Chinese herbal formula - Si Jun Zi Tang, the Four Gentlemen Decoction

All right, so let's talk a little about the ingredients inside si jin si tang. Now, si jin si tang traditionally has four ingredients. It has ginseng, it has bai zhu, it has fuling, and gan zhao, which is licorice. Now, because of the cost of ginseng and the difficulty of actually digesting it inside the body, because people who are taking si jin si tang they already have problems with digestion. So what they do is they change the herb to another one called dang shen. And dang shen has kind of the same function as ginseng, however it helps to boost digestion. It helps to be able to digest more nutrients inside the body. So let's talk about the individual ingredients. Now, as I mentioned before, dang shen is usually used as a substitute for ginseng. And the reason being is because ginseng is a treasure, basically. And if you can't digest or grab all of the nutrients off of it, it doesn't really help you as much. You're just basically wasting it. So dang shen itself helps to both tonify the spleen, it helps to augment the qi, but it also helps with the digestion itself, which is one thing that ginseng can't do. The next thing we have is bai ju. Now, bai ju, its main focus is also to tonify the spleen, so it helps the dang shen. But it also has a function of clearing dampness. Now, what's dampness? Well, it's raining outside today, so there's this real heavy oppressed feeling. Not so much as humidity, but you can feel the wetness outside. But if you could, try to imagine that inside the body. And believe it or not, what you get kind of, as an example, is kind of the spare tire that you get around your middle. We usually call that a dampness accumulation. So bai ju actually helps to clear that out. It also tonifies the spleen, you know, as I said, it helps to tonify the spleen, but part of the spleen's function, now we're not talking about the actual spleen itself, we're talking more of the traditional Chinese function of what they would discuss the spleen channel to be, not the spleen organ. But the spleen itself controls the muscles, and it controls a function called the TT function, the transformation transportation. What does that mean? The transformation transportation means that it transforms dampness, and then it transports it out of the body. Yes, sometimes by urination, sometimes by sweat, but it tries to get that water out of the body. The next herb we have is fuling. Now fuling, Indian bread, holy end. This works just like bai ju, however, it's more stronger in clearing out dampness. It also has the function of tonifying the spleen, but its main focus is to clear out dampness. So generally speaking, using these two as a pair is very common because they both have the same function, they're both strengthening the other. Therefore, you have an increased efficiency with it. Lastly, we have gansow. Now gansow, we usually use as something to harmonize the herbs or to keep the herbs in balance, but strangely enough, gansow itself is also, licorice itself is also tonifying. Now this one that we have here, this is a honey fried licorice, and the honey fried licorice itself helps to nourish more. So if the body is, if the body feels dry, if it feels weak, it helps to tonify a bit more than it would if it was just plain gansow. Plain gansow really has a stronger function of harmonizing. This type, this type, the honey fried actually helps more of the heart, it helps more of the lungs, it helps to nourish it, make it stronger, but it also does still have that ability to harmonize. Generally speaking, these four herbs harmonize with themselves already very well, so you really don't have to worry too much on that. So let's talk a little about how we cook these herbs. Now you can just take this, you can throw it into a pot of water, just boil it, and then you can drink it. Now traditionally, what they did was, is they actually made a base first before they cook these herbs, and what they did is they cooked them in three other herbs. You have ginger, I have dried ginger here because I don't have any fresh ginger in the house. We have dazao, which is the jujube date, and we have gansow. Now the shenzhen, dazao, gansow combination, what that does is it helps to strengthen the spleen more. So you can see why we would actually use this as a base to cook with the other herbs, because the main function of sujuncitong is to tonify the spleen. The secondary also comes with, you know, clearing dampness, but that in itself happens already when you tonify the spleen. And this in itself makes it stronger, but you can also use this type of modification, not only to strengthen the body, but to help the immune system a little bit as well. Now what this formula does, based on the old theory of the shahanglong and zanzongjin, was this helps to tonify spleen. So taking a base that tonifies spleen and adding it to herbs that tonify spleen would just increase the function again. So this way what it does is it basically, you know, increases the potency. But he originally created this based on a way of preventing diseases or colds, things like this. And the reason being is because TCM likes to say that all diseases start at the liver. Now I know that sounds kind of funny, but again the liver itself, we're not talking about the actual organ, we're talking about the function or what affects it. And one of the things that affects the liver is anger and stress. So what happens is that when that anger, when that stress affects the liver, and it will always affect the liver first, if you tonify the spleen it will help prevent the transmission of said problems going from the liver to the spleen itself. What does that mean? Well let's see, when you get angry you can start to twitch a little bit. You can start to feel the blood rush up to your face. And when you think about it, that's all really muscle related. And if you remember what we said about Sujutsu Tong, Sujutsu Tong helps to tonify spleen. Tonifying the spleen helps to tonify and strengthen the muscles as well. So this way we won't actually have this transmission, you won't have as many twitches, you won't have this anger or rushing feeling. The muscles themselves will stay a little relaxed more, you'll start to tighten up with anger. And this was just the way that they used to modify this type of formula.