EP 68 TCM part 1

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You were given a gift. Your life was like the seed being planted and now the little tree is growing and it's like a bonsai tree and it's up to you to to tend to it and take care of it. Hey friends, thank you for listening to the All Things Good for you podcast. Join us as we explore ancient traditions, modern tools and practices in the world of health, wellness and personal development. I'm Amy Christensen, your host and your curated mind coach.

And I'm your co host, Brian Bowen, founder of Integrative Health Inc. And Better Human Company High Performance Coaching. Are you ready to take control of your life and start feeling enthusiastic, empowered and limitless each and every day for a life well lived, Let your curiosity flow with all things good for you.

Hello, Brian.

Hello, Amy. How are you doing today?

I'm good. And this getting a little bit of a break from the winter cold. Some sunshine coming back in. It's nice.

I know. 50 degrees. I love it. Makes me happy.

Yeah. I'm so glad this is not last winter in Colorado that it's more like a traditional Colorado weather.

Sunshine is my friend. I'm so solar powered, definitely affected by.

Sunshine and just a break. I love the snow and I love all that, but I would love it when we have snow and then it's warm for a few days and it melts everything and then it snows again. That's the kind of winter I was needing.

It's nice just keeping the mountains. My daughter went up skiing today with her girlfriend and I almost played hooky and went with her. But it's nice if you can just go up there, get your winter fix, get your skiing and come back down here and have it 50 and sunny. But you.

That makes me.

I'll take that all day long.

That's what I'm doing tomorrow.

Yay. So where you going?

The A? Yeah.

Steep.

A Steep and deep, baby.

Deep and deep. Get it? Speaking of steep and deep, I think we're talking about something deep today. No, it's not really deep, but it's complex. But we're gonna make it simple and we're gonna make it simple and have fun with it.

I think it's deep. I mean it runs through all of the body, right? Like yeah, I think it's pretty deep concept and very compl. Complex.

Yep.

Which is why there's very intelligent, well educated people that can claim it. You're an actual doctor when you come out of there, right? Most people, you come out of that field here.

Yeah. Well here's the deal. The, you know, it is a non traditional path of traditional Chinese medicine and, and they are still always doing stuff with their accreditation and it is an accredited school. But like as far as we see it here, even if you get a doctoral program, you get like a do, which is doctor of Oriental medicine, which really nobody knows what it means or actually probably care or probably cares.

Right, right. I mean everything is classified by whom and based off of what these days. But my point in saying that was like you guys go through significant amount of schooling for the most part. Like aren't isn't the traditional line like about a seven year program?

Well, mine was four years, just under four years of full time. And so there are schools that offer longer. Now you could do the four years and then you go another year or whatever for like a master's and then another year, you know, so let's say maybe all in. It's like six years for you to get those extra numbers. When I went to school those, the extra Alphabet soup didn't really exist because I'm really just a little older than some people, you know, going to school these days.

That's funny, you're hardly old at all.

Hey, it doesn't even matter as long as my yin and yang is imbalanced and you know, yeah, we're gonna talk.

A little bit about yin yang, five elements, meridian lines and acupuncture points and all the good stuff. Today I, we're gonna do possibly, I think this is what we're hoping that this is going to be a multi podcast topic so we can go into this and help educate people more about just Chinese medicine. Understanding the complexities of it as best as we can and touch on meridians and just how that might help affect somebody's choices and how it can all intertwine into overall health and wellness and become part of like your self care treatment plan.

The one thing you know, when we talk about, so we're going to talk about this all under the umbrella of traditional Chinese medicine. But before we even roll into that, the beautiful part about this, you know, a lot of times people ask questions and you know, we're here to educate but the great thing is knowledge is power. And to have the knowledge of some of the things we're going to talk about is also brings a deep awareness. And so we are constantly in our podcast just trying to help people get curious, be more observant, be more present. And, you know, there's sometimes certain tools resonate with some people versus others. And so when we go through, you know, some of these different systems, theories and ideas and concepts within traditional Chinese medicine, the takeaway is huge because we start to, again, see the body from a more holistic perspective and to start having more awareness and little ahas and stuff like that. So I think it's beautiful to, to gain some insights to this beautiful medicine because a lot of it started from that purity of observation and understanding and curiosity. Like, you know, 4,000 years ago, you know, they were, you know, a lot of the meridians and st we'll talk about came about from the understanding and experience through meditation and so forth. And then, you know, just watching and observing nature and how nature reacts, you know, when we get into five elements. And so it all is rooted in presence. It's all rooted in a holistic perspective. It's all rooted in awareness. And, you know, that's what we all are striving for is how can we be more present, how can we be more in tune, how can we be, you know, more holistic, how can we be more alive? And this is. Taps right into that.

