The Triple Burner / San Jiao: Integration and Flow

Some systems in the body are easy to define.The lungs help us breathe. The heart pumps blood. The stomach digests food.

But in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), there’s one system that doesn’t have a physical organ—yet it’s responsible for everything flowing and communicating between the others.

It’s called the Triple Burner, or San Jiao.

And for someone like me—neurodivergent, sensitive, often feeling like I’m either “on” or “off”—this concept has changed the way I understand my own rhythms.

Because when we talk about the Triple Burner, we’re really talking about integration.About connection between the upper, middle, and lower parts of ourselves—physically, emotionally, and energetically.

What Is the Triple Burner?

In TCM, the Triple Burner (San Jiao) is divided into three parts:

• Upper Burner: heart and lungs – associated with breath, clarity, and expression

• Middle Burner: spleen and stomach – digestion, emotion, and processing

• Lower Burner: kidneys, bladder, liver – grounding, elimination, safety

It’s not a separate organ—it’s a functional space that manages flow between them.

You can think of it like this:

The upper burner rises → the breath, the thoughts, the voice

The lower burner descends → grounding, release, rooting

The middle burner harmonises → digesting food and emotion, creating balance

When the Triple Burner is working well, there’s a sense of flow.Breath moves easily. Digestion feels smooth. Energy rises and falls in rhythm.You feel connected to your body—not stuck in your head, and not lost in your emotions.

But when it’s out of sync?

You might feel fragmented, blocked, overwhelmed, or heavy.

How I’ve Felt This Disconnection

I’ve spent much of my life feeling like the pieces of me weren’t talking to each other.

Sometimes my head is racing but my body is frozen.Other times my stomach churns with anxiety while my breath stays shallow and tight.I know what it’s like to feel stuck in my gut, or adrift in my thoughts, or so full of feeling that I don’t know where to begin.

That’s when I realised—it’s not about fixing one part. It’s about reconnecting the whole system.

That’s where the Triple Burner lives.In the space between. In the flow. In the bridge between body systems and energy centres.

What Disrupts the Triple Burner?

From a TCM lens, blockages or imbalances in the Triple Burner often come from:

• Emotional overload or trauma

• Poor digestion or stagnation

• Chronic stress or fear

• Shallow breathing and tension

• A lack of integration between thought, feeling, and action

In modern terms, it’s that feeling of being out of alignment. Like your mind, body, and emotions are running in different directions.

Sound familiar?

How Sound Therapy Supports Integration

This is where sound truly shines.

Because sound isn’t linear. It doesn’t just “treat the head” or “calm the gut.”It moves through the body as a whole.

And when I’m flumi-ing my gong, lying in the middle of a soundbath, or humming into my chest, I can feel it—something reconnects.It’s not about zoning out. It’s about coming home.

1. Sound Helps Energy Flow Between Levels

Low frequencies support the lower burner—the base, the root, the safety.Mid-range tones nourish the middle burner—helping us digest emotions, thoughts, and food.Higher frequencies lift the upper burner—clearing the mind and opening the breath.

Together, they create harmony between all three.

2. Vibration Bridges the Physical and Emotional

The Triple Burner isn’t visible—it’s sensed. And sound is one of the few therapies that works with that unseen space.

It softens where we’re stuck.It opens where we’re tight.It reconnects the parts that have stopped communicating.

3. Sound Supports Coherence

When the burners are out of sync, everything feels disconnected.Sound gently entrains the body back into rhythm—bringing brainwaves, heart rate, breath, and energy into one unified pattern.

It’s not about “fixing” yourself.It’s about remembering your natural flow.

Let’s Leave You with This

If you’ve felt scattered…Disconnected…If you’re tired of feeling like your head says one thing, your gut says another, and your body doesn’t want to move at all

Maybe what’s missing isn’t energy.Maybe it’s flow.

The Triple Burner isn’t something to “work on.”It’s something to listen to.To soften into.To feel reconnect through gentle rhythm.

And sound can help guide you there.Not by pushing. Not by analysing. But by vibrating through the places where words can’t reach.

🌀One breath. One note. One moment of flow at a time.