by Dr. Josh Axe
Just as a tree thrives with exposure to sun, rain, and rich soil, your body is strengthened by positive emotions, nourishing food, and a wholesome balance of activity and rest. And here’s the truly remarkable thing: None of that requires a drug. By replacing inflammation-promoting foods with regenerative foods, by turning toxic emotions into positive ones, by moving more and working through past trauma, you have the capacity to bounce back from almost anything.
How identifying the underlying cause can help you find a cure
In 2012, Stephanie, a busy mom and healthcare provider with a thriving practice, came to my functional medicine clinic complaining of fatigue and thinning hair. As we chatted, she mentioned that she’d been diagnosed with hypothyroidism a couple of years earlier—another classic outcome of being too “cold” internally. Her Western medical doctor had prescribed Synthroid, a synthetic thyroid hormone medication that can cause hair loss, mood swings, fatigue, tremors, and headaches. It didn’t help. So Stephanie saw a naturopathic doctor, who recommended that she reduce her sugar intake, eat more veggies, and take vitamin B12 and selenium as well as a probiotic to promote gut health. When she still didn’t bounce back, she made an appointment with me.
I explained that from the Chinese medicine perspective, hypothyroidism is caused by two underlying problems: low qi (or vital energy) and low yang (I’ll explain what this means in more detail later, but yang is related to energizing hormones like cortisol and adrenaline)—both of which can be traced to overtaxed adrenal glands. Your adrenals are sort of like your body’s battery. Located on top of both kidneys, these tiny glands produce hormones, like cortisol, that help your body respond to stress, and also regulate blood pressure, metabolism, and other vital functions. When you’re bombarded by stress, your adrenals are perpetually turned on, which eventually causes them to stop functioning optimally. In other words, low thyroid is the most obvious symptom of a deeper, underlying imbalance.
To restore Stephanie’s internal equilibrium, I suggested she eat dark-colored, qi-building foods like cherries, figs, brown rice, miso soup, and bone broth, as well as yang-building foods like grass-fed beef, walnuts, cinnamon, fenugreek, and rosemary. To support her adrenals, I had her take ashwagandha and astragalus, herbs that help the body cope with stress.
Stephanie was a committed runner, but running doesn’t build yang as well as strength training and interval training, so I asked her to switch to those workouts. What’s more, she was drained emotionally, because she was working long hours and said yes to every volunteer opportunity at her child’s school. To help her establish better boundaries, I suggested she practice saying no so she could create time for relaxation and downtime with her family, get more sleep, and recharge her body, mind, and spirit.
When I saw her three months later, her hair was thicker and she had more energy. Within another few months she’d gone off the thyroid medication, and she was feeling great. She was surprised at how my simple suggestions had turned her health around, but I wasn’t. Synthroid treats the symptoms of hypothyroidism, but it doesn’t cure it—and neither did the healthy dietary changes the naturopath recommended.
Taking prescription medication is like taking the bulb out of your car’s glowing check-engine light instead of having a mechanic look under the hood to identify the source of the problem. Ancient remedies, on the other hand, fix the engine so it can function optimally. These time-tested approaches to healing restore balance to your whole system—body, mind, and spirit.
While Western medicine rarely takes emotions into account, ancient healers respected the power our emotions have to both heal and harm our health. Intuitively, we all know this to be true. When you’re worried or anxious, you might get an upset stomach. When a child has a nightmare, they often wet the bed. Why is that? It’s because fear causes dysfunction in the kidneys and bladder. Anxiety affects the heart and brain, raising your blood pressure and clouding your thinking. And you’ve undoubtedly heard someone called an “angry drunk.” People who drink to excess are more likely to become belligerent, because alcohol causes liver toxicity—and anger is related to the liver.
And grief can cause all manner of physical suffering, because it hampers the immune system. I had a patient who developed autoimmune disease after her daughter—her best friend—left for college. I encouraged her to schedule regular times to connect with her daughter, join a women’s group, and adopt an immune-strengthening diet with plenty of chicken broth, garlic, and ginger. I also asked her to focus more on the future, whether that meant making fun plans or setting long-term goals for herself. Over the course of the next year, her health issues diminished drastically—and she felt happier and more at peace with her new stage of life.