Yeah. And I, I think it's really lovely that Chinese medicine, you know, we liked all these, we labeling and dividing all the things, but as Western medicine and just technology in general is advancing, we're starting to have know a lot of just like what you said, you know, meditation and, and time in nature and understanding how all of that is implicated in overall health. And now that's becoming certainly more mainstream here in the US And I think the intrigue that we both have, and I'm sure you have, but the intertwining of that and then I get the little kick out of it when it overlaps in those things. I, as I've said many times, when Western technology proves the woo was real, because I've always tended to lean that way anyway and you know, considered a little on the hippie side. And I just, I appreciate that the further we go into this and keeping an open mind on how we can just stay curious about what we can learn about our bodies and what we can learn about our minds and learn about how it can all intertwine. And I'm, I still convince people every day when I'm Doing my health coaching work with my functional doctor. I don't convince them, but I do have to just explain to them and kind of open their mind to the health benefits of getting up and doing sun gazing in the morning and grounding yourself, like just going out and, you know, putting your body up against a tree or put your feet in a river or walk in the grass when you can, and that there's actual now, you know, Western proof that those things are beneficial to your body and your health. So my hope in all of this is to just get a better understanding. I know very little really about TCM or traditional Chinese medicine. So I am going to be just kind of asking dumb questions and no.

Such thing as dumb question.

Well, I'll try.

Yeah, I do want to pause and go back to the word proof just for a minute because I think that there's a lot to be said for that when we think about the word as proof. And I think that one thing I'd like to point out here, first of all is, you know, we respect Western allopathic medicine and complementary alternative medicine. And I leave lots of space open for openness to discovery, experience and hearing others. And when we talk about the word proof, a lot of times it goes right back to the fda. If the FDA didn't say, you know, instead of, then there's not proof. Right. And so the cool thing is, you know, especially with, as we talk about traditional Chinese medicine, it's been around for 4,000 plus years, right? And so if you want to talk about the trials and clinical experience and patients like it just wouldn't, it wouldn't be taking root still today, even though it has deep roots already and continue to involve. And, and so I think that when we think about proof, we have to look at like, what are others sharing, what are other people's experiences, Right? Because there's still plenty of people out there that, you know, do not or are not open to, you know, complementary alternative medicine and certainly even acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, all it encompasses. So I, that we have to identify and just really think about what does proof mean and what is the clinical experience? What are people who have been receiving it saying? And not everybody's experience is going to be the same. And a lot of that is based off of, you know, the practitioner. And it's also based off of how much commitment we've had, you know, as a patient. A lot of times when people come in for traditional Chinese medicine, they've done everything else and then they come in and with Some resistance, but with hope that this is going to be the thing that's going to cure them. And then they give it one or two tries, and it's like, oh, wait, you have this chronic thing you've done everything else for. You have to. It's a process. And everything. Everything is a process. Whether you are in any sort of alternative medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, or Western allopathic medicine, it's a process. And so, you know, some of that process is spent in the diagnosis and differentiation stage of really trying to figure what the root of the problem is. And then some of it's spent and balanced out with the amount of treatments and the type of treatments you were getting. And so just wanted to pause and, you know, just point that out. You know, in today's world, the World Health Organization and the National Institute for Health and pretty much every major medical institution out there has done significant research on traditional Chinese medicine, specifically, more as it relates to acupuncture, which I do want to kind of talk about the umbrella of what is under that heading to validate, like you said, and give proof in certain categories. And, you know, more specifically with like, addiction is a common one that they've utilized a lot. And then, you know, pain management and treatments for that. So. Yeah, so proof, people. There's proof. There's plenty of proof.

Well, and again, it's that whole thing of whose education, certification, who signed your paperwork? It. Yes, there's lots of different ways to get some proof. And you and I have definitely had these discussions about even the things that we use in Western medicine for proof research studies. And that kind of stuff can be very manipulated to give you what you want. And just in the respect or in the spirit of proof, when we are talking about all of this is an exploratory process and the only proof that anybody really needs is their own personal experience. We always encourage you to continue your own research. Look up this whole program that we're doing for podcasting on this is to just inspire curiosity to get you to go, hi, I wonder about that. And let me go look into this. Let me see how this type of approach might work for me, recognizing that, Brian, you're educated in this pretty. Pretty deeply.

