With the beautiful Spring sunshine, the new season brings the energy of change, growth, momentum and movement. Spring carries Yang energy, meaning outward, active and masculine. We already exist in a society of perpetual motion and this surge of “take action” energy, can easily stress the system and transform sunshine into rain!
Many adults, and an ever-increasing number of adolescents, are living in perpetual “stress-mode”. As the demands of constantly-connected careers and modern-day parenting skyrocket, unreasonably high levels of stress have become the “new norm.” According to a recent survey by the American Psychological Association (APA), job pressures, money, health, poor nutrition, media overload and sleep deprivation rate as top stressors in the US.1 Most notable is that nearly 66% of Americans reported they were likely to seek help for stress management!
Frequent or unresolved stress can result in significant physiological changes that can be unpleasant in the short-term, and greatly impact health and well-being in the longer-term. According to Linda Gallo, PhD, Clinical/Health Psychologist and co-director of the San Diego Institute for Behavioral and Community Health Studies, “stress can negatively affect health and even contribute to chronic health problems such as diabetes and heart disease.”2
In bringing the Eden Method (EM) and energy medicine to a broader population, including cancer survivors and those impacted by chronic health disorders, practices to promote relaxation and stress-management have become a central theme. Many feel powerless in changing stress-inducing circumstances and/or environments, and instead, the goal is to support you in changing your stress response!
There are many effective strategies to help mitigate the effects of stress: meditation, yoga, reading, spending time in nature and journaling. Another approach, which is not as well-known in the Midwest, is balancing your body’s energy system.
The experience of stress has an immediate impact on every system of the body. Often before the onset of a physical symptom (i.e. headache, fever, heart palpitations) an individual will experience an emotional symptom (anxiety, sleeplessness or even anger). From an energetic perspective, prior to feeling the emotion, there are quantifiable changes in the body’s biologic and energetic pathways, including: biofield, biochemical, cellular and neurological processes.3In other words, the very first response to stress in felt in your subtle energies!
“The meridians not only feed vital energies to their related organs, they also reflect any pathological disturbances in those organs, thus providing a convenient and highly accurate tool for diagnosis as well as therapy.”
~Daniel Reid, The Essence of Chi-Gung
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has used the meridian system for thousands of years to help calm the stress response and restore energetic balance. Meridian energy is an integral component of the EM and you can easily tap into this system to repattern your stress response. According to Donna Eden, founder of the Eden Method, the triple burner or triple warmer (TW) meridian is primarily responsible for helping to better manage stress. In addition to its role in stress, TW is also responsible for immune system function and is therefore a critical pathway for maintaining vitality. When TW becomes activated, the body switches into high alert, to prepare for battle or flee from the hungry wolf. Because these primal behaviors were wired into humans thousands of years ago, they continue to impact the body. Blood is shifted away from the forebrain (which is responsible for reasoning, learning and emotion) to the amygdala (the part of your brain that governs your survival instincts) and stress chemicals flood into the bloodstream.4 This biologically programmed stress response results in the mind/body feeling as if there is an imminent threat; when in reality, you are just dealing with an overbearing co-worker or rush hour traffic.
Are you tired of feeling like your constantly facing mortal danger? Are you ready to start repatterning your stress response? You have the power to reprogram your energetic body to no longer switch into crisis mode when faced with the stresses of modern life. And in doing so, your chemistry (cortisol) will follow, your reasoning skills will stay intact and your body will hold less tension!
Triple Warmer
Meridian tracing to release excess energy
Release Energy from Triple Warmer Meridian
By tracing TW meridian backwards, excess energy is released and the body’s stress response is calmed and relaxed. This is a very helpful technique to use when you notice your unique response to stress, such as emotional anxiety, neck or upper back tension or increased heart rate.
1. Place your right pinky finger at the inside edge of the left eyebrow. Relax your abdominal muscles and take a deep breath in through the nose.
3. On the exhale trace your pinky over the top of the eyebrow, over the top and around the back side of the ear, down the neck, along the shoulder to the elbow and off the end of the ring finger.
4. Trace 3 times and repeat on the opposite side.
Triple Warmer Smoothie
A second exercise is the Triple Warmer Smoothie, which amplifies the energy release by tracing TW backwards + holding a specific acupressure point + tapping into Heart Chakra energy.
Take a few moments to watch Donna Eden demonstrate, so that you can add this quick and easy practice to your energy balancing toolkit!
