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Beyond Nutritional Content

 If you recall, yin and yang are the two types of energy that give birth to everything that exist.

There are yin and yang energies in the environment, in our emotions, in our thoughts, in our body and everywhere. Therefore, there are endless applications of yin and yang but probably the most important is health because according to Traditional Chinese Medicine good health is only attained when yin and yang energies interact and reach balance.

1 Food

To contribute to your own yin and yang balance, and reach optimal health, have a yin-yang balanced diet taking in consideration the following:

  • Yin food is cool while yang food is warm.
  • Most animal proteins are considered yang, especially red meat; white meat is also considered yang but at a lower scale.
  • Most vegetables are considered yin but there are different levels of yin, and all root vegetables are considered yang.
  • Whole grains are moderately yang while beans and lentils are moderately yin.
  • Eat more yin foods in summer to cool down and more yang foods in winter to warm up.
  • What if you don’t like animal protein in your diet? Cooking yin foods increases their Yang energy so sautéing some vegetables and tossing them into your raw salad makes the trick for a more yin and yang balanced meal.
  • Roasting is the top yang cooking method so eating roasted root vegetables or any type of vegetables instead of boiled root vegetables or any type of vegetables is an additional alternative to balance your energy intake.

The possibilities are endless…leave me a comment if you want to know more.

BTW, when you follow the third habit explained in The Five Morning Habits to Win the Day, you force yin and yang energies to interact so that habit is great to trigger yin and yang balance.

 

Did You Know That Your Body Is An Empire?

 

Ever since I had the opportunity to live in Asia and study some Mandarin, I have always been struck by the pictorial nature of Chinese culture. The Chinese are a clear example of the famous say "a picture is worth a thousand words". Not only because each character of their language paints what it means, but also because every time they have studied and explained something, they have done it through analogies and/or more images.

Thus, for example, under the context of traditional Chinese medicine, the body is considered a microsystem, which is part of, and behaves similarly, to the macrosystem that is planet Earth, and as a microsystem it is compared to an empire where each organ has a responsibility that allows the empire to function as such.

Under this scheme, the heart is the emperor, it is the sovereign of all organs. It is responsible for intelligence, wisdom, and houses the Shen, or spirit, so the mind and perception reside in the heart, not the brain, as Western medicine proposes.

The lungs are advisors, they help the heart regulate the body, or the empire in this analogy. The liver is like a general and works in conjunction with the gallbladder, which is like a judge for its power of discernment. The stomach and spleen take care of extraction and storage of nutrients and the small intestine do the distribution, delivering the turbid stuff to the large intestine for elimination. The kidneys store vitality, mobilize the limbs, have coordination functions, and support the bladder where fluids converge and after being catalyzed, they are eliminated.

All organs must work together harmoniously so that the empire stays in place. However, the decision-making responsibility remains on the emperor, that is, on the heart.

For this reason, if the Shen or spirit residing in the heart is clear, all the functions of the other organs will be normal, it is in this way that one’s life is perpetuated, just as a country becomes prosperous when all its people are fulfilling their duties. If the spirit is disturbed and unclear, the other organs will not function properly, and health will be impaired. In other words, following the analogy, all residents of the empire will be affected.

Although Western medicine places the brain as the commander of all organs, there are scientific research studies which have compared the heart's response and the brain's response to highly emotional negative and positive images and such studies have revealed that the heart responds first than the brain.

Having said that, the Chinese seem to be right, the heart is the emperor, the heart knows what the brain knows and much more, so keep your heart healthy and your spirit clear.

Help yourself by massaging two or three minutes, two or three times a day, the center of your palms on both hands, with the thumb from the other hand, in the place where the tip of the middle finger falls when bending that finger.

Additionally, practice The Five Morning Habits to Win the Day, I didn’t put them together to heal your heart, but they sure will.