The Wellness Mama Podcast

Detox, Epigenetics, and Biohacking from a Traditional Chinese Medicine Perspective With Ashley Beckman

• Katie Wells/Ashley Beckman • Episode 926

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Episode Highlights With Ashley 

  • What are the foundational differences between Western and Traditional Chinese Medicine? 
  • It’s all about constitution in TCM and what the differences are here
  • What it might mean if you wake up at 3 am each morning 
  • The way TCM looks at taste and temperature of foods and supplements 
  • The elements and how they pertain to organs in TCM- and how they all show up
  • How to know what element/constitution you might be in TCM
  • A lot of women tend to be more earth-oriented in TCM
  • Understanding emotions in TCM 
  • What lung and skin issues are connected to in TCM and how this can relate to grief and sadness, especially in kids 
  • Liver health in a TCM perspective and ways to support yours- including why the liver needs movement like daily walking 
  • How fast-paced modern life and being out of alignment with nature stresses the liver 
  • Biohacking for women and how we might do this differently if we had a TCM perspective 
  • TCM: With every child, you give away half of your chi
  • Red meat is the most nourishing food to build up your chi 

Resources Mentioned

926: Detox, Epigenetics, and Biohacking From a Traditional Chinese Medicine Perspective With Ashley Beckman


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Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I'm Katie from wellnessmama.
com and this episode is with Dr. Ashley Beckman. And it's all about things like detox,
epigenetics, and biohacking, but through the lens of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which I
was excited to learn about this myself because it's not something I had a deep
understanding of and I was excited to learn from her.
And certainly, she did not disappoint in this conversation. Her work integrates things like
traditional Chinese medicine with the best of conventional medicine. And I feel like she has
a broad knowledge on this, and I definitely got some awesome key takeaways on this with
things like how emotions relate to different organ systems within the body, how Chinese
medicine looks at the elements and the different types of constitutions people can have,
how they might look differently at something like skin problems or lung problems and
where that actually originates as well as ways to support the liver that maybe often get
overlooked in Western medicine.
So I definitely learned a lot. I think you will too. Let's join Dr. Ashley Beckman. Ashley
welcome. Thank you so much for being here.
Ashley: Thank you. It's my pleasure.
Katie: Well I'm very excited to learn from you today. We're actually going to get to do two
episodes together. I have a feeling our second episode will be especially relevant to some
people listening because we're going to go deep on healing from mold exposure. So you
guys stay tuned for that conversation, especially if it is relevant to you. But in this episode,
I'm really excited to sort of establish a foundation and some background on a topic I don't
actually personally know as much about, but am really excited to learn about, which is
through the lens of Traditional Chinese medicine, learning things like maybe the
foundational health principles that are very beneficial, as well as things like detox and
biohacking.
It seems like as someone who grew up in the West, I don't have that same lens, but the
little bit I've gotten to learn and hear about that, I feel like it's such a fascinating sort of
realm that I'm really excited to learn more about. So I know this is a really broad topic, but
maybe to jump in, can you kind of walk us through perhaps some of the differences in
foundation or mindset that, between more of the Western view of things and Traditional
Chinese Medicine?
Ashley: Sure. So even kind of on the biohacking side of it, right? It seems to be a lot more
severe, right? We're stacking so many different things and modalities, but in Chinese
Medicine, it's really all about constitution. So that is adjusting to the bioindividuality of the
person. And this is especially important for women versus men even because a lot of the
times, you know, people are cold plunging and doing very aggressive sauna and aggressive
exercises, HIIT all kinds of things that if you don't have the proper constitution to handle
that, it's going to tank your adrenal glands and thyroid hormones and energy. So this is
especially important for women. But again, when you look at this through the Chinese
Medicine lens, you could still have men that fall into this category, right? If you're deficient
and tired, a lot of these things that people are doing need to be adjusted.
So that could be the time frame of what you're doing. It could be in the time of day because
in Chinese Medicine, we look at things through an organ clock. So this will come up right
when if you're talking to someone and they say every night at 3 a. m. I wake up. This is the
most common time to wake up. This points us to the liver being out of balance. So then
what we have to do is look. If someone is very stressed, if they're drinking alcohol before
bed, or what are they doing that is stressing and impacting the liver. Because in Chinese
medicine, that's what we're going to look at. So if you wake up at a certain time, we look at
the clock. And again we look at things so differently. For food and supplements and herbs,
we're looking at the taste and temperature of the herb, which and even in Western nutrition,
we don't do. So like, for example, we think of if you have a cold or a cough, you might use
honey and ginger and lemon, but we differentiate.
Ginger is very warming. So it would be somebody who has a cold, but they are more on the
cold side. If you have a fever, you would use something more like peppermint, which is
cooling. So again, it's very cool to me in Chinese Medicine that we make these
differentiations between even just temperature of herbs. And, and then again, we have this
