Waking up totally refreshed and ready for the challenges of the day is one of life's gifts. Handling stress with grace and comfort not only makes life easier, but also sustains physical and emotional health. Oriental Medicine offers insight into these issues and practical help for ensuring sound sleep and relief from stress.

Stress becomes a problem only when it accumulates in excess. Life itself involves stress. Every exertion leaves a residue of stress. Athletic training often leads to sore muscles and joints. Friendship and intimacy, unavoidably, at times, bring up conflict. Striving to succeed at work pushes against our limits and results in fatigue. The buildup of stress in the mind and body creates two kinds of problems. First, the emotional and physical tension can interfere with natural, healthy functioning of the mind and body. A chronically tight muscle is more prone to injury than a supple, relaxed one. Just as water flows to a low point on the ground, so stress flows to the weak point in the body. A person with weak digestion, under stress, may develop ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, or colitis. Like a weight, built-up stress can cause depression; or like throwing gasoline on a fire, it can inflame volatile feelings and cause outbursts of anger. Second, prolonged or intense stress can drain energy reserves and cause fatigue. Chronic, lingering irritation acts like a slow leakage of blood, imperceptibly lowering vitality, weakening immunity, increasing susceptibility to accident or infection.

Sleep disorders have several sources, but the most common type is certainly stress-related. Using a common principle of Oriental Medicine, we can distinguish two varieties, excess and deficient. Overactive, nervous energy works against sleep as surely as traffic noise drowns out conversation. Less commonly, feeling deeply depleted can make it hard to slow down and drift into dreamland, thus increasing the exhaustion.

Developing a program for self-care requires a self-evaluation: Is my problem from built-up stress, or from deep fatigue, or both? The healing strategy is in each case simple and common sense. Built-up stress needs to be dissolved or dispersed. Exhaustion calls for rest and nourishment.

Nutrition can contribute to both the cause and the cure. The two biggest stressors in the modern diet are excess protein and the reliance on stimulants and quick-energy foods. Over-abundant protein, particularly in the form of meats, dairy products, and eggs, fatigues the internal organs. As the liver, kidneys and intestines labor under this excess, a subtle but deep tiredness develops, as does a craving for quick energy. We usually satisfy this urge with simple sugars (most commonly, cane and beet sugars, and high-fructose corn syrup) or alcohol or coffee. These, our most popular stress remedies, do supply quick energy, and often relieve tension, at least temporarily. Their energy and relief come, however, at a price: increasing depletion of the body-mind energy reserves and deepening fatigue. The solution is to shift the eating pattern away from the typical modern pattern of animal foods and quick-energy sources toward the time-proven staples of our ancestors; whole grains, beans, vegetables, fruits, and minor amounts, if any, of animal products and stimulants.

Tailoring this kind of diet to individual needs makes it much more effective. The Macrobiotic approach to eating does just this, using the principles of balance to evaluate one's physical and mental condition and devise an eating pattern which accurately satisfies the need for replenishing lost energy and diffusing built-up stress.

These same principles of balance can provide fascinating insight into mental and emotional health as well. For example, depression, a typical result of stress, often comes from repressed anger. According to the principles of Oriental Medicine, the strategy for relieving depression is, on the emotional level, to restore enthusiasm and passion; and on the physical level, to treat the liver and gall bladder with appropriate foods and herbs.

As we face the intensity of family life and career, handling stress becomes a necessity rather than a luxury. Creatively applying the principles of Oriental Medicine to our lives can become a safe, effective, and empowering solution.