 Sorry guys, I'm all hopped up on these Chinese herbs over here. Now you might be surprised, you know I'm an alchemist and an herbalist and a doctor of Chinese medicine, but you may not know that recently I've been taking my medicine for myself almost every day. So I thought wouldn't it be fun to make a video about my personal Chinese herbal formula routine, what I take and why I take it because so many of my patients are taking my Chinese formulas every single day. They're probably interested, what is Dr. Alex taking? What's up you guys? Dr. Alex Hine, author of the health book Master of the Day, Doctor of Acupuncture Traditional Chinese Medicine. Sorry I'm so hyped up on all this ginseng today. Sorry, not sorry. We're gonna talk about this more. But before we jump in and we talk about my daily herbal formula routine, there's 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 contact my private practice and clinic below. And the second is for a free guide, which is four daily rituals that can potentially help you address your life with Chinese medicine. So check those out. So first let's revisit a very very ancient chapter in a book of Chinese medicine. Now in chapter 72, it talks about why people get sick. And it's very very very important to keep in mind in a world that is obsessed with thinking that just because there are germs, I will get sick, which by itself is not necessarily true. So let's talk about this more. In chapter 72 of the Huangdi Nei Jing, it says, when the Zheng Qi is strong on the inside, pathogenic influences cannot invade the body. So when we talk about this concept, there's this idea that you need to keep your own personal resources, your Yang Qi strong, Yang Qi Zheng Qi strong. And if you keep your personal resources strong, you will not get sick. Now all of us anecdotally know this to be true, right? When you're eating well and you're exercising and you're sleeping enough and you're feeling good, you're way less likely to catch, let's say, a seasonal viral infection like the cold or like the flu. But a lot of what I treat day to day is people suffering from chronic low to moderate grade chronic illness. And these chronic diseases are those diseases that sap all of your quality of life and make it very difficult to live a normal functional life because you don't feel well. So I thought I would discuss one of the best ways to keep your Yang Qi, your resources and your Zheng Qi strong, which is by taking internal medicine, which is these Chinese compounded formulas, an area of expertise that I primarily focus on in my clinical practice. Now let's talk about my daily herbal medicine routine and why I take it. So all of us, when we come into this world, we have a genetic tendency, that genetic tendency towards a certain body type, towards certain illnesses, towards resistance to certain illnesses or patterns. I'm talking about internal medicine, that tendency we call constitution. And I use that word very deliberately specifically, as opposed to genetics, which people sort of intuitively feel like is limited or fixed. Now that is not entirely true, but genetics still are a tendency, right? Your body has a likelihood to be a certain height based on your parents, or a likelihood to have a certain eye color or hairstyle or hair color based on your parents. That constitution is very important to know because that describes a tendency towards illness when people get sick. And I'll give you an example. Within my family, one of the constitutions is a constitutional weakness in what Chinese medicine considers the Tai Yin organs, which is really the lung and what is translated as the spleen, but is really the pancreas. So people in my family, with my similar genetics, tend to have issues with respiratory problems like asthma and allergies, as well as digestive problems, like food allergies, bloating, irregular bowel patterns, variable appetite, very phlemy like I am, where I often have to clear my throat. And these factors are primarily constitutional, meaning there's a genetic tendency that I have that my dad and my brother don't have, but my other brother and my sister do have. So you can clearly trace that genetic pattern through our family history. Now why it's important is because it shows the tendency of your body under dysregulation or stress or lack of homeostasis to manifest certain symptoms. For example, not everyone under stress, excessive stress gets let's say, digestive upset or diarrhea. Not everyone gets headaches or migraines. Not everyone gets insomnia or heart palpitations. These factors are one part, the stress, the exposure, the factor, and one part the constitution. So for me, when my body gets imbalanced or I'm stressed, there are a few main patterns that are primarily digestive that gets hit for me. One is a tendency towards very low appetite, a tendency towards a lot of bloating and food allergies and food sensitivities and a tendency towards a lot of mucus in my throat or very prone to being indigested, even if I'm eating healthy food. So these patterns relate to the tie in organs, which are long spleen pancreas, shall we say? When we talk about my formula, you can see it there. It says ren-shen-tang, right? Jinseng formula, decoction. And this formula is comprised of four herbs. So we have ren-shen, which is Jinseng, which we say helps tonify the spleen, the pancreas. It's very good for patterns of decreased pancreatic enzymes where people are getting bloated and indigested and food sits in the stomach. Second is baiju, which we say helps drain dampness. The third is ganjang, a very high dose of dry ginger, which helps stimulate the appetite, regulates the levels of stomach acid. And the fourth is honey fried licorice, which again holds the formula together, great for the stomach lining, great for all kinds of functions in the body. Now those four herbs form this formula called lijongwan or ren-shen-tang. So regulate the middle decoction or Jinseng decoction. And this is a classic historical formula from a book written a few hundred years after Christ. This formula still works as predictable as most pharmaceuticals. The thing that this was written a few hundred years after Christ is baffling. But that's why it's still used to this day. So lijongwan or ren-shen-tang is working for me because we say that issues with mucus and saliva and low appetite are typically due to stomach cold, which means stomach under functioning, which often correlates with hypochlorhydria, low stomach acid, decreased pancreatic enzymes, that sort of thing. It's a very common clinical pattern. So when that happens, we say that the spleen tend towards dampness. Dampness is this, this excessive mucus that my body will generate when I'm having an issue with my stomach, right? The gut mucosa are now unhappy with me. And they are rebelling by producing mucus and saliva all the time. So the combination of herbs strengthen the function of the spleen pancreas, strengthen the stomach by itself and regulate the appetite, the mucus, the bloating, the food allergies. So this is commonly used with many of my patients as well. But I thought I would share this and I take this as you can hear it powdered granule formula I take three times per day in boiling water. And I thought it would be interesting to share my daily formula routine because I can illustrate one, what is constitution and why bother taking these? Two, how to assess your constitution? And three, how we write these herbal prescriptions based on your constitutional patterns, which is your susceptibilities as well as your current symptoms. So that is my daily herbal formula routine that I'm currently doing for about a month, strengthen the functions of those organs as they get run down or weakened through the stress of life, through the stress of that being just your Achilles heel or through bad diet, you know, I had a delicious, sinful heart attack pizza the other day. And my spleen pancreas just hated me. So herbal formula to the rescue, right? So constitution is a tendency for a certain weakness over time. And these formulas are the best way I've seen the strengthened constitution without changing your lifestyle, for example. So my two cents on my mystical herbal formula for the day for patient boss man, if you can see it there, keep your eyes peeled for more videos on these herbal formulas. It's one of my favorite topics you guys. Check out these related videos and those links below. And I'll see you soon.