Cyber Sickness and the Blood
East Asian Medicine perspectives on how screens can fry us--and what to do about it
If you feel like your screen is making you sick ("cyber sickness"), it probably is. Traditional East Asian Medicine (TEAM) helps explain why.
Consider the line in the Chinese classical text, Huangdi Neijing (The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic) that translates as follows:
"Long-term sitting damages the qi, long-term gazing damages the blood."
Sitting for hours a day staring at a screen is kind of a double-whammy: qi and blood both. But the blood part is especially relevant.
In TEAM, blood goes with liver goes with eyes—all part of the same functional network. Overworking those eyes taxes the blood. Now, a thing to understand here is that the classical Chinese concept of blood encompasses the red liquid in our vessels, yes, but also a certain quality of hormonal juiciness and tissue plumpness. Good quantity and quality of blood keep us nourished and also buffered from the world, similar to how a jungle canopy shades and protect the forest floor from the harsh rays of the sun (an insight usefully spelled out in the Sa’am acupuncture tradition).
As the blood becomes taxed, we can start to feel dizzy, drained, burned-out and overexposed. In other words, many of the symptoms of so-called cyber sickness. Over time, severe blood deficiency can lead to more serious outcomes including anemia and cognitive decline. (A useful oversimplification: blood makes up part of the film on which memory is imprinted.)
The most sensitive or delicate among us will feel the effects first, but so will anyone who spends long enough hours at the computer, sooner or later.
In my healing arts practice, I'm seeing more and more people who are burnt out by screens and whose systems gratefully soak up treatments that nourish and harmonize the blood.
Personally, as a writer who runs blood-deficient to begin with, I don't know how I'd cope without the TEAM toolkit of needles, herbs and dietary measures. They’ve been a godsend, and I dearly wish I could go back in time to offer them to my dad, whose early-onset Alzheimer’s was a clear-cut case of blood deficiency exacerbated by “long-term gazing.”
I heartily recommend Chinese herbal medicine and Sa’am-style acupuncture to anyone suffering from screen symptoms. But you can get some decent mileage out of dietary therapy as well.
Foods that nourish blood
Kvass (personal favorite = salty fermented beet drink from the Ukraine)
Red meat
Liver
Gelatin and collagen-rich broths
Pastured Eggs
Beets
Blackstrap molasses
Cooked leafy greens
Goji berries and Jujube Dates (make tea)
Black and Red berries
Pomegranate
If you’d like to discuss how to support your blood or other aspects of health, I’m reachable at info@jonathanhadasedwards.com. Sessions available here.
