we're about to jump in today's podcast but before we do I have a favor to ask you if you listen to this podcast weekly on Apple or Spotify could you please follow the show that would be so so appreciated I'm so grateful for your time and your energy because this will help the show get more traction which means more people can benefit from it and if you would be so kind if you're on Apple podcast to leave a review it would so help the show out thank you so much for your support let's start the show I wasn't finished that's what my husband says to me all the time when I tell him that I was 10 weeks premature the reason I think I was 10 weeks premature born is because my French mother in the 60s smoked two packs of cigarette every single day this was the thing to do nobody told her not to do that I think I came out 10 weeks early because I needed to breathe fresh air because I was probably smoking it up in Udo when I came out at 10 weeks early I was in an incubator and then I had asthma as a child my whole childhood I also had scoliosis so my spine wasn't straight it's all in a nest shape my teeth didn't grow straight and my single mother of three didn't have the money to pay for braces when I first started acur Academy I was so worried about going on camera and talking on camera first because I had a French accent second because I didn't have straight teeth and I thought oh my God who's going to want to listen to me I don't look great but then my husband had a great point he's the best support he's a yin to my young he said if you want to impact people and help people who cares what you look like it's all about how you help people and I let that go then I didn't care I went online and nobody's ever said to me oh your T straight blah blah blah nobody cares because I'm here to share everything about Chinese medicine so I was then born with great kidney Essence so Jing according to Chinese medicine and so today we're going to talk about the four vital substances and why they are so vital we need them to stay alive Chi blood body fluid and of course Essence welcome to acupro a show dedicated to making Chinese medicine and acupuncture easy to grasp and sun to learn hi I'm your host Clara Cohen I support practitioners and students and like you in changing the world one patient at a time my goal is to share my passion for TCM and Empower you to achieve Superior patient care I love to showcase the amazing benefits of acupun because after all acupun are before we start with the four vinyl substances which are Chi blood BN fluid and Essence I want to preface this by saying that some text in TCM because this is what I love about TCM is some text will be different some text will not agree on some Yin and Yar will find elements Theory everybody's going to have different School thoughts we know that this part of TCM and that's what I think is challenging but fun some text or ancient text will say there's five substances the fifth one being the mind the Shen the spirit other texts will say that the three Treasures are CH Essence in the mind text will say four vital substances are all related to the mind which I connect with the vest we're going to stick to the four vital substances according to TCM foundation in a way that's very classical but we will talk about the mind because it is really connected to all four vital substances so if we compare them all and use the yinong theory Chi is much more young because its movement it's change its growth it's always constantly moving so it's much more young than let's say blood which is matter right so it would be more Yen because it is matter right so if you compare to enties we talk about this when the yinong theory it's always comparing to things actually are comparable you always have to compare to something so Chi would be more young and blood would be more Yin for example because it's more matter fluid is matter as well and Essence is matter so they're more on the inside compared to Chi but then you can compare them with each other and that may change as well make sense okay let's start the four vital substances with ch so before I talk about how is chi form what it's the function of chi let's talk about chi in general when I talk about chi in class to students or to patients who ask me a question about chi I like to keep it called Chi not energy not translated it's the same as when we talked about Yin and yangong Yin and yangong are Chinese words are are a concept so we can't translate them she is the same thing it's a concept so you can't really translate it you can explain it but you can't translate with the word energy yes energy is chi but Chi Is Not Just Energy Mak sense like to keep the word chi and keep it Chinese Chi first of all is everywhere it's anything that's moving that's constantly changing that is part of our body for example physiology the way our body digests food our breathing ability everything that is physiology in our body is part of chi right and there's lots of subcategories of chi chi is everywhere in this cupboard in the stable there's Chi there's Chi going through the camera within you and me right we are connected to energy and so that she often I tell patients and say it's something that is everywhere surrounding us it's part of nature it's our connection to n nature it's our connection to people when you walk into a room and there's someone and then you start talking to them and right away you have a connection even though you know nothing about them but you feel that connection by the way that's a feeling that's Chi that's that positive Chi now Chi can be positive negative it can have any form I always saying to people because you can't see something it doesn't mean it's not there right so when we have two magnets that attract or repel we can't see anything between the magnet however there is chi there that is pushing we can feel it or pulling we feel that right we also feel Chi when there is a feeling of something is not right this is what I call our gut Chi or six sense Chi our the that tells us something we don't always listen to it but tells us something's all right or we don't feel quite it's right or the opposite we feel that energy or like this is right this is it I know I feel it in my gut so that energy is all Chi so Chi assumes many form all around us the planet everything our connection to everything to Earth To Nature and everything it's everywhere the simple way is I always say take to magnets and then they attract and repell you can't see what's in between but you can feel it think of chi as