The Principles of Yin and Yang

What do you think of when you hear the words "yin and yang". If you're like most people you think of opposites. For those of us practicing Chinese medicine, yin and yang is the whole foundation of our medicine. When yin and yang are in balance, there is health. When out of balance, there is disorder and disease.

Ancient Chinese culture used the description of yin and yang to describe the existing agrarian way of life. Yang relates to activity and the growing cycles of life. The sun is yang. The seasons of spring and summer are yang. On the other hand yin relates to the quiet, contemplative time. The moon is yin. Night time is yin. Autumn and winter are the yin cycles of the year.

Ancient Chinese physicians borrowed from this concept of yin and yang and used it as the foundation for traditional Chinese medicine. Yin relates to blood; yang relates to qi, or energy. The bodies organ systems are either defined as yin or yang depending on their function. Yin and yang form the first of the eight basic principles of Chinese medicine. The remaining six are subsets of yin and yang. The remaining six are cold and hot; deficiency and excess; and, interior and exterior. Cold, deficiency, and interior are considered yin. Hot, excess, and exterior are yang.

What does that mean? Say, you just caught a cold from being outside and you're running a slight fever. If you went to a Chinese health practitioner, your diagnosis would be a yang exterior condition with heat present. If this condition worsened and became pneumonia leaving you fatigued and chilled, then the diagnosis would be a yin, interior cold and deficient condition. The principle of treatment is to restore the yin and yang balance and thus restore health.

So, rather than thinking of opposites the next time you hear the term yin and yang, think of balance and health.

May you live in balance!