 So how do classical or traditional Chinese medical formulas actually work? I've established in another video that traditional Chinese medical herbalism is very very different from western herbalism in the sense that Chinese formulas are almost always formulas and not used as single herbs and in addition to that they're also very sophisticatedly done in the sense that the architecture of the formula is very important where there's a chief herb that has the main direction of the focus of the formula and then assistants and what are called deputy other aspects to the formula so they either offset the potential damage done by the formula in the case of using a very toxic herb like fuzzi aconite with shangjiang ginger or with something else or they just basically mitigate the effects or treat other parts of the symptoms going on so I want to quickly break down probably the most famous Chinese medical formula Guizhou and show you a little bit about how each herb plays an integral role in putting together the whole formula hey guys alexhine here current doctoral student in classical or traditional Chinese medicine and author of the book master of the day so in guizhou for example so there are five key herbs in guizhou guizhou, shiaoyao, shengjiang, dazhao, and zhiganshao now according to benski this is how each herb works together to form the whole of guizhou so the core herb guizhou which is cinnamon, cinnamon twig is considered accurate so spicy and warm and it releases what's called wind cold from the muscle layer combined with the second herb baishao or shiaoyao which is peony to strengthen the yin part of the body so combined they help the body expel anything that's caught in other words if you caught a germ for example and it strengthens the body's inherent defenses the third herb here shengjiang which is ginger fresh ginger is called an assistant herb and it helps the main herb not only treat any nausea and vomiting through warming the middle so for example a deficiency of the middle like in the digestion can often cause nausea for example or count what's called counter flow so any kind of cough nausea vomiting is all counter flow where qi is going up and not down and it helps the qi or the energy of the body come back downward dazhao which is jujube helps also harmonize the blood and these overall assistants here shengjiang ginger dazhao jujube help overall help the spleen and what's considered the middle qi or the it's called the middle jiao the middle section of the body here and then the final herb dir gansao is something that said to harmonize actions of other ingredients so gansao is in almost every chinese formula and it's one of the most famous herbs here so in classical medical formulas there's always that chief herb the assistants and the deputies and even more layers sometimes but they all have an overall direction which is the overall direction of the formula and remember the way herbs are used in chinese medicine is that it's viewed almost in terms of physics so for example the stomach should be going down if it's going up that's counter to the stomach's nature and that's nausea burping vomiting and so on if the bowels are going up but they should be going down because you need to poop that's considered a problem and herbs that are used to help descend the function are what are typically put in formulas there so it's important to think not in terms of biomedical active constituents but instead of the flavor the nature and what direction an herb actually drives the energy of the body so i hope that video helps elucidate a little bit about the way the classical formulas are put together and why they are in formulas and not it's not just a hodgepodge of random ingredients like a little bit of spicy a little bit of sweet it's much more sophisticated than that and they've also been refined throughout history and there are many that have stayed almost the same because they still work in their original architecture so i hope that helps the best way to stay in touch is to grab my free guide at alexhine.com forward slash free which is how to add 10 years to your life with classical Chinese medicine and you can watch my last two videos on the topic right here and right here