Chinese herbal therapy is one of my main modalities. Chinese herbs might feel foreign to you and you might have questions how it works.
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Simply put, Chinese herbal medicine is all about bringing balance to your inner landscape. If you are too hot, you need cooling herbs. If you are too cold, you need warming herbs. If you tend to have symptoms of upward movements, like nausea or headache, then you need herbs that have downward energy. Because herbs have strong partiality meaning they have distinctive flavors, temperature, and action, which all has specific directions, thus they can rectify one's partiality.
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Chinese herbal therapy brings balance back
by restoring the adequate circulation of Qi energy, blood and fluids in the body.
If the circulation of any of the parameters (Qi, blood, and fluids) impaired, the body shows restrictions which overtime manifests as a set of symptoms.
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Let's say there are two people who have been suffering from chronic fatigue. They both take ginseng because it is known for boosting stamina. One feels better with ginseng, the other feels even worse. Why is that?
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Ginseng is slightly warm and tonifies energy. The one who benefits from ginseng is likely to run cold, have a low appetite, and have digestive issues. Their fatigue is from deficiency, thus they need tonification which gingseng will bring. The one who feels worse with ginseng is likely to run hot, have a robust body type, and have a good appetite. Their fatigue is from stagnation then supplementing energy with ginseng only worsens the current condition. This is a too simplified way of explaining Chinese herbal medicine and in reality it is more complex since it rarely use one single herb.
Chines herbal formulas consist of multiple herbs that address overall imbalance, in other words, a root cause. Since the root causes of chronic fatigue are not the same, ginseng cannot work for both.
Thus in Chinese herbal medicine, recognizing one's pattern is the most important because seemingly the same symptoms might not have the same underlying cause then need to be treated differently.
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My job as an herbalist is recognizing your pattern. I pay attention not only to your symptoms but also your constitutional traits by asking questions, palpating various parts of your body including your abdomen to understand how you have developed a certain pattern.
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I have been studying Chinese herbology with Joon Hee Lee, DSOM, LAc.
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