Five Pillars of Traditional Chinese Medicine Explained for Westerners

today i'm going to teach you a little something about the five pillars of chinese medicine we'll learn about the five pillars and i'm gonna give you some tools and resources that you can apply to your life now the five pillars of chinese medicine here they are you ready it is acupuncture this is chinese medicine theory don't go home and start sticking the sewing machine needles in your pressure points you can do acupressure so acupressure acupuncture meridian theory how the body is an electrical system a bioelectrical system and how you can press on a point to influences other areas in your body that is pillar number one now pillar number two is nutrition what you eat food has energy now in chinese medicine we look at food a little different than maybe in western dietetics we're going to look at it in terms of what the food has in terms of energy is it cooling is it warming so for example a friend of mine he came to me and he said man i have horrible allergies my nose is always running i don't know what's wrong i eat really healthy i said what do you eat he said well i have a smoothie for breakfast i have a salad for lunch and then i have a salad and some protein for dinner and that seems pretty healthy but all of those foods or most of them are cooling and his system was cold so i had him warm up his food instead of having a smoothie for breakfast have like hot soup or something that's warming a hot cereal put a little warming herb in there like ginger and it changed everything all around instead of having a salad he had soup for lunch and then his allergies went away so in dietitian and chinese medicine dietetics you're going to look at the individual not the diet but the individual what is that individual need so that's a little something about chinese medicine it's individually oriented what does my energy system need that's pillar number two pillar number three pillar number three qigong qigong practice this is what you can do from your for yourself it is the art of effortless power chi means energy gong means skill now all five pillars are a skill at working with energy but this is movement practice this is breath work this is how to circulate your energy through meditation meditative like movements now for example if you want to clear some stress you can use qigong as a way to clear stress and recharge your mind body system let's do a little practice together just a quick one minute practice to let go of stress and get your energy circulating now you're going to do a little shaking you're just going to shake out your arms and your legs get loose and then i'm going to have you bounce into your heels bounce into your legs this is gonna be the five pumps that you're gonna activate your arms your legs that's four and your spine now you're like a professional athlete getting ready for the big game right and we might not all be professional athletes but we need to get ready for our day we need to have peak performance going into all the things that we need to do for our day so shake it loose transform stress into vitality take a deep breath in through your nose and just a long exhale out through the mouth deep breath in through the nose slow it down relax and just feel that your chi your life force energy has been activated there's been a transformation and now your chi circulates can you feel that buzzing and tingling in your hands or maybe in your body take one more deep breath into that wonderful all right we got two more pillars to go the fourth pillar of chinese medicine is herbs herbal medicine now this has a long history thousands of years and the chinese what they've done is not only used one herb but they've created formulas to put these herbs together again to create balance for the individual so if you're an individual that has too much heat they're going to give you cooling herbs to balance it out if you have too much cold they're going to give you warming herbs and whatever it is you might need it's going to look at what meridian this particular herb goes to to create energy circulation the fifth branch now this might be your your fifth pillar might be your favorite it is massage therapy massage therapy did start in ancient china with reflexology foot reflexology hand reflexology ear reflexology meridians and acupressure that we talked about earlier chinese medicine is all about healing through pleasure so even things like acupuncture or diet or qigong and especially massage your body relaxes and you create a healing effect within your system let's try a little self massage that will help to open up your energy and strengthen your immune system you're just going to tap right here on your chest take 30 seconds with me do this right here right now take 30 seconds take a deep breath these pressure points here are good for your lungs your immune system and for clearing emotional stress take a nice deep breath tap a little stronger right in the center of your chest exhale relax and just feel right here in the center of your chest a nice buzzing and tingling you've stimulated some pressure points that'll help to transform stress into vitality and boost your energy system now these five pillars were based in chinese medicine and this basis was on prevention to prevent problems from arising it was true health care it's not sick care here in the west we have sick care this is true health care so the way the medicine worked get this the way the medicine worked was you paid your health care practitioner and if you got sick or had problems you stop paying now what do you think their motivation is it's to keep you healthy so use these five branches to prevent problems from arising to stay healthy to transform stress into vitality and live your best life hope you enjoyed that and i look forward to seeing you in our next lesson if you did enjoy it click the subscribe ring the little bell to get notifications so that you can get more information like you just received alright thanks so much

Channel: Holden QiGong

Views: 60,175

Keywords: holden qigong, lee holden, teaching qigong, qigong, qigong lessons, life changing, tcm, teaching tcm, five elements, traditional chinese medicine, acupuncture, yoga teacher, alternative health, acupressure, massage, energy healing, energy work, tai chi

Id: Pz_qPvzre50

Length: 6min 55sec (415 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 29 2020