something you can feel and something you can't always see but something that is constantly in movement and so we can adapt it to the body if we adapt it to the body she is our physiological aspect it's every function that's happening for me to move my arms I need a central nervous system that's firing all day long those firing nerves and neurons are part of Chi right they're constantly doing something now let's talk about Chi within the body so when it comes to Chi and General in chines medicine we look at how is it formed how do we get Chi so we have the congenital Chi congenital Chi is called U Chi y uan we're going to talk about that in a little bit congenital Chi is the chi that was given to us by our parents so when I started today I talked about the fact that I was born 10 weeks fature I had iosis I had asthma as a kid I was sick all the time I didn't have my teeth going straight Etc that was given to me as a genetic background from my parents my mom who wasn't healthy during the pregnancy who smoked prior and during pregnancy both my parents drank quite a lot of wine they're very French both smoked a lot so that energy that comes together is given to me right and that comes at the time of conception there's lots of chi there right it's conception time lot of energy lots of passion and then we conceive now after that there's more un or un that is been given to the child from the mother during the pregnancy as well so it puts a little bit more pressure on the mother's health than the father after conception right and so congenital Chi was given to us by our parents we're going to talk about Essence versus congenital Chi which is more uni versus essence congenital she is more the physiological aspect well Essence is more the color of your hair the color of your eyes the fact that I had scoliosis or someone is born with missing a limb or something that's completely genetic in that perspective of anatomy however with uran or congenital Chi it's more your physiological aspect so more something that is going to be in your family for example a lot of people have high blood pressure or Cron's disease or verticulitis a lot of people will have disorders that affect family genetically embedded in them right so they can develop them or not but it's embedded it's given so that's cental Chi that comes from the parents and it resides in the kidney with Essence with an NCM kidneys okay now that's life we were given life we were given birth yay someone two people give us birth the birth parents gave us life now once we came out we needed two thing to survive or two things to survive we needed food and drinks right breast milk if obviously that was an option which has both nutrients food and drinks right we needed fresh air or we needed to be able to breathe and to have air right those are the only two things we need to survive nowadays if we don't go without breathing or air or oxygen for so many minutes we can't survive if we are this is why it's vital right it's really something we need to survive if we don't get food food for let's say weeks and weeks we perish slowly a we may die so food drinks I put that in the same category and air those are the two things that are post Nal Chi it's after we are B born we need those two things to continue to live so how is chi formed first it's given birth by our parents that's congenital and we can't change that and then the second part is post Nal Chi and that's food and drinks and air this is why it's really important to feed up body well to drink well to breathe deeply because this is what gives us life and good Chi make sense okay so that's how it's formed the second thing is to look at what is the function of CH in the body and like I said earlier it's every physiological function in your body it warms us through regulating temperature through the mman fire so the mman fire is found in the kidneys for the beetle for energy for feeling full of energy so we can move around we can run around so it raises energy as well specifically Chi is in charge of raising and keeping our energy up we need Chi and energy and we need the physiological aspect in order for our body to grow to become from a baby to a child to an adult also to grow bones to grow hair to grow anything that needs to be grow our brain function to grow right this is part of chi it's also charge of holding our body up it's in charge of defensive right it's a defense system it Char in charge of our immune system to fight Invaders the best it can all our system is going to be part of chi and the physiological aspect but what's interesting is just everything is chi it's all connected there's no oh this is the chi of the lung to help us breathe as a whole is just really one Chi and if you if you listen to Bruce Dr Bruce Lipton or any uh physicist they absolutely concur that there is an energetic uh field all around us and that's cheap they absolutely agree with this which I think is great because it's science meeting ancient medicine and that is the best outcome for people to understand that this medicine is amazing and they have discovered this a long time ago a great segue to talking about G being everywhere we understand the function we understand how it's formed let's talk about classification of chi like I said there's only one Chi but there's sub form to it so we can understand how TCM looks at CH and how we utilize them for this these subforms in clal practice first of all we talked about un right uni is the source Chi is the chi that is congenital that's the one that was given to us fire parents and helps us grow developed as human being now the UN Source acupuncture points is what you will needle when you need to access un also the San maridan accesses un Point as well so those are really powerful and useful in clinical practice how do you use them for example li4 is the UN she point or the source G un Source CH point of the large intestine so let's say in the family of the patients there is a lot of s there's irritable B syndrome that's been passed on from generation and you found that out large intestine 4 is where you're going to access that un of the large intestine this is a really good point to do for people that have IBS for example does that make sense so it's looking at from that perspective heart seven is the UN Source Point of the heart if people have tendency to have cardiovascular disease in your family you want to use heart seven as a preventative measure because you want to access the UN Source Chi of theart Mak sense the second sub form of chi is zong Chi so