 Now the way traditional or classical Chinese medicine uses herbs and formulas is very different from what you see in Western herbalism. Now in this video I want to share a little bit about the big differences between classical Chinese herbalism and Western herbalism including how herbs are used in modern times now for example by other alternative practitioners like naturopaths. Hey guys I'm Alex Hine author of the book Master of the Day and also a current doctoral student in classical or traditional Chinese medicine. Now the big difference with Chinese medical herbalism and modern biomedical herbalism or Western herbalism is that Chinese medicine is based off of what's called flavor and nature. So the chi and the way the chi and the flavor of the herbs versus what are essentially biomedical active constituents. Now why is this? Well first of all Chinese medicine is thousands of years old. We have medical texts from 500 BC that are talking about herbs. Now that predates modern chemistry by thousands of years. As a result this concept of active constituents thinking of like the chemicals in the plants was not known and so there was no way people could have possibly known this alkaloid was in this plant. So what they did know was essentially what they learned by putting the herbs in their mouth which is the flavor and the nature. Now in terms of Chinese medicine flavor and nature typically means so for example if you think about a lemon when you put a lemon in your mouth it's sour it makes you like pucker your face and it's also kind of cooling which is why you think about like down south where it's hot in the summer some ice cold lemonade right lemon has this kind of cooling nature about it just like mint and just like other plants like that. Now the flavor is what we talked about but the nature is what's the cooling part. That's also what's called the chi which you could consider in one sense the temperature. So for example if we looked at something called chenpi. Chenpi is aged tangerine peel and chenpi is considered it's acrid so it kind of disperses things in your body and it's considered bitter and drying. So the way for example chenpi is often used in formulas is in regard to for example a pattern called food stagnation also known as essentially indigestion. You eat too much you feel bloated your stomach's full you're burping maybe it's a little bit more acid reflux. Chenpi is something that will help disperse that because of its nature. So basically what early herbalists learned was that herbs focus a lot like in one sense physics where there's up movement down movement there's expanding movement or this consolidating type movement that think about the sour of the lemon or kind of like puckers you and then think about this chenpi or spicy think about something spicy you have a hot bowl of chilies your nose clears you sweat like everything just clears out your lungs open up this is that acrid that spicy flavor and so it opens everything up like this and all indigenous cultures know this especially the ones that consume lots of spicy foods. So this idea of like maximizing the polyphenol content did not exist this is the most primal way that people knew how to use herbs and it's important because this is how chinese medicine formulas are composed they're not comprised of like this has this alkaloid and this has this chemical that does this if a practitioner uses just this herb for this bowel movement that's probably not the chinese medical approach they're using them like a western biomedical doctor. Now the second big difference that I see is that chinese medicine uses herbal formulas that are very sophisticated in their architecture versus in western biomedicine or naturopathic medicine for example they typically use single herbs just because that's been their tradition and in chinese medicine herbs are used to for example offset the chief what's called the chief herb maybe it can offset the toxicity sometimes it helps augment the effect of the chief herb sometimes it helps protect parts of your body from the damage that the chief herb can cause so for example a formula here called baihu tang which is called white tiger decoction this formula is a very simple formula of four ingredients and the four of which are shigao which is gypsum zhirmu zhigansao which is dry fried licorice and jingmi which is a type of rice so for example when we talk about how the formula is composed this shigao gypsum is used to clear heat from the person's body this is a pattern where a person has like a raging fever their pulse is pounding their sweating extremely thirsty like a very serious condition the gypsum helps cool down the body the zhirmu in this case it helps that gypsum to clear the heat and it also moistens the dryness in the body because the person has this raging fever the zhigansao and the jingmi they benefit and protect the stomach and they also protect the fluids in the body and they buffer it from the strong effect of this gypsum which is in a pretty high dose so what we see is that chinese medical formulas are very sophisticated in the way they've been set together rather than using single herbs which is very unusual in classical chinese medicine so the big differences are really flavor nature versus essentially being based on modern biochemistry and the use of formulas that are very specifically constructed versus again the use of single herbs so i hope that video helps illustrate the difference between classical chinese medicine and maybe modern herbalism or even western herbalism now before you go the best way to stay in touch is to come grab my free guide at alexhyne.com forward slash free on how to add 10 years to your life with classical or traditional chinese medicine so if you want to learn more about natural medicine that is the place to come the link is also in the description there below and you can also check out my last two videos here and here