5 Ways To Diagnose Your Mood Swings
A mood swing is considered to be an abrupt change in mood or emotional state. And, it’s pretty normal to experience mood swings as life never stays on an even playing field all the time. One minute things feel like they’re going pretty good and next minute something comes along to disrupt your equilibrium and you feel completely different. Some people are great at regulating themselves in the moment. I for one though find this difficult. I can quickly become irritated by things or feel dejected and sad.
In Shiatsu this shows I have a particular pattern of disharmony that affects my mood. I’ll reveal what my pattern is at the end of this blog and how I work to balance it. But, let me start by explaining how I understand my clients pattern of disharmony if they come to me with a symptom of “mood swings”.
First, we need to do a bit of detective work to find out what else is going on in the clients life and what other physical or emotional symptoms they may have. In Shiatsu we look at the body holistically rather than segment it down into parts. Not only can our lifestyle and environment affect our physical health but so can our emotions. The typical things that contribute to mood swings are:
Experiencing a significant life change, like moving house or having a baby
Feeling stressed or overwhelmed (with the small kids I often feel this way)
Not getting enough sleep
Not eating healthily
Taking an excess of medications/drugs or substances such as coffee, alcohol, sugar
Other symptoms a client may be experiencing alongside their mood swings include depression, dizziness, irritability, breast lumps, breast distention, breast pain, night sweats, dry mouth, tinnitus, delayed menstruation, excessive menstruation or scanty menstruation.
We then need to look at what is happening with the energetic body, the Qi (our life force), blood and body fluids and whether there are signs of excess heat or cold.
Mood Swings from Blocked Qi
If the Qi is not moving freely we say the Qi is stagnant. It may be an overall qi stagnation or may specifically affect an organ. It’s a bit like traffic on the freeway. If everyone is going at the right speed then traffic moves easily. If someone slows down, breaks suddenly or there’s an accident or road works a traffic jam can form. Moving through this section of the freeway is much slower and let’s be honest also frustrating. Frustration is one sign the qi is not flowing freely. Most commonly qi stagnation affects the liver but it can also affect the heart, lungs, stomach or intestines.
When your qi is stagnant your mood swings may not be too extreme but you may also experience depression, irritability, frequent sighing, feelings of distention and moving pain.
Mood Swings from Emotional Stress
If the Qi is not unblocked and allowed to flow freely it can eventually also stop the blood from flowing. Now you have Qi and Blood stagnation. Significant emotional stress can also stagnate the blood. If you find that you are constantly worrying over something or spend quite a bit of time feeling angry it’s quite possible your blood is stagnating.
Take a look at your lips and nails. Do they look purple? This is a sign of blood stagnation. Other symptoms can also be chest pain, depression, amenorrhea, irritability, blotchy skin, painful periods, dark clots in the menstrual blood, irregular menstruation, fixed stabbing pain as well as mood swings.
Mood Swings from Suppressed Feelings or Poor Diet
As I said above you can have an overall qi stagnation or it can affect a particular organ. The most common organ affected by qi stagnation is the liver. If the qi does not flow freely through the liver it becomes in excess and develops heat = mood swings. If you don’t like to talk about what is going on in your life and you suppress your feelings, if you’re regularly angry or resentful more than likely you will experience Liver Qi Stagnation. An unhealthy diet rich in stimulants, fats, oils, alcohol, coffee can give rise to this disharmony as can overwork without sufficient rest.
Clients with this disharmony generally have depression and are irritable. They also may sigh a lot, have anxiety, pain in the chest, pain or bloating in the upper abdomen, PMT, a feeling of a lump in the throat, irregular menstruation.
Mood Swings from Excess Body Fluids
Now, if there is not enough Qi flowing freely, the spleen, our digestive machine, can become weak. If it weakens then the body fluids do not move around as they should. This leads to what we call Phlegm. In Western medicine phlegm is generally only thought of when it comes to flus and colds where there is an excessive amount of fluid evacuating itself from the nasal passages or being coughed up. But in Shiatsu we understand that an excess of body fluids can contribute to feelings of numbness, deformities, mental illness, gall bladder or kidney stones, sinusitis, headaches, cancer.
Environmental conditions such as wind, heat, cold and damp can invade the body and give rise to an accumulation of body fluids and lead to mood swings. A poor diet rich in fatty foods, dairy products, bread and sugar can also create phlegm.
Phlegm symptoms also include dizziness, a fuzzy or cloudy feeling in the head and feeling as though the chest is oppressed like you just can’t quite take a big deep breath.
Mood Swings from Excess Heat
Finally, as mentioned above, when there is heat there can be mood swings. Especially if there is heat in the stomach. Signs you have heat are fever, thirst, blisters, red eyes, red face, toothache, headaches, dry mouth, dry throat, restlessness, constipation, dry mouth and dry throat to name a few. Mastitis and morning sickness are also signs of stomach heat.
So which of these conditions is my disharmony you ask? Well, it’s good old Liver Qi Stagnation. Which, by the way is the most common disharmony I see in my Shiatsu clinic. In my case it has also weakened my spleen and lungs. I was a good suppressor of my feelings for a long time.
To make sure I keep myself in harmony as much as possible I exercise regularly. Nothing to intense but enough exercise to make sure my Qi is moving freely. I have a healthy diet that is varied and make sure my meals are well cooked so my spleen doesn’t have to do to much work to turn the food into qi and blood. I do yoga and swim which make sure I’m breathing correctly so that I’m taking good qi in and keeping my lungs as strong as possible. And, I’m much better at talking about my feelings.