zong z o n g is the chest Chi the Gathering often it's translated as chest or gathering Chi and it's the chi of the upper GW which really Encompass the lung and heart so this CH is the one that allows us breathing ability right breathing in and breathing out which we said is key to staying alive right it's vital so the Zoni is the heart and lung function together and they are functioning together because as I breath in oxygen through the lung that oxygen is going to go into my blood vessels and my and my circulatory system right it's going through the heart and then comes back out as CO2 when I exhale and I do this in less than three seconds breathing in breathing out and my body is going through my whole circulatory system I bring oxygen to the blood cells it's fantastic so don't she is really the chest breathing ability and connection from the heart and lung the other that sounds almost the same but is not which is J J versus and don't quote me on my Mandarin pronunciation so z h o n g which means middle it means middle in Chinese so Z h o n or John Chi is the middle Chi and that is our digestive system it's the skin and stomach function in TCM but it's the digestive system in the middle of our body and that's in charge of transforming and transporting food into nutrients which is what we need in order to survive right we need to eat and drink in order to survive because we get the nutrients in order for our body to function so the digestive system the Joni really is going to benefit a lot from for example spleen 3 spleen 3 is two things it's the rur source point of spleen so any digestive system issue that is deep seated or ediary we should use Spen three and spin3 is also the point that helps the body assimilate absorb and transform and transport nutrients into energy that is a point we have to do to access ji but also un of the spleen see if someone has IBS for example and we said we have to use the UN of large intestine li4 because that is going to go if it's ER iraty it's going to help the person however splin three should also be there right this is how we're going to slowly put our treatment plan make sense okay so those are the main subcategories then we have Juni so Zed h e n Jun Chi is true Chi vital Chi and that's the chi that circulates within the meridians when we learn about all the meridians and we say Meridian circulates chi in blood this is the chi that circulates in the Meridan that's the truei the zungi now we have two sub forms of chi or subcategories of chi within that chuchi that Juni that circulates in the Meridian it is weighty and and yimi so the Wii is the defensive G it's the one that circulates mostly on the skin muscle and external part of our body to try to defend our body or guard our body right that's our defense system and that is more on the external part now Y is the nutritive CH it's more everything that's happening within inside our body our organ function our brain function those two are connected to acupuncture needles so when we put a needle on the skin to activate a point and to activate a minute nerve to send signal to the brain to self-regulate to self-heal to bring more endorphin or more parasympathetic State into the body we are going through the Wii and it's going to reach the yin which is inside and trying to really balance the inside of our body so when we needle we are activating yinshi through Wei and that is called Juni or the chi that circulates all over the Meridian hopefully that madees sense let's look at the pathology of chi only four things can happen with Chi if it's not working properly either it's stagnated rebelling deficient or Sinking easy stagnated or rebelling are excess patterns in Chinese medicine we we either have an excess pattern or a deficiency pattern and often students will say well how do I know if it's excess or deficiency and I'll say well if it says deficiency you got it right and if it says sinking pretty much you're thinkinking it's a deficiency however anything else is excess if there's excess Yin blood stasis L stagnation rebelling that's excess if it says deficiency or Sinking that's a deficiency that's how we know if it's excess or deficiency Pati pretty pry much the only organ that can be chi stagnated is liver because liver is in charge of moving Chi all over the body for better flow and relaxation and when we're stressed then she stagnates symptoms are going to be tension in the shoulders Tempo headache at the end of the day especially if we've had a stressful day irritability frustration anger right tension in the body not always in the shoulders sometimes it's in the jaw right people clench a lot it could be that as well it could be in different places depending how much stress and tension for women specifically at PM prior to period uh women will have tendency to have breast tenderness bloating have tendency to have constipation things are moving very well and once they get the period those things move better right so that also give us a clue other things that we don't think about all the time is cold hands and cold feet are usually in Liberty stagnation she is not moving blood properly and there's not enough circulation now it can lead to blood stasis where it's really bad and you can have rain olds but at the beginning it's a li stagnation for cor and feet that's often the case also something we don't always think about clumsiness like you bump into things or you drop things easily that's a liberty stagnation it means stress you're thinking of 20 million things at once and your body is not paying attention so that's another sign and then one more that I see patients do all the time is this the S right s is a sign of Liber station because it's a sign of stress you finally releasing that breath because you've been goow and so stressed all day long makes sense okay so liverty stagnation is the only organ that's going to have a chei stagnation and the best point for that is liver three I would say that you can add up li4 if you wanted to and gallbladder 34 those are great to move the chi and the body second thing is to do also massage to exercise to move your Chi right I always say to students you're going to be in school for hours or patients sit at their desk for hours it's really important that every time we have a break stand up start moving around even if it's to go to the bathroom stretch your body move because otherwise she stagnate right now the second one is rebelling is not happy right when she Rebels it can happen to only a few oril the most common one I think thing would