Cold Hands and Feet - Should You Be Worried?

I was once in a salsa dance class and as we were rotating Partners from person to person I had met with this new partner I was going to dance with and the second we made contact her hands were ice cold now she said that since she was young she was always having this issue with poor circulation and her mom said you know people in our family the women tend to have very very weak constitutions now within traditional Chinese medicine cold hands and feet is actually very diagnostic not only about your genetic makeup and your genetic tendency we call that Constitution but also about certain disease patterns or certain symptoms that correlate to larger patterns that are secondary so in this video I thought I would discuss a little bit about East versus West what is this cold hands thing and is it something you should worry about hey guys it's Dr Alex Hine board licensed acupuncturist and doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine author of the health book master of the day so let's jump in now what's up with cold hands and feet from a really raw scientific point of view fundamentally you have circulation blood flow going to your hands and your to your extremities now there can be all kinds of conditions that relate to Poe circulation but what it is fundamentally is cardiovascular right that's the fundamental Baseline reason you have cold hands and feet or they're very warm but what causes let's say poor circulation right why isn't there enough blood flow what's going on there there can be one of three things that I most commonly see one is that people do sometimes tend towards genetically poor circulation and what that means is that they have a tendency towards having cold hands and feet they are generally cold intolerant so they do not like cold water they don't like cold showers they may not even like drinking cold water or consuming cold foods because they run so cold the archetype being the stereotypical let's say very very thin anemic woman pale face very cold hands and feet generally tend towards being very thin and often have some aspect of anemia or digestive dysfunction secondarily there can be medical conditions like rods there's a medical reason that there's it's an unknown in conventional biom medicine unknown factor that predisposes people to this these people have a diagnosable medical condition that is the cause of their poor circulation and in between issues like nervous system disorders can cause cold hands and feet for example people that I see in my clinic that are very very highly anxious they have chronic nervous system issues like clinical anxiety sometimes clinical depression they have insomnia issues or in general they're just very nervous and anxious people and so they may be prone to getting cold hands and feet or cold and clammy hands and feet right it's like if you ever been so nervous to go on a date or so nervous to go give a talk or a lecture or something boardroom meeting so some people who are genetically very very sensitive they have a hypervigilant nervous system are also prone to this but what does it mean and how do we treat it now let's talk about two different kinds of genetic types or constitutions as we call them one is called the dran type and this is someone who has an issue with what we call the liver and the parac cardio in other words what TCM calls blood deficiency so this type of person let's just use a woman wom for example because it's more often women that come in with this they typically come in with let's say issues with their hair their skin and their nails now they attribute to hormones and the dran organs liver and paric cardium we say regulate the blood and we say regulate the hormones so for a lot of women they show up with signs of either blood deficiency as we say or blood stagnation like all kinds of issues endometriosis sometimes PCOS these present with what TCM calls an issue with blood deficiency or blood stagnation hence the pain and the clotting and the cystic aspects right or Lomas for example ovarian cyst that kind of thing so for some people this deficiency we say the blood is what warms we call it yangi right the Yang is equal to the blood which is almost like this warm soup flowing through the body but some people actually have a deficiency of that that can be a disease state or it can be a genetic tendency now on the other side of the spectrum is what we call the xyang type now these tend to be women that have generally larger body types but their core temperature is warm meaning they themselves do not have to put on lots of coats and lots of things to cover themselves up but their extremities are often cold and what we call this as versus one person has a true deficiency of this kind of fire this sort of Life Force fire on the other side this person has enough of it but it's kinked up sometimes it's kinked up due to emotions due to stressors and so while it is there inside this fire right the furnace is strong it is it's sort of kinked for some reason now the second thing is this concept of yangi or yeni so ancient doctors in East Asia had observed something that we could maybe call Vitality and I hesitate to call the life force but it is one and the same life force just sounds so mystical because it's not something measurable scientifically but we all recognize Vitality we recognize life force because if you've ever seen the Bright Eyes of an energetic child you recognize what vitality and life force looks like and if you've ever seen the dull eyes before an elderly person passes away you know what that looks like their physical body is there but they are not really quite there they're cold their skin is dry they're not reactive there's a vacancy in the eyes as opposed to a Vitality a brightness ancient doctors and ancient people all recognize this because if you've ever seen someone go from alive to dead in a short period of time it's a bit unnerving where does that Vitality where does that Force go ancient doctors called it the light of the spirit or shining translated in lots of different ways but to TCM practitioners yangqi Your vitality is strongly linked to your blood warmth so we say that people who run cold and are prone to nervous system issues like anxiety elevated heart rate palpitations General sensitivity to the environment we say generally have a weak Constitution because that fire is like the Primal fire of life