 There's a very interesting ancient concept called the five phases in Chinese medicine. Now this ancient concept was based on supposedly observing forces and relationships in the natural world and then often then applying it to other aspects of life. Now one of the ancient aspects of life that these ancient observers of nature had applied this to was medicine. So in every TCM students training there's always something on what the five phases are and the relationships as to how they work clinically. Hey guys, Dr. Alex Hying, Doctor of Chinese Medicine, author of the health book, Master the Day. Now before we jump into this video, two very important links right below the video. First is if you'd like to join my weekly video newsletter, there's a free guide for daily rituals that can help you add years to your life potentially with Chinese medicine. The second is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally or online via telemedicine, the contact info for my clinic is right below this video. So this idea of the five phases, sometimes called the five elements, is an ancient concept that was often applied to many things and not just medicine. So supposedly this concept originated by observing forces and relationships and processes in the natural world. It's often drawn in this circular shape of fire, earth, metal, water and wood and most importantly these are not just static concepts which is why people don't like to term the five elements, but the five phases because they're always dynamic and changing, especially in the response to one another. So for example, you have fire, earth, metal, water, wood and then in between you have for example fire generating earth. So you have the generating cycle which is going around the circle and you have what's called the controlling cycle which is hard to explain but visually you can see inside the circle which other elements or phases are acting on the other phases. So let's talk about what this really means and how it can be used clinically. There are three really important aspects of this five phases concept to understand. The first is really to understand the relationships between the phases. The second is to understand that there are organs associated with the phases and therefore pathology and the third is to understand the pathological flow of these phases. So let's jump into an example because I think it'll be really interesting that way. So let's take the example of digestive problems and respiratory problems. So let's say right now we're looking at the earth phase there, the yellow which for us is the stomach and spleen even though clinically that's just one aspect of digestion. Now let's say the person has been overeating quite a lot, they're eating a lot of unhealthy food, they're working crazy long hours, they're a lawyer and they're not sleeping enough and they're super stressed. So for the first time ever Sally is noticing at 35 she's having a lot of digestive problems. She's always feeling bloated, her appetite is really low, she has loose stools or even diarrhea a couple times a week, she never really knows why. So let's look at it from a five phases angle. Now because the earth has gotten weak one of the elements that helps charge up the earth is the fire, the fire organs right the heart and small intestine and the earth organs we're looking at here are the stomach and spleen. So the earth organs get weaker and it can either draw on the fire organs or we can look at all the various relationships that can affect it right. You have the controlling cycle, you have the generating cycle and then you have what's called the mother and the child. So the elements that are around it, the phases around it are also the organs that can possibly be affected. One example is if the earth then gets run down for some reason it's depleted and we know based on the prior videos I've shared when the specifically stomach and spleen or the spleen specifically when it is in its pathological state it's prone towards dampness and for us you can just think of dampness as bloating, a lot of mucus, phlegm, a lot of these people who are spleen types are prone to always clearing their throat like this like myself and let's look though in the five phases if the earth begins to get a little bit damp where can it lead right. It can only lead to the other organs that are have a direct relationship with it in some way at least in the short run. So the next one the metal organs let's just look at one for example a lung. The lung then may show other aspects of the earth's pathology. So with this phlegminess and this dampness in the earth you can then see someone who's coughing they have asthma symptoms maybe even other correlation is they have a huge meal and now they're having like a lot of coughing for two hours or they're clearing a throat for 30 minutes to an hour so now it's beginning to show almost a respiratory pattern there may be other things too like stuffy nose or what we call digestive headaches in the front or sinus conditions as well. So this is an understanding of how some of these organs are typed according to phases based on their functions as well as the relationships they have with these other phases. So again this goes back to Chinese medicines concept of always looking at the relationships between things and not looking at them as these disparate parts that are somehow unrelated. I think these ancient people were very wise and saw that in nature there are very few random disconnected events right. Maybe a very primitive or very primals better word observation was with crops right crops are strongly affected by where they're grown the weather patterns even astrologically people can tell this is the season where this is supposed to happen and these kind of birds these kinds of insects come out. So ancient people really attuned to the relationships between things because that meant life or death modern people maybe a little bit disconnected but I hope this helps you either way. Now again if you guys want to stay in touch don't forget important links right below this video if you would like to become a patient of my locally or online via telemedicine contact my private practice right below the video and otherwise I have two related videos for you right here.