 There are two fundamental concepts, really fundamental to Chinese medicine that sound very new-agey and very mystical but are really very tangible, useful clinical concepts to explain both health as well as disease or pathology. Now in this video, I thought I would share these two concepts more fully and why I think they are so essential to understanding how to be healthy and how to live a long life. Hey, I'm Dr. Alex Hine, author of the health book Master of the Day, Chinese Medicine Doctor and Licensed Acupuncturist, and I've included two links right below this video. The first link is for a free download and for my weekly video newsletter on four rituals that can help you add years to life with Chinese medicine. The second is if you'd like to become a patient of my locally or online via telemedicine, the link to my clinic and my private practice is right below this video. Now these two concepts that sound very new-agey are called yin and yang and your exposure to yin and yang may be that Tai Chi diagram, right? With some Taoist monk doing some Tai Chi. You see the yin yang as we called it as kids. We thought it was cool to wear it as a necklace because we liked watching Ninja Turtles. But clinically, you know, these concepts are tricky to explain because they are where mysticism and Taoism, sometimes Buddhism, meets with medical practice. But because it's a cultural medicine, there are those influences. Now yin and yang in terms of a clinical sense have a couple different manifestations. And all of these ancient books that we talk about here that I've shared in these videos, The Naging, that talks about this kind of roadmap for living a long life. I mean the very first chapter, I'm going to have to link up the video prior that I shot. The very first chapter talks about how to live to 100 and why most people don't. So clearly, this was a very important focus for these ancient physicians to understand not just in terms of medicine, but in terms of life and other cosmological or natural factors inherent in the universe. Why do some animals live long? Some live short. Why do some humans live long and others live short? Besides mystical or spiritual or unknown factors, what are the concrete factors that we do know? What are the patterns? So evolving on these patterns is the concept of yin and yang. You can understand them through a really rudimentary sense as yang is the active or the ability to do something. Yin is the gathering or as the passive or the dark the night time. Right? Yang is day, yin is night. So the yang in a person's body is usually their ability to exert will, their ability to do something, their reserves, their vitality, their immune strength, all of these concepts we think of. For example, kids have much stronger yang than most adults. That's why they're energized. They can run, they can scream all night and still be fine the next day and not lose their voice. It's why they have so much energy and people in their 95 usually do not have as much energy as kids. So that is the natural decline of yang as a person ages. So this is a conceptual way to visualize many different factors. You know, it's not just some made up concept, but it is a conceptual framework. But when we talk about these concepts in clinical medicine, it then has to be refined a little bit more. So for example, in school, they teach you kidney yang deficiency, where the person feels cold. Maybe they have a dima specifically in their lower body, frequent clear urination, kind of like the middle-aged man's BPH presentation to some degree. And then we have spleen yang deficiency, right? So spleen yang deficiency is having multiple loose or watery stools a day, feeling cold, no appetite. So these ideas of organs having their own individual yang and yin is another conceptual way to understand what is proper physiological function of an organ and what is pathological dysfunction of an organ. Now I want to introduce a third concept, not to confuse you anymore. When we're talking about longevity, the naging text I referenced many times here in prior videos is our oldest, they call it a canon, it's our oldest synthesis of essential points, one of our Bibles, but from medical perspective. And it talks about harmonizing yin and yang in the very first chapter. But what does that mean? It then goes on to give some other examples of not overtaxing oneself, doing practices to strengthen the body like Daoyin, which is the precursor to Qigong, and just these general concepts of balance, for lack of a better word. But when it comes to specific things you can do, I want to introduce two key correlations I've seen with strong yang and strong yin. Because in my experience, if you focus on these two things, they're usually the biggest factors in wellness and vitality. Let's talk about strengthening the yang first. Because yang is basically your ability on some level to use your will. This is just one interpretation of yang. But someone who has weak yang will have low energy. They won't have much stamina. People whose yang is very weak will not have much sexual drive. They'll usually feel cold, maybe even listless, just they cannot get themselves to do things, right? That doesn't sound like a very healthy person. But what's very important is that keeping the yang strong is a very, very fundamentally important concept in many ancient lineages specifically of herbal formulas, the one that I practice. And what I noticed though, in regard to practices a person can do in their own life, the main way in my opinion to strengthen yang is physical exercise. It's physical work, not sitting on your computer work, not going through Instagram on your phone work, but physical exercise that moderately taxes the muscles, that's your heart rate elevated. Just that's your energy going because what you tend to see is you can take someone who for example is a thin, a cold, a weak, and sickly asthmatic. You can have them start working out five days a week, 45 minutes at a time. And in six months, the number of times they're going to need to use their inhaler or need to use prophylactic methods of treating their asthma is going to be dramatically reduced in a huge percentage of those patients. In addition, they'll feel warmer, they're often going to have more energy, they're going to have a better appetite, and they're going to show all the signs of someone who's in better health. So in my opinion, the best way to strengthen the yang is actually through moderate exercise that's regular. Let's go to the yin. The yin is really your basic ability to gather, to store, to conserve energy, and to renew itself. Again, these concepts can be interpreted from many different ways, but I'm thinking of it from the clinical medicine perspective. Yin is basically deactivating activity, right? It's the storing, the calm, the quiet, whatever the opposite of anxiety is, maybe being rested. The yin, physically, some could say is almost like the engine oil of the body. So when people get yin deficient, when the yin gets depleted, they start to feel hot. They start feeling hot, feeling thirsty, sometimes hot flashes. In general, they start experiencing more symptoms of heat. And in my experience, the best way to regenerate the yin of the body is by getting good quality, restful, long sleep. Now I know for so many people during this time in history, sleep is one of the hardest things to get, but excessively prioritizing that is usually a priority I recommend for many of my patients. So with more yin time, primarily sleep though, not just meditation, not just quiet time, not just time off, but really sleep. The more you have that yin time, the more your body is able to stay in a yin mode, so not in fight or flight, not in what's called sympathetic dominance, not where you're stressed and you're restless, but the more rested you are, usually the more stable you are able to be. So these are just a general overview, two very important concepts, strengthening the yang in my experience best way is with the regular, moderate exercise, best way to strengthen the yin, your body's ability to stay calm, to gather, to restore, to renew is good quality, long sleep. Alright guys, that's what I have for you today. Again, if you'd like to download the free guide and get my weekly video newsletter, check out the link below the video for four daily rituals that can help you add years to your life, and if you'd like to come see me as a patient of mine, whether locally or online via telemedicine, the link is below for my private practice and clinic there as well. And then before you go, I have two other videos for you here.