Ep2 Yin-Yang and Five Elements of our body

Hello! Welcome to the “You are your best healer podcast”

This is Haizhen Yang DAcM, L.Ac. I am an acupuncturist and Chinese medicine herbalist.  I am also a certified reiki and advanced mechatronic energy healer. 

Today I would like to introduce some of the terminologies in Chinese medicine before we dive into the topic of nutrition. In Chinese medicine, the treatment is to balance the yin and yang of the body. Yin refers to the physical substance that you can see such as muscles, bones, body fluids, and so on. Yang of the body means the energy ATP which you don’t see but you know it exists. For example, in the blood circulation, the blood and vessels are considered as yin. The energy generated by the heart to push the blood flowing through the vessels is considered as yang. 

Many of you may have heard of the five elements. They are earth, metal, water, wood, and fire. In Chinese medicine, our body is classified into these five elements. These five elements have mutual supporting and controlling relationships to maintain the balance among them. For example, in their supporting/generating/nourishing relationship cycle, the earth generates metal. Where do we find minerals or metals? We dig them out of the earth. In the hot summer days, you see water on the surface of metal. That is why we consider metal generates water. How do plants survive? We need to water them. So we consider water generates wood. We burn wood to have a fire. So we consider wood generates fire. After the wood is burned by fire and turned into ashes, so we consider fire generates earth. This is their supporting, generating, or nourishing relationship cycle. They also have a controlling relationship by controlling each other,  they can maintain a balance among them. For example, if a river is flooding a town, how do we stop it? We use soil to build a bank around the river to stop the flooding. So we consider Earth control water. When a place is on fire, we splash water over the fire to diminish it. We consider water controls fire. A jewelry designer wants to turn a piece of gold into a beautiful ring. She/he uses fire to meld the gold and then mold it into whatever design they want. So we considered fire control metal. We need to trim trees, so they won’t grow wildly. We use metal to cut wood. So we consider metal controls wood. In the desert, how do we prevent drifting sand? We grow plants there. So we consider wood controls the earth. 

In Chinese medicine, we believe we have our temperaments in our constitution. It means genetically we have our dominant elements that determine who we are. For example, some people are wood and earth-dominant. They tend to be tall, outgoing,   sociable, and caring. If their wood is more dominant than earth, they tend to be tall, slim,  and sociable. If their earth is more dominant, they tend to be shorter, heavier, more caring, and more introverted.  
Different parts of our body are classified into five elements as well. 

• The fire element includes a heart, small intestines, tongue, blood vessels 
• The earth element includes Spleen, stomach, libs, flesh 
• The metal element includes lungs, large intestines, nose, skin 
• The water element includes kidneys, urinary bladder, ears, hair 
• The wood element includes a liver, gall bladder, eyes, tendons and ligaments 

These five elements could be classified into yin and yang as well. Fire and wood are considered yang elements. The earth, metal, and water are considered yin elements. Among each yin, there are yang aspects to it; Among yang, there are yin aspects to it. I will not go into details here to avoid overwhelming you all. 

I will continue this topic next Wednesday. Wish you all a wonderful week. 
Thank you for listening to the “You are your best healer” podcast.  Namestate!