YIN AND YANG HEALING

by Lawrence Wilson, MD

The ancient Taoists believed that all physical phenomena arose by a splitting of the primordial oneness into two, which they called the yin and the yang. This is basically identical to the start of the Hebrew bible, in which God divided the “void” or oneness into the sky and the earth, dark and light, male and female and so on,

The early Taoist monks took the concept a step further. They found that a very valuable concept in healing was to balance these qualities in the human form. Examples of ways to do this are to eat foods that are yang and foods that are yin in the right proportions.

Other examples are to balance heat with cold and avoid extremes that are hurtful to both the human body and the mind. In fact, the mind, in ancient Chinese formulations, is yin while the body is yang. Similarly, the head is yin and the lower part of the body is yang. In this way, everything was classified as either yin or yang, or some combination.

This system is the most comprehensive available regarding metabolic types. It is the precise basis for our slow and fast oxidizer system of classifying the bodies we work with. Also, we view certain minerals and yin while others are yang. The same is true of vitamins, minerals and indeed, all products we eat, touch or with which come into contact. Now, how can we apply this concept in a simple, accurate way that does not leave more confusion in its wake, a problem with Chinese studies in general. The answer is with a simple, nutritional system based on these concepts. Here are the basics.

BASIC DIETARY CONCEPTS OF YIN AND YANG

Balance in Food Type. This is not the same as a “balanced” Western diet consisting of all four food groups. This is not a bad idea, but it is a purely biochemical or nutritional concept, whereas the Chinese yin-yang concept has to do with qualities of energy that may not be reflected in the chemical components of the food. Both types of balance are helpful.

Let us examine the balance of yin and yang in the diet in more detail. A good starting point, but not the ultimate end, is a science called macrobiotics. This fascinating subject was introduced to America by Mr. Michio Kushi in the 1960s from Japan. It is a very ancient science, dating back thousands of years to the ancient Japanese and Chinese Taoists. It divided food into those that are more yin in nature, versus those of a yang nature. The chart below depicts the way foods tend to fall on a scale from yang to yin:

Salt Eggs Red Meat Poultry Fish Grains Vegetables Fruit Sugar Drugs/Alcohol

YANG NEUTRAL YIN

The most yang foods are salt, coffee, meat, eggs, poultry, fish and cooked root vegetables. Plants that grow beneath the ground are more yang, while those that grow up in the air such as most fruit, are more yin.

Grains, cooked beans and cooked vegetables are in the middle. Raw vegetables, fruit, juices, sugars, alcohol and drugs are more yin (watery and expansive).

Meats. Among animal products, the most yang is egg, followed by lamb and beef. The next most yang are rabbit, chicken, turkey. Fish tend to be more yin, especially today as they contain more mercury and other toxins due to contamination of the oceans.

Grains. Grains that are most yang are millet and buckwheat. Oats, rye, barley and wheat are less yang due to hybridization. These are not as healthful today due to their gluten content, which a lot of people cannot tolerate. Rick and millet are excellent, however, and tolerated well. Corn is less yang, but blue corn is a superior product and well-tolerated in many cases. Amaranth, quinoa, kamut and other grains are fine as well for most people. All the grains are excellent if well-tolerated.

Vegetables. Those that grow below ground are more yang, such as rutabaga, turnip, parsnip,)carrot, onion, garlic, and ginger if used as a food. Those with leaves are less yang but also excellent. These include cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, spinach, turnip greens, mustard greens, kale and others.

Note that the nightshade family are more yin. These include white potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant and all peppers, both sweet red and yellow and green ones and hot peppers. Also, all the squash family, cucumbers and any vegetable containing seeds tend to be much more yin as they are really fruits, not vegetables.

Fruits: The very sweet fruits (figs, dates, bananas) and citrus fruits (orange, lemon, lime, tangerine and grapefruit) tend to be more yin. Grapefruit is best of these, but should be eaten sparingly in this system of understanding food.

Food Processing. Cutting up vegetables, grinding grains, refining food, juicing it or eating food raw is more yin.