be the stomach that's the easiest thing stomach CH goes down as a normal entity right stomach energy goes down you eat the food and stomach transform it and then bring it down to the deinum and the small intestine however when it's not working properly it rebells up so stomach chei rebelling means instead of going down it's going up and we're going to have acid reflex heart burn acid regurgitation maybe uh nausea vomiting right that's all stomach ch rebelling it's going the wrong way it's rebelling it's going the opposite way so obviously that's when we want to address look at what the root cause is we always have to look at the root cause of all those things right like it could be morning sickness due to pregnancy it could be that the person is not eating enough or overeating or their digestive issues maybe it's Stress and Anxiety that's causing it we always have to look for the cause that's a different story but once that happen you want to make sure that you can bring the rebellious cheat down so when 17 would be your local point and the thiso point would be pericardium 6 for example which is really good when stomach cheat rils stomach 36 is a good one as well because it's the commander point of the digestive system those are the basic points the second one is the long she Direction in a good State when we healthy goes down this is why when we breathe in good oxygen we breathe it in and it goes down to the kidneys and the kidneys grasp that Chi for more oxygen right that's why it's really important to breathe all the way to the belly button not just shallow breathing we're breathing in all the way to the belly button that expands our oxygen it brings good she good oxygen to our blood cells now after that we Exel CO2 that's part of in and out however the good part the good oxygen has to go down so when longi doesn't function properly we have rebelling Lungi which means we cough right there's a lot of cough happening we could cough dry flame chronic acute but that's cough the best point to bring down long she for cough is long five that is the best point for that now you can add up other points depending if the person is coughing flam like stach 40 or chronic acute except while looking at the cause but long five has to be there the last rebelling Chi is liver so how does liver Chi Rebels liver is in charge of moving Chi all for the body so if it doesn't move it it gets stagnated that's the beginning it's stagnated it's not moving however this person is stressed and then more stress is put upon this person maybe more things happen in their life more overwhelm more pressure and suddenly there's like a little Boiling Pot here they're so tense so stressed and it's ready to explode like a volcano and that's liver yangong Rising which means it's liver Chi rebelling up right it's just too much and the person lets out the explosion I call it the volcano because volcano is heat right and so what happened is liver Young comes from liberg stagnation and Rises up and so we get Tempo headache at the end of the day that feels better lately with a cool compress we also feel like really angry or irritable we can't sleep at night we're going to be up between 1 and 3 a.m. liver time for example high blood pressure red eyes red face all this will come up and rise up that's liver yangong rising or liver CH rebalance liver two is the best point to bring the liver Yong down now if you want to bring more energy down you can do kidney one there's other points to add but liver two is the best one yes okay so those are two excess patterns let's look at the deficiency pattern this is easy CH deficiency main symptoms is fatigue weak pulse pale Tong easy fatigue weak pulse pale Tong that is a basic Chi deficiency symptom now it can affect different organs the main Yin organ for example if it is lung Chi deficiency we have still weak pulse pil tone and fatigue however we also have weak immune system and we get sick a lot and it's very hard for us to recover we catch cold and flu all the time if it's heart sheat deficiency it's tendency to be anxious and sweat easily without being hot right it's just anxiety leading to sweat because heart is in charge of controlling sweat so hard shei deficiency main symptoms is anxiety palpitation leading to sweat without feeling h plus fatigue we force P if it's a spling deficiency we're going to have loose tools for appetite those are going to be your main one adding up to it if it's Kidney Chi deficiency we may have incontinence we may have seminal emission and have tendency to obviously be fatigue as well right those because kidney is in charge of the lower Gates opening and closing the Lower Gate when it's deficient it doesn't have that ability so we have incontinent seminal emission Etc that's how we look at it basic CH deficiency points would be stomach 36 spleen six Ren six and D20 those are the best to be as a basic to raise CH when it's deficient after that you can add up depending if it's affecting the heart the lung the sing the kidney what organ it's affecting and then you can go more in depth depending on each patients in the symptom the last one is piny sinking I think we all know that's the easiest one to understand it's past Spen sheet deficiency it's now sinking the only organ that can sink is spleen because Spen is in charge of raising Chi uh because Spen is in charge of raising Chi energy we are going to be very fatigue but past trei deficiency trei sinking is exhaustion like you really exhausted it's not even fatigue it's exhaustion right it's chronic fatigue syndrome very hard to even get out of bed and then we may have prolapse of organ an so a bearing down sensation in the abdominal region prolapse of organ can be transverse colon that's prolapsing bladder it could be uterus right it could be rectum so that's prolapse coming down it could also be drooping of the isid because remember the upper eyelid are connected to spleen in Chinese medicine and so when they're drooping that's a spleen she sinking as well the best combo for that is spleen six R six and do2 lift that energy and then you can add up more Co depending and also formulas depending on what we want to do for that I have a great video on adrenal fatigue in my YouTube channel that you're welcome to go and watch and I explain everything about adrenal fatigue treatment and everything else so it's a good it's a good video to to see as well diagnosis has to be the hardest part of Chinese medicine we always say there is no wrong treatment in TCM only the wrong diagnosis this is why I