Chinese Medicine
During the last decades the western world has started to notice Chinese Medicine for real, but it has existed for thousands of years. It is directed to strengthen the body and restore balance. It is holistic, which means it looks at the body of its whole, and there are no sharp lines between body, mind and soul.
It goes to the bottom with the problems and does not just alleviate the symptoms.
Fundamental conceptions in Chinese Medicine are yin and yang, dao, and the five elements.
Yin and yang are the two polarities in the universe. Yin stands for darkness, moon, female, damp, cold, rest and earth. Yang stands for light, sun, male, dry, heat, activity and sky. They are opposite forces that can’t exist without each other. They are like the sun- and the shade side of the same mountain. Most parts of the body are divided into yin or yang, like the organs and the meridians.
Dao means “the way” in Chinese. The way we walk if we live right, in balance with the world.
The five elements wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, could be looked at as forces that are connected to each other. The interplay between them happens in a certain order in two main cycles, the nourishing and the controlling. Every element nourishes one element and controls another one. In each element there is a yin- and a yang organ and what treatment to use can be determined depending on which element is imbalanced.
The body’s five substances are qi (life force energy), essences, fluids, shen and blood.
Essences (jing) have no correspondence in the western world, but they give the body its physical structure and influence how strong and vital we are. The difference between essence and qi could be resembled as the essence being the battery that makes qi able to do its daily work.
Body fluids (jing ye) constitute of all the fluids in the body except the blood. When we have eaten or drunk, the muddy and the clear fluids are separated from one another in the spleen. The muddy goes to the small intestine and the clear to the lungs where they are divided into jin and ye. Jin are spread by the lungs and are the light fluids like sweat, tears and saliva. They circulate with qi and nourish and damp skin, hair and muscles. Ye are the heavier and thicker fluids and passes on to the kidneys and circulate in the inner parts and nourish and damp the brains and joints.
Shen could be translated to life soul and is our vitality and life spark. It comprises also our intellectual, emotional, and spiritual capacity.
Blood is more extensive in Chinese Medicine than in the west. Besides nourishing tissues and organs it is made from the nutrition in the food and from the essences in the kidneys. The blood is stored in the liver, and the heart and the lungs take care of its circulation. Its main functions are to nourish organs, muscles, tendons, and joints, but also to help and anchor shen. That’s why you can be irritated and filled with agony when being deficient of blood.
