Food is a Basis for Qi Production

Food is the basis for the production of Qi and blood in your body.

• If no food is eaten for half a day, the Qi is weakened.

• If no food is eaten for a whole day, Qi is depleted.

Food is very important in Chinese Medicine.

Fasting is not seen as being therapeutic.

Food is a Basis for Qi Production

Traditional Foods that Move the Liver Qi

According to my instructor, Liver Qi Stagnation is the most common problem we have in the USA.

Liver Qi stagnation is usually caused by improper food intake, such as eating pre-packaged foods, fast foods, fatty foods, cold, and/or raw foods, or foods that are wrecked (such as being transported long distances or grown with pesticides). In other words, the typical American diet.

The usual symptoms of stagnant liver Qi may include the following:

• Red face, feeling of heat
• Thirst
• Irritability, depression, moodiness, outbursts of anger
• Feeling a lump in the throat
• Hypochondrial/epigastric distention, pain in your sides
• Irregular/heavy periods (in women)
• Premenstrual tension & breast distension (PMS)

Traditional foods that can help move the Liver Qi and keep the Qi from getting stagnant are:

• HERBS AND SPICES (anise, basil, bay, cardamom, cayenne, cinnamon, cloves, cilantro, curry, fennel, garlic, ginger, horseradish, mint, mustard, nutmeg, oregano, parsley, vanilla)

• BEANS (navy, baby lima, cannellini, and other white beans)

• VEGETABLES (collard greens, green garlic, kohlrabi, leeks, onions, radishes of all types, turnips and their greens, watercress)

• FRUITS (grapefruit, lemon, lime, kumquat, plum, tangerine)

My instructors other recommendations are to eat REAL food. To do this, she recommends the following:

• Eat locally produced food. If it is not locally grown, then eat Organic.
• If not organic, then eat food from a family farm.
• If not from a family farm, then from a local business.
• If not from a local business, then from the region.
• Go to the Farmers Market before trying the Supermarket. Plan your meals around local ingredients you find at the Farmers Market.

Traditional Foods that Move the Liver Qi

Balance a Key For Maintaining Health

Chinese Medicine stresses balance as a key to health. When you are ill, there is a disharmony going on within you. Identifying the cause of the disharmony is important because you can learn how to avoid it, prevent it, or correct it. If you don’t treat the cause of the disease, it is like ”pouring water into a container with a leaky bottom”.

Good health is based on a balance of nutrition, sleep/rest, and exercise. When you are out of balance, you may start to exhibit symptoms in different organs, in your energy level, in your emotional state. Climatic conditions can also cause a disease if there is a relative imbalance between the body’s Qi and an exterior pathogen.

In Western medicine there is emphasis on the external aspect of a disease, such as bacteria and viruses. In Chinese medicine, the emphasis is more on finding out what is out of balance and causing the problem and getting you to return to a state of balance.

So how do you keep from getting sick?

In Chinese Medicine, good health is all about having a balance between exercise, nutrition, and sleep. Diseases may be caused by a weak constitution (what you were born with), or being overworked, or a lack of (or even excessive) exercise. It can also be due to excessive sexual activity (think Charlie Sheen). It can also be related to your diet (of course). In addition, disease can be caused by trauma, poisons & parasites, drugs, and having been given the wrong treatment (woops!). All of these factors can make a person be out of balance and as a result, impact their health.

So when you find your self not feeling well and you are starting to have symptoms, it is your alert that something is out of balance and you can start to look at how to get back in balance. Is my diet out of whack and I have eaten too much fast foods? If so, have a meal filled with nutrients, especially something like soup or warm cooked foods. Is your Qi stagnated? if so, engage in some stretches, exercise, Tai Chi, or Yoga and get the Qi and blood circulating so the nutrients can help combat that new symptom.

Did you know that pain is considered to be a sign of Qi stagnation? It usually says that something is not flowing how and where it should and as a result, fluids are stagnating and are stuck. As a result it hurts. So how do you get unstuck? Acupuncture helps as does movement.

