In our continuing Chat series, Dr. Skye Sturgeon (SS) and Yvonne Lau (YL) return to talk about Yin & Yang in TCM
Go to Yin & Yang Part 1: This and That
SS: In Chinese medicine, assigning meaning to Yin and Yang is crucial for diagnosis and treatment. I always tell my students that when you're making an assessment, one of the primary, aspects of Eight Principles is Yin and Yang. And you have to, by your methods, by your mind, make an assessment is this a problem of Yin, or is this a problem of Yang? And knowing that there's no such thing as pure Yin or pure Yang, it's always a mixture.
So, the job of the practitioner is to weigh the evidence and determine the preponderance of Yin and Yang. And develop a treatment plan accordingly. And then you pay attention to the effects of your treatment plan, and you adjust it based upon what you observe the changes that occur when you push in this direction, or you push in that direction. What happens when you do that. And one of the things that is implicated by this assessment of Yin and Yang is there is a place of balance. In medicine, we might call it homeostasis, where the organism is fine. It's just working as well as it can, given the condition of the organism, its age, its musculature, its nutrition, rest, you know, all the things that we talk about.
So, what is Yin and Yang in TCM? The thing about Yin and Yang is that one tends to assign certain aspects as being Yin, and certain aspects as being Yang.
Let's look at what things are more Yin. We say Yin is more substantial than Yang. It is more about form than energy. And Yin is more about growing, and Yang is more about generating. So, when we talk about Yin, we're talking about all the tissue of the body is Yin. And all the tissues of the body contain water. So, water is Yin, although the tissues of the body contain different amounts of water. And some of the tissues of the body are solid, more or less, denser. Some of them are sort of hollow.
And so, we make a differentiation between those kinds of things. So, just in terms of the organs, the Zhang Fu. We say some are Yin organs, and some are Yang organs. And the Yin organs tend to be denser; they tend to hold and store substances.
Whereas the Yang organs tend to be hollower, and they don't store substances, they might move substances through them. So, all these kinds of distinctions are made, and you can imagine, for instance, bone. Is bone Yin or Yang? Bone is dense, so it's kind of Yin. It's very Yin, in a way. But it's also hard. So, is it Yin or is it Yang? And this is an important understanding of Yin and Yang.
Yin and Yang only achieve their definition by comparison to something else. So, compared to, let's say blood. Bones are denser than blood, and so maybe they're more Yin than blood, which might be more Yang. But you wouldn't think of blood as being Yang, although, blood transports Qi and Qi is definitely Yang. So, all these aspects of Yin and Yang had to be taken into consideration.
The other thing about Yin and Yang in terms of TCM is that the Eight Principles are not just Yin and Yang, there's also interior and exterior. So, if a disease is in the interior, then it’s more Yin. But if it comes from the outside, like Wind or Wind Heat or Wind Cold, then that is a more Yang type of disease process. But when we think about Heat and Cold, which are two other of the Eight Principles, then Cold is more Yin, and Heat is more Yang. So, these are all things that have to be weighed.
The point about Yin and Yang is that they're opposites, but they're relative to each other, and they're interdependent. So, you can always make that distinction between Yin and Yang by looking at it a particular way, which our minds love to do.
And we also talk about Yin and Yang consuming each other. Because they're always changing one into the other. Usually, it's a harmonious change. The Yin of our body produces Yang, produces energy. In fact, life itself is the organism producing energy, or Yang, and the producing of that Yang then allows the body to create more of a body. Because you've got more energy, you can build more muscle tissue, because you've got the energy to do it, and so the Yin and the Yang play into each other that way.
You can't have Yin without Yang. So, when you talk about something being Yin, you can only talk about being Yin compared to the other. There's no pure Yin, there's no pure Yang, it’s only in relation to something else that is a different aspect of what you're talking about.
So, you can say the outside of the skin is Yin. But the skin isn't just the surface; it actually has depth to it.
YL: Yeah, subdermal layers and whatnot.
SS: That's right. You compare them, and the inside layers are more Yin, because that's the way you've defined these terms.