When your body gets worn down by negative emotions, like worry, anger, or stress, you’re more vulnerable to a host of illnesses and ailments. Some early Western practitioners were aware of this. In 1895, Daniel David Palmer, the founder of chiropractic medicine, said, “The human body gets sick as a result of excessive trauma or toxins or thoughts, or a combination of these agents.”
Far earlier, ancient practitioners not only recognized the inextricable links between body, mind, and spirit, they viewed the body itself as a complex network of interconnected parts, rather than separate systems or organs. They understood that if one system of the body is out of whack, the rest will eventually be affected as well. As a result, they developed treatments designed to restore the whole system to health. Ancient Chinese practitioners, for instance, developed acupuncture (using tiny needles to treat the underlying cause of symptoms) and cupping, which involves the use of suction cups to increase blood flow to sore or injured muscles; both approaches are effective because they clear energy blockages and reestablish the healthy flow of qi throughout your body. They bring your entire system back into balance.
Conventional Western practitioners argue that since you can’t find qi in the body, you can’t explain how acupuncture works, and, as a result, it must be ineffective—despite the fact that studies show that acupuncture is an extremely effective treatment for numerous conditions. But they fail to acknowledge that we don’t fully understand how or why many commonly prescribed medications “work,” including antidepressants, lithium (a common treatment for bipolar disorder), and even the medicine cabinet staple acetaminophen. As Peter Imming, a German pharmaceutical chemist, told The Scientist website, “If we threw out all the drugs for which we do not know the molecular mechanisms, we wouldn’t be left with a lot.”2
What’s more, ancient treatments have stood the test of time precisely because they are effective—and their effectiveness is more widely recognized today. For instance, in spite of the naysayers, acupuncture is increasingly covered by health insurance plans, and cupping is becoming popular among professional athletes, who say it helps keep them in top shape for competitive events.
My ancient remedies approach also utilizes treatments from Ayurveda. This four-thousand-year-old system of natural healing originated in India and is based on the premise that there are three doshas, or energies: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. Ayurvedic healers believe that all disease and illness come from an imbalance in these three energies. Like TCM and ancient Middle Eastern medicine, it aims to cure the root cause of disease by healing one’s thoughts, beliefs, and lifestyle habits with strategies like diet, stress reduction, and herbal remedies that bring the body into balance.
Traditional Western medicine sees illness only through the lens of measurable physical dysfunction, which reduces our bodies, and our suffering, to one-size-fits-all issues—as if we were all identical, with lives, emotions, physiological makeup, and DNA that are indistinguishable from one another. But the truth is that no two bodies or sets of circumstances are exactly the same. That’s one reason I became such a strong proponent of ancient medicine. By striving to get at the root cause of your unique, personal problems, any treatment I recommend will be tailored to you and your needs and your life. And as ancient remedies gently heal an
d strengthen your body, they create improved equanimity, well-being, and overall health that can last for a lifetime.
Pinpointing the underlying cause, and cure, of disease
According to TCM, certain types of underlying imbalances are the root cause of all disease. Based on that fundamental belief, ancient Chinese physicians developed a comprehensive philosophy for understanding these imbalances. In this section, I will introduce you to this paradigm, along with the most common internal influences that can become unbalanced, including qi, blood, yin, yang, coldness, heat, dampness, dryness, stagnation, and wind. When I first heard these concepts, I thought they sounded a little strange. But after working with the TCM approach for years, I have learned how profoundly helpful this approach is for understanding health and illness, as well as healing diseases—even those that are, from the Western perspective, considered impossible to cure.
Here are twelve core diagnostic and healing concepts from ancient Chinese medicine, along with quick lists of foods that can bring more balance to your body if you have deficiencies or weaknesses in any of these areas. You’ll hear more about these concepts in the coming chapters. Understanding them can revolutionize the way you think about your health. What’s more, if you visit a holistic doctor who practices Chinese medicine (and I hope you do), the following information will give you some background and context so you have a better grasp of the approach.