whole thought and whole process of looking at food and supplements and herbs in a
completely different way, and then even of what organ they go to.
Katie: That's so fascinating, and it seems like there's also sometimes an emotional
component as well, and I know we'll hopefully get to that a little bit later on, but I would
love to understand more about the constitution side, and like, what are examples of some
of the different ones, and like, I don't know. I'd love to figure out like which one I am. How
might someone figure out what their constitution is within Chinese medicine?
Ashley: Sure. So, we look at things in terms of elements. So, there's fire, earth, water, metal,
and wood. And then those pertain to different organ pairs. So, a lot of women, and again,
this is pretty broad, but you might tend to be more earth oriented, which we might be more
nurturing, tend to maybe gain weight, maybe be a little bit more lethargic. And that is a very
different constitution and set of foods and herbs that we need versus somebody who, you
know, there's some people, and this can be women too, that are very fire and they're just
very skinny. They just have the highest metabolism. They basically just burn through
nutrients and food and they always need more. That's kind of the opposite of the earth
element. So again, we're also going to have little aspects of each of the five elements within
us. And again, one thing that's very great or very interesting to me is we look at this in terms
of the season too. So we're about to be heading into spring. That is the liver and gallbladder
correlation. And this is when it's the optimal time to detox because those detox organs of
the liver and gallbladder are in their prime time. So this is our, like the best time to do a
detox you're coming out of winter. Which is this time that should be very much of like
gathering your energy and being a little bit more conservative, eating more root vegetables,
grounding things. And again, in Chinese medicine, I love this, we look at the organs. We
look at the food that pertains to that season. And then we look at the emotions too. So like
you were saying, a lot of these different seasons and organs, there's always an emotional
component.
And so you can't really separate a disease or imbalance in your system without looking at
the emotions.
Katie: Well, and two things stood out to me on what you just said that I love. One is it seems
like they take much more into account nature and the kind of cycle of the seasons and the
cycle of maybe light. And I feel like that often doesn't enter the mainstream conversation in
Western medicine, but seems like is so important.
And I would guess like most people, if we pay attention, we notice we feel different, sleep
different, act different in the winter versus the summer. We maybe like, want different
foods, which makes sense cause different foods would be available at those times. We
want to sleep at different times. You know, we might feel more energetic or less.
I know I feel like I joke a lot I'm like solar powered. So the more sunshine I get, the more
alert and happy I am. So the winter, I feel like I'm more tired or whatever it may be. And it
seems like that's just like built into the Chinese Medicine perspective and not as much in
the West. Though I feel like we are starting to catch up with at least understanding the
importance of light.
But you mentioned the emotions and this is a part where I feel like Western medicine still
has not caught up and we think of those as entirely separate. Whereas, I've shared my
personal story before, but that was actually such a vital piece for me, actually, was it wasn't
until I addressed the inner side, the emotions, and understood that being a very real part of
my health, that all of the physical stuff sort of was able to fall into place, so I would love to
hear how TCM looks at the emotions or maybe even uses that connection to understand
like, if this emotion is happening, what might that mean? Or how might we pinpoint?
Ashley: Sure. So for one example, I'll use would be like if you have a child that has asthma.
So a lot of the times this is worse in the fall, which the fall is the season of the lungs. And so
you can take it to the season, but you can even take it to the organ clock. So I think, I mean,
you have kids, right?
So, you know, this. Basically all the coughs get much worse between 3 to 5 a.m. If anyone's
ever woken up with their little one when they've had croup or things like that, it often
manifests at that time. And that's also the time when most asthma attacks occur. And
that's the lung time just every single day. So to me it's really fascinating and the emotions
that are associated with the lungs, they’re called the containers of grief and sadness. So
they're repressed emotions that someone hasn't dealt with. And so if anyone has lung
issues or skin issues, which is kind of the organ pair, I always have to look at, is there some
sort of emotional component? But how does it pertain to grief and sadness? And so for
little kiddos, we look at, of course, their life, but sometimes what's happening, what
happened to the mom when she was pregnant, right? Because that can set up a really big
foundation for the kids and their health.
But again, it's really important too, for example, the biggest one we see all the time would
be the liver. So the liver encompasses issues from anger, resentment, depression, and
irritability. So when the liver is congested, then we aren't able to break down hormones very
well. That could manifest for someone as PMS. But again, just that irritability or depression,
and anger, we have to look at the liver and help clean up the liver and then see what's in
their day to day world, you know, toxin wise or personal care, things like that, that maybe is
contributing. And then if they're moving their body enough, because the liver needs
movement to feel good.
Katie: That's so fascinating. I would love to go deeper on that because I know we're seeing
statistics, for instance, we've got a massive rise in non alcoholic fatty liver disease. It
seems like even on a collective scale, our livers are more stressed right now. I can see like
