 There are many philosophies of healing, but in my experience, both as someone who's been sick for a very long time, as well as someone who is now Dr. Alex, sometimes the healing philosophy that changes a person's life is very, very simple. Now in this video, I thought I would introduce one of those very, very simple philosophies. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hine, author of the health book, Master of the Day and doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. So before we jump into this video here today, there are two very important links right below the video. The first is for a free guide, which has four daily rituals from traditional Chinese medicine that can potentially help you live longer. And the second 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 clinic and my private practice right below. So within Chinese medicine and within the ancient Chinese culture philosophically and religiously, many qualities in life were visualized in terms of yin and yang. Now as an eighties baby, I wore a yin yang necklace thinking I was so cool and so spiritual and a kung fu master. But it wasn't until decades later where I learned that yin and yang are not only philosophical concepts, they're also clinical concepts. And for most Chinese medicine practitioners, understanding yin and yang is fundamental to diagnosis. And let me explain a very, very concrete example. So when we take yin and yang, they are these relative concepts, right? Work and rest. Work is yang, rest is yin, day is yang, night is yin, right? We could say darker colors are yin and lighter colors are yang. You can apply these to anything, even within the same person or the same scenario. Certain parts of the night are more yang than yin and certain meals that you eat are more yang than yin. But in general, it's understanding that everything in this universe exists on this spectrum of yang and yin, meaning varying shades and varying degrees. Now when it comes to healing, our own individual temperaments and our genetic personalities are also yang or yin. Somewhere on that spectrum, yang temperaments are more wired towards tension and yin temperaments are more wired towards laxity. And let me explain exactly what that is and how it can be used clinically in your life. So let's describe the yang archetype first. Everything in this universe is on a spectrum of yang and yin. Now we are talking about you as a person, your personality, your vibe, your animal temperament, what your mom or your dad noticed. Oh, well little Janie, when she was six months old, she was always like that. She was always feisty or he was always sleepy. She was always anxious. He was always a great sleeper. He was always colloquy. She was calm, right? These animal temperaments have in part a genetic basis. And so understanding your constitution, as we call it in my field, is essential to understanding constitutional healing. That is how to make your life your own medicine. So let's talk about the yang archetype that I've noticed. The yang archetype is a person who tends towards tension, nervous system tension. They often have muscular tension like they're cracking their knuckles, they're cracking their neck, they have jaw tension. They tend to have a more forceful voice or louder voice. They're more prone to agitation or anger. They tend towards forward momentum, both in the good way as in work ethic and in the bad way. They push beyond their limits too much. They're prone to light sleep or fragmented sleep and they're also prone to losing their appetite when they're stressed or when they're not feeling well. So why is understanding this archetype important for healing? Because for so many people with this yang archetype, it's like me. I'm prone to having a very strong work ethic, can work long hours, can do that for 20 years. But for me, the devil will come for me when I'm pushing myself too much and not resting enough. The yang archetype is a tense personality. We use these words like type A or high strong. We use the term high strong because of the tension that is exuded from this person's personality, right? Everyone knows someone like that where you can be in a perfectly balanced rested state and that stressed out person will make you feel stressed. That's like this emotional contagion. It could be your mom. It could be your dad. We've all had that experience. But this is the tension archetype at work. So the tension archetype, number one needs to understand that the greatest gift and their greatest Achilles heel is the tension, the ability to push, the drive, the pressure that they can exert in their own life to make things happen will often be a dual edged sword where they will be more successful and more driven than most people, but they'll be more sick as a result of the pushing, the tension, the drive, the lack of sleep, etc. So understanding if you're the tension archetype, the yang archetype, what you need for healing and better longevity is more yin. More yin in your life can mean more rest. It can mean where you live is more yin living in a suburbs instead of a busy city. If you're already buzzing with tension like that, it can mean more yin in terms of maybe a more yin lifestyle is less work hours, less demanding job, maybe not having a commute will help you benefit your nervous system. And maybe more yin for you is purely I'm going to eat more regular small meals because it helps me feel grounded and not as anxious. So that is the yang or tension oriented archetype. Let's talk about the yin type now. When we talk about the yin archetype, this is someone who's more on the side of the yin relaxed calm side of the spectrum. Now in this archetype, they tend towards nervous system laxity, if I can use that word. They tend to be bigger body types, just anecdotally, there's a correlation there. They tend to be more fatigued sounding or sometimes a softer voice or lower energy. They're more prone to sadness or depression. So a downward sort of vector. They tend towards struggling with discipline and being regular about their habits. They tend to be good sleepers, not sensitive to stimulants and they tend to overeat and have better digestion and they tend to put on weight more easily. So the lax archetype is almost like there's not enough tension. So not enough pressure means that they tend to struggle with discipline. I've seen there's a correlation. These aren't one to one things. They tend to struggle with discipline, tend to be good sleepers, but struggle to get motivated, struggle to stay consistent with routines, struggle to be driven and push. It's almost like where one has excessive pressure. That's just pushing them, pushing them, pushing them along in a pathological way. One is deficient pressure where they just can't get it together, can't get the momentum to do their work, can't do their homework. And in terms of understanding the pros and the cons of this archetype is an understanding that they often struggle with discipline around food and their weight and they often struggle with discipline in general. So whereas they're much better at being calm and relaxed and getting enough sleep, they struggle with, ironically, lower energy or lower drive for the same reasons. And again, in my experience, the tension archetype tends to have worse digestion overall. And so they tend to skip meals when they don't feel well, or if they're not sleeping well. Whereas the other constitution, the yin, relaxed archetype, is typically has good digestion. And so their body can tolerate eating a lot of food with fewer ill effects. So these two archetypes, the yang tension oriented archetype, the yin, let's just say laxity or relaxed archetype, are both gifts and they have their own Achilles heels. One is not better than the other. But understanding where you are can help you understand, where am I susceptible to getting sick? One is often too much doing, and the other is often not enough doing of the right kind. So yang archetype, yin archetype, something anecdotally, I've noticed a lot clinically in medicine. When people walk in, they're either more on the tension side of the spectrum, or more on the laxity side of the spectrum. And this is very, very diagnostic. Sometimes you hear it right in the voice on the first phone call where you talk to someone. So which one of these are you? Comment below and let me know. And before you guys go, check out those other related links right below the video.