created my second book chinesee medicine made easy to make it easy to grasp using a lot of colorful visuals I have included all chines medicine Foundation yinyang FY Five Element zong Fu organ all of it all diagnosis of course including tongue and pulse practice case studies to help you improve your skills as well as give you access to my online fillable intake form to use with your own patients you can download the digital version on on any device and it comes with many video links to complement it or if like me you like to read a real book The Heart copy ships all over the world before you invest in this book you can download a sample of it to make sure that the format of the book is everything you were looking for because I want to make sure that you are absolutely benefiting from it listen to what people have to say about my green book Chinese medicine Made Easy the more I read the more I like the book it is simple to follow all information is super organized with great pictures makes memorizing a lot easier this book will definitely make my learning a lot more productive yay so happy to hear that you've done it again you are amazing I wish we had your resources 20 years ago back in TCM school this also makes my day because this is why I do what I've been doing with aupo Academy for quite a few years now to support everyone check out the links in the show notes below or go to my website acupro academy.com and click the shop tab on the menu bar and get your copy today we spend all this time on CH because it's a big subject this one's going to be a little bit more easy I think blood body fluid and Essence are a little bit faster to talk about blood in TCM or is obviously material it's a matter right it's blood we know what blood is now how is it formed it's the same idea of she and blood we have what was given to us which is our congenital blood which is found in kinasin and kidney right and that blood is our blood type so if you're blood type A or B or a or all minus negative positive whatever is your blood type that cannot be changed that's part of what was given by your parents so that is the first thing you were given blood at Birth right and that doesn't change if you have a blood disorder like hemophilia that's a birth blood disorder that was passed on Mak sense okay so that's formation of prec congenital blood that's formed and now by the kidneys however then we have po congenital just like when with Chi and how do we get blood we get blood that is produced by Spen and stomach or the digestive system right because blood is all minerals so for women for example and I'll say women because they have way more tendency to be anemic than men because they lose blood every month women have tendency to be low in fertin magnesium zinc all of us can be low in Mineral and that's affecting our blood right so we need to have all the nutrients that give us enough fertin and magnesium and zinc and all the minerals so our blood is of good quality and we produce more blood with those nutrients through the sped and stomach or the ji the digestive system okay so that's how we produce postnatal blood in general it is formed in the heart because the heart is in charge of blood circulation heart moves blood through CH because Chi moves blood but heart is in charge of blood circulation we have the blood that is activated by the heart it is produced by the Spen and stomach it is also at the core from the kidney right so all those are going to be involved when there is blood issue in Chinese medicine perspective the function of blood is easy it moisten and nourish the body that's a basic one because blood is part of body fluid so it nourishes the body through like I said fa and zinc and magnesium and all the minerals that are found in our blood in moisten with oxygen that we breathe in that goes into our cells our blood cells right so it's really important that blood that we have right it's vital without blood we can't survive right Hemorrhage hello so that's the function the main function the second main function which is different and very specific to Chinese medicine is blood is the material basis of the mind so in Chin's medicine blood is part of what is going to dictate or heart mind function that's why it's really important to understand that when we talk about the heart incm and we always say oh the heart is in charge of the mind and if you have anxiety the heart is affected if you can't sleep at night the heart is affected that's because the heart is in charge of blood circulation it is really going to bring a lot of blood cells and oxygen to the brain so what's interesting about this is that it's really important to know that if there is any mental health issue being anxiety being something really far like Alzheimer uh something like depression something like any kind of mental health that's going to affect the mind it is related to the blood in TCM and this is why we have a lot of points in trans medicine that nourish blood that allows to calm the mind for example spleen six spleen six is one of the best point to calm the mind and it's really good for blood purposes so is Spen four SP four is really good for anxiety and it's connected to the charm Meridian the ch vessel which is the Sea of blood so connected to blood as well right so it's really important to know that anything in the mind blood is going to be connected to it okay so when it comes to blood pathology what pathology we can have it's either blood deficiency blood stasis blood heat so when we talk about blood deficiency it's a deficiency of course blood stasis and blood heat will be excess because it doesn't say deficiency so blood deficiency for me is super easy it's p and p pale and poor pale lips pale face pale tongue they are everything they are nails and it's poor poor sleep what kind of poor sleep is blood deficiency it's when you cannot fall asleep it's not when you wake up later it's when you cannot fall asleep it takes you two to three hours to fall asleep that's blood deficiency poor energy fatigue of course poor vision so when there's blood deficiency there's floaters there's spots there's blurred vision night blindness people that don't see very well at night that is a blood deficiency dizziness can also be a blood deficiency however not all dizziness are blood deficiency I know that's the fun part so that's a pale and poor right the pulse is going to be very thin right we're going to have pale and poor poor memory as well that is going to come up poor Focus poor concentration that is also a blood