Why Healing the Human Spirit is the Highest Form of Medicine

One of the most important parts of diagnosis in traditional Chinese medicine is a millennia old idea that to treat illness you need to treat the person's spirit. Now this idea probably came from the pre-modern shamanic idea that there's this kind of fragmenting that happens when a person is ill. Now in Chinese medicine it's a little bit more systematic and a little bit more scientific because there's a pattern to describe when a person has spirit or what is the state of the spirit or what is the state of the spirit lacking. So is treating the spirit a bunch of hippie crap or is treating the spirit a real thing and if so what does that look like and why is it so important? Hey I'm Alex Hein, author of the book Master the Day current doctoral student in traditional or classical Chinese medicine. Now I've included as the first link in the description there it's a free download on how to add 10 years to life with traditional or classical Chinese medicine. You can check out that infographic right there in the description. So the first thing about spirit is that the spirit is the gestalt of the person. It gives you that snapshot into the person's life and so just like if you've ever met someone with mental illness or someone that's obviously crazy and out of their mind or someone drunk, someone high, you see the difference. This is not an abstract idea. This is not some just arbitrary nebulous thing. You see it and you're like whoa something is wrong. That is at a high level diagnosing the spirit. You meet someone you're like wow you look like ---- today and then you see them the next thing you're like wow you look great today. That at a fundamental level is the spirit of the person. No hippie woo-woo, no metaphysical jargon. That snapshot, the gestalt, we're like wow they look great. They look like they have a lot of energy. They look like they're well rested. They look grounded. They look calm. That feeling is one aspect of the spirit and of course you know even the way for example that children with learning disabilities are or let's give a dramatic example. For example children with down syndrome often when they come into a house pets when they hear them they will run and they will hide because the pet the animal knows that something is quote not right. Something is making them nervous and so there's the aspect of the spirit which is typically we see in the eyes but there's also the spirit in the way that the person's acting and so just like every police officer knows how do you tell someone's really drunk besides getting them to walk the line and recite the alphabet backwards you look right into their eyes and there's like the wavy kind of can't quite focus in your eye look or there's the hey officer what's up kind of look you're looking right at them you can feel the beam. That is spirit and spirit is typically seen in the eyes. So what does it mean that the spirit is reflected in the eyes? Check out this kind of dichotomy here of yin and yang of having spirit and not having spirit. So when we say having spirit the eyes are bright. The person looks at you they make connection you can feel that connection between your eyes. The facial complexion is bright and shiny it looks well. The mental status is that they have clear speech and that they are conscious. Their response rate is that they respond quickly and they respond freely and the respiration and the breathing in their chest is regular. Now in terms of not having spirit when you look into their eyes they are dull or they it feels like they're not looking right into your eyes. The facial complexion is dull or pale. The mental status is kind of unclear they kind of take a lot of time to respond or it's a murky muddy response. The response rate is obviously slow and the respiration is poor. So what do all these things indicate clinically in Chinese medicine? Why is treating the spirit the highest the most important virtue of what's called the high-level physician? The reason is that spirit first of all indicates what is the, if I can use the word energetic, what is the energetic state of the person and I don't mean that in a woo-woo sense but is the person well-rested healthy vital and alive. If so they will have the signs of spirit being abundant and strong but if the person is for example I had a patient who was a 78 year old woman a lifelong smoker did not take care of her health was not happy neglected herself and as a result at 78 which isn't that old when I asked her a question it would take her two to three seconds to actually register the question and she didn't have dementia she didn't have mental illness it took her a long time to actually process that and then get back to me. Her reactions themselves were very slow the overall interaction was not smooth it was jarring it felt like she was kind of half asleep and so that would be a diagnosis where you say there's something going on with the spirit of the person. So really the spirit indicates the current energy level of the person and also the prognosis when the spirit is there and present change can happen quickly but when it's not the prognosis is not favorable because it means that either the illness is at the deeper level or the person's resources are very taxed and they're very tired. Now the last thing is that the spirit is the key foundation for treatment or on some level should be the king of the treatment. You know we say that treat the spirit first but what does that really mean like if a person has IBS don't we want to just change their diet or give them an herbal formula? Well I'd like to think of it as if you've ever gone to like a Starbucks and you've had a really unhappy barista and you're waiting in line and you're maybe you're in a good mood or maybe you're not and you ask for your drink and the person's just sitting there like this like yeah okay uh grande mocha loco dopa hopa half a half caff cappuccino and they just look dead I mean they look like a zombie and you're like this person just does not like their life that kind of spiritlessness like maybe that person needs treatment but maybe what they really need is to do a job that they love maybe they need to follow their passion maybe they need to do something that really excites them in life and maybe that treatment is more effective than any medical intervention that a physician could do or that an acupuncture needle or a herbal formula could do maybe that is the thing that revives the person and consequently revives their immune system their energy they sleep better so when you think of treating the spirit this is just one way to think about it what it means in Chinese medicine and what it's important is so I hope that helps understand that spirit is not this metaphysical esoteric thing but is really practical and all of us colloquially we know what spirit is when we feel it with a person or the absence of spirit is when we see it in a person now again you can check out the first link in the description it's a free download five daily habits to add 10 years to your life so if you're interested in that click the link and download it you can also check out my last two videos right there and right there