Photo: jo3f

For thousands of centuries, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been treating illness and misalignments using many of the common everyday spices found in most common kitchens.

This healing art uses different modalities to treat the body, such as acupuncture, acupressure, and herbs. Some medicinal uses of common spices include using cinnamon as a blood circulation stimulater, cloves to increase sexual potency, turmeric to help dissolve tumors, and ginger to calm indigestion.

Within the last decade, a subset of TCM, acupuncture, has become a booming business. With 3.1 million adults and 150,000 children choosing acupuncture as a form of treatment for illness or prevention, it has become more acceptable in medical practices.

How is this practice so different than our Western approach to health and healing? It would take more than this short article to address all of its complexities. Instead, I would like to share some highlights that can be used as preventive approaches during the cold and flu season.

The Personal Approach

In TCM, the practitioner approaches his or her healing based on a person’s constitution, otherwise known as the energetic quality that is referred to as yin (feminine), and yang (masculine). The yin is classified as dark, cool, and damp, while the qualities of the yang are hot, sunlight, and dry.

When the yin and the yang become imbalanced, the TCM practitioner works at bringing them into harmony. In fact, that is exactly what our physical body is designed to do, constantly work towards maintaining balance. The beauty of this healing art is one can find optimal health by recognizing what foods to eat that will best support one’s own balance and constitution.

In TCM, introducing herbs is a way to balance the yin and yang, which is much larger than treating only the symptom. This is not the quick relief method that is so common with over-the-counter or prescription medicines. However, the long–term benefits can lead to increased energy, allergy relief, and overall wellness.

Below is an explanation of how the concept of yin and yang translates into foods with similar heating and cooling properties, and when combined properly can have healing effects on the body.

Using Flavors to Balance Your Qi

A mixture of 9 Chinese Herbs
Photo: Uncleweed

The word for energy in TCM has a different translation than the West. Qi (pronounced chee) sustains all; it is a vital energy that makes up the human body and all its physiological functions.

This is a key difference between Western and Eastern medicine. When a TCM practitioner treats a patient, they are treating the whole person with the belief that every living entity is interconnected. The fundamental substances essential for each individual life are the fluids of the body and blood.

When a practitioner is treating a patient, they look at the strength of the qi in relationship to all other systems. If the qi is weak, then the practitioner may consider herbs that are hot and spicy, as these stimulate digestion and increase metabolism.

If the health goal is to slow down digestion, or in some cases reduce stomach acid, then sweet and savory flavors known as cooling herbsare selected. By combining both yin (sweet and savory flavors), with the yang (warming and spicy flavors), the system becomes balanced.

An alkaline digestive system is when stomach acid and a protective layer of mucus in the stomach is in balance. When there is too much stomach acid, hence the need for an anti-acid, eating yin (cooling) flavors, such as green vegetables, will slow down digestion by diluting the stomach acid. On the other hand, yang (warming) flavors, such as ginger, garlic, and cayenne, speed up metabolism by creating more stomach acid.

These two flavors, cooling and warming, balance each other out by creating an alkaline environment for the nutrients to be properly absorbed and assimilated, and move stuck qi. In a healthy individual, one may experience increased energy.

Learning to combine herbs and spices in the warming and cooling manner of TCM may not come easily to many people. Yet most people crave certain foods or flavors when sick, such as orange juice or chicken soup. Some may even have a tried and true family remedy for treating colds, fever, or discomforts – lemon in warm water and saline nasal sprays are just two examples – and this too is balancing yin and yang to achieve health.

For more information about Acupuncture visit the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. For healing foods and herbal remedies you can view your local listing for Asian Medicine and Acupuncture, or Herbal or Ayurvedic Practitioner.