 Do you think you masturbate too much? Let's be real because that's what we're going in today's video. Now despite what you may have been told in Catholic school like myself, excessive masturbation is probably not going to make you go blind, but there are some interesting downsides if this is you and there's an interesting history within Chinese medicine of Taoist alchemical practices for longevity involving masturbation. What's up you guys? I'm Dr. Alex Hein, author of the health book Master of the Day and doctor of acupuncture in Chinese medicine. So before we jump into this video, there are two very important links right below the video. 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 me right below this video to my private practice and the second is a link to download a free guide I've put together which is four daily rituals that can help you add years to your life with Chinese medicine. Now at this point I've seen about a dozen patients that fall into the category of excessive masturbation. Let's just call it that right? These are people who have been masturbating multiple times per day often for five or ten years and sometimes they're 25, sometimes they're 65. Ultimately it comes back to this question that we're talking about is this bad for you right? And I think like most medical questions there's a spectrum of too little versus too much and somewhere in the middle tends to be the sweet spot. But in particular I want to talk about the pathology that we see in the field of Chinese medicine. So the dozen or so patients I've seen with this condition end up in a pattern of what we call kidney deficiency. Kidney deficiency is often a pattern that shows up in middle-aged men around 60 for example where they have issues with urination, issues with libido, they may have nocturnal omissions which is very common in young men with kidney deficiency so they're literally ejaculating in their sleep and they didn't try to do that. But basically they end up in this pattern called kidney deficiency. Fatigue, libido changes, urination changes, often sleep problems as well with it. And I think underneath this underneath this pattern there's often an aspect of psycho-emotional or emotional health that is not doing so well associated with this whole pattern. Now again these are typically issues that you see in middle-aged men. Men that are 60 years old begin to show up with for example low back pain, libido, issues with erections, frequent urination or nighttime urination. But let's go back even further because intimately intertwined with Chinese medicine is typically Taoist medicine. So Taoism and Buddhism and Confucianism had this overlap because this comes from the Chinese culture. But in particular you tend to see in Taoism there's a whole branch of sexual practices designed for longevity. Now I want to read this one little segment from Wikipedia because it really encapsulates what this was supposed to do and the intended purpose of it. The basis of all Taoist thinking is that Qi is a part of everything in existence. Qi is related to another energetic substance contained in the human body known as Jing. And once all this has been expended the body dies. Now Jing can be lost in many ways but most notably through the loss of body fluids. And Taoists may use practices to stimulate or increase and conserve their bodily fluids to great extents. Now the fluid believed to contain the most Jing is semen. So Taoists believed in decreasing the frequency of or totally avoiding ejaculation in order to conserve life essence. So this idea of no-fap that is popular all over the internet theoretically begins with this Taoist seminal retention practice. So what are my thoughts on this in terms of is it good or bad for you? Because what people ask me is is this good or bad for me? And in reality that's the wrong question that's like saying is food good or bad for me because we know that food is frankly probably the number one killer of people today but it's not food by itself that's the issue right it's what what food and how much food. But in reality there are benefits to having more sex for people and there are benefits to less right having three orgasms a day is probably bordering on the verge of pathological for people masturbating that many times a day for people and there are studies showing that men's testosterone increases with some decreased frequency of masturbation as well. You know actually having orgasms is actually good for the prostate for example so in my opinion yes this originates with Taoism and more mystical or esoteric practices but pragmatically practically and clinically somewhere in between is the sweet spot for what is actually good for you. So these old wives tales about you're going to go blind if you're masturbating all the time probably not true just by two cents but there definitely is pathology that results from excessive amounts of this just like excessive amounts of eating too much food. That is my two cents on this interesting history within Chinese medicine and within Asia but otherwise that's what I have for today. Check out these two related videos right here and I'll see you guys soon.