Yeah, I'm educated in this.

Yeah. And you've built a wonderful business around it. And you've had years of experience working with people from what I can tell and know who you are and know your clients for years from the most honest place of I just want to help people feel better. Like you truly want to just do Whatever.

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Can make somebody feel healthier and get out of pain and move better and feel happier. And if that is recommending them to another type of medical professional, you do it. If that's getting a new device and trying it to just see, then you do that. I'm just, I'm constantly impressed with what I'm seeing people come out of working with an acupuncturist and how much working in traditional Chinese medicine can make a difference for people, even when they doubt it. Like, one of my, one of my favorite clients has a nerve disease that's slowly basically killing off all of his muscles. He's a very successful anesthesiologist, very medical driven, very research driven, and ended up getting this horrible disease that does not have good prognosis long term. And I've been working with him for years to just break up muscle tissue to help keep him as healthy as he can possibly be. And he told me when he came in that he never thought he'd even come in for massage. And when I worked with him and he realized it's not just massage to help circulation and feel good. Like we get in and do very painful deep tissue work on him to break up the calcifying muscle fibers. And about a year and a half ago, I really encouraged him to try acupuncture. And I guess somebody else had also encouraged him. And so he was like, well, I'll give it a shot. And he has been doing acupuncture, I think almost every week or every two weeks since then. He still comes back to see me every month or so. But he has sung the praises of acupuncture and he's like, man, I would never have thought that it made the difference for me. He's like, I don't think I would be able to manage this process nearly as well without having had acupuncture done. So even the people who don't believe it's going to work and try it, I typically see them come back and go, my mind's blown. It works. So that's the proof I'm going to go off of. And I love that works for him. And I'm just curious to kind of open these next several podcasts with. Let's just get a good base of what we're talking about and let people be more familiar with it. So, yeah, on that very long opening note, let's dive into some traditional Chinese medicines. What's our foundation here? Where does it, where does this come from? Brian?

Well, I think one is just to, when we talk about, because I know we say the word acupuncture and, you know, traditional Chinese medicine, I just want to make sure it's clear that under. So traditional Chinese medicine encompasses a variety of tools that's been utilized. So it's funny because some people are actually getting some traditional Chinese medicine treatments and they don't even know it. A common one now is cupping. So a lot of people, physical therapists, are doing cupping a ton now. Massage therapists, well, that's traditional Chinese medicine. That comes from traditional Chinese medicine, although they used to use bamboo cups, you know, and we've evolved a lot from there, which everything is, I think it's great, but it's again, it's another just example of how something's been around for thousands of years under this umbrella and other people are starting to utilize those within their own services. So under traditional Chinese medicine, the common things that are utilized are cupping, gua sha tuina, which is a specific style of massage that works with the meridians, acupuncture and herbology, Chinese herbology. And you know, just on an interesting note, back in the day there were some separation, like between herbologist and acupuncturist, even though the systems of diagnosis, diagnosing and differentiation follows the same systems, theories and frameworks, which we'll talk about a little bit later. The interesting thing back in the day is herbalists were considered white collar and acupuncturists were blue collar. And I always, I kind of think that's interesting. But the understanding of those diagnosis and differentiation are rooted in, again, the same systems, theories and stuff like that, which happens to also be rooted in energetics and, you know, so if we talk about traditional Chinese medicine, we have to talk about the word qi, right? And qi is energy. And energy is within, omniscient, within every living thing, and is the driving force behind everything. And so you cannot separate it from anything, but it has its own kind of driving force to create the movement of blood in our body, to create the beating of a heart, the respiration of our lungs, our digestion. So it's the driving force behind everything, and that's the foundation of traditional Chinese medicine. The cool. And we've talked about this in podcasts before. Just going back to proof, you know, this was something that the subtle energy was discovered and observed, you know, through meditation, through such sensitivity and awareness, you know, of the body. And then the mapping process of the meridians, which we'll talk about later, kind of began. But now in today's world, there's, you know, scientific evidence again, or proof of that every living thing has a biomagnetic field, which is the same definition, if you will, to some degree of. Of chi, or energy. So, you know, it's cool that they didn't have devices back then to measure all these things. And now it's like, oh, there's separate devices that you can actually measure the body's energy and, you know. But again, the understanding of the health of our qi, and there's different types to make up our overall collective qi. The health of our chi is the driving force to the health and vitality of our bodies. And I'll pause there because I could keep. I could be a running sentence and go right into postnatal and prenatal chi, which is important to talk about. But did you have any questions off of that?

