Anxiety: Our Foe and Friend

In this issue, some of our most esteemed teachers and senior practitioners share what they know about the ubiquitous “symptom” we blithely call anxiety. Following the very intricate and fascinating tendrils of Oriental medicine, they reveal the degree to which this normal reaction to life touches every cell, every organ, meridian, and meridian system in our body. Anxiety makes us smarter, stronger, faster.　

 

It can also derail us to the point where death feels imminent in the absence of any obvious threat.
The ways our contributors view anxiety, and their innovative methods for mitigating its unhelpful and even crushing effects, stand in stark contrast to some of the quick-fix approaches still used by modern medicine. In his lead-off summarizing anxiety disorders in America, Nigel Dawes points to a dependence on psychiatric drugs and sleeping pills that should cause us more anxiety than almost any reason for taking them.　

 

We learn first and foremost from our contributors that anxiety is not a “disease.” Denichiro Yamaoka, who took up psychiatry after four decades as an internist, says: “Paradoxically, the absence of anxiety is what I would find more worrisome.” Anxiety is “part of an adaptive system essential to our survival,” which like anything in nature, can get knocked out of balance.

Also, contrary to common perception, anxiety is not “all in our head.” It’s a complex, systemic response that, when awry, tends not to stand alone as a symptom. Felip Caudet illustrates this well in his article describing master moxibustionist Isaburo Fukaya’s little-known fascination with “neurosis” and the methods he used to identify the psychogenic triggers behind his patients’ serious pathologies. Mizutani Junji elaborates: not only do our anxieties cause symptoms, but particularly as we grow older, our symptoms cause anxiety, and this further aggravates our symptoms. Diagnostic methods that look at the whole (mind and body) are nothing new to our profession, but when addressing anxiety, our contributors encourage us to become even more attuned: our methods must never be part of the problem. Quiet listening, a light touch to the pulses, hara, and
channels can find and relax anxiety’s subtle residences throughout the body/mind. Takahashi Hideo teaches us to literally smell anxiety. For treatment, our contributors offer no magic pill. But rather, an ever-evolving toolkit that meets each patient exactly where they are. As Ikai Yoshi explains “…if 100 patients are diagnosed with heart-kidney yang deficiency, their symptom profiles will differ 100 ways...” We have to be able to think on our feet. To his acupuncture, Ikai adds earthing
therapy (electrical grounding) to discharge excess energy in anxious patients, and Buddhist counselling, to further ground them in what he calls the “as it is” – an expandable space – where the type of anxiety that is our “foe” can become that which is our “friend.” In a similar vein, Pamela Ferguson pairs shiatsu therapy with walking therapy for patients too anxious to lie on a table, and indoors, she opens new vistas for them with the Japanese art of shakkei (“borrowed” scenery). Sotai practitioner Komatsu Hiroaki urges us to begin our treatment of anxious children with treatment of the anxious mother. He supports this with a scientific fact: anxiety is transmitted to those around us. As is calm. And so, we editors are most grateful to each of our writers and translators for their part in making NAJOM 95 a pleasure to read and process from start to finish. Editors Joleen Kraft and Sara Bergman want our readers to appreciate that the insights shared in these pages often represent the distillation of a life’s work, meriting a slow read and further study. Editor Jenny Craig is eagerly anticipating Nigel Dawes’ follow-up in our next issue. Bob Quinn has put an asterisk on Mark Petruzzi’s copy: “this great research needs funding!” And Mizutani Junji
– moved by Iwashita Shumei’s poetic wisdom – writes: “A blind Toyohari practitioner is very much interested in seeing his life. I hope our readers will feel the depth of his message.”

Thanks to you all, and please consider our theme for NAJOM 96 (March 2026) – “To Treat Structure is to Treat the Internal Organs” (Deadline: January 1, 2026). Share from your practice how treating the body’s surface affects the internal organs and their functions? Incorporate your knowledge of classical theory and/or modern medicine (physiology/biology) to explain cases that have had expected and unexpected therapeutic effects.

Wishing you peace, and presence,

Cheryl Coull, editor