Qi
Qi (pronounced “chee”) is like your body’s internal battery. A fundamental precept of traditional Chinese medicine, the word translates roughly to “life force” or “vital energy.” Qi circulates throughout your body along pathways known as meridians, which connect all the organ systems. Acupuncture and acupressure help restore qi by treating specific meridian points throughout the body. Other ancient medical systems have similar concepts. In India, internal energy is called prana; in Japan it’s known as ki; in Greece it’s pneuma; and in parts of Africa it’s known as ashe. In scientific terms, qi is similar to adenosine triphosphate (ATP), an energy-carrying chemical found in the cells of all living creatures. Like qi, ATP provides energy for everything from muscle contractions to nerve impulses. The organs most closely associated with qi are your adrenal glands, which produce energy-boosting hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. No matter the medical tradition, the underlying idea is this: When your internal battery is powered up, your body functions more efficiently, and you’re better able to fight off cold and flu bugs that come your way. But like the battery in your phone, qi requires regular recharging. This vital, internal life force is fueled by healthy lifestyle habits, from emotional strategies like building self-esteem, finding your life purpose, and reducing fear to physical habits like getting plenty of sleep and practicing deep breathing exercises. Some signs of a qi deficiency include thyroid disorders, adrenal fatigue, irregular periods, infertility, weakness, anxiety, and susceptibility to infections.
Qi-boosting foods: Berries (especially goji berries), cherries, figs, green leafy vegetables, watercress, carrots, squash, pumpkin, maca, peas, lentils, beans, rice, quinoa, oats, chestnuts, coconut, miso, bone broth, grass-fed beef, pasture-raised chicken, wild-caught fish, free-range eggs, and all medicinal mushrooms, such as shiitake, reishi, and chaga.
Qi-boosting herbs: Rehmannia, ashwagandha, astragalus, rhodiola, fo-ti, schisandra, codonopsis, ginseng, cordyceps, reishi, licorice root, turmeric, fenugreek, and cinnamon.
Qi-depleting foods: Cold foods, like dairy-based ice cream, raw vegetables, and ice-cold drinks; refined sugar, hydrogenated oils, dried tropical fruit, alcohol, and excessive salt.
Blood
In TCM, blood is not only in charge of transporting oxygen and nutrients around the body, it is also responsible for warming, moisturizing, and nourishing our organs and is closely related to cardiac and mental health. According to TCM, blood houses our spirit, which is why the ancients were fond of saying things like “Love with all of your heart.” Blood is created by the spleen and then moved throughout the body by the liver. With so many functions, it’s no surprise that a lack of blood or undernourished blood can cause many health issues. This is called blood deficiency and can lead to anemia, fatigue, weakness, pale skin, light-headedness, poor memory, and insomnia.
Blood-building foods: Cherries, figs, goji berries, prunes, coconut, oats, beets, chard, kale, carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, spinach, pumpkin, eggs, liver, bone broth, grass-fed beef, turkey, venison, wild-caught salmon, sardines, walnuts, chickpeas, and ginger.
Blood-building herbs: Dong quai, peony, astragalus, cinnamon, parsley, and rehmannia.
Blood-depleting foods: Salads, raw fruit, raw vegetables, cucumber, excessive fruit, watermelon, tofu, dairy, refined sugar, chocolate, and ice-cold water.
