Vital energy depends on a having a well-balanced system in which your organs and other elements work together harmoniously. Low energy levels for most of us are short-term and come on the heels of prolonged work or stress. This is well resolved by resting. Acupuncture sessions and herbal medicines to de-stress us help accelerate our recovery, or help us get over a hump, but when low energy and fatigue become ongoing or severe, then we need to look deeper.

In the medium term (months to a few years), clearing, harmonizing and tonifying treatments work well to clear any pathogens and optimize the various functions of the body ensuring that you can heal yourself. This is how Oriental Medicine benefits those with chronic deficiencies such as Chronic Fatigue and other immuno dysfunctional issues, wasting diseases as well as chronic and undetectable parasitic infection that force you to bear a constant load.

Health and vitality is not just the absence of disease however. If treatment of disease gets us back to zero, then to move beyond this, we must consider the concept total mental, physical and spiritual engagement with life. Most of us are born with the full potential to achieve inner harmony of these elements, but from the moment of conception the forces of life begin to affect us. Discussion about energy and longevity in Oriental medicine begins with the gifts given to us by our parents in terms of genetics, mother’s gestational health, learned habits and so on, but ultimately culminates in our own lifestyle (see definition above in digestion). The cultivation of proper lifestyle is called “yang sheng fa” in Mandarin. It presumes that we all have a finite amount of life force, and through specific and judicious living practices, we can maintain health, sustain quality of life and even extend it beyond a normal lifespan.