Herbs. Herbs may be yin or yang in their effects. In Chinese medicine herbs are applied based on this and other qualities. Needling and the application of moxa are yang techniques.

Vitamins. All isolated food supplements tend to be more yin than whole foods. This includes all powders, liquids tablets and capsules. Water-soluble vitamins are much more yin than fat-soluble ones.

Synthesized or semi-synthetic vitamins tend be more yin than vitamins isolated directly from foods. For example, vitamin C made from corn is semi-synthetic and thus more yin than vitamin C extracted from acerola cherries, a natural source of vitamin C.

The fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K are more yang, Mineral supplements tend to be more yang or neutral. Anything that has been taken apart and processed tends to be more yin.

Cooking And Food Preparation. This is a very important area, as it changes the quality of foods dramatically. Cooking makes food “hotter” or more yang. The higher the cooking temperature and the duration of cooking, the greater the effect.

Raw food, by contrast, is far more yin. One can sometimes feel the effect of yin versus yang in this area, as it is so profound. Yin food preparation, such as soaking in water, causes food to expand, while cooking causes it to contract and dry out eventually.

These are primary yin and yang characteristics that apply to all foods and other items in one’s life. For example, salt contracts and dries so it tends to be very yang. Sugar absorbs water so it tends to be yin.

Cooking with salt adds yang energy. Cooking with wine, vinegar, sugar, honey or sweet spices adds yin energy. This is an entire science all itself that is stressed far too much in macrobiotics, from our perspective. It is important, but there is much more, as you will see, that is not stressed enough.

Food Quality. Food quality alters the yin-yang balance drastically. Below is a chart showing the effect of food quality.

Toxic Yang Chemicals Ideal or Natural Yin Chemicals-sugars & most others

YANG NEUTRAL YIN

This is vital today, when most prepared and processed food has been stripped of its natural nutrients and other components, and hundreds of chemicals have been added. As shown on the chart, most of these chemicals are very yin. Roughly ninety percent are yin in their effect. A few, however, such as salt are yang. Another that is yang is MSG or monosodium glutamate. It is, of course, related to salt. Another is Accent, a common spiced additive loaded with MSG and salt. So it is possible to have yang refined food when it is full of these additives.

Food Quantity. Another modifier of the yin-yang idea is that of food quantity. The more food one eats, the more yin one becomes. This means that a very small amount of sugar, for example, is not too bad. More than a little, however, and sugar has a very damaging effect due to its unbalanced qualities of yin and yang.

For the same reason, one can eat a lot of vegetables, especially if cooked, or even a lot of rice or blue corn chips without causing much upset in the yin-yang balance because these foods are quite balanced to begin with. This concept is very important for Western people who tend to eat a lot of the extreme foods – red meats and sugars. These are okay in small amounts once in a while. When eaten every day, however, they stress the body to the maximum.

Western science is coming to this conclusion as well. That is, too much red meat or any meat, and too much sugar are harmful for health. However, more vegetables and whole grains are fine.

The question arises, however, as to why so many people cannot tolerate even the vegetables and whole grains. This has to do with yin and yang as well. When the body is very yin, or very yang, it requires food that is close to the way it is. Otherwise, the shift that occurs in the body is so extreme that it is uncomfortable. Unless one understands this article fully, one is repulsed by the neutral food, even if it is best for health. This is why some people are repulsed by vegetables, for example, and only want meat for dinner, while others are almost addicted to fruits and juices and don’t want any cooked food, for example. One is very yang, while the other is yin. They are attracted to foods that are similar to the way their bodies are functioning, even though they are not best for overall health.

This brings up another subject, that of the psychology of yin and yang. It will be dealt with later, however.

Overall Food Quantity. Another area that modifies the first yin-yang food chart above has to do with the overall quantity of food eaten, regardless of the particular type of food items. Essentially, the more one eats, the more yin one becomes, no matter what one eats. This can be represented by the chart below:

Less Food More Food

YANG YIN

Eating too much, even of a good thing, therefore makes one more yin. This is helpful for those who are too yang. It is not helpful if one is yin, as are almost all Americans, for example, and much of the world. They become more yin, even if they eat eggs with salt or meat and other yang foods all day long.