Yeah. Why didn't you give me the book before? And then I could have just followed along. And you're. I'm sure you cover this in your coursework, right?

Yeah, well, like the coursework, I. What I teach is that's specific to down needle. But when I do talk on Chinese medicine, I actually do. If we want, I can put a link to a whole talk that I. I have done many times at the osteopathic school. I can give you the link to that.

Yeah, that'd be great. I think that's wonderful. And so. Okay, so Chinese, traditional Chinese medicines, like, we've covered. Okay. It. It has a. It umbrellas, several different things. I do find it fascinating and amusing that the herbalist part of it was really considered the higher level, you know, process. And I'm assuming that was just. It just goes back to show how important an Understanding of our plants and how we can work with things that we can create from the earth that we ingest internally or whatever that. That has such a significant effect on the body. And it is almost our pharmaceutical world. Right. It's like in a pure form. Right. But I just find that amusing that it was the. Yeah, the herbalists and in. In our traditional history here in the United States that was also considered and for quite some time still kind of that frou frou side of things where even acupuncture was probably more accepted before. Before herbalists kind of have got. Make it making a breakthrough again.

Well, the herbalist even had, you know, it was still, there was a lot of trial and error. And don't. The important part here is Chinese herbology, especially back in the day. Now it's a little different in Western world to some degree, but it's all energetics of the herbs. So it was, does this her. Is this herb a warm herb? Is it a cold herb? Right. Does this herb move blood? Does it build chi? Does it move chi? Does it. You know what I mean? So it's more of the energetics. They weren't looking necessarily at the chemical constituents. They didn't have that availability, ability or knowledge to do that. And so, you know, one of the herb. The herbalists back in the day, especially the ones that worked for the emperor, I mean, they were actually poisoning them. And so they were one of the few people that could have direct contact with the emperor. And their job was to keep the emperor healthy and well. And if the emperor got sick, they would kill the herbalist.

Yeah.

And so the herbalist. One of the herbs that they used to give the emperor was actually mercury. And so they didn't know. They. At the time, it was believed to be an herb that was only given for enlightenment. And so it was very special, very covenant herb. And it's funny that at the time their job is to keep the emperor healthy and well, but at the same time they were actually poisoning him and. And then, you know, the emperor. No wonder they would go on these rampages and just freaking don't murder people.

He was going insane. Literally, his brain was dying.

Either A, they had mercury poisoning or B, they had syphilis. I don't know, maybe.

Well, again, the lovely balance of current technology and that we can do a little more research. I'm sure we'll get a hundred or a thousand years out from now and go, oh my gosh, can you believe we were doing that? So just in the spirit of continued education, so within the Chinese medicine, like, okay, everything has energy, and that energy flow is called the qi. Is that right? Is that the basic. And then that qi has a yin and yang. Is that.

Yeah.

Correct.

