The inefficient supply of blood (Xue), vital air (Qi) and nutrient (Ying Qi) is one of the most common causes of disease, according to Chinese medicine. The Chinese call it blood stasis.
Blood stasis may lead to a wide variety of health problems such as:
- Chronic pain
- Heart disease
- Fatigue
- Anxiety
- Insomnia and more.
In this article I share three lifestyle steps that can help us prevent blood stasis.
Secondly, I’ll share two methods used in Chinese medicine to reverse blood stasis.
What Is Blood Stasis?
The ancient Chinese discovered that every organ tissue, muscle tissue and all of our joints require a constant stream of blood, oxygen and nutrient supply.
Such resources are not only vital for good health but essential for life itself.
The Chinese discovered that any restriction of blood, oxygen and nutrient flow to any part of our body speeds up the aging process.
As this restriction progresses, it becomes a major cause of disease.
The Finger Analogy
Imagine tying a rubber band around the end of your finger.
What would happen if you left a rubber band on your finger tight enough, for long enough to the point where you started cutting off blood supply to the end of your finger?
It would only be a matter of time before you start to develop problems in the end of your finger. Why? Because every organ, muscle and joint in our body requires a sufficient supply of blood, oxygen and nutrient.
When it comes to blood stasis, the level of disease it creates depends on the level of restriction there is within the blood vessels.
For example: if you cut off blood supply to the end of your finger by 100% (where no blood, oxygen or nutrient can enter) within three minutes the tissue in your finger will start to die.
However, if you cut off blood flow by 50%, that tissue will no longer die. But, instead, chronic symptoms start to develop.
For example the finger becomes stiff, there will be pain and swelling. So, even though the tissue isn’t dying, it’s not healthy either. This is the state of many peoples health as we get older.
The ancient Chinese discovered that blood stasis progresses as we’re exposed to physical, mental and chemical traumas.
Not only this, but we should counteract this as soon as possible. That is, rather than waiting until blood stasis gets so bad that it causes serious problems such as ischemic heart disease, fatigue, insomnia and more.
How To Prevent Blood Stasis
You might be wondering, how can we prevent or even reverse blood stasis?
Well, we’re in luck because the Chinese have been asking this question for 2,500 years, and they have answers.
Firstly, I’ll share three lifestyle steps that can slow down and prevent blood stasis.
Secondly, I’ll share two methods used in Chinese medicine that can reverse blood stasis.
3 Lifestyle Steps
- Eat a Wholefood Diet
A wholefood diet means eating food full of nutrient that comes from nature. Organic produce is the optimal choice.
This means eliminating and avoiding processed flours, sugars and chemicals. There are two reasons for such changes.
Firstly, when we consume wholefoods, they contain essential nutrients our body needs to function and to heal properly.
Secondly, when we eat processed food and chemicals it speeds up the aging process and speeds up blood stasis.
How does it speed up blood stasis?
Let’s say we eat a sugary, processed candy bar. When we digest this candy bar it starts to break down into glucose.
When the candy bar breaks down into glucose in our blood, it actually makes our blood thicker.
Now, as blood circulates through the body with a thicker consistency, it creates a sandpapering affect on the inside of the vessel walls.
This creates irritation and redness on the inside of the vessel wall. In response our body attempts to patch it up like a band aid (think plaques made of cholesterol, calcium and more).
However, if we continue to eat like this, more plaques build up and overtime the inside diameter of the blood vessels get smaller and smaller.
This means less blood, oxygen and nutrient flow gets to areas we need them most (our brain and our heart). This leads to blood stasis and contributes to ill health and disease.
A whole food diet is important to slow down this process. This means eating plenty of fresh vegetables, healthy protein and fats.
2. Physical Activity
There are many benefits to physical activity.
The first benefit you may notice is that energy level will generally increase. One of the reasons is because there’s more oxygen circulating through the body that can produce energy.
Secondly, the body can detox faster during exercise as a greater volume of blood circulates through the liver.
However, caution against long distance exercise such as marathon running. Long distance events are promoted as healthy but aren’t healthy for our inner organs.
Long distance events can make a person look healthy on the outside, while their inner organs are starved of blood, oxygen and nutrient.
This occurs because when the body is forced to supply extra blood to the extremities (arms and legs) for long periods of time, it takes away essential nutrient from our organs.
I recommend moderate exercise, nothing excessive and obviously not doing any exercise isn’t ideal either.
Options could include walking, resistance training, yoga, qigong, taichi, pilates and more.
3. Resolve Distress
It’s important to first point out that there are two sides to stress. Not all stress is bad for us.
There is eustress (beneficial stress), which promotes health building and helps us grow and become stronger. Without it, we become stagnant, even physically weak.
