What are yin and yang in traditional Chinese medicine?
In Chinese medicine, yin and yang represent the law of polarity, the continual cycle of complimentary forces and energies in our world. Watch Chinese medicine expert, Mao Shing Ni, L.Ac. & PhD, discuss how yin and yang create balance in our lives.
Transcript
MAOSHING NI: The ancient Chinese had needed a way to describe the phenomenons that they see in the universe.
In fact they need to describe a law, the law of polarity. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Two foreign-sounding words, yin and yang. What is that? The polarity says that, listen, there is the positive
and the negative poles. There's all these polar opposites and yet complementary forces at work in our world and our life
every moment of the day and night. How should we describe that? So they came up with these terms called yin and yang.
Yin describes the dark cycle of the 24-hour day, so which would, of course, would be nighttime.
And yang would be daytime. You can extrapolate into the universe. So yang is this bright, sunny side of the slope, the sun.
It's hot. It's male. It's white. And then we look at yin, which is
the dark, the cold, and female. Now, that doesn't mean the females are cold, but it's just another way to categorize
the different kind of energy as compared to the male energy. Once we understand that the world is made
of this polarity of energy-- and what's really unique about it is that the yin and yang has to be integrated.
If it's not integrated, then we have disintegration, which means there's no life. If you don't have male and female coming together,
the sperm and the egg of the female fertilize into an embryo, we would not be here. There would be no life.
If there is no day or night, there wouldn't be life, if there was only darkness, or if there is only light.
We have this continual cycle of alternating yin and yang, the polarity of this energy.
It underlies the pulse of life. Now, if you understand that, then you look within your body,
and you also recognize that, hey, we're a composite of yin and yang energies.
And the manifestation of these energies keep us going. Like, for example, when muscles contract and relax--
when it contracts, it's a form of yang action. And when it relaxes, it's yin. And without muscle contracting or relaxing, guess what?
Your heart can't pump, and you can't walk, and you can't pick up things. You can't do anything. Your body is constantly alternating
between these energies. But remember, balance is key. And what happens when you're out of balance? Well, if your muscle is in perpetual spasm,
that's out of balance. So we need to then try to restore the balance. In this case, we can use acupuncture.
We can massage. We can stretch. We can put heat or cold on it. And that will help to restore it to normal.
If you're feeling feverish, you're really hot, and your face is red, you're constipated, and you find that you're dehydrated--
well, you're just burning up. You're just moving way off into the yang arena, all right? And your yin is kind of being burned out.
So what we need to do is restore. So what do we do? We hydrate, use water as a symbol of yang.
So we hydrate. We cool you down from your fever. We lubricate. We eat lots of foods that are really moisture inducing.
And that helps with your bowels. So everything comes back to normal. When yin and yang are balanced, you are healthy.
You're vital. You're functioning. And you can pursue your life. When your yin and yang is off balance, you are sick
and you're disabled, and worse, you could be dead. That's what yin and yang is all about.
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