“The HEART is the silent witness of each renewed moment”
Traditionally, the Heart is said to house the Spirit. The Spirit must feel “welcomed” to remain calm, peaceful and serene. If it does not feel at home in its own dwelling, it may scatter and/or escape, bringing on a state of anxiety, agitation and/or mental confusion, insomnia and/or palpitations.
How can we help the Spirit (Shen) feel at home?
From the point of view of Chinese medicine, emotions are considered mental stimuli that act on our emotional life and that normally do not cause illness. They do not affect the Shen when they can come and go in the Heart and the Heart remains relatively detached, which is what mindfulness meditation or heart coherence teaches us, for example.
According to the classical texts, when the Heart's functions related to mental and emotional activity are normal, the mind is firm and stable, the spirit clear, thinking agile, and sensitivity to information from the outside world normal.
In traditional acupuncture, the NEIGUAN point, on the Pericardium meridian of the hand (Shou Jueyin), is very strongly indicated to treat anxiety and relax the nervous system.
Why?
First of all, because the Pericardium, whose organ is the outer tissue of the Heart, has as its first function to protect the Heart. It is the first to take the blows coming from outside.
For a practitioner of Balance System Acupuncture, however, NEIGUAN is not an empirical point..! It corresponds to a projection of the Heart area onto the forearm. If we picture a puppet lying along it, the head becomes the hand, the base of the wrist the neck, the crease of the elbow the waist, and the area just above the wrist the chest..!
It has also been shown scientifically that stimulating the NEIGUAN point acts on certain brain functions that instantly help reduce anxiety..!
Source: mastertungacupuncture.org · ncbi.nlm.nih.gov