I think there's a misconception when it comes to Adrenal Fatigue using Chinese medicine to treat it often my students think it's a Kidney deficiency because Adrenals are resting on the anatomical Kidneys however in TCM it is not the same so today I'm going to address the myth and explain how we treat adrenal fatigue using acupuncture and Chinese medicine Hi there if it's your first time here I'm Clara and I create Chinese medicine and acupuncture content for students and practitioners making it easy to grasp and fun to learn let's do this this is our Five Element generating sequence and I think that often we can see in clinical practice one of the major cause is Liver Qi stagnation or being really stressed for a long time depleting our skin and stomach right and that creates fatigue so if there's stress for a long time our Liver Qi gets stagnated which overacts on Spleen and when it overacts on Spleen it depletes the Spleen so when people talk about Adrenal fatigue so Adrenal fatigue is represented by your Adrenals which are obviously sitting on your kidneys and their the cortisol level is going to shoot up at night and be really depleted in the morning so what happened is people are on the fight or flight all the time they're using the central nervous system they're sympathetic central nervous system when you're on acupuncture treatment you're using the parasympathetic system to rest and recover but the fight or flight which affect the cortisol level is a lot of people are on that because they're so stressed right and so when there is Adrenal fatigue a lot of time students of mine would think oh Adrenal sits on your Kidney so it's a Kidney deficiency in TCM but it's not because remember that's not the same right the organ is a system it's it's not just an organ it's a full system with Meridian and emotions and seasons and everything that we present each system so when there's Adrenal fatigue a lot of time we think that it's a Kidney because we're thinking Adrenal but it's often a Spleen deficiency because it's that that happened it's the Wood overacting on the Earth or it's the Liver Qi stagnation depleting Spleen and now we're fatigued because what happened with Adrenal fatigue is a lot of people have poor appetite they have cravings for sugar they are tired in the morning worse in the morning they're very tired all the time they have irregular eating habits it's very much a Spleen deficiency not a Kidney so that's really interesting right because when we tonify when we're going to do treatment for that we are going to tonify the Spleen however if this is the case for years and years right not just a few weeks but months and years and the person is on a fight or flight all the time they're depleting the Spleen but the Spleen is also going to deplete the Kidney right it is going to deplete the Kidney because the Spleen controls the Water or Earth controls Water so now it's going to overpower it so what happened is that the stress is depleting the Spleen but years and years of Spleen Qi deficiency due to stress and Adrenal fatigue is going to age us faster so now Kidney will be deficient that's the next step right if it's long enough that's next step so we can in our treatment protect the Kidney as well as tonify the Spleen and move Liver Qi relax the person get the stress away we can do that in our treatment so we would have to always remember the Five Element tells you where it all started it's like the root cause that way you could do all three and protect the two that are depleted and move the one that's the real cause right with the affect does that make sense hopefully that makes sense you guys so that's very common with Adrenal fatigue to see that a perspective instead of thinking just Kidney think of Spleen first being Qi deficient and sometimes she's sinking because it's so fatigued we're exhausted we can't even lift up right we can't get out of bed that is chronic fatigue syndrome that's also a Spleen Qi Deficiency as well often Hypothyroidism can also create fatigue that's also a Spleen Qi deficiency so not all fatigue or Spleen Qi deficiency but that's an example okay of course if we don't sleep well at night which is Fire that can create a lot of issues including Spleen deficiency including low immune system right there's a lot that can come up with not sleeping because that's part of their lifestyle and that can be the cause of fatigue for not sleeping but usually if someone's not sleeping well we need to figure out why they're not sleeping well is it due to stress right the amount of stress creates insomnia and insomnia depleted or the immune system or the digestive system of the Spleen right so use the Five Element as well to figure out which elements are affected and how many are there so we can do treatment for that okay I'm going to take the Five Elements before we go and talk about points there is a Formula a Chinese herbal formula that I absolutely love it's Bu Zhong Yi Qi Tang Zhong means middle Yi Qi means raise Qi Bu Zhong means boosting the middle like tonifying raising boosting the middle and raising Qi formula so this