweets and inflammatory foods like gluten/dairy/sugar (not applicable to everyone)

What treatment looks like?

It really depends on what is causing the problem. Generally, I start with keeping a food journal and seeing what food agrees or disagrees with you. For instance, do you feel tired or break out in hives if you eat a slice of whole grain bread? Do you have diarrhea if you eat a bowl of salad? So, the first step is monitoring your diet. Then, we look into your overall lifestyle, your work schedule, sleep schedule. All of these are things you can take care of on your own before coming into the clinic. Once in the clinic, we discuss specific points and target areas to treat. Most likely, I will use what is called moxa to help warm your core and specific points targeted for enriching the Spleen and Stomach pathways. If your depletion is due to external factors i.e. stress, we will also work on reducing the stress that you are experiencing.

The plan may not deviate too much from person to person since this is such a common problem. However, the specifics in what food to eat and what points to use may vary pending on the severity of the condition and the manifestations of such signs and symptoms.