YL: Yeah, subdermal layers and whatnot.
SS: That's right. You compare them, and the inside layers are more Yin, because that's the way you've defined these terms.
YL: So then you were talking about the organs in the body, and that the solid ones would be considered Yang, and the more hollow… oh wait, the solid ones are more Yin, and the hollow ones that usually are used to transport are more Yang, at least, as a macro definition of them? I guess, even though they're inside the body. Okay, so the lungs would be Yang, correct? Because they're hollow-ish, and they move air, or no? And then the heart, which is… is that solid? Is the heart more Yin?
SS: In Chinese medicine, we have all these Yin-Yang pairs. So, as I said, you can only call something Yin compared to something else. So, if I talk about the Lung, in comparison to the Heart, I can say, well, you know, the Heart is this dense organ that moves blood, so it’s very active. So, it's definitely Yang. And the lungs are kind of full of air, and they've got little sacs and everything. There's not much substance to the lungs, so they're Yin. But actually, we don't do it that way, because we pair these organs with other organs, and we make them Yin or Yang compared to those other organs. The Lungs are paired with the Large Intestine, not with the Heart, so the lungs are Yin compared to the large intestine, which is definitely a hollow organ that removes waste. Even though the lungs remove waste as well. But that’s the way we do the Yin-Yang pairs.
So, we have the Spleen and the Stomach. The spleen being a part of the physiology of Chinese medicine is one huge problem, because we know now that the spleen has nothing to do with digestion, and probably what they meant by Spleen is actually the pancreas. And the pancreas is this dense little organ compared to the Stomach, which is a hollow organ, so the Spleen / pancreas is a Yin organ, whereas the Stomach is a Yang organ.
So, that is the way they divide Yin and Yang when you talk about the organs, but they're all Yin. Because they're tissues that are inside of the body.
But the functions of those organs are Yang, because they do things, and that Yang aspect, not only does it require Qi, but it also requires a certain temperature in order to function, so they're going to be warm compared, perhaps, to the environment, which can be cold outside. Here at my house right now, it's about 48 degrees. That's pretty cold compared to my body, 98 degrees, okay? So, these are the kinds of tricky things we get into when you start talking about Yin and Yang, only in comparison to something else does it have meaning.
YL: And when it comes to each of these organs or organ systems, they each have a Yin and a Yang as well, like Kidney Yin and Kidney Yang, for example?
SS: Well, that's an interesting example, because the way it's said is that there's one Heart and there's one Stomach. There's one Large Intestine, there's one Lung, but there are two Kidneys!
YL: Okay, there are two kidneys, yes, that's true.
SS: Why are there two kidneys? The reason there are two kidneys is because one is Yin, and one is Yang.
Now, we know that's not true, from modern physiology, because the Kidneys in Chinese medicine have a completely different understanding of their function and what the Kidneys do. Because in Western medicine, we know the kidneys, what they do is they filter the blood and they remove waste that's sent to the urinary bladder for excretion. But in Chinese medicine, we actually say because there are two kidneys, there is a Yin aspect and a Yang aspect that we're going to assign to these two Kidneys.
There's also other aspects of Kidney besides Yin and Yang. There's also Kidney Qi which we say it fills the Marrow during development. But it also controls the Qi; controls the sphincter, the opening and closing of the urethra and the anus.
YL: Hmm.
SS: So that's the Kidney Qi. And then we talk about the Kidney Jing, because we think the Kidney because they're shaped like a fetus kind of, that they are where Essence is stored in the body. Is that true? No, it's not true. The Essence is in every cell, because the essence of what it means to be a human is encoded in the DNA, and the DNA is in every cell.
But these are what, in Chinese medicine, you have to understand that even the Yin-Yang symbol was created as a way of furthering understanding. And so that's what's happening here is they're trying to understand how the body works, how the body does what it does, and so these ideas are assigned… the ideas themselves are based upon observation of the functioning of the body.
But then, figuring out how the body does this, they pretty much had ideas about, there were different ministers in the court, and different assigned roles to different functionaries. And we thought the same thing was occurring in the body, the different parts of the body had different functions, and so they got assigned that way.
