How I Healed Anxiety & Built Inner Safety with Chinese Medicine
Anxiety is rarely only a “mental” problem. It is a pattern in body, brain, and story: a nervous system that has learned vigilance, a Heart (Shen) that has been unmoored from the Kidney’s deep anchor, and a life context that repeatedly signals unsafety. Healing is therefore not a slogan or a checklist — it is a structural, cumulative rebuilding of felt safety. In what follows I describe how that rebuilding works (conceptually and practically), how Chinese Medicine (CM) and modern physiology map onto one another, and the concrete, clinical-poetic practices that rewired my system from perpetual alarm to something steadier and hospitable.
Anxiety: what it is, and why common solutions fall short
When people say “I’m anxious,” they usually mean a constellation of lived experiences: accelerated heart rate, shallow breathing, ruminative thought, numbness, overwhelm, disrupted sleep, and an unshakable sense that the world (or the self) is unsafe. Neuroscience describes this as a loss of autonomic flexibility: the nervous system has become biased toward sympathetic (fight/flight) or dorsal-vagal freeze states, and lacks the smooth capacity to return to parasympathetic calm.
Common self-help reduces anxiety to tips: breathe, sleep, take magnesium. These things can help — briefly. But if the underlying system has encoded chronic expectation of threat, surface interventions will be palliative at best. Real repair requires creating reliable, patterned, embodied signals that safety is possible and predictable. That is the essence of regulation.
Two lenses that illuminate the same dysfunction
Modern physiological framing
Autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysregulation: anxiety reflects a system stuck or shift-locked into arousal (sympathetic dominance) or withdrawal (dorsal vagal), with limited vagal (social-safety) tone to buffer responses.
HPA-axis and allostatic load: chronic stress elevates cortisol and catecholamines, alters neuroendocrine rhythms, and changes threat appraisal networks in the limbic system.
Neuroplasticity & interoception: the brain maps the body through interoceptive loops; repeated arousal rewires expectation, so the body reads neutrality as threat until retraining occurs.
Classical Chinese Medicine framing
Heart (Xin 心) and Shen (神): the Heart houses the Shen — consciousness, clarity, emotional regulation. When Shen is calm, presence and sleep are possible.
Kidneys (Shen 腎) and Jing (精): Kidneys hold essence and the Zhi (will). They anchor fear and survival; Jing is the deep resource that steadies the system.
Heart–Kidney disharmony: in CM this describes a clinical pattern where Fire (Heart) is not balanced by Water (Kidney). The Shen is unanchored — restlessness, palpitations, insomnia, fear, and scattered attention follow.
Bao Mai / Bao Gong: energetic pathways linking emotion and reproduction also show how relational safety and body systems are entwined; emotional constriction affects somatic capacity.
Both lenses point to the same dynamic: a disconnection between fast, surface reactivity and a deeper, stabilizing resource. Reconnection is the operative goal.
A clinical synthesis: what “reconnection” actually means
Repairing anxiety is not symbolic; it is material. It requires interventions that:
Alter neural set-points (increase vagal tone, normalize HPA responsivity).
Restore somatic competence (strength, breath capacity, interoceptive accuracy).
Re-anchor the Shen via practices that nourish Heart and Kidney in tandem — physiological (acupuncture, herbs), psychological (trauma-informed therapy), and ritualized (ritual, rhythm, boundaries).
Change environment and narrative — reduce chronic triggers, reshape identity away from “I am vulnerable” toward “I can hold myself.”
These domains are mutually reinforcing: somatic change facilitates emotional integration, which in turn lowers physiological arousal, which then deepens trust — a positive feedback loop rather than a downward spiral.
How healing happens: an integrated, evidence-informed model
Healing anxiety is a coherent, layered process — not a collage of tips — where the nervous system learns to trust again through consistent, reliable, patterned experience. The system requires repeated cues of safety so that neurobiology, energy, and narrative can realign.
1) Physiology (neural and endocrine recalibration).
Sustained, predictable practices produce durable changes: increased heart-rate variability (HRV), improved vagal tone, normalized cortisol rhythms. Interventions such as targeted breathwork, polyvagal-informed exercises, high-quality sleep, and paced physical exertion create measurable shifts in autonomic flexibility.
2) Energetic/CM repair (Heart–Kidney nourishment).
From a CM vantage, the Shen must be re-anchored in Blood and Jing. This happens through interventions that build Blood, protect and restore Jing, and re-establish Heart–Kidney dialogue: individualized acupuncture protocols, nourishing formulas, dietary support to strengthen the Spleen’s transformation of food into Blood, and moxibustion to restore warmth where cold or constriction exists.
3) Psychospiritual integration (containment and meaning).
Processing grief, shame, and trauma — via talk therapy, somatic modalities, or ritual — changes the narrative context of fear. Techniques that target bodily memory (EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy) allow trauma-patterned sensations to be re-felt and metabolized in a regulated window.
4) Repetition and ritual as neurobiological pedagogy.
The brain learns safety from predictability: a nightly tea ritual, consistent breath practice, or a weekly therapeutic container become cues that the world (and you) can be trusted. These micro-habits accumulate into a new default: regulated anticipation rather than hypervigilant dread.
5) Somatic competence and agency.