deficiency so pale and PO is a blood deficiency that's easy to remember that way and of course we have to nourish blood so yes we can do Point like spleen four spleen six right depending which organ is affected liver eight if it's liver for pale Nails Vision issue that's more liver numbness as well so tingling in pins and needles are usually a blood deficiency does not have blood flow and that is often stemming from stagnation okay from blood stagnation blood stag can lead to blood deficiency if that's the case then we will to move blood and we want nourish blood however if someone is really blood deficient in TCM it doesn't mean they're anemic in the western sense however if someone is anemic they are blood deficient in TCM okay so doesn't go both ways but acupuncture is going to help however if the person is anemic and the blood deficiency is actually a western a diagnosis that's anemia you can do all the acupuncture in the world if you're not taking fertin and having the fertin level back up aabon is not going to do it blood stagnation is also p and p but this one is purple and pain so purple and pain meaning purple lips purple tongue purple nails purple bruise let say someone you bumped yourself into something and then now you have a hematoma or you have a bad bruise and you're like wow how did I do that but if you fall let's say you went biking and you fall and you have a big bruise you know what happened and that is the purple the pain when it comes to blood stasis is a fixed stagnant pain so it's fixed meaning it's in one area if you fall off your bike and you fall on your hip and the hematoma or the bruis is on your hip that's where the pain is dis Menara having painful menstruation the pain is fixed it's in the uterus area if we having a migraine that is on one side of the head and doesn't go anywhere that is fixed stabbing pain so not only that pain is fixed but it's really strong it's stabbing it's so painful that's a blood stasis so it could be acute like you hurt yourself like physical trauma to the body or it could be chronic and keep coming back we still have to look for the root CS however it's always purple and pink okay now the best thing to do is to do large intestine four best point to move blood unless the person is pregnant because it's counterindicated liver three and L4 are great to move Chi and blood because liver three moves chi Chi moves blood L4 moves blood the four gates open the gate let's move everything after that it's figure out where the pain is and treating the pain itself if it's this malaria the best points are spleen eight and kidney five they're really good for pain in the uterus for example it's looking at where the pain is and treating that and addressing that the last one is heat in the blood or blood heat it's interchangeable it depends on the translation of the book it means the same thing so blood heat or heat in the blood heat in the blood and splitting not holding the blood with than the blood vessel main symptoms is bleeding or I should say abnormal bleeding okay when it is heat in the blood we're going to have AB normal bleeding plus heat symptoms like rapid pulse large and big like a red tongue with a yellow coat most of the time and then we're going to feel hot maybe there's fever if it's acute or we're going to have Heat sign for example if there is abnormal rectal bleeding it will Be Blood heat or heat in the blood if the bleeding is burning and it's very smelly when there are smelly stools that is heat okay now if someone is rectal bleeding and they're very fatigu after and there's no smell to it and it's bare blood that's a SP not holding the blood within the blood vessel okay so that's the difference it's the same with if there is heavy heavy Mia which is heavy flooding of mansturbation if the flooding is the person is very tired very weak very pale there's spiny deficient not holding the blood within the blood vessel that's a different story but if they are heavy bleeding and the blood is quite smelly like a metal smell to it also the person's really overheated they're very hot they have a red tongue the rapid pulse that is heat in the blood and that happens often to liver or pericardium those are the two that are going to have heat in the blood and what do we do we clear the Heat and what are the best point for heat in the blood CLE 10 and bladder 40 those are going to really calm that heat in the blood those are your Basics after that you can clear heat in general with large Ines 11 for example and then go to which area is affected right if it's something that's affecting like flooding of mensturation versus rectal versus nose bleed any kind of bleeding you're going to have to go more in depth but your basics of spin t blood of 40 and then L1 to clear the heat yes good that is for blood see how that was way faster than she body fluid and TCM very simple how do we get body fluid well that's easy you have to drink and eat food that brings you body fluid there is no other way right when people say oh if someone's really body fluid deficient what acupuncture Point can you do I'm like none there's no acupuncture Point that's going to give you more fluid if you have no water in your your tub you need to put water in the tub so we need to ingest the fluid and that's done through lubrication and hydration I'm going to talk about this in a minute in Chinese medicine the fluids are coming from outside from drinking and food right the function of fluids which are called Jin and Y are to nourish and moisten the body which makes sense if we have a nice moisten skin we have enough fluids right this is how it works now what's interesting is we have Jin in yet so Jin is the thin fluids and the thin fluids are going to moisten our skin anything that's clear fluid like saliva tears and sweat and it's part of Blood also that gin circulates more in the external part in the way chi in the defensive Chi that's what gives us a nice skin or not right the Y is the thick fluid it's the gastric juice it's the brain it's the eyes it's everything the marrow it's all the thick heavy dense fluid we have and that's that is going to be circulating into our organ or Yin Chi the nutritive chi right it's nourishing the thick organs make sense we have two kind of fluids I call them the water fluid and the oil fluid right think of that way right the thick is oily and the water is more like thin and fluid right make sense the only thing that can happen is we can have body fluid fluid deficiency or body fluid excess those are the only two things that happen