So the Kidneys are unique, being Yin and Yang, mainly because there are two of them. Because the Yin and Yang represents dualism.
YL: So, the Yin and Yang of these organs or organ systems, you're saying that only the Kidneys have Yin and Yang specifically, but the other ones, there’s Lung Yin, right? Is there Lung Yang, too?
SS: Sure. The Lung Yin is the tissue of the organ. So, the organ has a structure, and it has a form. And that is the Lung Yin. And so you can imagine that if the structure in the form of the lung is damaged, there's going to be dysfunction in the Lung. The Lung Yang winds up being the transformation, or the exchange, between oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Also, the Lung Yang could be seen as the mechanism of breathing, especially when combined with the musculature associated with the Lung, the diaphragm. So, this is the Lung Yang, and then we need to remember that the Yang winds up also being the Qi, which we talked about at the previous discussion. Qi in this case, winds up being function.
How does the Lung function? One of the Lung functions is to descend the Qi. Because it sends it down. We breathe in, we breathe in to the bottom of the Lungs, which are on top of the diaphragm, on top of the adrenal glands. That’s how far down the Lungs go. So, we say the Lung Qi descends to the Kidneys, and what happens if the Lung Qi does not descend? Cough. That's how you know that Lung Qi is not descending, because it’s interrupted, it’s broken.
And the emotion of the Lung is considered to be grief. And if you are actually notificing someone who is in grief, how are they breathing? They're breathing up in the very top part, maybe they're crying, and the Lung Qi is not descending.
So, that's one example between the Yin of the Lung, which is the structure of the Lungs themselves, how they're made, how they have these little sacs that are connected to the blood supply, and the exchange of gases between oxygen and carbon dioxide occur in those little sacs puts oxygen into the blood to feed the Qi of the entire body, and then removes carbon dioxide, which is the waste product of metabolism. We can't use it, so we breathe it out again. So, that would be the Yin and the Yang of the Lungs.
YL: And for those who have not yet listened to our chat about Qi, in this case, when it comes to the Qi of the Lungs, we're talking about the air, the actual air that we breathe in, right? But what about the Qi of other organs, then?
SS: Well, so the Qi of other organs, going back to Qi a little bit, Qi is often thought of in terms of the function of that particular organ. Okay? And it's also the knowledge that that organ has on how to do the function that it's supposed to do.
We talked a little bit about the Heart Qi. The Heart circulates the blood. There's a pump. It literally… it's an electrical system within our bodies. This electrical system causes the contraction of the muscle that sends out the blood, and the Heart Qi knows how to do this. I don't know how to do this. If it was my responsibility, I can tell you for sure, I would forget.
YL: Yeah, we'd be dead already.
SS: We’d be dead! Because I pay attention to other things. And I would forget about my Heart doing this 72 times a minute beating to circulate my blood, feeding all the cells in my body. Thank God, I'm not responsible for that.
Who is responsible? Well, in Chinese medicine, because the Heart is responsible, because the Heart knows how to do it, and it does it over and over and over and over again, 72 times per minute, for 70, 80 years without stopping! My God, what an amazing thing! That's the Qi of the Heart.
So every organ has this knowledge on what it's supposed to do, and then it carries out that function without interference of my mind, which is not really capable of doing those things. I mean, I can study it, and you know, I can create machines and systems that do something like that. But I really can't recreate life in that way.
YL: So then that means that the Heart is Yin, and it's the pumping action that makes it Yang, because that pumping action is what creates the Qi of circulating the blood? Is that how we would look at it?
SS: Yeah, so Yin organs transform, transport, and excrete. The products of digestion and other functions of the body. That's their job, okay? The Yang organs are hollow in a way, and the Yin organs are solid, more densely packed cells. That are always active, and they produce things, they store fluids, substances like Qi and blood, and body fluids, and Essence. These kinds of things are assigned to the Yin organs.
And so, the Yang organs are hollow, so they receive and circulate, but they don't store, and they’re not involved so much in actual digestion, like the Liver might be involved in digestion, or the Spleen. And they don't excrete things. So that's the difference between Yin organs and Yang organs.