Yeah. We'll back up just for a second. I do want to make a side note on the herbalist. That's really cool proof for some people out there is it was actually. There was a kind of a competition a long time ago that China presented to come up with a cure for malaria. And it was actually an herbalist that went back to the classic text of herbology and came up with the root, cure and ingredient, if you will, for malaria. So just. And they were not a doctor, they were an herb. So I think that's pretty cool. Okay. There's wisdom. There's wisdom, yeah. So going back to qi, it's important to note that your body has this omniscient energy that's the driving force behind everything. And you can break it up into two categories. You have prenatal qi and postnatal qi. And prenatal qi is the energy if you know that you're given constitutionally by your parents. So the healthier, you know, your parents are, you could kind of, you know, say a little bit of that genetics, if you will, the healthier, the constitution, not just genetically, but also during the pregnancy and their lifestyle and all that stuff is carried over to you. So the prenatal qi is this energy that is a gift that's given to you, and you can never replenish that chi. Okay? So you do not want to deplete that energy. And the second category is postnatal qi. And that energy is what you're cultivating on a regular basis. Think about your body as its own power plant. And you're cultivating this energy through good lifestyle, nutrition, exercise, mindset, stress management, sleep, you know, all these components, breathing, the breath work, all these components are cultivating the chi. The more filled your bucket is in, the postnatal qi is going to stop you from leaking your prenatal qi. So people who have poor sleep, that's one mark against you, right? I hate to say against you, but that's one crack, right? People who have poor diet on top of sleep, now you have a bigger crack. People who don't exercise and get the right amount of energy moving through their bodies through exercise, then that crack is bigger, and then, you know, you kind of build from there. So the better you're doing in those categories stops you from having this crack that is going to cause you to leak Qi. You'll see things happen with, with, you know, with people that have one or two or more of these where there's a compounding effect that then leads to disease or imbalance. And it's amazing to me to see people enter into a high stress environment work wise or a marriage that or relationship that is really intense or a traumatic experience or event that causes hospitalization or somebody had a family member die and all of a sudden you see somebody and they looked like, like five years older, right? So anytime you see that big jump or that big decline, basically they just dumped off and, and just leaked a ton of prenatal Qi. So for those of you listening right now, and again going back to my earlier statement about creating this hyper awareness, creating this presence, creating this observation. If you just take away that hey, you have been given this gift of this prenatal chi and hopefully it was a good gift, right? Hopefully it was a big present with a, with the bow around it and, and you have that going for you, right? That you're the postnatal chi is up to you. So it's up to you to preserve. It's up to you to cherish that prenatal qi and preserve and do everything you can by cultivating this postnatal chi, this postnatal energies that your body has the ability to stay balanced and stay out of the disease or dis ease is another way to say it imbalanced process. So, so if that means that hey, oh my God, now I know this. I need to start getting that seven hours of sleep. Oh my God, now I know this. I need to start eating better foods for me now I know this. I need to start meditating or getting my stress management under control. Now I know this. I need to start exercising and getting my body to move its bot, the chi and to prevent stagnation. Right? So you. I mean I could. We all should be geeking out on that. Like we have the power to stop our own body's depletion of prenatal chain. We have the power to, to utilize our power plant and maximize it to the most efficient energy creating resource there is. And by the way, everybody has Gucci too. And we'll talk about that in a minute.

Oh goody. Okay, okay. Now there's so much so, okay. You were given a gift. Your life was like the seed being planted and now the little tree is growing and it's like a bonsai tree and it's up to you to looking.

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Drive to tend to it and take care of it and help it grow and thrive and clip it where it needs to clip and help it grow where it needs to grow and give it support when it needs support. And now I'm gonna have to go buy a bonsai tree because it's all making sense to me.

Beautiful metaphor.

Okay, so just. Okay, so how does Yin Yang tie in to the traditional Chinese medicine?

That's a good question. Yin. Yin Yang is the foundation. Can I just gotta go back to Qi one more time? Because I do think it's important. So when we do talk about this body, this overarching energy of qi, this prenatal, this postnatal, then it breaks down into smaller categories. So you have this one. When I say everybody's got Gucci, that is energy that is derived from food, right?

It's not a fancy brand.

Everybody. That's why I said everybody's got a little Gucci. So your. Your body takes this food and the stomach rotten, ripens the food, and then this, the spleen, energy from Chinese medicine, or spleen, takes that food and converts it into the energy called Gucci. And the lungs, and this is why it's important to breathe and do some breath work is the lungs the better, the more functioning they are, the better you're utilizing your oxygen and getting good oxygen metabolism and, you know, getting the lungs, all the lobes fully functioning and operating. The air we breathe in that energy is called zong Qi. And so we breathe this air in, it becomes Zong Qi. The Gucci rises up to mix with the Zongchi to help produce blood, right? So we got this Gucci, we got this Zong Qi. And in today's world, in Western medicine, the better movement of blood, the better quality of blood. You do not want blood stagnation, right? We want blood. And blood can be stagnant because there's not enough of it. Blood can be stagnant because there's not enough Qi pushing the blood. There can be various reasons for this, but if there's one thing we need to do is to keep our blood built and circulating throughout the body, right? And that in itself, if you. That's. If that's another takeaway. If you just want to focus on building blood and circulating and Keeping it circulating. You're winning it.

Okay, and that's. Okay, so now we have goo. And then. Okay, I get. There's these different types of energy and there's a purpose for it, right? The balance of flow and circulation, which also makes me think of the little symbol of yan and yang. And if I'm oversimplifying it, I'm just. That's. This is how my brain is working to understand it. But yin and yang are not necessarily the Gucci and the Yanchi.

