Five Elements
/We’re talking Traditional Chinese Medicine this week. AKA, TCM. Last week’s blog discussed some of the ins and outs of our theory of yin and yang. We all know that classic image, but we maybe didn’t realize how much meaning there really was behind it.
This week we wanted to discuss another extremely important theory in our medicine- that of the five elements. Fire, earth, metal, water, wood. In our medicine, health exists when these elements, and how we reference them within the body, are all in balance within one another.
First, it’s important to know that each element is created from another element. It’s an endless circle and, quite honestly, makes quite a lot of sense. Wood makes fire- that one is fairly obvious, right? Fire needs logs to burn. Ashes, or earth, is created by fire. Wood needs water to grow. You get the idea. We call this the generating sequence and in TCM, we use it to balance the systems in the body as well. If our earth element is weak, we are unable to generate enough metal element. If our metal element is weak, we are unable to generate enough water.
We also have what we refer to as the controlling sequence. An example here might be how a chain saw, made of metal, controls wood. Or how wood, say a tree, can control the earth by breaking through the surface to grow. Or more obvious yet, water can put out a fire.
Each of these elements correlates with certain areas of health: everything from internal organs to emotions and spirits/souls.
Fire: heart and small intestine
Earth: stomach and spleen (pancreas)
Metal: lung and large intestine
Water: kidneys and bladder
Wood: liver and gallbladder
Fire: Joy
Earth: Worry
Metal: Grief
Water: Fright
Wood: Anger
To be honest, it all correlates with a lot more health indicators than what’s listed above, but I don’t want to write and entire textbook! So how does this all correlate with our health?
Let’s look at a few women’s health examples. We’ll start with amenorrhea, or when a woman is missing her monthly cycle.
In our medicine, the stomach and spleen (earth) take in food and fluid and use it to make energy and blood (let’s be real, this is true of all medicine!). If a woman isn’t eating, she might not make enough energy and blood to cycle. Once the energy is made, it is moved around by the lungs (metal) and regulated by the liver (wood) and the blood is stored in the liver (wood). So if she has enough blood, but isn’t cycling, is the energy not strong enough or not moving properly to move the blood out of the body? Or is the earth busy making blood but the wood element isn’t full enough to let it go? This is very over simplified, but you probably get the idea.
Looking at the elements from an emotional standpoint is also interesting. Have you ever been so sad, so burdened by grief, that you cry so hard it becomes hard to breath? Have you ever been so scared you almost peed your pants (or maybe you DID pee your pants!)?
Let’s take that amenorrhea example and apply it to someone that gets blamed for female hormone issues all the time. Stress. Stress affects the wood element. The wood element stores blood and plays a role in moving it out of the body for menstruation. So when a woman is very stressed, she might see it affect her monthly cycle.
It can go in reverse too. Say your liver energy isn’t flowing well. That energetic stagnation can cause anger to bubble up.
You could say it’s sort of like the chicken and the egg question.
We learn to assess which elements are out of balance with tongue and pulse diagnosis and thorough questioning about your state of health.
Curious to read more? Check out the following links!
This blog was written by Dr. Meghan Gray, DACM, L.Ac.