But every organ has a Yin aspect and a Yang aspect that you can differentiate, because, as I said, Yin doesn't exist without Yang. So if you imagine Yin, then there's going to be a Yang aspect. If you imagine Yang, there's going to be a Yin aspect. So if you imagine heat that is produced by the body. I mean, the biochemistry of our body produces heat and it is inherent in the biochemistry.
We talked about this before. When you have glycolysis, you take glucose, you add oxygen to that, that creates energy. Well, what is that energy? Well, one of the things energy is is electrons, and these electrons can then be used by the Heart to do the pumping action.
But those electrons can also be used by other biochemical reactions or by other organs in different ways, and so we tend to store that energy.
And one of the ways we store it is in adenosine triphosphate, which is a temporary storage. There are other chemicals that can store electrons like that. But the other aspect of energy that is created by glycolysis is heat. We are 98.6 degrees, more or less, but why don't we burn up? That’s very Yang! Heat! Why don't we burn up? Because of the Yin. The Yin is the water that is in our body, and one of the amazing aspects of water is that it has a property called specific heat which allows it to moderate the effects of Heat in the body.
And so where I live, I think it's about a quarter of a mile from the ocean. But I'm pretty far north, up here in northern Washington state. And if you go across the latitude, as you go into the interior of the country, it gets really cold at this latitude. Why doesn't it get that cold at the latitude where I am? Because of the ocean being there, the ocean becomes a heat sink. And it holds all this heat, and then it irradiates that heat back out, and keeps me warmer in the winter than other geographic areas at the same latitude.
So, our bodies work very similarly. We have this water in us that controls the temperature, and we maintain homeostasis at a certain temperature, so we don't burn up. But if you have too much water, we call that Dampness, and that Dampness puts out the fire.
YL: The fire being the Yang aspect of that.
SS: The Yang aspects of our body. It makes us feel cold, it makes us lethargic. It makes us not operate as well as we might. I mean, I can tell you I'm a lot more active in the summertime than I am in the wintertime, because the cold winds up dampening down, and this dampness is a Yin aspect of pathology in our body. So, this dampness can be different things in different circumstances. It can be Dampness in terms of water retention, which tends to sink, and that's why people have edema in their feet and lower legs, because the water sinks down there. It's because our bodies are not properly using the water, and not controlling that Yin aspect, but also Dampness can be our adipose tissue. If we're too fat, then that adipose tissue is also going to depress our energy and make us more lethargic, and so on. And be a cause of disease.
YL: Okay, I'm starting to understand more about the Yin and Yang aspects of the body, physically, how it manifests outwardly. Is mood defined by Yin and Yang as well? So, if you're happy and upbeat that's Yang, and if you're a little more reflective or depressed, then that would be Yin.
SS: I think, generally speaking, that's true, and you can understand that even within one of these moods there can be a Yin aspect and a Yang aspect. So, I can be happy, and if I win the lottery, that'd make me very happy, and it might kill me. Because it would just explode in Yang, because my imagination would be, oh my gosh, I'll buy a new car, I'll buy a house, you know, I'll give money to my relatives, and the next thing you know, my Heart is giving out, because I've just exploded in that particular mood.
YL: Oh, okay. So, your Yang is too high in that sense.
SS: Yeah, and you can imagine, with any mood you can imagine, there's going to be a Yin aspect and a Yang aspect.
You can imagine anger, for instance. Anger can be very destructive because it's very Yang and can be out of control. But also, anger can be motivating and cause you to create changes that are positive.
So, any mood like that, depression can send you down a rabbit hole, and you wind up killing yourself because you have such despair. But if you're not depressed, and you're not paying attention to the world around you, then that can be a negative aspect as well, because all of these moods can be an opportunity to change, to make a correction, to transform Yin into Yang and find balance and harmony, because all these moods, in fact, are valid. They’re valid responses to the circumstances we find ourselves in, and so what are you going to do with that information? It can become pathology, or it can become an opportunity for positive change.
