 When you ask people what they think when you say Chinese medicine the responses are all over the map and they range from killing sharks for shark fin soup to acupuncture to tiger penises as longevity tonics. But I thought in this video I would share three semi-weird practices from Chinese medicine that are really effective health practices in my experience and have been for thousands of years. Hey guys I'm Dr. Alex Hein, doctor of Chinese medicine and author of the health book master the day and acupuncturist. So before we jump into this video today there are two very important links right below the video. So the first is I have a free guide which is four daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with Chinese medicine. And the second is if you'd like to become a patient of my locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine there's a link to contact my private practice right below this video. Now semi-weird habit number one is Daoyin as it used to be called or Qigong. So Qigong you could literally translate as breathwork basically Chi work and I think why Qigong is so interesting and so unique to me is that Qigong fuses breathwork often with visualization or intention and physical movements. And from a practical just a very plain English perspective the value of Qigong is that it not only integrates meditation and physical exercise. And so for people today who are both inactive and stressed you know we're both not physically moving and the nervous system is going crazy because we're doing lots of intellectual or skilled work on computers or on our devices all the time. And Qigong has the unique benefit of fusing meditation so down regulating calming the nervous system and physical exercise which means circulation. And on top of that it's something that is very low impact. So whether you are a current cancer patient and you can do Qigong as many hours a day as your physical body will let you or five minutes a day you can do it if you're young or if you're older and it's not going to hurt your joints. Like some of the patients I have that are really chronic exercisers they often will have joint issues and if it's really extreme they'll be needing joint replacements by middle age or their 60s or their 70s. So Qigong is very very unique because there is the aspect of breathing which is one of the fastest ways to change your physiology change your state pronto whether it's stress or it's an emotion or something else. And it's also because it's physical exercise circulation is one of the keys to longevity no matter which way you cut the cake. The second habit I'm going to say is understanding the flavor and nature of herbs and foods. So you have to imagine Chinese medicine predates chemistry by thousands of years. So how could these ancient people be treating the same illnesses as today and not have chemistry? It's not based on biochemistry at all. How could they figure out how to use what herbs for what conditions? Well one of the most ancient ways of assessing chemistry is what's called flavor and nature. The flavor of the herb is typically based on sweet sour bitter salty etc and the nature of the herb is usually what we could say is maybe the temperature. So the ancient word for it is the chi of it but it's really the temperature. So the temperature just means is it more cooling or is it more warming? Is it a very warm hot herb or is it a very cold herb? And what these indicate is their functions in the body. They indicate physiologically what they do. So for example if you give someone who has a low appetite a very cooling herb they will probably have an even lower appetite and if you give them a cold herb from our perspective and they already have loose stools you're going to give them diarrhea probably explosive diarrhea. But if you give them a warming herb like ginger what you're going to see is those bowel movements the stools will actually solidify the appetite will improve and come back and it will increase metabolism. So these are very very important to understand physiologically because of how they work biochemically but these predate chemistry by thousands of years but this was an ancient way that people could figure out the functions of herbs in addition to other factors without being able to measure them in a lab. So let's take ginger the flavor is spicy the nature is warming and if we compare that to another herb huangchen scudillaria the flavor is bitter and the nature is cooling or cold. So for example we often use ginger in the above example I just gave lower appetite, bloating, looser bowel movements, person's colder looks more pale that will increase their appetite and regulate the bowel movements and bloating. But if you give huangchen that second herb you're going to actually harm the patient and you're going to make those symptoms worse. And vice versa if you give someone a symptom or a syndrome that we consider has too much heat you give them a lot of ginger they're going to be sweating they're going to be agitated and uncomfortable and they may get more constipated. So the way we use herbs is not only based on their kind of signature function or what they have historically been shown to do but also is based on the flavor nature and not on the biochemistry. The third most interesting or unique aspect of Chinese medicine is using Chinese herbal formulas as well as food grade medicine. I think Chinese medicine is so special I mean and I'm biased as an herbalist not only was the most powerful effect I had on my own health my own gi problems Chinese herbs more than acupuncture it's the thing that makes my heart beat a little quicker. And I think it's so incredible how sophisticated Chinese herbalism is where we have formulas that range from two ingredients to 50 and all of those herbs are in there deliberately for a specific purpose some to offset the side effects of other herbs some to guide the effect of the formula to a specific location of the body some to accentuate the function of an herb. I mean the level of sophistication is incredible it is off the charts this must be 5 000 plus years of medical knowledge that is still continued to this day and a smaller derivative of these Chinese formulas is just food grade medicine you know using cooking spices in every indigenous traditional culture on the world is food as medicine right you can measure the effect of turmeric or ginger or garlic or onions on the body on the circulation on the digestion that's measurable and there's probably a lot of studies here today based on those traditional food stuff that we just call spices and to a certain extent it's the dosage of those that makes the difference putting 500 milligrams of ginger some ginger powder in a meal is different from consuming 24 grams in one sitting for acute indigestion and acid reflux right it's going to have a very different effect on the body but what's so interesting about traditional cultures including the Chinese culture is mixing traditional medicines in a food grade dose so one of the herbs for example shanyao is just yams and you can use it as a food grade medicine or as a medical grade medicine you know shanyao works to strengthen the spleen pancreas and helps with the digestion you can use it when there's chronically loose stools it's food grade you can use it for children or you can use it at 12 grams 30 grams 60 grams as a medical grade intervention it also depends where you harvest it and what it's used you know how it's prepared but this idea of you know putting some goji berries in your morning kanji or adding those to a smoothie is practicing food grade medicine where you're gently nudging your body in the right direction but not intervening strong enough where there's really active pathology and it goes the other way too you know it goes the pathological side of this is this very new agee idea of just the multivitamin theory right if six goji berries is good then 500 must be even better because it's a super food and it doesn't work like that because for so many people with weak digestion goji hard to digest is just going to create a lot of bloating a lot of what chinese medicine considers dampness and probably most realistically what one of my mentors had said is a very expensive bowel movement you throw all these tonic tonifying herbs into your smoothie you're probably not going to live longer just doing that it's just going to be a very very expensive bowel movement so it goes both ways using medicinal formulas when there's active pathology or food grade medicine sometimes is even those same formulas but just a gram a day instead of nine or 20 grams a day i think these three practices are very interesting and very unique to chinese medicine and the chinese culture but also there are aspects of these throughout the entire world like using spices in your cooking so that's what i have for you today guys again two other related videos for you right there that can help you and i'll catch you in the next video