Metal- sadness - contracting movement

Deep breathing exercises, and concentration on posture, will genuinely help to alleviate long-term grief and sadness.

It is sometimes difficult for us to grasp that merely physical methods can help an emotional or mental problem, but this is only because our culture has taught us to see the mind and the body as separate entities.

In Chinese medicine there is no such separation. Anything that happens in the body will ultimately affect the mind and vice versa.

Metal has the opposite movement to Wood, of contraction, withdrawing into the interior. Sadness is seen to cause the same movement within the body, often resulting in a feeling of oppression in the chest and consequent rounding of the shoulders: precisely the posture so often seen in someone who is sad and depressed.

This pressure on the chest brought about by a hunched, shrunken, round-shouldered posture affects the breathing patterns, and the Lungs are no longer able to expand to their full capacity and take sufficient energy from the air. This in i urn will affect the quality of Qi throughout the whole body.