YL: Going back to the physical body, you were saying that edema and adipose tissue would be considered Yin. What would be considered Yang? Muscles and everything like that, that would be Yang?
SS: Muscles are Yin, because they're tissue that is made up of cells that are full of water. Physical activity is positive. And too much physical activity can cause disease. You know, if I push myself beyond the limits of my musculature, and become muscle-bound, then I lose my flexibility, and I lose my ability to respond in certain circumstances. And other examples of Yang might be inflammation. So, if I have inflammation in my body, that inflammation is going to damage tissues. It's going to literally burn up.
And if I have Yin deficiency, one of the things that happens to people with Yin deficiency is they develop Yin-deficient Heat. For instance, women, as they approach menopause, become a little deficient in their Yin, and they wind up having hot flashes. Well, that hot flash is an example of Yin deficiency Heat causing symptoms that are disturbing. It can cause poor sleep; it can cause you to miss work or something because you’re overheated. Maybe it's going to affect your emotions, these kinds of things.
YL: Oh, and Yin deficiency, or at least manifesting for women are… and I guess for men, too, although it doesn't seem as prevalent or as noticed is, like, dryness, right? Dryness of the skin, dryness of the brittleness of the hair, things like that, that as our Yin depletes, the physical manifestations are Dryness.
SS: Well, the kind of things that deplete Yin are, in fact, themselves, a form of heat. So, a Yang disease is dryness, and Dryness can be seen to be driven by Heat. Living in a dry climate that's hot, that's definitely going to challenge your Yin.
And… For instance, men, as they age, in fact, people in general, as they age, become Yin deficient. You lose musculature. You lose muscle mass, and you become thin, and then that impairs your ability to respond to certain kinds of environmental or life challenges, because you can't really walk very much anymore, because your leg muscles have gotten so small that it hurts. And your joints have become dry, or they become inflamed. And so, this Yin, you can imagine that the joints have a fluid between them that’s a lubricant that allows easy articulation. And as you age, that fluid is lost, or becomes impaired, or is not replaced, and that winds up becoming Yin deficiency.
YL: Oh, yeah, that's a good explanation, Skye, because what you just said is non-gender specific. Right, makes sense.
SS: Well, and men's hormones drop down as well. As men age, they're not producing as much of the androgen hormones as they used to. And these hormones that are corticosteroids in nature are very complex, their functions in the body. They're not just secondary sex characteristics or in females' menstruation, there's all aspects of it that affect hair, or musculature, or energy. All these things are being maintained by the balance of hormones, and as we age, we produce less hormones, and so then we become impaired. Our body is literally slowly shutting down certain aspects of the body. We call it aging.
YL: Yeah, don't I know it. Okay, so let's talk about this aging, and then let's talk about anti-aging, right? Because that's on most people's minds these days. No matter what your age is, people don't tend to want to age any longer, right? And so, by increasing your Qi, by balancing your Yin and Yang, is that a form of anti-aging therapy, potentially, just by keeping these organs as balanced as possible?
SS: I'm not sure I understand anti-aging. In fact, aging in general is kind of like keeping score to the number of days or years you've been alive. So, you say, well, somebody is aging, but there are negative consequences of aging. The main one being, as far as we know, nobody gets out of here alive. We're going to die. So, it seems to me that anti-aging is something based on fear. And so, we have this fear that we're going to die, and ignorance, because we don't know what happens when we die.
Walt Whitman famously said, “Death may be luckier than we suppose.” I'm paraphrasing there, but we just don't know, and so we sort of panic. And we have learned, as we have aged, that things happen, some of which may be negative, unless you do something about it. So, we start trying to do something about that, because we notice that we don't have quite the spring in our step that we used to. And that can be applied to many aspects of life.
There's a famous saying that youth is wasted on the young, because once you have enough experience, you're no longer able to do what you would be able to do if you knew before. This is all very interesting, and so my approach to this has always been to promote health. And promote healthy activity. And to avoid those things that have been shown or proven or suggested are detrimental to one's health.