and that Primal fire of life is genetically stronger in some people than in others typically strong constitutions have a lot of body warmth good digestion and they sleep well they don't have stimulant or caffeine sensitivity and weak constitutions have the exact opposite tend towards being thinner physically weaker builds more prone to anxiety light sleep food sensitivities and coldness so yangi vitality and warmth and circulation have one inone correlation in traditional Chinese medicine because when people are dying on their deathbed they often talk about that coldness and if someone bleeds out acutely or is in shock pale we say the blood runs cold right or the blood drained from their face these Concepts go back thousands of years even in the west but ancient people viewed it as yangi equals blood equals warmth equals Vitality now there are lots of traditional Chinese medicine or herbal formulas that can actually be used to treat this now in one particular study called herbal medicines for cold hypersensitivity in the hands and feet a systematic review and meta analysis now in particular the researchers here they studied some traditional AKA classical formulas that I use clinically so I thought it would be very interesting to share they studied the peripheral blood flow using his laser Doppler and in the first trial it showed that one formula was better than the control for recovering blood flow 10 minutes after a 30-second cold water test so they would either plunge the hands in cold water or expose them to cold water to see what the peripheral blood flow was like and they found that this formula was better than control now the second trial studied a formula called wiing ton we commonly use for menstrual issues and hormonal issues in women and they found that it was better than the control vitamin E administered for increasing the peripheral surface blood flow of the tip tone now a third trial compared a famous formula dangu cang versus some kind of Western biomedical treatment and what they found was that this dangu sinang formula was better than quote unquote Western medicine for changing the finger arterial blood flow peak in a diastolic period and finally another formula had a better outcome for improving the nail capillary blood flow so while many people that come into my clinic have this genetically they just run cold others can develop this like for example prolonged illness can create what we call prolonged deficiencies of certain organs in TCM one of those is the overall Network that governs blood circulation now what can you actually do from a lifestyle point of view that's something that is probably going to be very helpful for you here now in traditional Chinese medicine we say that the chi and the blood have a very distinct relationship and one of the main ways you circulate Chi is with breath so by breathing certain ways you can improve the function of chi flow and therefore blood flow now if you want a very non-mystical explanation I don't necessarily believe that Chi is energy but what I do believe is that by doing chiong and I mean this is not a belief this is scientific but chiong one aspect is just cardiovascular exercise so by doing let's say 30 minutes a day of chiong and breathing exercise exercises you will actually improve that peripheral blood flow and improve your circulation but it is not limited to Just Breath work or breathing exercises but breathing is one of the first ways you can do that for example you can sit here as you watch this video and you can decide to lengthen the breath so I'm here it's breathing talking breathing talking but you could breathe in 2 3 4 breathe out 2 3 4 do that for 5 minutes and you'll no notice your hands begin to get warm and then you have a perfect example of how breath regulates both the nervous system as well as the cardiovascular system so chiong is one thing traditionally prescribed for people with poor circulation besides treating them with these herbal formulas the second thing is along that same vein is just physical exercise right if you are prone to poor circulation getting in physical exercise for an hour a day four days a week will dramatically improve your cardiovascular health because that is one of the main B systems that it works on the heart the blood flow and even a perfect example is look at people who train a lot I mean look at look at how vascular they become look at how viny I am from long-term exercise right that is your cardiovascular system compensating for all the blood that you're pushing through it so that will also improve your long-term circulation finally if it is a medical condition of some kind we typically can treat this with acupuncture and traditional herbal formulas so for example even later stage damage like for example diabetes where people are having peripheral neuropathy where the actual nerves are having problems which is quite a severe decrease in circulation over a period of time you can actually bring that back from acupuncture like if people have peripheral neuropathy in the feet we can do local acupuncture and moxabustion in addition to formulas to reestablish that flow and stop the pain that people are having the discomfort so that is a third option as well now I've also put together a free download which is 4D the rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine so if you guys are interested in more of these healing practices that can help you recover without medications or surgeries or invasive procedures check out the link right below that video it also has info on booking a patient visit with me in Los Angeles or virtually via tele medicine and one final thing I'm really excited about is we've just launched the healing library and my very first online program has come out which is called an introduction to Healing with traditional Chinese medicine the original science of longevity so there's a link below for this course that you can enroll in if it's interesting to you and that will help to keep this channel sponsor free and to help basically afford me to keep producing these videos here for you so if that's something that's appealing to you check out the link right below the video for that online program right now we have a special launch open until about the new year because the program just came out so you guys can always check it out right there and again don't go yet I have a related video on this topic right there for you