07/31/2025
Dear Patient,
“That’s where I hold my stress,” a person will tell me, pointing to their neck and shoulders, or jaws, or upper back, or forehead and temples.
Can you relate?
Many of us tense up these strategic areas as armor against an unpredictable world. We’re preparing for an attack that may or may not come, but it’s best to be ready just in case.
But why these areas?
The head, the jaws and face, the neck and shoulders, the back…these are yang parts of the body. Yang is hard, active, expansive and forceful. It’s the skin and muscles and tendons and ligaments that protect our squishy yin interior—the vital internal organs. We don’t tend to talk about holding stress in our lungs, or liver or kidneys, because those organs are busy doing the important work of keeping us alive. They need their yang protectors to step in and run interference.
Tight neck and shoulders? That’s your Gallbladder meridian protecting its yin partner, the Liver, which is responsible for directing all of the body’s cycles. It’s also the Urinary Bladder meridian protecting its partner the Kidneys, which are the root of our constitutional strength and longevity.
Tension in your face and jaws? That’s the Stomach meridian protecting the Spleen, which is responsible for digestion, and the Large Intestine protecting its partner the Lungs.
What about tension in the shoulder blades? That’s the Small Intestine protecting the Heart, the seat of our emotions.
The top of the head is where all yang channels converge. So tension in your head…that’s every yang channel on overdrive, giving their all to shield every yin part of you.
We tense up these areas without even realizing it. We berate ourselves for holding on to physical stress. “Why can’t I just relax??” we ask. But think of it this way…tension is also protection. It’s survival. It’s love.
Life throws stressors at us and the body responds in brilliant ways to safeguard what is most precious.
Take a deep breath, and say thank you to your endlessly wise body. You might just feel some of that tension start to let go.
Love and gratitude,
Your Acupuncturist