You know, I sometimes have engaged in wondering how I would like to die. And for some reason, I think I'd like to die in my sleep. So, I go to sleep one night, and I don't wake up the next day, I don't care, you know, it's like, okay, big deal.
I don't want to die, by being shot, or by getting in a car accident, or something horrible, because I imagine that at the last second, I'm gonna go, “oh no!” you know, and be really upset about it. And I don't want that jolt with adrenaline going through my body right before I die. But this is something that is a privilege, to become older.
You know people that have not made it. There are people that die very young. I have many friends and acquaintances from my life who are no longer around. And so, my longevity is a privilege that I try to celebrate. And as far as I know, being alive is qualitatively better. I don't really know that.
YL: We don't really know…
SS: I imagine it's qualitatively better than the alternative, and so I do things to promote health. And I think that my job as a practitioner is to help people make decisions and do behaviors that promote their health, so that while they're here, they can be present and able to function as best they can. Until you need help in order to do that, then it's like, you know, what are you going to do? You just have to engage in things that are enjoyable, that are rewarding, that are kind. These are the kind of things that I think of in terms of, you know, what do I want to do? These are anti-aging, to me, is to learn from my experience on this planet, and to focus myself on doing the best for me, and for the people that I know or care about, and even people that I don't know. How can I help is what I generally try to do.
YL: Right, right. And we don't need to be billionaires to want to age better, and you’re right. None of us will live forever, that's for sure. So, while we're here, let's maximize our days in the sense where we can enjoy them as fully as possible. And a lot of that is about being physically well enough to enjoy it, right? Mentally, of course, as well. But physically, for sure. And so, based on TCM, if we were able to maintain the Qi and the Yin and Yang of the organ systems of our bodies, would that conceivably make us… age slower? Well, not age slower, but, you know, that our body dysfunction has been staved off a little longer?
SS: Well, yeah, that's the case. I mean, we have this idea in Chinese medicine that there is a substance, a very, very, very Yin substance, called Jing. And this Jing, there's two aspects to it, like Yin and Yang. And one aspect is that your original Jing comes from your parents, so you inherited it. You get some from your mom and some from your dad. And this is your DNA, and the quality of your DNA is determinative in the way your body manifests and your potential, in a way.
And the other aspect of Jing is what we call postnatal Jing, and postnatal Jing is how you take care of the body. How you provide nutrition for the body, rest, and exercise, and these kinds of things are thought to promote the maintenance of your Jing.
However, one of the concepts in TCM is that you only have so much Jing. And when it is gone, Yin and Yang separate. And when Yin and Yang separates, that's when death occurs. So, Yin and Yang separating, my study into this has led me to examine, as I've mentioned many times, DNA. DNA is these strands of genetic material that, at the end of each strand, both ends of each strand, is something called a telomere which is a part of the strand that is, like, you can imagine a string of pop beads, and each pop bead is a gene, but the strand runs through the whole thing. And then every time that DNA divides and creates a new cell that a part of that strand is lost. That's the telomere. The telomeres get shorter and shorter until they can't reproduce anymore.
To me, that would be when Jing is depleted, Yin and Yang separates because the DNA molecule can't reproduce itself any longer. And… and so that is the aging process, that the Jing actually has a finite life. And when it's depleted, then that's when death occurs.
YL: So, the maintenance aspect of this postnatal Jing, right? We can enhance it through our diet, our exercise, meditation, rest?
SS: All of these things require something that we're not very good at.
YL: What is that?
SS: Paying attention. So, I mentioned before that I don't pay attention to my Heart. It just beats, okay? And… and so, fine, you know, let it do its thing. That's cool. But the kind of things you're talking about, nutrition, exercise, rest; these all require the mind to pay attention to now. What needs to be done now in order to sustain myself into the future. And this is… This is not amusing! And most of us seek amusement, entertainment, if you will, and we occupy our mind with these distractions that are pleasurable, and they provide us with certain, you know, neurotransmitters in the brain that, is sort of…
YL: Rewarding.