In contrast, fasting is extremely yangizing in its effect. However, fasting easily depletes the body of nutrients, at times in a few hours on a total fast, so care must be taken with fasting. This is an entire subject that is discussed in a separate article. Click here to read more about fasting and its proper usage.

Psychology And Yin-Yang Balance. Another powerful factor that modifies the yin-yang balance as much as food in all cases is psychology. This means that certain approaches to life are yin and others are yang.

This matters more than one can imagine. It is why mental-emotional training can be vital for healing. One’s approach to life has to do with the traumas each has experienced, along with innate tendencies, family upbringing, sexual and personal experiences and more. It can have to do with one’s lifestyle, job requirements, marital status and other factors as well.

Here is where a total approach to healing is so important, rather than just diet, or just lifestyle, or just some therapy. Without this total approach, many factors will invariably be missed by the practitioner. It may not be necessary to consider all the lifestyle, dietary and other factors in the beginning, but eventually they matter a lot.

Here we also see why in ancient Chinese holistic medicine the doctor was taught to look at many things, from the shape of the head, the hands and other body parts, to the color of the skin, the tongue, the pulse, the excretions and more. We must do some of this, too, though the hair analysis offers a remarkably simple means to evaluate a person’s overall condition, though it does not always tell us why one is the way he or she is. Along with a few other simple items we will discuss later, it will suffice in most cases.

Yang Psychology. As one may imagine, the fast oxidizer mentality is yang. People with these traits are aggressive, angry overtly or easily angered, and in extreme cases paranoid. The voice tends to be higher, and the person more extroverted, positive in outlook, fun often, and future-oriented rather than past-oriented. Men in particular, but the women, too, in many instances, are quite interested in the opposite sex. They are “hot”, to use a teenager term.

These traits are understood chemically very well and explained in our text, Nutritional Balancing And Hair Mineral Analysis and other articles.

Yin Psychology. Those who are yin are slower, more relaxed, more plodders, less impulsive, less interested in the opposite sex and even homosexual oriented when very yin, introverted, depressed at times, more serious or negative and often think or live in the past.

Most people, of course, are a mixture of these traits, just as their body chemistry is a mixture of various imbalances both yin and yang. However, one or the other usually prevails, and one can tell often from a simple hair mineral analysis, which is the most important approach for each person.

Other Major Influences On Yin And Yang. These include, but are not limited to the time of day, the amount of rest a person has received that night and in general, the amount of water one drinks and the kind of water (distilled is most yin because of less minerals, whereas spring water is yang).

Personal habits matter, such as answering the call of nature quickly. Otherwise one becomes quite depleted and yin. Other factors are the colors one wears, aloneness versus together with others and who the others are, and more. These will be covered in a later article.

With some reflection, the reader may be able to figure out which are yin and which are more yang. Americans are a combination. That is a hint. Eastern people are more yin, but Middle Eastern people, both Jews and Arabs, tend to be more yang and violent in nature.

Environmental Yin And Yang. For example, cold climates are yin while tropical areas are far more yang. Yin climates require more yang foods. This can be why Eskimos do well on a diet of mostly meat and fat, two yang foods.

In contrast, people who live in tropical climates eat fruit and less cooked food, in general. When people in a hot country eat more meat, they become too yang or masculine. This often translates into aggressiveness, for example, as seen in a hot area – the Middle East. So environmental influences matter as well, although they do not alter the basic concepts of dietary balance.

YIN AND YANG HEALING

Western medicine has ignored the concept of balance in healing, but is still a central idea in many Eastern systems of healing, particularly acupuncture. It creeps into Western medicine as normal ranges for blood sugar, blood pressure and many other functions. One knows that too much or too little is indicative of disease.

