Blog
How To See Worry in the Pulses and Treat it
- March 1, 2023
- Posted by: Dr. Martha Lucas
- Category: Blog

Dr. Lucas talks about how worry affects the pulses.
Worry makes the movement in the Earth/St/Sp sector go back and forth instead of one way from kidneys to Lu/LI. And, in my experience, the long term effect will be to make the kidney pulses scattered. Do you know what worry and scattered kidney qi feel like or how to see them in the pulses?
Worry feels like a tap tap on both edges of the finger in that position. That’s because it’s going this way, then that way; so back and forth. I talk about scattered kidney qi in my Pulse Diagnosis and Balancing class using a fireworks simile. Fireworks start on the ground with a boom. But in the air, they are little points of light gently falling from the sky. That part is how scattered qi feels – like little points of light or dust or particles lightly tapping on your finger. Like a “poof” on your finger.
The issues? Earth/Sp/St is the position that indicates how we are making qi; how our digestion is working. When that pulse is going back and forth instead of in the correct direction, the person’s digestion is suffering. They aren’t digesting food well enough to make good quality qi. So, #1, they aren’t making good energy to use so #2 their original qi may be getting used as a last effort to have qi to live. But without kidney qi to fund the rest of the pulse positions, all of the organ systems are going to suffer.
What you can do about it? Make certain that the Dai Mai and Bao Mai are open so that we know that energy is flowing from lower to upper. You might use the Sp, St, Lu, and/or LI Luo points to open the channels, to get the communication between organ systems going. Then you need to figure out ways to consolidate kidney qi. Generally, you can open up the channel (any channel really) by opening up points at the beginning (K4) and several on the way up or down the channel. You might use K4, 6, 10, and 27 for example. We use pulse diagnosis to feel whether or not the other systems flow into and from the kidney pulses and if they don’t, boost the kidneys to help get that movement going. You may recommend some herbs or food prescriptions. How about having people do some qigong? We have a number of ways to improve this situation in people’s pulses/health before it turns into something that will be harder to turn around.
Don’t forget about taking care of yourself too!