A close-up of traditional Tibetan prayer wheels, ornately painted with vibrant patterns in red, blue, and gold tones, mounted on a wooden structure in a monastery or sacred site.

What Tibetan Medicine Says About Lung Energy, Stress, and Emotional Wind

In Tibetan medicine, the body’s balance depends not just on physical health, but also on the movement and quality of subtle energies. One of the most important—and least understood—of these energies is "Lung" (རླུང་, meaning wind or vital energy). Lung is responsible for movement in both body and mind, and it’s deeply affected by stress, trauma, overthinking, and sensory overload.

Today, modern stress might show up as anxiety, poor sleep, shallow breathing, or digestive discomfort. But from the Tibetan perspective, it’s all one pattern: disturbed wind energy. In this article, we’ll explore what Lung imbalance looks like, how it’s traditionally supported, and what small daily rituals (including incense) can help restore emotional and energetic calm.

Colorful Tibetan prayer flags fluttering in the wind against a backdrop of snow-covered Himalayan mountains, symbolizing peace, compassion, and spiritual energy.

What Is Lung in Tibetan Medicine?

Lung (wind) is one of the three principal energies ("nyepa") in Tibetan medicine, alongside Tripa (bile/fire) and Beken (phlegm/earth-water). It’s not literal air, but rather the vital movement and communication in both body and mind. It governs things like:

  • Nervous system function and mental clarity
  • Respiration and circulation
  • Mobility of joints and muscles
  • Speech and emotional expression

When Lung is balanced, we feel mentally focused, calm, flexible, and emotionally steady. But when disturbed—by trauma, poor diet, cold wind exposure, overstimulation, or excessive thought—it becomes erratic and chaotic.

Minimalist abstract illustration of a human head in profile with a swirling spiral inside the brain area, symbolizing mental focus, mindfulness, or cognitive processing.

Signs of Wind Imbalance

Many symptoms we consider “normal” stress responses today are actually signs of Lung disturbance. These can include:

  • Insomnia or restless sleep
  • Racing thoughts or difficulty focusing
  • Sudden mood swings or emotional fragility
  • Cold limbs and dry skin
  • Low appetite, bloating, or irregular digestion
  • Shaky or unsteady feelings, especially in the chest

In clinical Tibetan practice, treating wind imbalance means calming and stabilizing both body and mind. Traditionally, this involves dietary changes, herbal medicine, meditation, warm oil treatments, and incense burning.

A young woman with a long braid wearing a light blue shirt, looking directly at the camera with a sad and disappointed facial expression, against a plain white background.

How Incense Supports Lung and Wind Imbalance

In many monasteries and medical schools across Tibet and Bhutan, incense plays a subtle but important therapeutic role. Specific incense formulas are burned to:

  • Calm agitation in the nervous system
  • Warm and circulate energy in the chest and limbs
  • Open the breath, especially in shallow or anxious breathing states
  • Create an atmosphere of emotional grounding and inner stillness

For example, the formula behind Sera Serene was developed to calm excessive wind and nourish the spirit. It includes calming botanicals like white sandalwood, nutmeg, and Tibetan spikenard—all traditionally used to anchor Lung energy.

Lhasa Remedy’s Sera Serene incense cones arranged in a grid pattern around handmade paper packaging with a golden label, photographed on a clean white background.

Meanwhile, Chomolung Snow offers a cooling yet stabilizing blend of Tibetan cypress,  nectar pill (a classic spiritual formula), and Tibetan agarwood, helping regulate excessive yang or heat rising in the chest.

Chomolung Snow Tibetan incense surrounded by traditional medicinal herbal ingredients, showcasing a resin-based blend rooted in ancient Himalayan purification rituals.

How to Build a Daily Ritual to Soothe Wind

Supporting Lung isn’t about dramatic interventions—it’s about consistent, gentle ritual. Here’s a sample daily ritual to start stabilizing wind:

  1. Morning Calm: Light Sera Serene incense during your first 10 minutes awake. Sit quietly or stretch while it burns. Let your breath slow naturally.
  2. Warm Breakfast: Favor cooked, spiced, warm foods like oats with cinnamon or ginger tea. Cold smoothies and raw foods can disturb wind.
  3. Midday Breathing Break: Light Chomolung Snow incense and practice 5 minutes of deep belly breathing.
  4. Evening Reset: After dinner, take a warm shower or foot soak, apply sesame oil to your limbs, and burn incense during gentle journaling or meditation.

These tiny rituals, repeated daily, gradually retrain the nervous system to feel safe and anchored.

Man sitting cross-legged with eyes closed and hands in prayer position, meditating in front of a large gong surrounded by tropical plants in an outdoor retreat setting.

Further Reading

Explore this incense here: Sera Serene and Chomolung Snow.

Modern life pushes our Lung energy into overdrive—but the body remembers how to come home. With a few gentle, grounded rituals and the support of traditional incense formulas, we can re-anchor the wind and soften the mind.

Lhasa Remedy’s Wind Horse bundle featuring Chomolung Snow stick incense in a glass tube and Sera Serene cone incense in a handmade paper pouch, both labeled with their traditional Chinese medicine ingredients.

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