SS: Nice. I'll put it that way. But instead, we should be, if we're interested and maybe we’re not, but if we're interested in promoting health as long as we can, then we need to pay attention. And you mentioned meditation. Meditation is a way of training your mind to pay attention. That's what it's for. It's nothing magical. There's no big profound thing that occurs, but you do learn, given the techniques that are used, you learn to pay attention, and then that ability to pay attention then becomes meaningful in many aspects of your life. Not only your internal life, but your social life, and your care about other people, and about the environment, and everything else. Paying attention, if you develop paying attention, then mindfulness is another way of describing it. If you develop mindfulness, then this is going to be beneficial for yourself and for everyone.
YL: Okay, let's move the conversation back into TCM. I'm thinking about acupuncture and herbs to promote homeostasis, balance, therefore longevity, and a better experience of life. We are balancing the Yin and Yang of the body, specifically of some organs and stuff. So, let’s talk about the herbs. Herbs, the formulas, some of them promote Yin or Yang, or both, right? In certain organs in the body.
SS: Well, what I would say about that is there's certain things we have learned over centuries of time, that herbs, for instance, have their own Qi. And this Qi is knowledge and function.
And so, when we make an assessment in TCM using Eight Principles, Yin and Yang, interior, exterior, hot and cold, excess and deficiency. So, based upon an assessment of those Eight Principles, then the medicine is developed from that. And so, certain herbs have been shown to remove exteriorly acquired Heat. Some herbs have been shown to remove internally generated Heat. Some herbs have been shown to tonify various deficiencies, like Qi, or Blood, or Yin or Yang.
I've stripped away the messy Microsoft Word formatting, removed the non-breaking spaces, and cleaned up the empty tags. I also added some structural headings to make this transcript easier to read for a web page or blog post. Part 1: Perspectives on Aging and Health
YL: Yeah, don't I know it. Okay, so let's talk about this aging, and then let's talk about anti-aging, right? Because that's on most people's minds these days. No matter what your age is, people don't tend to want to age any longer, right? And so, by increasing your Qi, by balancing your Yin and Yang, is that a form of anti-aging therapy, potentially, just by keeping these organs as balanced as possible?
SS: I'm not sure I understand anti-aging. In fact, aging in general is kind of like keeping score to the number of days or years you've been alive. So, you say, well, somebody is aging, but there are negative consequences of aging. The main one being, as far as we know, nobody gets out of here alive. We're going to die. So, it seems to me that anti-aging is something based on fear and ignorance, because we don't know what happens when we die.
Walt Whitman famously said, “Death may be luckier than we suppose.” I'm paraphrasing there, but we just don't know, and so we sort of panic. And we have learned, as we have aged, that things happen, some of which may be negative, unless you do something about it. So, we start trying to do something about that, because we notice that we don't have quite the spring in our step that we used to. And that can be applied to many aspects of life.
There's a famous saying that youth is wasted on the young, because once you have enough experience, you're no longer able to do what you would be able to do if you knew before. This is all very interesting, and so my approach to this has always been to promote health and promote healthy activity, and to avoid those things that have been shown or proven or suggested are detrimental to one's health.
You know, I sometimes have engaged in wondering how I would like to die. And for some reason, I think I'd like to die in my sleep. So, I go to sleep one night, and I don't wake up the next day—I don't care, you know, it's like, okay, big deal. I don't want to die by being shot, or by getting in a car accident, or something horrible, because I imagine that at the last second, I'm gonna go, “oh no!” and be really upset about it. I don't want that jolt with adrenaline going through my body right before I die. But this is something that is a privilege: to become older.
You know people that have not made it. There are people that die very young. I have many friends and acquaintances from my life who are no longer around. And so, my longevity is a privilege that I try to celebrate. And as far as I know, being alive is qualitatively better—though I don't really know that.
YL: We don't really know…
SS: I imagine it's qualitatively better than the alternative, and so I do things to promote health. I think that my job as a practitioner is to help people make decisions and do behaviors that promote their health, so that while they're here, they can be present and able to function as best they can. Until you need help in order to do that, then it's like, you know, what are you going to do? You just have to engage in things that are enjoyable, that are rewarding, that are kind. To me, "anti-aging" is to learn from my experience on this planet, and to focus myself on doing the best for me, and for the people that I know or care about, and even people that I don't know. How can I help is what I generally try to do.
