 There is an obsession in the wellness industry to think that you need to add very expensive, very obscure tonics to your life and to your diet if you want to have a healthy, long life. Now in this video I want to blow up this myth because I think people are spending a lot of money on things that are really not going to help them feel better or live longer. So let's talk about tonics for just a second here. Hey guys, Dr. Alex Hine, licensed acupuncturist and doctor of Chinese medicine. Now before we jump into today's video, there are two very important links right below this video. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, you can contact my private practice right below this video. And the second is a free download which is four daily rituals that could potentially help you add years to life with traditional Chinese medicine. Well let's talk about the downsides of using these tonics for longevity. I think that it is very commonly misunderstood what produces a long life, both in the Chinese medicine point of view and even just a clinical observational point of view. You know it's so interesting how obsessed Americans specifically are with diet, i.e. the things we consume and not lifestyle. And this is a fundamental difference I see versus the Americas and Europe, specifically North America or America and Europe, where in Europe people are very focused on the quality of life. You know the three-hour meals with wine, drink good wine, eat rich food, great pasta, thick smelly cheese, and people are very very closely connected to one another. And the culture, the family unit, the society is much more of this traditional unit. And in America it's a little bit different. But I think what's most telling is if we look at the populations that have the highest rate of living to 100, these centenarians, there's been a researcher who wrote a whole book on it called the Blue Zones. And the answer to this is very telling for a specific reason. In these blue zones, you do not see grandma, Stephanopoulos in Greece waking up and making a green juice with her kale and her Swiss chard and her ginger and her lemon power cleanse that you get in Beverly Hills. That is very telling because they are not doing specific things in the way that our modern culture is obsessed with it in order to live long. What do they do? Only half the factors are physical and material. Daily low level exercise, none of them are going to the gym. They're getting strong connection to a family unit, purpose and meaning and often religion. So the social ties are way stronger than most modern people here. And on top of that, the foods they're eating, they are whole foods, natural foods, a lot of grains, a lot of vegetables, and they are eating meat, most of them. And a lot of them drink coffee every day and drink wine every day. So it's very, I think we always have to start with what we know to be true, right? If you want to live a long life, you don't look at the theoreticians speculating on that. You look at the people and the civilizations, the cultures that are actively doing it. So then you can see these kind of correlations and we can suss out, well, what is it or what isn't it? And I can tell you what they're not doing is consuming tonics and these longevity tonics every day. They're not adding ginseng to their meals. Longevity and health in Chinese medicine are really about proper physiological function, right? I've talked about this very important concept in one of my prior videos about the Qi dynamic, which is really this this complex interaction of both your body's functioning and the external environment and where it meets that, whether the external environment is a weather pattern in a season, whether the external environment becomes a certain food you put into your mouth, whether the external environment is something emotional that's happening, it affects the internal environment, really the proper functioning of the Qi dynamic. And you know, in ancient times, people would just call this the proper flow of Qi, right? And that's where like this mystical Tai Chi master idea becomes associated with Chinese medicine often in the way that proper flow of Qi through organs and through the channels. But on a very lay basic level, proper functioning of organs is essential to living a good long life, but more importantly, a good quality of life. Let me give you an example now, because I think this will help. Two tonics I hear quite a lot from people are goji berries and ginseng. And I see people adding them to everything they consume on a daily basis or taking a couple grams of ginseng a day or a handful of goji berries in their oatmeal or their kanji. And I want to give an example of where biochemistry is not going to outperform your body's own knowledge if I can use that very fluffy kind of word. Let's say you've read this study that ginseng and goji berries regulate the HPA access and are great for anxiety and depression. So you're like, All right, I'm going to add a bunch of this to my meals every day. I'm taking a bunch of herbs already. I'm taking a bunch of meds already. No problem. I'm going to take some ginseng and some goji berries because look at what they do. But you already are prone to some preexisting digestive problems, a little bit of bloating and fullness and lower appetite. And you notice after that morning oatmeal with goji, you're super clogged up. You're like flemy clearing your throat a lot, you're bloated, you're full, getting bowel changes. But you've convinced yourself because I read this research paper that goji berry has these chemicals in it that are good for longevity, that I'm going to live long, even in the face of this abdominal discomfort. From Chinese medicine perspective, you're probably not going to really increase your longevity by decreasing the efficiency of your digestion. I mean, we view digestion as the origin of what creates chi and blood, what creates your resources. At least one of the ways those resources are created. And so this, this very biomedical approach of, yes, this regulates that, let's just throw that on top of there. I don't think it's aligned with really the evidence for what produces longevity. You know, our human species as an animal is given most of the things it needs, maybe besides medical care, most of the things it needs to live a long life, right? Evolution wants us at least to survive to reproduce. And then if you survive those childhood years, and disease and infectious disease especially, you have a pretty good chance of making it into your 60s, 70s and 80s, or later, depending on the country you live in. And so an understanding that longevity is a complex interaction of factors that are not just diet and exercise, but the things that regulate the human nervous system, as in being a part of a family and enjoying your life and having purpose and meaning and contributing in some way, all these sources of connection regulate the human nervous system and regulate biochemistry, they change your chemistry as well. And so this idea that we just have to throw some ginseng or some goji and I'm going to live forever. I don't think that's true. In fact, I don't think it'll do anything. I think more likely modern people will be better served by getting an extra hour of sleep, by working an hour less per day and doing something else that's more energizing and exciting. I think there are a lot of other things that will help people live a long life in the modern era, then throwing tonics into an already well nourished, you know, in terms of food, potentially nutritionally well nourished diet. So don't be fooled by this idea of I need to consume tonics every day and that's really going to help me. I don't think that's true necessarily. All right, guys, my two cents. I know I'm like blowing up the wellness industry. I'm like, I feel like I'm self-sabotaging here, but these are discussions that have to be had because I don't think they're true and I see people running to them thinking it's going to fix a problem and it doesn't. So a lot of it is about regulating rather than tonifying. Regulating what is dysfunctional in my body and my life rather than always starting to tonify. It's like the American McDonald's approach, more ginseng, more algae, right? That's American herbalism. All right, guys, again, before you go, right below this video, the link to contact me to reach out to my private practice in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine and there's also a free guide on four daily rituals that potentially help you add years to your life with Chinese medicine and I'll catch you next week.