About ninety-five percent of bodies today are yin in Chinese medical terminology. Many are extremely yin. Yin is associated with the qualities of being cold, still, expanded and chaotic. This corresponds exactly to slow oxidation on a properly performed and interpreted hair mineral analysis. The hair must not be washed at the laboratory and the oxidation rate is determined by calculating the calcium/potassium and the sodium/magnesium ratios. Yin or slow oxidation is defined as a calcium/potassium ratio greater than 4:1 and a sodium/magnesium ratio less than 4/17:1.

WHY ARE SO MANY BODIES YIN?

Traditional Chinese medical practitioners would say the reason for so many yin bodies is deficient chi or vital energy. Many factors can deplete the chi including one's diet, lifestyle, stress and other factors.

In particular, since 1940 or so, several factors have combined to render most bodies extremely yin.

* The atomic bomb, through testing and accidents, has spread radioactive fallout all over the planet. Low-level emissions occur from nuclear power plants, smoke detectors, computer monitors, television sets and fluorescent lamps. Widespread medical and dental use of x-rays, radioactive dyes and radiation therapy add to radiation exposure. Uranium mining is another source of low-level contamination. Fortunately, humanity has learned a lot about radioactive fallout and the safety is improving. However, the problem of rogue nations developing weapons and using them remains a serious problem.

* Industrial development and growth of the chemical industry has spread thousands of yin toxic chemicals throughout the environment. These include toxic metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, aluminum and beryllium. It also includes thousands of toxic chemicals such as solvents, pesticides, plastics and many other classes of compounds.

* Changes in the food supply due to hybrid crops, use of pesticides, superphosphate fertilizers and widespread food refining have made the food more yin and added thousands of yin toxic chemicals to the food. For example, wild fruit, like crab apples, are small, hard and not too sweet. Cultivated fruit is often larger and sweeter (more yin).

* Government support for drug medicine, especially the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in America in 1967 and similar socialized programs in other nations, have resulted in tremendous use of yin chemicals as medicines. Almost all prescription drugs are yin. This includes most popular drugs such as antibiotics, anti depressants and many others. Surgery and radiation therapy are also extremely yin.

* Recreational drugs including marijuana, heroine, alcohol, tobacco, ecstacy and other psychedelics are very yin. Much drug use results from biochemical imbalances in the body that are not addressed by conventional medical professionals.

* Planetary cycles play a role. "The age of aquarius" is not just the name of a song. It is a planetary position in the 25,000-year cycle of our solar system through the Milky Way as the galaxy revolves around our central sun located in the Pleiades. It will last about 2000 years. Its qualities are a time of change, reflection, questioning and the chaos that goes with it. It began around 1950/ and will last until about 3150.

MORE ABOUT YIN AND YANG

There is some disagreement among acupuncturists and those who study oriental philosophy regarding what is yin and what is yang. Most agree, however, that yang is contracted, hot, masculine, active, aggressive, salty, loud, red in color and under the earth as opposed to above. Yin is cold, damp, still, receptive, feminine, grows above ground, blue or purple in color and more ethereal.

Hollow organs are considered yin such as the lungs, intestines, heart and stomach). Solid organs are considered yang such as the liver, kidneys, spleen and pancreas.

Men tend to be more yang on the outside and yin on the inside, while women are more yin outside and yang inside.

YIN AND YANG ILLNESS

Illness may be classified anatomically as yin or yang. For example, osteoarthritis is characterized by deposition of calcium and other substances in the joints and may be said to be yang. Rheumatoid arthritis is a degeneration of the joints and is more yin. Solid tumors are more yang, while blood cancers such as leukemia are more yin. This can get quite complex.

More important is whether the cause is yin or yang. Many times the same symptom can have either a yin or a yang cause. In hair analysis interpretation, one finds that the same symptom may be due to fast oxidation or slow oxidation. Osteoporosis, for example, may be due to a calcium or copper deficiency in a fast oxidizer. Part of the sympathetic nervous system response is excretion of calcium. However, the same symptom may be due to biologically unavailable calcium in a slow oxidizer.

Since most bodies today are yin, most illness has a yin cause at its basis. The symptom may appear yang - hot, hard or contracted. However, the underlying cause is usually a yin imbalance. A yin therapy such as surgery, radiation or chemotherapy may eliminate a hard tumor, but the long-term effects are less curative and usually harmful.