Physical strength, breath capacity, and movement re-inscribe the body as capable. Strength training is psychobiological medicine: it shifts threat appraisal by proving through experience that the body can meet challenge and recover.
6) Environmental scaffolding (boundaries, nutrition, sleep).
Removing chronic drains — draining relationships, chaotic schedules, poor sleep — is not optional. Nutritional stability and restorative sleep are baseline medicine: they reduce allostatic load and permit higher-order integration.
Taken together, these elements form a reproducible clinical program: somatic regulation + energetic repair + psychospiritual integration + environmental restructuring + ritualized repetition.
Practical modalities: what they do, and how they integrate
Below I describe modalities I used (and recommend clinically), mapped to the model above. Each needs individual tailoring.
Acupuncture & Moxibustion — a pathway to vagal safety and energetic balance
Mechanisms (modern + CM): needling modulates limbic reactivity, increases vagal tone, and reduces HPA activation; in CM it opens channels, moves Blood/Qi, calms Shen, and nourishes Kidney Yin/Jing when appropriate.
Clinical approach: points that frequently support Heart–Kidney communication and parasympathetic regulation include HT7 (calm Shen), PC6 (nausea, autonomic balance), KD3 (nourish Kidney), SP6 (Sanyinjiao — blood and Yin), REN4/6 (Guanyuan/Zhongji — anchoring), and auricular points for sympathetic down-regulation. Moxibustion can be used to restore warmth to lower abdomen and Kidney area when cold-type presentations or stagnation are present.
Practical note: benefits accrue over time; sessions are most effective when combined with daily practices that reinforce the physiological shifts.
Herbal allies — biochemical and symbolic scaffolding
Adaptogens (e.g., Rhodiola, Ashwagandha): support HPA resilience.
Anxiolytic botanicals (e.g., Passionflower, Scutellaria): gentle down-shifts of hyperarousal; many work via GABAergic modulation or through general calming pathways.
Heart-softening herbs (e.g., Rose, Suan Zao Ren in CM tradition): nourish Shen, ease insomnia, and re-member pleasure/joy.
Safety caveat: herbal prescriptions must be individualized — interactions, pregnancy concerns, and organ function require professional oversight.
Trauma-informed psychotherapy & somatic therapies
Why they’re essential: cognitive insight without somatic re-regulation can be hollow. Somatic therapies address the bodily engrams of survival. EMDR, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and Somatic Experiencing work directly on implicit memory and autonomic patterns.
Technique integration: use these therapies to process root causes (grief, shame, developmental injuries) so that learned threat responses no longer hijack present moments.
Movement, strength training, and interoceptive practice
Why strength matters: increased physical capacity reduces catastrophizing and recalibrates interoception — the body registers competence.
Practical prescription: a hybrid practice of resistance training (2–3x/week), daily embodied movement (walking, qigong, yoga), and short interoceptive scans or breath holds to increase tolerance for visceral sensations.
Ritual, consistency, and the pedagogy of safety
Ritual as predictable cue: evening rituals, single-topic journaling, or micro-offerings (warming tea, mirror affirmations) reliably signal safety and are neurological training tools.
How to design them: choose 2–3 small, repeatable acts that are meaningful and timed predictably — morning centering, midday breath reset, evening wind-down — and guard those rituals as clinical prescriptions.
Boundaries, social ecology, and sleep/nutrition hygiene
Boundaries reduce chronic sympathetic priming. Saying no is physiological medicine.
Nutrition: warm, easily digested meals (as CCM advises) protect the Spleen’s transformative fire and build Blood; avoid chronic excess of cold/raw inputs if digestion is weak.
Sleep: prioritize regular sleep windows and circadian cues (light exposure, wind-down routines) because sleep is the core regenerative scaffolding for autonomic repair.
Safety as capacity: the clinical and philosophical horizon
A crucial reframing: safety is not an invariant state to be achieved once. It is a capacity — a dynamic skill that is strengthened through predictable experience. In Daoist terms, this is a cultivation of Wu Wei: the ability to act effectively without forced control, to return to restful receptivity after effort, to embody a rhythm that is responsive rather than reactive.
This is why the program above is not a “cure” narrative. Rather it is a path of cultivation: building inner resources (Jing/Blood/strength), tethering Shen (Heart) to a reliable anchor (Kidneys/embodied practices), and re-storying identity through ritual and meaning.
Becoming the safe space you were seeking
Anxiety is a teacher when we listen: it reveals where resource is low, where boundaries are porous, where the story of the self is thin. The clinical task is to replenish — neural flexibility, embodied competence, energetic nourishment, and narrative containment — so that fear no longer monopolizes attention.
This work is at once technical and tender. It uses the language of neurobiology and of Jing; it invites lab data and ritual; it requires both strength training and mirror work. Ultimately, the deepest outcome is not the disappearance of fear but the cultivation of an internal climate in which fear can arise without commandeering the whole system.
I did not “vanish” anxiety in one moment. I built a set of reliable experiences that taught my nervous system what safety feels like. Over time, trust accumulated. The Heart found its anchor. The body learned to read neutral as neutral. And one morning, in a small, unremarkable moment, I realized: I had become, by degrees, the safe space I had been seeking.
With gratitude,
Juliette Eleonora Zoë Weersink
Founder of Essence of Juji