 You know when I first moved to live in China, I had observed these elderly people in the park doing Tai Chi You know doing this what I viewed as real old people stuff doing these little movements like this in the park and Once I was speaking to this older woman and she was saying you know Tai Chi is all about yin yang yin and yang and I thought well This is like some cutesy pseudo spiritual whatever stuff But as I got to practice clinical medicine in my private practice I learned there is encoded in this ancient symbol science a very profound Healing wisdom and in this video here today. I thought I would share more about the practical Day-to-day life applications of this yin yang principle. Hey guys I'm Dr. Alex Hain doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine and author of the health book master the day Now before we jump into this video There are two very important links right below the video there The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles Or virtually via telemedicine you can reach out to my private practice and contact my clinic right below And the second is that I've put together a free guide Which is for daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine And that is the first link right below this video So there was some profound wisdom hidden in this old lady's piece of advice that everything is about yin and yang You know when I was a young kid born in the 80s I thought that you know wearing this yin and yang necklace made me feel so cool because I loved watching Ninja Turtles And I wanted to become a monk slash doctor slash sage slash holy man But I didn't understand that yin and yang was not just this balance in life But that there's a relatively profound principle underneath that has really useful clinical applications and really pragmatic Applications in your daily life ultimately yin and yang is about finding the middle path right you know in Buddhism a lot of it is about finding the middle the middle way and Daoism is similar in that regard Understanding that Somewhere if you try to bring things back to the middle most often if you can find that harmony then things will be in balance Whether that balance is a physical balance right even just in terms of physics if you find right the fulcrum It'll help balance a weight put the fulcrum in the proper area rather and also the metaphorical balance Right how stressed you feel on a day-to-day experience internally so Where yin and yang becomes pragmatic reality depends on how you apply it so first and foremost yin and yang Understanding these is why we get sick perfect example yin and yang food Right all of us have to eat food to survive and yet food is the number one leading cause of death in America because Diabetes Heart disease cardiovascular disease even the cancers that are related to diet These are some of the leading causes of death in America right now at the time of filming this and yet is food bad Does that mean you should never eat food or you should never eat? Obviously not It's about yin and yang meaning not just what foods to eat, but how much we eat So this idea of yin and yang is all relative and then even we can take it a step further Which person are we talking about now right are we talking about someone who eats 2,200 calories? But also exercises an hour a day and walks one hour each way to work because they live in New York Or they live in Paris or they live in Milan are we talking about someone who eats 2,200 calories? But is happy and has no stress versus someone who's a super stressed out executive that also smokes cigarettes and has three glasses of scotch at night That yin and yang balance of diet is going to have a very different Ultimate effect on their health So the context of yin and yang varies a lot now another important aspect of yin and yang is Understanding that they are relative meaning yin and yang is different for each person like for example How much rest you need? How much downtime you need? Let's say work is active. So it's young Yin is rest is passive. Hopefully it's passive. So we'll say rest sleep or all yin time off vacation recovery Now how much yin time you need is going to be different for everyone, right? The stressed out executive that works 70 80 90 100 hours a week is going to need Frankly more sleep than the average person who works. Let's say 30 to 40 hours in America and maybe comes home and unwinds So it's not just we all need rest if you're pushing hard and going all out Hard workouts you have high stress in your life. You have a lot of responsibilities. You have young kids The amount of yin downtime you need is that they're going to be greater or it's going to be greater quality So that's why for people that are working really really hard like they are training like sprinters But they're not resting the way sprinters rest I mean Olympic athletes can sleep 10 or more hours a day because of the extreme demands they're placing on the body But you know what millions of Americans do every single day? They're working like an Olympic athlete and yet they're sleeping like someone working in a labor camp They're sleeping like six hours a day. So they are now pushing young to the extreme They are working more than their body physically should and they are decreasing the yin the amount of rest that they should So let's say this is excess young excess work and regular sleep eight hours a lot of people are push push pushing but decreasing the yin so You can see the balance going from like this To this to this and we say an excess of young becomes yin the most extreme example being if you keep push push pushing yourself with no rest and no break You can have a stroke or a heart attack right and many executives and CEOs find themselves in that position So understanding this balance is all relative your needs are going to be different from someone else So in terms of you and your own life when we talk about finding the Tao or Living a life in alignment with the Tao or finding the middle path What is yin and yang for you yin and yang can be Work and rest right you may be Intuiting that there is an imbalance in terms of work and rest for you right now You may be the single mom with three kids and a job You for sure are overdoing and that may just be what you have to do for the time being You may be working excessive hours. You may be eating excessive food, right? You may be Not working out or not moving enough, right? So there's an excessive yin and not enough yang and the net result is lethargy or diabetes so Reflecting where in your life that balance is trending in the wrong direction Because once things get to the extreme Then they flip Again, the most extreme example being you push push push push push no rest boom massive heart attack That's dramatic for most of us. That's not going to happen for most of us What will happen is you push push push to a crisis point and then you get sick or You feel some explosion of symptoms related to stress and then you have to back off for a couple weeks It could be you just push push push with your diet And then you feel acid reflux and indigested for a couple hours But for each of us in each quadrant of life Whether it's diet or sleep or work rest Something else Understanding where that balance is is key to maintaining health over the long run So pay close attention to where you are on that middle path and what this dial is doing every single day That's what I have for you today guys again. Check out those links right below this video