In classical texts, emotions are treated as one type of internal cause that can disrupt qi dynamics. For a Western audience, present this as a metaphorical/educational model rather than a one-to-one biomedical claim.
| Emotion | Associated Zang | Teaching note |
|---|---|---|
| Anger | Liver (Wood) | Often framed as: anger causes qi to rise. Avoid over‑claiming mental health causality. |
| Joy | Heart (Fire) | Joy relaxes qi. Excessive excitement may scatter shen in classical language. |
| Pensiveness / Overthinking | Spleen (Earth) | Often described as ‘thinking knots qi’. In clinic, phrase as stress affecting appetite/digestion. |
| Grief / Sadness | Lung (Metal) | Grief is said to consume qi. Common modern bridge: breath becomes shallow under sadness. |
| Fear | Kidney (Water) | Fear causes qi to descend. A safe bridge: fear activates stress responses and affects the body. |
Copy-and-paste safe line: “TCM uses organ names as functional systems. These emotion links are traditional descriptions of patterns, not proof of direct anatomical causation.”