Chinese Medicine: Simplified
The main substances that we talk about in Chinese medicine are Qi, Blood, Yin and Yang. They all work together to give us form and movement. They make up our vitality. Sometimes there is too little of any of the substances or they are not moving smoothly around our bodies. When we do acupuncture, we are balancing their flow. We may be calling a substance to an area or we may be trying to move some stagnation in an area. We must have enough of qi, blood, yin, and yang and they must be working as they are supposed to in order to have energy for our calm times and our busy times.
Qi is the energy that moves around the body. We can have qi that is deficient and we can have qi that is in excess, which is called stagnation or stasis. It cannot truly be in excess but there can be too much qi that is stuck in one place or just not flowing smoothly around the body. This is often caused by a traumatic injury or just by stress. The liver is responsible for the smooth flow of qi throughout the body and the Chinese also say that any unmet wish or desire causes liver qi stagnation. Everyone has some degree of qi stagnation. Some signs of qi stagnation are pain, depression, anxiety, irritability, irregular periods, breast tenderness, anger, small clots during your period, mood swings and probably some others I’m forgetting at the moment. I mentioned that qi can also be deficient meaning that there just isn’t enough. This can happen from years of stress, irregular and disordered eating, poor digestion and assimilation, overwork, not enough sleep and rest, basically burning the candle at both ends. Some signs of this are fatigue, getting more tired from exercise, having issues with digestion, not getting your period and many more. Most people have a combo of deficient and stagnate qi. In school you learn about imaginary people that have clear signs of only one of them but in reality it’s usually more complicated than that.
Yang falls into the category of qi. It is what’s responsible for warming the body, It is the force of movement in the body. It is at the day, the light, the sun, male energy, it enlivens us and gives us movement. You can also be deficient in yang, but you can’t really have excess yang. Some signs of yang deficiency are having low energy, being cold all the time, having digestive issues with undigested food in the stools. not getting your period, being cold intolerant and more.
Blood is technically a type of yin. Blood deficiency is very common and because the diagnosis criteria for some things are more sensitive than western medicine sometimes blood deficiency can come with an actual western medicine diagnosis of anemia and sometimes you will show symptoms of blood deficiency without that diagnosis. Chinese medicine often catches things earlier so that if you don’t deal with it, I have often seen people become anemic. You will often hear me talking about how Chinese medicine works well preventatively. This is one of those times. Some possible symptoms of blood deficiency are fatigue, lightheadedness (especially upon first standing,) these symptoms can get worse before or during the period, pale skin, fatigue, light or no period and many more.
Yin is the feminine principle in our bodies, men have yin also, it is the calming and nutritive part of us all, it gives everything form and is the substance. Yin is also really only deficient. Midlife is most likely the time people really start showing yin deficient signs. People definitely have it earlier but midlife its hard not to have it. Peri-menopausal and menopausal women show deficiency of both yin and yang. SO do men in the same age range. We just don’t talk about it. Think about how we get wrinkles and dry out when we age, that is a deficiency of yin. Signs of yin deficiency are having a superficial energy where we feel jittery, waking up multiple times at night, feeling dry, sore throats that are not from a virus, hot flashes, sweating at night, feeling hot and more.
Some people tend more towards deficiency or excess. A quick way that I access if someone is more deficient or excess is to ask if they get more energy from exercise. If they do, I know Im not dealing with a super deficient person and if they are exhausted afterwards, I know their deficiency is super intense. Anyone who really knows Chinese medicine knows that this is an oversimplification of an, at times, very complicated medicine. Chinese medicine is at once very simple and very contemplated. It is an art and there really are no black and whites. This is probably one reason I love it so much.
