Chronic Stress is known to trigger COPD and other respiratory issues. Often Stress results in irregular breathing patterns that hurt respiratory health. Internally, there are feelings of repressed anger that have a way of affecting your breathing without your realization. Repressed anger could also worsen chronic inflammation that can worsen respiratory health.
In holistic medicinal approaches like Traditional Chinese medicine, human organs not only have physiological functions but are also a function of mental, emotional, and spiritual qualities where elements of nature exist in balanced and harmonious relationships. Emotions are connected and associated with every organ that impacts their functioning. The act of breathing itself allows us a moment or two to be one with ourselves, a moment to be, to reflect.
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, the emotion of the Lungs is closely associated with Grief. Lungs inhale and exhale, often mirroring the act of receiving and letting go, keeping the movement ceaseless in a healthy manner. Grief and sadness can block this exchange within your body and the outer world, inhibiting the lungs from functioning smoothly and affecting the balance in body processes.
Grief can mean different things to people, loss of someone dear to us or something that may have meant a lot to us, including a particular phase of our life. At its core, Grief is love and the confusion caused by not knowing how to love someone or something that is gone.
Since every emotion has a corresponding breathing pattern, unresolved Grief over a prolonged period can affect how we breathe and our respiratory system state. In the case of momentary bouts of sadness or overwhelming sadness, people tend to hold their breath which hurts the lungs. The emotional blockage of not letting go and the symptom of Grief affect the lungs’ receiving and letting go action.