Yin and Yang
Yin and yang are words you’ve undoubtedly heard. You might have even seen the symbol—a circle divided into two halves (one black, one white) by a curving line—that signifies the concept in Chinese medicine. But here’s what that symbol means: Yin and yang represent the balance between the opposing forces of life—work and rest, for instance, or dark and light. Physically, it refers to the balance of hormones, with yin being calming “female” hormones, like estrogen, and yang being energizing “male” hormones, like testosterone. We associate yin and yang with Chinese medicine, but their foundational principles have far older roots. In fact, a number of historians believe that certain Eastern medicine philosophies started with Abraham, who is mentioned in several religious texts, including the Bible. Genesis 25:6 states, “To his sons… Abraham gave gifts and sent them eastward.” Those gifts are thought to include medicine and healing practices, like incense made from herbs—and “eastward” meant India and Asia, where Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine began. And the concepts of yin and yang appear early in the book of Genesis, when God created Heaven and Earth, light and dark, night and day, male and female. Here are more examples of yin and yang:
From the Chinese perspective, in order to have strong qi, you need a wholesome balance of yin and yang. Signs of a yin deficiency include dry skin and hair, night sweats, excessive thirst, muscle aches, weakness (especially in the knees and lower back), poor memory, anxiety, irritability, restlessness, and poor sleep. A yang deficiency, on the other hand, can cause low energy, low sex drive, low testosterone, muscle weakness, cold feet and hands, or a cold that pervades the whole body.
Yang-boosting foods: Cherries, dates, garlic, raspberries, squash, carrots, pumpkin, grass-fed beef, lamb, trout, venison, chicken, fatty fish, eggs, sweet potatoes, oats, quinoa, black beans, kidney beans, root vegetables, hot peppers, shiitake mushrooms, hard cheeses, pistachios, walnuts, cocoa, and sea salt.
Yang-boosting herbs: Fenugreek, ginseng, codonopsis, cordyceps, black pepper, cinnamon, turmeric, rosemary, and deer antler.
Yang-depleting foods: Raw vegetables, salads, soy, refined sugar, ice cream, processed foods, and excessive salt.
For yin deficiency, see the dryness recommendations on here, since the patterns overlap.
Cold and Heat
Cold and heat are two of the six “evils” or “pernicious influences” in Chinese medicine (the other four are detailed in the following two sections) that affect physical and emotional yin-yang balance and can lead to disease. Cold can invade your body from the environment or through a cold virus, but it can also be brought on by anxiety and fear. It manifests as fatigue, loose stools, poor digestion, slow metabolism, cold extremities, poor circulation, and getting sick easily. Traditional Chinese nutrition categorizes foods as hot or cold—based not only on their temperature but also on the way they affect the body—and uses them to balance the body’s internal system. For instance, warming herbs and foods activate your immune system. When I first opened my clinic, an older man who lived in the country came to see me. He was sniffling and sneezing, and I said, “Hey, are you doing anything for that cold?” He replied, “I’m drinking hot toddies, with whiskey, cinnamon, and honey.” I prefer alcohol-free treat
ments, but in theory, hot toddies make sense. Whiskey is the hottest type of liquor, and cinnamon is a warming herb. As I mentioned earlier in the chapter, foods’ colors are significant, too. Ancient practitioners used chicken broth instead of beef broth to treat a cold because it’s yellow—and yellow foods are powerful immune boosters known to strengthen the lungs and colon. Ginger and garlic are yellow as well.
Warming foods: Cherries, dates, peaches, bone broth, lamb, grass-fed beef, venison, chicken, squash, pumpkin, mustard greens, basil, garlic, dill, onions, rice, oatmeal, nut butter, pistachios, walnuts, pine nuts, butter, coffee, chocolate, and red wine.
Warming herbs: Cayenne pepper, black pepper, cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, holy basil, cloves, and oregano.
Foods to avoid: The cold and cool foods in the chart on here, especially excess fruit, cucumbers, dairy, raw foods, vegetables juices, and ice-cold water.
Excess “heat,” on the other hand, is like running a car engine in a high gear with too little oil and coolant and substandard fuel. It accelerates wear and tear and leads to earlier engine failure. Similarly, eating a diet high in processed foods and sugar, burning the candle at both ends, and suffering from chronic stress cause heat in your body, which often corresponds to inflammation—an underlying driver of just about every chronic health condition you can think of. High blood pressure, rashes, fever, and insomnia are symptoms of excess heat as well.