However, there’s another side to stress that’s health destroying and can lead to blood stasis. This is called distress.
One example of dis-stress is broken heart syndrome.
You may have heard stories where a person dies but just days or weeks later their husband or wife dies of a broken heart.
How? This happens when a person becomes so distressed that their body becomes overloaded with stress hormone.
This causes blood vessels and arteries (including those surrounding the heart) to tighten and spasm. Finally, resulting in a restriction of blood flow to the heart muscle.
With restricted blood flow, the heart becomes starved of blood, oxygen and nutrient. When severe enough, this damages the heart muscle. The final result being ischemia (muscle death).
Sometimes the heart damaged is so widespread that it causes the person to die.
Rest assured, it’s not this severe for most people. However distress can create all sorts of issues. Such problems include poor sleep, digestive problems, chronic pain and more.
Therefore, we must resolve distress in order to have free flowing blood throughout our body in order to support optimal health.
When it comes to dealing with distress, I like to use four primary methods.
- Chinese herbal medicine
- Acupuncture
- A meditation called transcendental mediation. or anything that brings gratitude
- A methodology called the Demartini Method. This resolve feelings of resentment, anxiety, depression and grief.
No matter what strategies we use, resolving chronic distress is vital to ensure good blood flow and good health.
How To Reverse Blood Stasis
We learned about three lifestyle steps that can prevent blood stasis. But what does Chinese medicine do to reverse blood stasis?
How do we take someone with blood stasis and bring them back to normal, optimal healthy function again?
Well there are two primary strategies in Chinese medicine.
- Chinese Herbal Medicine
Within Chinese herbal medicine there’s a class of medicines called blood movers. As a group they all move the blood. However, there are different types of blood movers.
For example there are blood movers such as:
- Blood thinners – Thin the blood in order to increase blood flow (e.g. Dan Shen, Chuan Xiong, Hong Hua, Chi Shao, Yi Mu Cao and Shui Zhi)
- Vasodilators/openers – expand blood vessels allowing more blood to flow into damaged areas (e.g. Dang Gui, Chuan Xiong, Sheng Ma)
- Cooling blood movers – have cooling properties that reduce inflammation and circulate blood at the same time (e.g. Chi Shao, Mu Dan Pi, Xuan Shen)
- Warming blood movers: Are used to warm up and expand the blood vessels in a similar way to vasodilators. These open up and circulate blood into areas of restriction. e.g. If an artery or blood vessel becomes contracted as mentioned in broken heart syndrome. (e.g. Hong Hua, San Leng, E Zhu, Wang Bu Liu Xing, Yan Hu Suo)
There are also blood movers that target different parts of the body. For example we have blood movers for:
- The head, neck and sinuses
- Upper limb (shoulders, elbows, arms, hands)
- Vital organs (Heart, liver, kidneys etc.)
- Lower back and hips
- Lower limb (knees and ankles)
There are blood movers for every part of our body.
All designed to circulate blood, oxygen and nutrient to areas of disease and dysfunction so the body can heal itself.
2. Acupuncture
Another method we can use for blood stasis is Acupuncture.
There are various types of acupuncture, however I use a method called distal needle acupuncture.
Distal needle acupuncture works by inserting the acupuncture needle into areas of the body condensed with proprioceptive nerves (wrists, ankles, elbows, knees, head and neck).
When we stimulate such nerves, a signal is sent to the spine and up to the brain stem.
When such signals reach the brain stem, the brain releases endogenous opioids and non opioid neuropeptides. Therefore, acupuncture supports the body to produce its own pain relief.
When it comes to pain, our body has a tendency to tighten and protect itself. This makes blood stasis worse!
When we use acupuncture we stimulate the release of the bodies own pain relief. This allows the body to relax the area of pain and get out of the pain response.
The result of this is that blood vessels start to expand around the site of pain, allowing a fresh delivery of blood into the area. Therefore, reversing blood stasis
So, acupuncture promotes blood flow by first stimulating the release of the bodies own opioids and non opioid neuropeptides.
Summary
Blood stasis is the most common cause of disease according to Chinese medicine.
Blood, oxygen and nutrient flow is vital for optimal health, longevity and our bodies ability to heal itself
Any restriction of blood, oxygen and nutrient delivery into organ and muscle tissues is called blood stasis.
We can slow the progression of blood stasis by ensuring we:
- Eat a whole food diet
- Avoid processed sugars, flours and chemicals.
- Getting enough physical activity
- Resolving distress
We can reverse blood stasis by using:
Chinese herbal medicines and acupuncture.
If you have a question related to this article, please leave a question in the comment section below.
About The Author
David is a registered Chinese medicine practitioner based in Melbourne, Australia. His major interests include heart disease, pre-clinical heart failure, fatigue, anxiety and insomnia
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