A sore throat can be your alert that your defensive Qi (or defensive mechanism) is weak and you may be inadvertently allowing pathogens into your body. If so, make sure you are drinking enough warm fluids and getting rest You may even decide to take some herbs to help stimulate more of your defensive Qi to be created or get to where it is needed to defend your body.

Chinese medicine looks at everything going on in your life and environment to help assess what imay be out of balance and what needs to be treated or fine tuned. The goal is always to get you back in balance and keep you there.

What I find so fascinating in Chinese medicine is that you can be out of balance in one area and it can show up in unrelated area or organ of your body. For example, if you have unresolved grief, it can show up in your lungs. LUNGS??? Yep. You get symptoms like shortness of breath or even a dry hacking cough if you don't resolve your grief. And if you are a worrier, it knots your Qi and you can have symptoms like fatigue, abdominal distention, constipation, or diarrhea, and even sighing, just from worrying!

Chinese medicine can be pretty interesting.

Balance a Key For Maintaining Health

Sex and Chinese Medicine

In Chinese Medicine class this week, part of the lesson was on how too much sex can cause loss of Jing.

In my spirituality teachings, however, I have been taught that sex is good for you. In fact, sex can prolong life. When sex is combined with love, it can actually create spiritual energy. In addition, sex can be used to clear and align the chakras and can affect the Kundalini.

So as I sat in Chinese Medicine class and listened to this lecture being a bit stunned to hear the Chinese version of sex.

The only thing I can think is they must be talking about sex WITHOUT love. I do agree that sex without love should be limited. Maybe it is that kind that causes a loss of Jing.

Sex and Chinese Medicine

Treating PMS with Chinese Herbs

According to Chinese Medicine, Premenstrual Syndrome, or PMS (as it is known on the street) is due to Qi (chee) being congested. When Qi gets stuck it can produce some common PMS symptoms, such as backache, headaches, cramps, breast tenderness, fatigue, weepiness, depression, and a smidge of irritability (OK....a LOT of irritability.)

Chinese herbs are a great way to help treat these PMS symptoms and the herb that every practitioner seems to recommend is

XIAO YAO SAN

This herb is very effective, safe, and has very few contraindications (if any). For those of us who are novices at this Chinese herb stuff, I was told that not even I could screw it up, so there you have it. It is safe.

The American name for this herb is also called "Happy Pills" or "Happy Tea" because it helps you “go with the flow” and can ease your anxiety. (Several of the students in the class were raving about this herb in class, and to be honest, they seem to be the happiest students in class. I now think the tea they were sipping during the lecture has something to do with their happy mood.)

Anyway,

other names for this herb includes “Easy Wanderer”, “Happy Pills”, “Ramblin Power”, or “Free and Easy Wanderer”. You can even purchase this herb at Whole Foods under one of those American slang names, and since I'm lousy at remembering the proper Chinese names of things, I appreciate the slang to help remind me what the herb is supposed to do.

Even though I am long past the days of PMS possibilities, I'm going to get some of the Xiao Yao San just in case I get a smidge of some MENOPAUSAL IRRITABILITY. I will swallow some of those herbs and go with the flow.

Treating PMS with Chinese Herbs

Options for Painful Menstuation

When I was in my early 30's, I had such severe menstrual cramps I would be in bed for a couple of days each month. Most companies don't like employees to be off sick that much anad it was difficult to work doubled over in pain. I needed a solution to this situation.

After going to my gynecologist, the option provided was either
1) suck it up
2) take pain pills
3) get a hysterectomy

I had tried options 1+2 without much luck so I eventually opted for number 3, the hysterectomy.

Now that I am learning about Chinese Medicine, I can see there was another option; to try acupuncture. An Acupuncturist would have easily diagnosed me with "Liver-Qi or Liver-Blood stagnation", something that can be treated very successfully with acupuncture.

