Chinese Medicine’s beginnings can be traced back over 3,000 years ago.  The thinking behind Chinese Medicine came from life itself, the way people viewed the world and society.  Early doctors and philosophers observed nature’s cycles, looked closely at how humans fit into those cycles, and how various factors of change affected both the environment as well as our own bodies.  Over its long history, the many experiences of some outstanding individuals painted the multilayered landscape of what we see today as Chinese Medicine.  As my teacher would say, its amazing what one can do with time on his hands.

The foundation of Chinese Medicine is the concept of Yin and Yang. Everything in life can be explained in terms of Yin and Yang. They are the two relative, opposing yet intertwined forces that make up the entire universe, including the world we live in. Its a simple concept really to learn from text, but more elusive when trying to apply to life. To explain it simply, we can assign values for both Yin and Yang. Yin is the cold, dark, night, still and substantive. Yang is the hot, bright, day, moving, and function. Woman is Yin, while Man is Yang. Seems simple enough? The difficulty, however, begins when you begin breaking down each value again in terms of Yin and Yang. For example, even night time has a Yang portion and a Yin portion. And one must keep in mind that these are relative terms. While the turtle’s slow pace may seem Yin to the rabbit’s speed, it would be considered Yang when comparing it to the even slower slug.

Applying Yin and Yang to the body, we think of temperature mostly, hot and cold. We all know someone that can wear shorts and a t-shirt, enjoying some ice-cream on a cold and rainy day. We also probably know someone that can’t bear the cold and wears winter jackets when it seems unnecessary. Chinese Medicine would see these people as imbalanced. Medical therapy, specifically through Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine, aims to bring balance back to the individual’s disorder. Cooling herbs and acupuncture technique would be applied to a hot person, while warming herbs and acupuncture would be applied to a cold person. Seems easy right? The complexity is in the fact that no person is ever just singly cold or hot. Our bodies are complex systems, and within one body there could be multiple layers and sections of hot and cold that need to be addressed. This is the challenge that doctors face with every person they see.