Metabolism/digestion/circulation and immune systems
Qi (pronounced ‘chee’) is what gives your physical body the instructions and ability to be here. Whilst this may all sound strange from where you have been trained to think, please keep reading as this acupuncture model explains why and how all things are not as you would like them to be.
Yang Qi is that which allows us to move, metabolise, circulate, hold all of what we have in the right place (blood. organs, veins, babies), be active and stay warm.
Yang Qi governs
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Transformation – ingredients into nutrients (digestion)
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Transportation (circulating what is need in and out of cells, and transforming fluids, around and out)
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Protection – pores opening and closing appropriately, Wei Qi – immunity(gut again),
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Holding all in place and
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Keeping us warm.
This is loosely the role our metabolism (thyroid) is seen to have in western medicine. We live by virtue of our ability to manufacture more Qi. This allows us to maintain our equilibrium in the face of change (homeostatic balance), and to repair and reproduce ourselves.
The energy that allows us to be active, vital and responsive to external stimuli is called Yang Qi.
It roughly corresponds to the western concept of ‘metabolism’.
- allows us to transform food and fluids
- circulates everything
- keeps us warm
- keeps tissues, organs, Blood and babies in place
- protects us from all aspects of harm.
We are nourished by the action of the Spleen Yang
Hence when we lose this energy there are the usual apparent low thyroid problems –
1. We can’t get motivated – we lose our ‘oomph’ and our libido
2. We ‘catch’ everything that is going around – and/or do not seem to recover properly (see Wei Qi)
3. We have less energy – our energy is used up trying to keep us warm. We may be told we have low thyroid symptoms, or/and we’re suffering adrenal fatigue and /or exhaustion
4. We become colder – it is as though our inner furnace has forgotten how to do the job
5. We are unable to keep warm – our ‘oven’ temperature is set too low. We reach for warm and sweet things to try to warm us
6. We are less nourished – we can’t digest/assimilate food well. We have food sensitivities and allergies. Our digestive system starts having hypoglycaemic attacks and we need to keep topping ourselves up, or we get very irritable and we ‘lose the plot’. Conditions of low blood pressure, low blood sugar and low thyroid function result.
7. Everything slows down – we can no longer circulate fluids as well as we could, resulting in growths of nodules and masses – or we dry out. (Yin depleted)
We experience constipation and general fluid build up everywhere, as our entire system slows down. We are told we are ‘ageing’.
This is because when general Yang Qi is compromised, the digestive and other Spleen Qi functions are affected.
This concept is very important to grasp, as it underpins notions of avoiding cold that are common throughout Asian cultures, old wives tales – and this manual.
Further, compromised Yang / Spleen Qi leads to problems in:
- assimilation,
- circulation,
- fluid metabolism,
- plus congestive,
- mucous,
- allergy problems,
- immune deficiencies,
- bleeding,
- prolapses,
- varicosities,
- piles,
- miscarriage,
- early labour,
- incontinence and
- floppy, flabby tissues.
It can also lead to the manufacture of damp and phlegm in the body – seen as:
- infections,
- discharges,
- thrush and cystitis
- mental fogginess,
- lethargy,
- exhaustions of any kind and, in extreme cases,
- epilepsy,
- manias and
- schizophrenias.
The messes caused by compromised Yang Qi inside the body can create large life messes outside.
Becoming Yang-depleted is a vicious cycle, as we need to be able to maintain ourselves in the face of change – temperature, food requirements – and if we can’t do this, we become Yin depleted.
Help yourself
You are the only one who actually can.
Maybe ask yourself – What Causes Health? (CLICK)
It is so simple – remember all ‘Old Wives Tales’?
Many of them are the same all over the world – as they held the truth – they may not have known why – and maybe ‘science’ looking at the physical still has not worked it out – the energy runs the body – and you are in charge of what that can do . .
Please consider investing in the Self Help online course as even questions you had no idea needed asking are answered there . .
Much more on this – What Causes Health – as my decades of using this medicine and from teaching acupuncturists (from being a naturopathically minded QI and body aligner) has led me to designing not only courses for them – but all levels of questing people.
As an example – Why does what you eat not matter as the temperature of the food/fluids?
Need that small inner fire to NOT be put out
Follow what all grannies said – it may surprise you. .
