Listen instead:
Wind-Heat invasion? Phlegm harassing the heart? Damp, with a capital D? If you’ve ever scratched your head at (or dismissed outright) these Chinese medicine terms, you’re not alone. Fear not! This post is all about demystifying these commonly used terms within most styles of Chinese medicine.
I’ve written this before, but it bears repeating: Chinese medicine terms are, as we say around here, a little different. There are a few reasons for this.
Firstly, Chinese medicine terms and diagnoses are all translated from Chinese into English. (This one’s huge. It’s a leap! And it’s a big ole leap. The roots of the Chinese language and the English language are not exactly twinning.)
Additionally, the medicine has evolved over millennia, right alongside the people it treated. (This one’s equally huge. Culture and language affect each other deeply. Because Chinese medicine is cumulative, it keeps track of its versions and updates… and terminology.)
Furthermore, Chinese medicine is phenomenological in nature — which means it’s about being able to synthesize the myriad aspects of our lives. (This one is huger than the other equally huge ones combined. It’s a paradigm shift that’s multiversey in its same-but-very-different viewpoints.)
Though it may jangle your ear at first, Chinese medicine terminology is simply a different way to calculate malfunction and our role within healing.
This type of language and naming can help you connect with what your body needs. And when you understand the nature of what you need, you can help yourself become adaptive — which is really just another way of saying healable.
To help you get comfortable with it, we offer you this brief glossary of our most commonly used terms.
Acupuncture Channels — detailed mapping of the body’s functions, the relationships between its parts, and the relationships between the body and the pathogens that create disease.
Acupuncture Point – place on an acupuncture channel where we can affect the functions governed by that channel. Acupuncture points are living anatomy, openings into deeper layers of the body. By treating a point, we can gather or disperse Qi.
Cold — factor that causes constriction and blockages in the body. It tends to stop function and makes us hunker down. Cold is considered the opposite of Wind. Wind is an excess of change; cold makes you feel like nothing can change and you should just give up.
Cupping — a therapeutic technique to help relieve muscular tension, as well as help draw pathogenic factors from the body during the onset of sickness. Using suction, a cup is adhered to the body over a certain area – very often the back, although it could be on the limbs, face, or neck. Cupping often leaves circular marks on the skin that look like bruises, but very rarely produces pain or soreness.
Damp — factor that bogs down motion. Damp creates a buffer when the body is unable to resolve the challenges it’s facing. Damp can insulate from Cold or slow down Heat, but in doing so can bog us down, create confusion, and/or make us more cautious.
External Pathogenic Factor (EPF) — problematic forces that originate outside the body. Examples include temperature, pressure, radiation, allergens, and infectious agents. EPFs challenge the body’s integrity, requiring us to change and adapt in their presence.
Gua Sha (“gwah-sha”) — therapeutic scraping technique whose goal is to break up adhesions, unlocking previously stiffened or numb areas.
Heat — factor that expands and accelerates. Heat can be a way to try to counter Cold, dry Damp, and to go faster than the Wind. Because it moves quickly, Heat can create urgency in a health condition. Heat can also be a response to Damp as the body attempts to dry up the Damp by turning up its thermostat.
Internal Pathogenic Factor (IPF) — problematic forces that originate from inside the body. The IPFs that most affect our health are our emotions, responses to food we digest, and our desires.
Latent Heat — unresolved pathogenic factors that become lodged in the source level. A viral infection like chicken pox can lie dormant in the spine and some day come out as shingles. We call these factors Latent Heat because, like a smoldering coal buried in ash, they only need the right conditions to flash back up into flame.
Moxibustion (moxa) — herbal heat therapy. Made from dried and prepared mugwort, moxa comes in several forms. Regardless of the type, we light it and use it to warm acupuncture points and/or channels.
Phlegm — pathogenic factor that can be literal, like lingering mucus after a cold, or metaphorical. Metaphorical Phlegm could apply to dizziness or confusion. Phlegm is typically considered to be advanced Dampness. Phlegm represents how disease—through our habits and blindspots—can get knotted up in our sense of identity.
Qi (“chee”) — describes the activity and change that occurs between the opposites of yin and yang. Qi is not a thing; it’s the relationship between two polar opposites. For example Qi describes the spark of static electricity that shoots from your negatively charged hand (yang) as it comes into contact with your positively charged car door (yin).
Wei Qi (“way chee”) —aka Defensive Qi — provides the body’s ability to adapt to our external environments and deal with challenges to homeostasis presented by EPFs. Wei Qi governs many autonomic functions such as circadian rhythm, sweating, skeletal muscle tone, and smooth muscle contractions.
Wind — a symbol for all change. In Chinese medicine, Wind blows illness into the body. Wind can also become lodged in the body, creating disturbances like pain and dizziness. Wind is considered an opposite of Cold. Cold makes you feel like nothing can change; Wind is an excess of change.
Yin & Yang (“yawng”) —the insight that the poles of change are interdependent, and that opposites are part of a whole. Yin refers to qualities related to receptivity and rest — e.g., dark, down, heavy. Yang refers to the qualities related to activation and movement — e.g., bright, up, light.
In medicine, Yin and Yang help us to understand movement and change and to classify and describe all aspects of the body. For example, if your temperature is too hot (Yang) in relation to your cooling fluids (Yin), you risk drying out and developing more Yang properties, such as convulsions.
Ying Qi — aka Nutritive Qi — provides the body’s ability to create an internal environment and deal with IPFs. Ying Qi governs digestion, nourishment, and the functions of the mind.
Yuan Qi (“you on”) — aka Source Qi — forms the foundation and catalysts for all other processes in the body (Wei Qi and Ying Qi). It also deals with Latent Heat. Examples of Yuan Qi include hormone functions such as growth and aging, pancreatic function, and the production of blood from the bone marrow.
by Mary Beth Huwe
These writings are an exploration of what it means to be human – to be sick, to be well, and to heal – viewed through the lens of classical Chinese medicine. My words aren’t medical advice, and these essays don’t constitute a practitioner-client relationship. They also aren’t meant to be the final word on… well, anything. Rather, I hope they are the beginning of a conversation you have with someone in your life. Thanks for reading!