No, but. Okay, it is works with those forces of nature of chi. And so yin and yang is a very important part of that. And that's a good place to bring this in, because this is the next kind of critical foundation to life. And the one thing to point out when we talk about yin and yang, and it is pronounced Yang, so I know it's not yin and yang. So everybody who got a yin and Yang tattoo when they were 18, I need you to. I need you to know it's yin and yang. And those of you who don't know what yin and yang actually mean, and you have that tattoo and you're not going to get it removed, please buy and listen in. Because I've asked many people, I'm like, hey, what does that mean? And they're just like, male, female energy. I'm like, okay, you know, there's. Let's get into this. So this was a head scratcher for sure in school, because this was the first real piece for me that really taught me that traditional Chinese medicine is relative, and it's relative to everything else. So the important part that I, I think is a beautiful part about traditional Chinese medicine is it's not. There's not a standard cookie cutter protocol or diagnosis for something, right? Or differentiation or. So everything is dynamic and everything is moving. And so that's one of the great things, is you can't have like one symptom and it just automatically mean one thing, right? You can have symptom. And there again, there's different systems theories or diagnosis and differentiation tools, these frameworks that help you do this diagnosis and differentiation to understand what herb to give somebody or to understand what point to actually do well.

And that's interesting because it kind of ties into a limiting thinking on Western medicine. Again, I'm not bashing Western medicine, but there is a limited of like, oh, you have acid reflow. That is because you have, you know, let's give you something to kill off that acid. Where now we're starting to be a little bit smarter about it and say, well, where. Why is it doing that? What else could be happening? Oh, you're don't actually. You're not truly over making too much acid. Your gallbladder is being, you know, overproductive because it thought there was this, you know, they're starting to just understand. It's more of looking at why and whole systemic issues, not just, hey, let's fix this one little representation of a problem. And it sounds like more like traditional Chinese medicine kind of. That's the whole herbalist part of it is like it's all intertwined. And while you may address a major problem, they're looking at a system and how it relates and connects all around.

Yeah. And you know, just to that point, to talk about that for a minute because again, respect at all that. We'll take acid reflux for an example. Currently the majority of treatments for acid reflux is not trying to fix the acid reflux. Correct. Or not trying to. Yeah. It's. They're given a. You're given a medication to make some shifts happen to not have the acid rise. Right.

To have a symptom. Right.

To have the symptom. But the driving force behind that a lot of times is never talked about. So it's important to note that the things you think about internally affect you physically. The things you do physically affect you internally. So, for example, a physical thing affect you internally would think about the nutrition. So if your body is taking more warming food, spicy foods, acidic foods, that is going to cause an energy to typically rise. It's more yang in nature when we talk about yin and yang. So yang long energy is this warm, warming, rising, invigorating energy. And that energy can be stimulated physically too much by too much acidic or spicy food. So if you think about going and having some red wine, a nice Italian dinner, some red wine, and some amazing Bolognese sauce. Right. The best Bolognese sauce ever. Well, those tomatoes are acidic and the red wine is acidic. Those are both young in nature, which is going to cause things to run point. Right. You ask anybody who has acid reflux, you want to blow them up, you take them to have that exact meal, and you'll see. Now the point to point out about the things we think about in fact affect us internally. The other part that is not addressed and that is very common with people with acid reflux is really high stress levels. And so really high stress is as another form of Yang rising. Right. As an example. So, okay, in Chinese medicine, we talk about it a little bit more as a Liver Yang rising, which has this kind of component, which is interesting, by the way, that liver yang rising has been around, that term as it relates to this energetically, has been around for thousands of years. They didn't know that the liver and gallbladder, what the liver gallbladder's role was as it pertains to bile. Right. So, you know, so this was. This was something to talk about before they even knew, like, what bile was. So stress creates this imbalance and stagnation in those systems, which then again is a type of liver Yang rising. So when you're given the medication, it's not working with your stress levels.

Right.

It's not working to make you more PH balanced or educating you to change your things nutritionally. And so this is why these things are important to understand and give us insight. So that's just an example, you know, of yin and just what you were talking about, Western medicine and Chinese medicine and just a small example of Yang. So the aspect of yin in there becomes the aspect of the mind to be calm, the mind to go through some meditation, the mind to be able to have a perspective. And yin is cooling in nature and moves downward and more of an inward kind of energy. So yin is this cooling, descending, nurturing. So you want to eat more yin foods and avoid the Yang spicy foods. So you can actually Google a list of yin foods or Google a list of young foods and you'll start to see some of the differences. But yin cooling foods are something that somebody with acid reflux would want to eat and avoid the Yang foods, Yin mindset, a yin meditation, a yin just like being grounded, putting things in perspective, not letting things to feel overwhelmed or out of control or feel stressed or irritable to do things to help avoid that through breath, work and meditation and counseling and coaching and whatever is critical to help you know as well. So again, there's a difference. Do I just take a pill or do I do I work on some of these other core things? And for primary care physicians or doctors that actually do see and work on both without just doing that. That's true. That's really being the best doctor. You're educating your patient. Right. To really help understand what's going on. And then we always talk about Chinese medicine treating the root of the branch, and the branch is a symptom. The root is a core cause. So even in Western medicine, where it's oftentimes that just the branches being treated and not the root.

