 One of the things that's very unique to traditional Chinese medicine is the sophisticated use of herbs like cinnamon bark combined with five, ten or even fifteen other herbs that all work together or even offset one another to treat an acute or a chronic disease. Now in this video I thought I would share a bit about the formula science that exists in Chinese medicine. Hey guys I'm Dr. Alex Hine, doctor of acupuncture and Chinese medicine. Now before we jump into this video there are two very important links right below. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine and the second is for a free guide which is four daily rituals that could potentially help you add years to your life with Chinese medicine. Many people are familiar with herbs and spices in general on a daily basis right like ginger. Ginger is commonly used all over the world for cooking and it's just a general culinary spice and even maybe if you're getting a little nauseous your mom will say cook up some strong ginger tea and then drink that. But just these little anecdotes pale in comparison to the sophistication of the formulas that exist within Chinese medicine. Consider the fact that 2,000 years ago almost a book called the Shanghan Lun was describing the sophisticated use of 200-some-odd formulas ranging from acute panic attacks to severe flus and viral epidemics all the way to chronic diseases and those formulas still work to this day. I still use them day in day out clinically in my practice and they work just as predictably as any other medication. The fact that those exist almost 2,000 years later is staggering and it points to really how long this ancestral record of Chinese medical knowledge must have been passed down. I mean for formulas to be in that sophisticated of a layout with that clear of a clinical pattern a few hundred years after Christ very likely they'd been developed thousands maybe even longer before the time they were actually written down and put into texts but before then they were just passed down through the oral transmission. So the formula science in Chinese medicine is very distinct and very unique. It's not something that you commonly see in the modern world even among herbalists only because there are a few different ways that Chinese medicine uses formulas versus let's say traditional Western herbalism. You know to compare versus many kinds of Western herbs that I see other natural medicine or functional doctors provide very often herbs in that sense are provided in a more biochemical way as in this herb is a sedative you know like the classic sleep or anxiety blends with passion flower, valerian and magnesium. Very often are in the okay this herbs a sedative magnesium can help with anxiety etc etc and there seems to be not quite as much of a focus on the alchemical stability of the formula. So let me explain when we use an herb like cinnamon twig right this is cinnamon bark roguet or cinnamon twig when we use these they're not just used as single herbs. I mean one of the smallest formulas in that ancient text I just discovered a formula called Gui Jirgansautang is cinnamon twig a very high dose of it 12 grams and Jirgansaut honey fried licorice. Now this formula is basically used for acute panic attacks and acute anxiety right so it describes the person coming in and the patient pushes their hands over their heart as if they feel like they're about to die and you're taking 12 grams of this prepared cinnamon twig and I think about six of the honey fried licorice drinking it all in one serving that is just two herbs but that text by itself is very minimalist in the number of herbs it uses in the formulas on average between let's say four to eight would be an average number but these herbs have synergistic effects for example using honey fried licorice will temper some of the spiciness and some of the stimulant qualities in the cinnamon twig or if you're using a formula that's very drying like in another video we discussed using Baiju for people who have a lot of bloating and a lot of abdominal fullness fluid retention well Baiju if you taste it it immediately dries out your tongue it sucks the moisture off your tongue and when you were prepared as a traditional decoction this Baiju you can feel the dryness on your tongue it immediately dries out your mouth so Baiju is very drying and if you just use Baiju in fooling then you're going to be causing a lot of drying sort of effects but now if you add in honey fried licorice right this has a little bit of a moistening quality to it and it's a yin generating herb right so in the same vein one of the formulas we're going to discuss here Guajitan is one of the famous formulas of Chinese medicine two of the herbs that we have that are synergistic pairs are Guajir the cinnamon twig and the other one is Baixiao which is peony so this is Baixiao and these are very commonly paired together in varying ratios and I want to discuss why to give a little lesson on alchemical stability so let me give you an example of how sophisticated this formula science is so you may have let's say four or five herbs in a formula but one base formula is just called Guajitang right cinnamon twig decoction now cinnamon twig decoction most commonly used for let's just say an acute cold it's a massive generalization but just for layman's purposes acute cold now there's a formula where you have that same formula and all you do is remove this herb you still have the other herbs and it's called Guajir Quxiayaotang Guajir minus Baixiao and what this herb is this new formula for minus one herb is for palpitations heart rate variability tachycardia anxiety and panic attacks by removing one herb you can create a more interior effect to work on the heart directly Guajir by itself can already regulate heart rhythm stop chest pain things like that but Guajir Quxiaotang removing Shao Yao but just one herb will then produce a different formula that has a different emphasis and focus just unbelievable now on the other side there's a formula called Guajir Quxiayaotang where instead of removing the Baixiao you double the dosage now Guajir Quxiayaotang now you have twice as much of this herb Baixiao and what it's used for typically is for abdominal fullness often a formula for abdominal fullness bloating can be used for dry skin all kinds of purposes and a very similar formula is called Xiaojian Quxiaotang regulate the middle minor build the middle the caution and that's used for when people are having like a night sweats and thirst and heat in the palms of the hands of the feet and light and fragmented sleep so you can have standard dose of this one herb remove the herb or double the herb all looks like the same general formula totally different effects so there's a very unique alchemy to Chinese formulas that I have not seen elsewhere in the world of herbalism and maybe it exists but I've certainly never been humbled like I have with these ancient formulas and the fact that they still work 2000 years later is the greatest testament that these are the tried and true formulas of a really really ancient medicine so that's a relatively long we did look at one formula and how Chinese formulas are worked and designed to work synergistically for a maximal effect all right guys that's all I have for today see you later check out the downloads below this video and I'll see you soon