YL: Right, right. And we don't need to be billionaires to want to age better. None of us will live forever, that's for sure. So, while we're here, let's maximize our days in the sense where we can enjoy them as fully as possible. A lot of that is about being physically well enough to enjoy it, and mentally as well. So, based on TCM, if we were able to maintain the Qi and the Yin and Yang of the organ systems of our bodies, would that conceivably make us… age slower? Or at least stave off body dysfunction a little longer?
SS: Well, yeah, that's the case. In Chinese medicine, we have this idea that there is a substance, a very Yin substance, called Jing. There's two aspects to it. One aspect is that your original Jing comes from your parents; you inherited it. This is your DNA, and the quality of your DNA is determinative in the way your body manifests and your potential.
The other aspect of Jing is what we call postnatal Jing, which is how you take care of the body: nutrition, rest, and exercise. These things promote the maintenance of your Jing. However, one of the concepts in TCM is that you only have so much Jing. And when it is gone, Yin and Yang separate. And when Yin and Yang separates, that's when death occurs.
My study into this has led me to examine DNA. DNA strands have something at the end called a telomere. You can imagine a string of pop beads where each bead is a gene. Every time that DNA divides to create a new cell, a part of that strand is lost. That's the telomere. They get shorter and shorter until they can't reproduce anymore. To me, that would be when Jing is depleted. Yin and Yang separate because the DNA molecule can't reproduce itself any longer. That is the aging process; the Jing actually has a finite life.
YL: So, the maintenance aspect of this postnatal Jing—we can enhance it through our diet, our exercise, meditation, rest?
SS: All of these things require something that we're not very good at: Paying attention.
I mentioned before that I don't pay attention to my heart; it just beats. That's cool. But the things you're talking about—nutrition, exercise, rest—all require the mind to pay attention to now in order to sustain myself into the future. And this is not amusing! Most of us seek amusement or entertainment to occupy our mind with pleasurable distractions. But instead, if we are interested in promoting health, we need to pay attention.
Meditation is a way of training your mind to pay attention. It's nothing magical. There's no big profound thing that occurs, but you do learn to pay attention, and then that ability becomes meaningful in your social life, your care for others, and the environment. If you develop mindfulness, it is beneficial for everyone.
YL: Okay, let's move the conversation back into TCM. I'm thinking about acupuncture and herbs to promote homeostasis and balance. Some formulas promote Yin or Yang, or both, in certain organs, right?
SS: Herbs have their own Qi, which is knowledge and function. When we make an assessment in TCM using the Eight Principles (Yin and Yang, Interior/Exterior, Hot/Cold, Excess/Deficiency), the medicine is developed from that. Certain herbs remove exteriorly acquired Heat; others remove internally generated Heat. Some herbs tonify deficiencies like Qi, Blood, Yin, or Yang.
There's nothing magical about them. They have ingredients that affect human physiology or pathogens. That is where herbs fit into Yin and Yang—from those distinctions, you have a whole paradigm of understanding health and disease. It's quite powerful. Personally, I've seen amazing things occur using these instruments of health promotion.
In school, we were given columns of pairs: "This is Yin, this is Yang." It's interesting, but it has to be applied appropriately in specific circumstances. Since anything can have a Yin and a Yang aspect, that is a fundamental understanding. Yin and Yang are applicable because they describe the nature of our mind's ability to perceive.
There’s a famous joke: there are two kinds of people in the world—those that put things into categories, and those that don't.
YL: Hmm. Something for me to reflect on.
SS: Putting things into categories is how one's mind spends most of its time. These judgments lead to decisions. The essence of being a TCM practitioner is assessing the situation with your tools—mind, vision, hearing, touch—and applying "opposite" therapy as a way of returning the body to homeostasis.
YL: This was super fun. I think we had a very accessible conversation about Yin and Yang. I think people will get the gist of it!
SS: Sure.
YL: Okay, thanks Skye! Talk to you soon!