it's very simple body fluid deficiency everything dries up dry eyes dry mouth dry skin dry stool dry hair everything is dry right so body fluid deficiency is going to cause dryness however other things will happen like spasm Charlie horse or a really bad cramp in the back of your Cal nobody likes that it's just so not a good feeling and that's when we are most of the time dehydrated right so often it's lack of potassium potassium comes from hydration from food and drinks so when someone is having a lot of cramps we need to say okay we need to hydrate now what's interesting also is that if someone is dehydrated there is two root cause either it's hydration from electrolyte so maybe they're not drinking enough fluids water but also water high water containing foods like cucumbers got lots of water in it watermelon has lots of water in it right really electrolyte lemon has high electrolyte as well we need hydration but we also need lubric for a lot of women in their 50s when they're heating menopause or they all say my skin is drying I feel like everything is dry and often the doctors or the healthcare practitioner will recommend vitamin E what is vitamin E it's a fat soluble vitamin vitamin D is the same thing as well right so we need food that is going to lubricate right we need what I call Fatty lubricating food which means seeds and nuts vitamin E is and almonds right avocado is really good to lubricate as well anything that is going to give you good fats wild salmon is good for that as well good fatty healthy nutrient food and hydrating High electrolyte food is going to help for B fluid deficiency huun is not going to do it absolutely not now other symptoms are going to be ey twitch and the ey twitch comes from blood deficiency so blood and body fluid are together blood is a substance that has body fluid into it right this is why we have minerals into it it comes from mineral so often if we have eye twitch it's a body fluid that comes from blood deficient then we can nourish the blood but also address the body fluid deficiency make sense okay the other option if we don't have defic is to have tooo much body fluid and I think in North America most people have too much body fluid which is called excess dampness we all have excess dampness often so I'll start by saying the would cause of this could be many one of the basic one is eating too much damp food which means sugar processed food Dairy this is really high in mucus in forming depth so I'm from France I like cheese I don't drink milk I'm not a big Dairy person for like milk and yogurt and all this but I like cheese so I have to step back if I feel like I'm mucousy you I have too much dampness right because that's something that affects me of course so in general Dairy is a big one like I said sugar processed food will create more dampness in the body and so we have different dampness again right we have the dampness that is going to be water retention like edema but we also have mucus like having constant postnasal drip having greasy skin having greasy scalp coughing FL having water retention like bloating or edema of the lower leg feeling puffy I should say being puffy in anywhere that's water retention now there's different things to be done with that sometimes we want to dry the dampness and you could use food for that like a ginger is very good to dry mucus to dry the dampness for example or sometimes she want to eliminate the dampness by peeing it out that's a diuretic way right so dandelion for example or asparagus agree to bring the dampness out in a way that we pee it out right so that if it's really edema that works really well for example to have like dandelion salad or asparagus make sense when we have a lot of water retention and I see that a lot with pregnant women of course because that's pregnant women have to inent to retain fluid in general you can use acup puncture it is going to help spleen n is your best point CBL 34 is amazing stomach 40 if there's flam on top of it and there's lots of other points you can use to clear the excess dampness depending where it's located however it won't be enough it's going to feel good for a little while but it won't last if the root cause is eating the food that creates dampness make sense so we have to always address the food with the body fluid being excessive deficiency because that's the main cause most of the time and the last last but not least one of the most important none of them are more important than the other we need them all but Essence or Jing in Chinese medicine to me when I learned Chinese medicine this resonated with me so much I really grasp into Essence it made so much sense to me as I said when I first started I wasn't blessed with great Essence plus I was born 10 weeks early so I was unfinished I didn't have all my Essence to start with but what's interesting is Essence is our congenital DNA it's what's given to us by our parents right so when they came at the time of conception they gave us their best health or worst Health depending birth PS are going to give you your congenital DNA that's Essence right and that's called prenatal Essence which encompasses you and Chi or prenatal Chi right physiological aspect your parents give you your hair color your eyes color everything that will say people will say oh I have my mother's thighs or I have my father's nose that is Essence right we can't change that you could go through surgery and change things but in reality we can't change that by just being right now the second one is postnatal Essence and that's what we do with the life we were given it's the lifestyle we do and have in order to preserve that so I always say there are I have actually a video on this and it's on explaining Essence it's on my YouTube channel on explaining with through three glasses of water Essence we have so much when we were born so for me if I'm compare myself to someone let's say with Down Syndrome their Essence at Birth was less than mine so it was maybe a quarter of a glass mine was maybe half of a glass of essence I had a little bit more theirs was much lower and you can see that because Essence is part of our aging system it's going to predict a lot of how we're going to age and someone that has Down syndrome most average age for Down syndrome is about 44 years old there are some people that go to 60 but it's very rare So their lifespan is limited because they have less Essence unfortunately obviously if they have a good lifestyle and good support from the family they will definitely have a better life and