I am reminded of a post-mortem conference I attended while a medical intern. A cancer patient's organs were displayed for the doctors to review. The presenter bragged that no cancer could be found. Another doctor asked, "what was the cause of death?" "Radiation poisoning", the presenter answered.

YIN AND YANG HEALING METHODS

Among healing methods, the most yang are those involving heat and dryness. Dry saunas, hyperthermia, fever therapy, sweating, heating herbs like ginger and burdock, coffee enemas, hot baths, exposure to the sun and heat lamps and fasting are examples. Other are chiropractic manipulation, biofeedback, acupuncture, acupressure, meditation, psychotherapy, hands on healing, massage, body work and color therapy.

Yin therapies include raw foods, juices, cool or cold baths, colonic irrigation and epsom salt baths. Others are homeopathy, visualization, imagery, psychedelic drugs and the use of electrical machines. Still others include most pharmaceuticals, surgery and radiation therapy,

Yin detoxification methods flush toxins with cool and watery energy. They slow down overheated metabolism and reduce congestion. Yang detoxification methods tonify and energize the system, and contract the cells, forcing poisons out.

As more people become yin, they require more yang therapies. This is one reasons for more common problems occurring with antibiotic overuse and vegetarian diets. A friend is a cancer counselor who has observed the results of many alternative cancer therapies. She reports poorer results with the Gerson therapy and related approaches that rely on raw foods and juices. This therapy used to offer excellent results. Most likely this is because more bodies were yang at the time Dr. Gerson developed the therapy in the 1920s and 1930s. Yin therapy can often get rid of tumors which are yang, but cannot fully rebuild a body if it is yin.

YANG HEALING

This is the approach I suggest for most people. It involves a diet of kelp, sea salt, meats and especially cooked yang root vegetables. One avoids yin foods such as sugar, sweet juices, most fruit and most uncooked food.

To this are added food supplements and herbs that are primarily yang or less yin. I do not use high doses of vitamin C, for example. Yang herbs include ginger, burdock, dandelion, milk thistle, skullcap, nettles and black radish.

Mineral therapy is somewhat yang and very necessary today due to congenital nutrient deficiencies, refined food diets, poor quality food, stress and other factors that deplete nutrients.

I also strongly recommend dry sauna therapy, infrared therapy and red light therapy. Red light assists the first chakra and organs such as the liver, kidneys and adrenal glands. This is exactly what most people need.

Some say light therapy should focus on the upper chakras - blue, green and violet. However, I find that most patients I see live in those upper chakras most of the time. Copper toxicity, which is very common, has the effect of speeding up mental processes and enhancing emotions and analytical thinking.

Another vital yang therapy is rest and sleep. Most people do not get nearly enough rest. I also suggest spending half an hour a day in the sun, another yang therapy. Also, I strongly to suggest to anyone who will listen to let go of all victim thinking. This is very yin and disempowering. This includes all political philosophies that endorse and promote the concept of victims and victimhood. Feeling sorry for some group or other, and offering them special benefits is extremely popular today.

Instead, I suggest philosophical systems such as Course in Miracles, Buddhism or mystical Christianity and Judaism that teach there are no accidents and there are no victims. I suggest embracing political views that support people helping themselves, rather than accepting 'benefits' or 'entitlements' of any sort. This view promotes individualism and empowers oneself and others rather than creating dependency. This perspective is not so popular today.

Yang therapy is appropriate for about 95% of adults and a somewhat smaller percentage of children. The others require more raw food, less animal products, fewer saunas and more fruit and juices. Some who appear yang are not. They are merely toxic and when toxins begin to be released they become more yin.

Understanding yin and yang detoxification helps explain why a particular therapy works for one but not for another. The principle applies to conventional as well as holistic therapies. It also helps explain why a therapy that worked 50 years ago may not work today and vice versa.

References

Nickel, D., 1995, Int. J. Acupuncture and Oriental Med, 6:1-4; p 26-29.

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