Yep. And boy, that just ties into other things. I love how it's all the depth. Like get really just understanding more and more. Working with traditional Chinese medicine in whatever direction is. The whole idea is to look at how the root as well as branches. Right?

Yeah. So I think let's talk a little bit more about yin and Yang and we'll see where we are, because we could easily. I don't want to overwhelm. I think that, you know, really understanding the foundation, taking. Understanding the prenatal, postnatal qi, understanding the interplay holistically of how these things, you know, work from the inside out is important. And, you know, just to tap back into that yin and Yang stuff, when I talk about everything is relative.

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Yin is relative to Yang. So when you look at that logo go. Let's go back to the Yin and Yang logo. So think about the tattoo that you saw on somebody's arm. Maybe it's yours. Maybe it's your kids that got it when they were 18. You know, and I'm making fun because I got a ridiculous tattoo when I was 18. I'm not saying the Yen and Yang tattoo is ridiculous, but to understand it. So you'll see, you know, typically you see this white part and this dark part, Right. And then the cool thing is in the white part, you'll see a dark circle, and in the dark part, you'll see a white circle. Circle. So th. That's the explaining and showing the duality of yin and Yang. But you always have the seed of yin within Yang, and you always have the seed of Yang within Yin.

Okay.

Does that hurt your brain?

No. Yeah. No, Mine is good. They're intertwined, and they both have a purpose and balance within the other one.

Yeah. And so they're never separate. Now, you can have greater yin than Yang, and you can have greater Yang than Yin. And you actually see that within the changing of the seasons. Right. So so late summer would be more Yang with a little yin. Right. So it's hot. It's, like, really dry, like more young, where winter, deep winter is going to be much more yin with a little bit of Yang. And so you can kind of see this. The shifting through the seasons where the yin and Yang are kind of have this dynamic Balance together. But yin and yang can be shown it's all relative to something. So for instance, the floor that I'm standing on right now is more yin than the ceiling. The earth below the the floor is more yin than the floor.

Gotcha.

Right, so. So you have to look at them at this relative, at this relativity with each other. Now again, yin is going to typically be more cooling. But if you have something that's cooler than something else, then that's more yen than that thing.

Right, right.

Y is more warming and invigorating and, and has to do a lot more with transforming and stuff like that. Like, and you know, transformation and so. But if something is more transforming than that thing that you're looking at, then that's going to be more yawn than that thing. The one thing I like to look at is even with hormones, for instance, so you can take yin and yang and apply it to everything. So this will be a little quiz for you. What is more Yang? Estrogen or testosterone?

Yeah, I think estrogen's Y.

So testosterone would be more Yang testost. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

All right.

So think about like what testosterone does to people, right? Gives them more energy. They build, you know, helps build muscle development. You know, you women can grow mustaches. Like it's more yang. And I'm just joking about the women in mustaches, I guess. But my point is, is it's more Yang relative to yin. But you can notice if you have like progesterone is more yin if you have one of those depletions.

Okay, Right.

It can affect sleep, which, because Yang is rising. So this is a thing where the yin and Yang, if you think about. So you have that, the one, you know, diagram of the yin and Yang, the one logo, if you will. But then think about like just having a scale. You have yin on one side, yang on the other. And you want them to be relative balanced. Okay? So this is a good example for, for you ladies listening. When you go through menopause, the yin bar line drops, okay? And so it gives rise to the Yang because the yin helps anchor the Yang. The cooling helps anchor the heat. Right? Helps anchor the rising. So yin by nature of the balance of yin, it allows Yang not to rise out of control as yin depletes the. The Yang rises up. So what's a symptom that most people get that have Yang rising out of control? Going through menopause when you're yin deplete? Hot flashes, night sweats.

Right.