the parallels with emotions, of course, how that could connect, but I'm curious to hear
more about how, like, are there general things we can all do to be aware of and support our
livers? Like I feel like this may be something that doesn't even cross a lot of people's mind
to do, but seemingly the liver is connected to so much that maybe even just becoming
aware of that and making little habit adjustments could seem like it could have a huge ROI.
Ashley: For sure. So a few things that are, you know, just kind of like a no brainer would be if
somebody, they need to look at their alcohol consumption. So if someone is drinking
alcohol or regularly, there are a lot of people that do drink very regularly, and they use it as a
mechanism to calm down, but it actually further stresses their system. So another thing is
that people aren't always aware that sugar has such an impact on the liver, and it's more
just because it's causing cellular stress. The other thing is in Chinese medicine, all of the
foods that are green or sour are what support and help cleanse the liver and the gallbladder
gently.
So for some people taking digestive bitters helps the gallbladder. Making sure that they're
not consuming a lot of fried foods and things like that. Because what happens is a lot of
times people get gallbladder issues. Again, in Chinese theory, it's because the liver has
become so congested and the gallbladder is kind of the overflow container for the liver. So
once you start to get gallbladder issues you really have to work on the gallbladder, but the
liver especially. The other thing is again, movement. So making sure that we're moving more
because in general basically people are often at their desks and then now we're just on our
devices constantly with notifications. So this goes a little bit more with nervous system. But
our bodies were not designed to process so many alerts just all day long and then to not be
moving.
And especially what you touched on, you know, we're not in alignment with sunshine and
waking up and seeing the sun the first thing. Most of us or most people hop right into their
work day or make sure there's not things they have to do before hopping into the morning
routine with kids too. And so it's just this stressful system that we're in every day. And again,
the liver does not like that, right? So it's very important we look at these kind of
personalities of the organs too. And the liver is all about structure, movement, and then
again, just kind of order. So for some people, that's really good, but because of our life and
things are just thrown at you constantly, we're kind of yanking ourselves out of like a really
nice cohesive day that is structured.
Katie: That makes sense. I love that. It's such a different way to look at it, but I love that it
takes into account like lifestyle factors seemingly a lot more and even that like emotional
component or our connection with nature component, which to me seems so intuitive, but
also seemingly so easy to overlook in the modern world.
What about, when I hear Chinese medicine, my association in my head often goes to herbs
and seemingly like in Traditional Chinese Medicine, there's a much better understanding of
use of herbs than we have in a lot of the Western world. Is my perception of that correct?
And if so, like how in Chinese medicine does someone go about figuring out which herbs
might be most beneficial for them?
Ashley: Sure, it is. So one thing that is great is Traditional Chinese Medicine is its own entire
form of medicine. So we use it for a lot of lifestyle practices. It usually encompasses
acupuncture, herbs, food for nutrition, movement practices, like Tai Chi or Qigong. And it
basically is very much herb focused, but a lot of people might just stick to acupuncture or if
you were going to get herbs and take them, I would say it's very important to go to a
practitioner so that you can get the right formula for you. And then again, I'm a stickler for
herbs that are not contaminated. So a lot of the Traditional Chinese Herbs, if they're not
tested, then a lot of them have a lot of contaminants that we don't want people to take. So
making sure that you're using really good companies. And Chinese medicine doesn't use as
many single herbs.
We work in formulas and they're very much crafted from these traditional formulas that
have been around for thousands of years. And that's what's really fascinating is, to me, is a
lot of these herbs and properties they've known for so long and then now we've been able
to do testing on the herbs and acupuncture points and they do what they say.
It's amazing to me that this has been around for so long and then now we have the
capability to basically check and see do these things actually impact the liver or the
gallbladder? Like schisandra is an amazing herb. It's something that is so beneficial for the
liver and for stress. And these things are coming out a little bit.
As you know, there's always a popular herb and they're all Chinese ancient herbs. So it's
very cool because they're getting popular. But to us, you know, they're ancient and they’re
ancient wisdom that's been around for centuries.
Katie: Yeah, what's old is new again, but it's exciting like to your point to see modern
research backing up what seemingly other cultures have known and understood at a deep
level for, you know, thousands of years. It's funny that some of us need science to like,
understand where there's always been more intuitive wisdom around.
I'd love to circle back to the biohacking component a little bit too. And you touched on how
we might evaluate things like overuse of sauna or cold plunging differently if we understood
it through a traditional Chinese lens and especially those differences between men and
women and how, you know, in science, we're finally understanding that women are not just
small men. But I would love to know more about the Traditional Chinese Medicine
understanding of that and how if we had that lens through which to evaluate what might
you consider differently?
Like, would we be cold plunging less? Would we be saunaing differently? Would we be