formula literally the translation is boosting the middle the middle is your digestive system right it's Spleen specifically Spleen and Stomach whatever is at the center of who we are and then raise Qi so remember from a stand point of view of TCM function the Spleen's function one of the Spleen's function is to produce blood to transform and transport food for digestion but to also raise clear Qi and raise Qi for good energy mental and physical so when there is fatigue either mental or physical we have to tonify Spleen because its function is to raise our energy to raise Qi and clear thinking to the head right so it's super important so this formula has one Qi in it which is Astragalus which is the king herb in the formula Astragalus is very good in raising Qi it has which is also Bupleurum in Latin and that is really good also in raising Qi so the this formula is really good to to raise Spleen Qi when it's sinking when the person is exhausted that is really good to take for patients or Spleen Qi deficient or Spleen Qi sinking that is the best formula a lot of people will say oh is that going to create insomnia it's not a stimulant right it doesn't have any stimulants in it but in general because people that are fatigued worse in the morning I would recommend that formula for patients mostly to take it like in the morning and at lunch right that probably be enough okay so let's start talking about points we don't need a lot of points but we want to put three points so the three main points when there is Spleen Qi sinking and extreme fatigue where we need to raise that Spleen Qi raise the energy is only three points first number one is Spleen 6 I absolutely love Spleen 6 because it crosses the three Meridian Liver Spleen and Kidney and remember from the Five Elements when we wrote on the board when there is Adrenal fatigue it's due to stress which is Liver it's affecting the Spleen which becomes exhausted and if that's for long term it's going to deplete the Kidney which is our aging system it will age us faster so the Spleen 6 crosses those three Liver Spleen and Kidney so it's such a good point because it calms the mind which is great for that and it is going to also address the digestive system issue it raises energy so that is going to be the best start of the point so the second one is Ren 6 because Ren 6 is a Sea of Qi so it's called Qihai which is the Sea of chi and so Ren 6 is one of the best point to tonify Qi so when you put Spleen 6 with Ren 6 you are starting to tonify Qi yet another Masterpiece thank you Clara this is one of the feedback I got on my Chinese medicine treatments made easy book which covers over 160 common syndromes it ships all over the world or if you'd rather have the PDF it has a lot of video links to complement it it is absolutely one of my best books and it's so useful in clinical practice for students and practitioners click the link below and get your copy today at the same time you add up the third point which is DU 20 and you lift the person I always say to my students Du 20 years like a puppet you know when you're like this the puppets like this it lifts you up right so DU 20 is going to lift our energy as you can see from the the picture DU 20 as a dual function that's a great point that has dual function there's not many points to the opposite like this a Lung 7 is also like this where depending which direction you're needling the point it will have a different function right if you need with the meridian so with the meridian means in the same flow of DU Meridian the DU Meridian starts at the base of your spine and goes all the way to the front so if you're needling towards your nose right if you need all towards the nose that is going to lift right if you're going against the meridian and you need all towards the back of the head that is going to calm the person calm their mind so for this perspective because we want to lift that energy because this person is fatigued we are going to do Ren 6 Spleen 6 and DU 20 so Bu Zhong Yi Qi Tang that that formula we talked about with those three points is perfect for Spleen Qi sinking that's a perfect combination for Spleen Qi sinking it's Spleen6 Ren 6 DU 20 it lifts the energy you don't need a lot of points I want to remind ourselves that we always have to look for the root cause right is this a disorder is this due to diet is it due to lifestyle is it due to stress emotional trauma is it due to medication what is the root cause of the fatigue we need to look are we low in iron ferritin vitamin D vitamin B12 we have to investigate it's really important because that will help you in your treatment and figure out what's going on right if it's vitamin D deficiency we need to take vitamin D that's important right so we want to make sure we always look for the root cause yes Adrenal Fatigue is very common however it's not the only fatigue there is mental fatigue versus physical fatigue there's chronic fatigue syndrome you can watch it all on this video here the whole video and let me know what you think have a fantastic day and no matter what keep rocking it using TCM