longer shelf life same thing for me I had half a glass let's say right I had didn't have great Essence however if my lifestyle is really preserving that Essence and I'm eating well exercising and there's a balance where it's not about over exercising it's it's about doing it right sleeping enough founding ways to dstress because stress is an aging depleting Essence kind of thing I don't do drugs right I don't smoke I don't do all those things then I'm preserving whatever I was given that half a glass and it's going to slowly diminish as I'm eing however it will diminish much slower than if I did drugs than if I partied all the time than if I ate bad food then I had so much more stress and Trauma another thing is there's things we can control to preserve Essence which is our lifestyle and there's things we can't control which is trauma if we have dealt with trauma we understand that we'll age much faster you guys know that if we get a bad news a parent news as a child they can age overnight and go great overnight this is being documented this is all over the world we can gray overnight from the shock and the trauma of an event right that ages us much faster so trauma is out of our control we can't do anything about it but the lifestyle we can to try to preserve our Essence now if someone is born with great Essence like they are healthy they were born healthy they never were sick as a child they just had a few cold and flu but nothing major they grew to be this very strong person and adult but then they go and make choices that are not going to preserve and support that great Essence I always say that's a shame because you were born with more essence you are in a way and a bit luckier so preserve it right do everything you can because you are at an advantage compared to someone that has a disadvantage with having to work a little bit harder to preserve that Essence so this is very much TCM the function of essence is to grow develop and keep us aging properly that's the function as in pregnancy Essence being good for development of the brain of the body Child Development growth pregnancy conception etc etc so that's what essence is in charge and it's found within the kidneys that's why the TCM kidneys are in charge of that whole growth aging system that's why I always say it's connected to aging Essence cannot be excess it can only be deficiency right that's the only way we're going to slowly diminish it but some of us are going to diminish faster so if I have a new patient that comes in and they're 24 years old that they have osteoporosis already and they have gray hair already and I've had patients like this they have had miscarriages over and over like three four five six seven times their body is Essence deficient it's going to give me clues right so if they were EMB braces of the child there's less Essence and someone has their teeth straight their whole life so I ask patient sorry I'll ask patients that question you know your teeth are beautiful were you born that way or did you have braces that gives me clues if a man is 24 years old and he's already lost half of the hair on his head is's balding that is in essence deficiency that's usually passed on and his dad probably the same thing happened right so it's looking at someone that's aging faster than the biological age when they were born right there's always a level and the degree of essence deficiency fertility issue if a man has low morphology like zero morphology meaning you can't conceive that's an Essence deficiency right low count is less of a problem but it's still a bit of an Essence deficiency low motility the guys are not moving properly that's a liberry stagnation that's not hard that's easy to treat so look at that right if a woman has issue with fertility issue we have to look is this a blood deficiency or is this a Essence deficiency i' rather be a blood deficiency because we can treat that much easier than Essence right it's very hard to change the essence is just preserving it so how do we preserve Essence well the best way is lifestyle right with TCM perspective you can obviously educate the patient and then you can use for to Tony the kidney and preserve the kidney like you could use kidney 3 kidney 6 right you could use kidney n if the person is pregnant to give good Essence to the baby kid9 is called a beautiful baby point it's really good for pregnancy and so you know we could do all that we could do points to access essence essence circulates in the eight extra vessels so we can use SPS to access Essence like long seven which acts as the ren vessel right the conception vessel so this is what we can do to help however lifestyle is going to be a huge impact specifically stress it's really important that the person found ways to d-stress because stress is always going to be there make sense so that's for the kidney Essence deficiency when it comes to the four vital substances it's it's a lot to take it's a big lecture usually but what we have to remember is there is a lot we can do to help patients and number one is educate the patient and try to explain to them how we are a guide and we're here to educate and help them in their journey and support them but they have to do the work as well we can't do this just by ourselves they have to do that as well thank you so much for spending your time with me today I truly hope you benefited from this episode and I would love for you to share it with a friend that may benefit from it as well follow the show leave a review and if you want more go to my website acupro academy.com I have tons of resources there with treatment protocols case studies free courses and so much more and connect with me on all social media at aupo Academy I'm on YouTube Instagram Facebook X Pinterest and Linkedin and Tik Tok and no matter what keep rocking it using TCM please listen to the disclaimer because the acupro show podcast and material shared through acupro Academy which is a sub division of Natural Health sense Incorporated are designed solely for educational and entertainment purposes the utilization of information from this podcast or any Associated material is at the user's discretion and risk this content is now meant to replace the guidance of an acupuncturist chines medicine doctor medical doctor physician or any qualified professional nor is it a substitute for proper diagnosis or treatment users are strongly advised not to ignore or postpone seeking medical advice for any existing medical condition with their health care professional regarding any health concerns