Page 579 - Total War on PTSD

with an imbalance of one of the Three Humors: Wind (rLung), Bilye (Tipa), or Phlegm (Bad-Gan).
The primary goal of Tibetan Medicine is to help people settle their minds and root themselves in a grounded lifestyle. Their healing advice is rooted in simplicity. In contrast to the actual sophistication of Tibetan medical knowledge, the remedies for mental imbalance, such as anxiety and sadness, or even depression, are simple, earthy, and enjoyable. While herbal medicine can be helpful, you must consult a Tibetan Medicine practitioner for a prescription. However, even without herbal pills, these simple techniques and recipes, such as dietary changes, meditation, acupressure, massage, and the rLung incense can be applied by anyone. This simple approach can be profoundly helpful in relieving, soothing, and calming most anxious and stressful thoughts. They are also inexpensive and ecological. The meditation techniques can easily become a lifelong learning tool for understanding oneself more deeply.
As a practitioner of Asian medicine in the United States, I work with many people who want to transition off anxiety medication, and I witness them emerging from their anxiety whole and complete, with the ability to feel more deeply than they did before. When I first meet them, they almost always appear to be addicted to their anxiety medication and experience various side effects, such as being overweight or suffering from insomnia. Many are still anxious despite taking the medication. As one woman said to me, “It took me two years to come off my anxiety medication. I still have deep-seated fears sometimes, but I also now have my life back. I have lost weight, and there is less of a wall of medication between me and the world...my social
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