So by treatment, when we're doing a treatment for menopause, we're not saying, hey, you have a depletion in pestrone or you have a depletion in estrogen, and we need to do this, or we. We're looking at the relativity of yin and yang and how to balance that yin. So we're going to be doing more acupuncture points that are focused on supplementing and building the yin and cooling and clearing heat.

Right.

So we're going to do points that clear heat. We're going to do points that build yen. We're going to give you herbs that build yin, like shooty huang or lu wei Di Huangwan, our herbal formula, is more for building that yin. Now, specifically, the foundation for yin and yang is associated more to a specific meridian, which I think we should talk about next time.

Time.

But there is a foundation of this. So. But at the same time, you, as a patient want to then focus. I tell my menopausal patients, if we're trying to build yin, I say, hey, here's a list of some yin foods. I really want to start doing that. Hey, your stress level is out of control. We need to build that because we want to start taking away some of the things that are fueling the yang while we're also supplementing the yin.

Right? Yeah. I don't know why I said yang. I know that. Yang, Yang, Yang. Dang. The Yang Gyro.

I'm gonna go get a gyro for lunch today. A Euro gyro, because that's just another one. I'm from Missouri.

Gyro machine. That was like, what are you doing at lunch? All right, listen, let's not do too crazy because we're gonna. This is definitely going to be a number of podcasts, and hopefully everybody sticks with us and watch this, because I'm sure we haven't covered all of that. I would like to talk a little bit more because now that you brought the nutrition into it, it makes total sense. And there's a whole approach that. And I'll maybe make some things available as well for folks on that. But we can keep talking a little bit about yin, Yin yang, and then the five elements. And then, of course, we've got to dive into the meridians. And I didn't even until recently know that there's, like, there's the two major are two main meridians, and then there's all the meridians underneath there. So there's 12, but then there's two ruling. Is that how you would say it? How do you. Let's just tell people what we're going to talk about.

Yeah, no. So later, some things we need to talk about, we can. We can build on yin yang, for sure. We'll always talk about those. There's 12 primary meridians and then there's two extraordinary meridians.

Extraordinary.

Extraordinary, yes. And so those are things to talk about. And then the other important things to talk about later is we have these different systems, theories or frameworks. So yin and yang is one of them. The other one is eight principles, which is really important to talk about and understanding what those principles mean. Five elements, which is critical. Critical. And I actually use five elements in other frameworks for myself and in coaching, and then six stages and four levels. So don't be scared when you hear all this stuff come out, because each one has a really interesting aspect to it and a way for you to think about it. And even, like, the four levels is more common when we talk about when you're getting sick and illness. So it's a way for you to see where you're at in that illness and what you can do about it. So I'll make sure, as we progress through these different frameworks, how they can relate, just like we did with the yin yang, a little bit more to your real life and some common experiences out there. Because, again, the point is, does this mean you're going to go get acupuncture, any sort of traditional Chinese medicine? Maybe not. I hope you do. But does it help us have more insights and what's happening to your body and where it's at based off of 4,000, 5,000 years of observation and clinical experience? Yes. You'll get some good information.

And I'm so. I'm really excited that we do this because I've been asking you to do this, us for, well, since we began the podcast. So I'm super excited to be going through this and hope everybody will join us on next week's podcast when we dive into these layers and get to know Chinese medicine and our body a little bit better.

Well, I, as you can tell, I really don't like to talk about it too much, but.

You'Re awesome at it. And thank you very much for taking the lead here and helping educate us and all this. And, yeah, hope you enjoy and get up to the mountains with your girls at some point or your kids.

Two girls, one boy. And I would like to, if you want to go skiing one day, I would love to go skiing with you sometime.

Bam. We're gonna go. Let's do it.

Let's make it happen. Yay.

Thank you Brian.

Thank you listeners and as always, if you found a golden nugget in here and would love to share that with a friend, family member or loved one, we would love for you to share that and pass on the podcast. Give us a review. We'd love to hear from you.

Awesome. Talk to you later. Bye Bye.

See you later. Thanks. Bye.

Hey friends, thank you for tuning in to the All Things Good for you podcast. Please note any information, experiences, ideas or opinions discussed today are for educational and thought provoking purposes only and not intended as medical advice. If anything piqued your curiosity, please consult with your doctor or personal medical professional. And if you're enjoying All Things Good for your podcast, hop on over and leave us a five star review so we can continue delving in and providing great content. Thanks again and we hope you are inspired to stay informed and responsible along your health and wellness journey.

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