Acupuncture uses all aspects of a woman's menstrual cycle in the assessment and development of any treatment plan. Acupuncture is used to treat menstrual and menopausal problems of all kinds.

If you are having painful periods, experiencing blood clots during menstruation, scanty blood flow, amenhorrhea, PMS, menopausal symptoms, or any problems regulating menstruation, including trying to get pregnant, consider seeing an Acupuncturist. It's an alternative worth exploring.

Options for Painful Menstuation

Chinese Medicine has 3 Areas of Focus

Chinese medicine focuses a lot on acupuncture, nutrition, and herbs. All of these components are used to help a person improve or maintain health.

Acupuncture is good to move energy (like Qi and blood).

Diet and herbs are used to add energy.

Chinese Medicine has 3 Areas of Focus

Ancient Wisdom, Modern Kitchen

If you are interested in Chinese cooking or seeing how you can use food to help keep your body healthy, or even use food to help treat common ailments, this Chinese recipe book can help.

The book includes basic information about Chinese Medicine, along with authentic Chinese recipes and a section on how to select which recipe for which medical condition.

I have enjoyed the book and learning about different Chinese herbs and ingredients and learning about different ingredients. Many of the ingredients I had only heard of but had no experience or knowledge in how to cook them or use them. The information about these foreign sounding ingredients was easily explained along with where someone could purchase these items.

My only hesitation in purchasing the book has been the type of book to buy. I bought this as an electronic book for my Kindle and have come to realize this type of book, a reference book, works better in a hard copy format.

In a hard copy you can easily thumb through the pages and go to any section of the book. In an electronic book, such as the Kindle, if you are reading what recipes work best for the common cold, for example, and the book says "Flu Season Soup, go to page 92", you can't flip to page 92. You push a few buttons to get to the "go to section", enter page 92 and it takes the reader back to page 92 of the Kindle. Page 92 of the Kindle for someone like me using a large font so I can see the text, is not the same page as is in the hard copy version.

Needless to say, I still liked the book and would recommend it as a good place to start learning about Chinese ingredients, recipes, and how to use the ingredients in different concoctions to improve ones health.

Ancient Wisdom, Modern Kitchen

The Art of Assessment

There is a story about a nurse who was aboard a flight when one of the passengers collapsed with a heart attack. The nurse went into action and started CPR. A physician was also present on the plane, and he too, came forward to help. He stood over the nurse and the collapsed passenger directing the nurse to start an IV in the patient’s arm.

The nurse looked up at the doctor from the CPR kneeling position and said, “do you see any damn IV’s in this airplane?”

She then continued with CPR, helping to save the passengers life. The doctor stood watch providing advice, but he did not know how to do CPR nor administer care without the use of hospital equipment.

To me this story shows how far we have strayed from knowing the basics in our health care world. Some clinicians are unable to help someone, let alone assess and treat them, without the use of sophisticated tools. The art of listening, assessing, and diagnosing with nothing more than the ability to use one’s own senses is becoming a lost skill in Western Medicine.

I think this is why I am so fascinated with learning Chinese Medicine. In these classes, we are learning how different characteristics will manifest a vast array of different characteristics in the patient in areas of the body that in Western medicine we don’t even see as being connected. For example, in Chinese Medicine, the kidney is associated with early gray hair and insomnia means the blood needs to be fortified.

What we are learning in these classes is that it is not just the patient’s complaint and presenting history that are important. We have to look at the entire person, including their emotions, spiritual aspect, climates, tissues, vital substances, sense organs, external manifestations, fluids, odors, colors, tastes, sounds, orifice, time of day, season, as well as environment and history.

None of these observations require any fancy equipment. Everything is done through observation and just listening to the patient. We have to observe the WHOLE patient and not just the complaint point or where it hurts. After all, each organ is associated with different manifests in different locations throughout the body.

I can see this ability to pull all these subtle nuances together and come up with a diagnosis and treatment plan based on just listening and observing is pretty amazing. It is an art.

I feel lucky to be learning how to become a better assessment artist.

The Art of Assessment