exercising differently or viewing biohacks in a different way?
Ashley: For sure. And that's a great question and something I'm really passionate about
because I love looking at, you know, genetics and optimization. And again, I do it through
the Chinese medicine lens and it is different. So, right. I basically tailor these practices to
my clients based on their functional medicine labs, their lab values again for stress and
hormones where they are in their cycle even.
So we'll go back to that. So, right. So I'm a huge fan of sauna, but again, some people can't
sweat that much and they need to adjust the temperature. So all of the studies, as you
know, are basically done on men. And so unfortunately we kind of get information that is
really not accurate for women. And especially depending on where you are in your lifetime
of reproduction, perimenopause, menopause, those vital essences, your sweat and your
blood and things like that, we want to conserve them actually. So in Chinese medicine,
they've used sauna and cold plunge and movement, and a lot of these practices are part of
Chinese medicine and a bunch of other cultures.
So we just need to adjust them to especially the females and again, even where they are in
their cycle. And again, if they're, you know still in the middle of having kids… postpartum
you have to be very careful. It takes a couple of years to replenish after having a child. Oh,
and you'll think this is very interesting I think. In Chinese medicine we say with every child
you give away half of your chi. So when you had your second child, you only had half as
much to begin with. So for women and moms it's really a lot more about nourishment and
rebuilding because you're not starting with the same amount of chi as you had in your first
pregnancy. So a lot of the practices that we have are so aggressive, right? Like HIIT training
and cold plunging. They're very shocking to our system. And a lot of women just honestly,
it's too much. They talk about hormetic stress and good stress, but when you're stacking all
these things, for most women, it's too much.
And that's why I love tracking that too with labs to see, is this a little bit too aggressive for
this particular constitution for this client? And it usually is. If you've read a book and you're
just following something, it's often we just tend to be very aggressive in the West.
It's more is better. Like a HIIT exercise is so much better than walking out in nature and
sunshine or by the beach. And we know there are plenty of people that walking and getting
those negative ions and sunshine.
Katie: I love that. And I didn't know that, like the Ttraditional Chinese Medicine explanation
of that, but I found that, kind of anecdotally when I was in the big phase of my healing is for
a long time trying to like biohack more and I had spreadsheets of supplements and I was
doing all these things trying to get better. And I actually finally healed when I took a big step
back, took a huge deep breath, did a whole lot less, worked on the inner side, emotions, the
mental health side, and was very gentle with myself. There was a solid year where I didn't
do any high intensity workouts whatsoever.
Not strength training, not high intensity. I walked a lot, I swam a little bit and I just spent a
ton of time outside and slept a lot. And that was what my body needed, and I feel like
maybe if we had more of that balanced view in medicine, because certainly I wasn't told to
do those things by my doctor, I learned them from listening to my body, and it sounds like
maybe Chinese medicine was way ahead of the curve on, than we are in the modern world
on a lot of these things.
You also mentioned, kind of paying attention to our cycle and how there might be
differences based on where we are in our cycle, and I would love to understand that a little
bit more too, because I do feel like we're seeing people talking about maybe cycle syncing
our workouts, and if you're going to do intense workouts, there might be times when they're
easier to do based on your cycle. But it seems like there's a lot more than just workouts that
can be supported and influenced based on where we are hormonally.
Yes, I go with what you just said. I love that so much that symptoms are messengers, and I
would say even they're gifts. They're direct communication from our body, and I love that
that seems to be your approach certainly, and I would guess maybe more in the traditional
Chinese approach is rather than view symptoms as a bad thing and we're going to play
whack a mole trying to get rid of the symptoms, instead, like, how do we listen to them and
learn from them, and hopefully support the body? You've also used the term chi a couple
times, and I would guess most people have heard that term before, but can you just define
for us what chi is? And I love that you said red meat is one of the most nourishing foods to
build your chi. Are there other ways that we can support our chi?
I would guess maybe there's an individualized aspect, but are there things that are kind of
beneficial across the board for supporting chi?
I love that. And that seems very in line with working with the body's natural detox pathways,
natural just processes in general of sweating of elimination, rather than trying to like bypass
them. It's like learning to befriend them and help them. And it seems like that's very much
woven into everything you've explained about Traditional Chinese Medicine.
And I know we're going to get to do our follow up episode on mold. So you guys stay tuned
for that one, but for this episode and for today, where can people find you and keep
learning, especially about traditional Chinese medicine?
Amazing. Well, I will make sure that is linked in the show notes so people can find you. And,
I followed you and I'm excited to keep learning from you as well. And I will get to have you
back for another episode, which I look forward to, but for this one, thank you so much for
your time and for being here.
And thank you for listening. And I hope you will join me again on the next episode of the
Wellness Mama podcast.

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Katie Wells

Host