Anger, sadness, anxiety. These are just a few of the emotions that humans experience during their ever-changing path through life. Just like acids and bases, all of these emotions can be placed on a ranking scale, or spectrum. Too much of any emotion can be harmful to us, just like the way carbon dioxide and oxygen work in the body.

Body activity and cellular respiration use up oxygen, and increase production of CO2. CO2 is transported through the blood as carbonic acid, and the increase of carbonic acid changes the PH of the blood, which gives the brain the urge to breathe. On the opposite side of the spectrum, hyperventilation can create a disproportionate amount of O2 in the body, which makes the blood significantly more alkaline. With the significant amount of expelled CO2, the brain doesn’t get a signal from the body when the O2 runs out, and we go unconscious.

This is the same way our lives work. Anger builds up in the body, and the organism starts to shut down from the hyperactivity of the tissues and brain. On the flip side, depression kicks in, and the body slowly freezes into a vegetative state due to the lack of musculoskeletal and mental movement.

These emotional imbalances in the body need prescribed movement plans. When the emotion falls onto the scale of charging up the body, softening exercises are necessary, such as meditation. When the emotion causes a lack of mental and physical movement, emotional charging exercises are necessary; metabolic conditioning/weight lifting could be prescribed. These prescriptions act as buffers to the acids and bases of emotions in our lives. It is with these buffers that musculoskeletal and mental movement is restored to its proper balance of yin and yang. It is with this balance that the human can continue on their path through life as healthy and happy as possible.