The Heart, The Emperor, The Ruler of our Shen

    It’s February! And since February is all about hearts, I thought what better time to go more in depth into the Heart in Traditional Chinese Medicine. The Heart is considered to be one of the most important organs in TCM and is described and the emperor or ruler. 
    The main function of the Heart is that it governs blood and houses the mind (shen). The Heart is responsible for the circulation of blood just as it is in Western medicine. So when the Heart is healthy there will be a proper supply of blood to all of the tissues, but when the function is impaired blood circulation will lack and you will see cold hands or feet. 

THE SHEN

    The other extremely important function of the Heart is being the residence of the mind or Shen. Shen is used to indicate the whole sphere of both the mental and spiritual aspects of humans. The aspects are listed below and each aspect although closely related to the Heart also has a second Yin organ it is related to.

    -Ethereal Soul (hun)- Liver: refers to self-awareness and self-control, it is most closely             related to the Western concept of the soul

    -Corporeal Soul (po)- Lung: refers to the basic reactive instincts, when it is active pain             and other sensations such as itching can be felt, hearing and sight are also related to             this

    -Intellect (yi)- Spleen: refers to the ability of thinking, studying, concenteration and             learning

    -Will-power (Zhi)- Kidney: has the function of memory, mental drive and determination

  -Mind (Shen)- Heart: controls and regulates all of the above and has the job of                 processing all of the incoming sensory and intuitive information 

SYMPTOMS OF THE HEART

    When the Heart is strong and Blood are abundant the emotions will be balanced, the memory will be strong and sleep will be good. When the Heart is weak and the Blood is deficient there maybe mental-emotional problems such as depression, as well as poor memory, mental restlessness, anxiety and insomnia.


THE HEART AND OUR EMOTIONS
    The Heart is connected to all of the emotions because of its connection with Shen, but each of the seven emotions: anger, worry, sadness, fear, joy, grief, apprehension are related to a specific organ. And for the Heart, Joy is the emotion that is related. Of all the emotions joy is the most difficult to explain, mainly because in Chinese medicine emotions when in excess emotions can play a role in disease. You may be thinking how can too much Joy be a bad thing, and truly this was one of the harder concepts to wrap my brain around.
    With the right amount of Joy in our life the mind will be peaceful and relaxed. But when Joy is excessive such as carving for excessive excitement, the Heart can be injured. This can happen to people who live in a state of continuous mental stimulation. This can be seen as someone who is in a constant manic state, or someone who will do anything to stay in a place of happiness, whether from drugs or thrilling activities. This cause the Heart to become larger, and leads to excessive stimulation of the Heart. Some symptoms of this could be palpitations, insomnia, restlessness, excessive excitability or talking, and red tongue tip.
    Sudden Joy can also cause a shock to the Heart, like hearing great news unexpectedly. When this happens Yang Qi floats quickly which can cause the blood vessels of the Heart to open and dilate too much.
FOODS FOR THE HEART
Some foods that are beneficial to the Heart are many red foods such as:
    Tomatoes, Beef, Cherry, Saffron, Red Beans, Watermellon, Red Apple, Beets, Radish,             Strawberries, Rhubarb, Red Lentils, Longan Fruit, Red Dates, Chili, Cumin