Embrace the Pace of Your Acupuncture Journey: Rediscovering the Heart's Functions | EP 57

Hey, everyone, Dr. Richard Lai here with Study Acupuncture with me. So if you're new here, I say hello to you. My name is Richard and I make acupuncture content for busy acupuncturists and acupuncture students just like yourself. Now, this episode is on the heart. So we're continuing on with the theme of the heart by going over two important functions of the heart. I've been mulling over the function of the heart because there's been a lot of things on my heart. So I've been looking at the heart functions and seeing how I can apply that to my own life and how I can apply to the treatments of my patients. And understanding the functions of the heart is really important in understanding the pathologies that affect the heart. Now, the functions that we're going to review in this episode are number one, the heart governs blood and number two, the heart houses the mind. And of course, going back to our roots at Study Acupuncture with me, I like to start off each episode with a quote that I'd like to share with you. And this quote for this episode is embrace the pace of your own journey. Now, what that quote means to me is that we have these preconceived notions about timelines. So we have these preconceived notions of timelines in our life. And whoever set these timelines for us, it's really actually unrealistic. So, for example, we have timelines about when we're supposed to get married or when we're supposed to have a house, right? We're supposed to get married first and then have a house and then have a certain amount of kids by a certain age. Or we have preconceived notions of timelines that we set for ourselves, like we're supposed to graduate at a certain age or graduate by a certain time or we're supposed to pass the boards by a certain time. And when I saw this quote, it felt really relieving because this quote really gave me permission to embrace the pace of my own journey. And I hope sharing this quote with you that it gives you the permission as well. And I hope that it frees you from whatever timelines that you set for yourself or from whatever timelines society has dictated that it should be for someone like you. So, for example, like if you're someone who's 42 years old and you're thinking, oh, it's too late for me to enroll in acupuncture school. I'm going to be the oldest one there. Or, oh, I'm 38 years old. You know, I have to pass the board exam now. I have to pass them all in one try. Right. These are preconceived notions. These are timelines that we set on ourselves or family or society has set on us and they hinder us. So we really need to embrace the pace of our own journey. That journey is yours. Your journey is your own. And the sooner you embrace it as your own and you own it as your own, the freer you're going to be and you're going to save yourself from a lot of stress because life is long and we tend to want to rush things and we underestimate how much we can do with a long enough time span. And I especially say that to myself right now because I want it all right. You probably want it all, too. I want it all and I want it now. I want the house in a good school district. I want a big backyard. I want everything that's good for my family. And based on my own timeline, I'm not there yet. And I want to be there. I was supposed to be there five years ago. And it stresses me out and it still stresses me out. But you, the acupuncture community and my family also, you guys have really helped me out of that hole. And I just want to say thank you for that. So if you're someone who is experiencing this as well, where you're stressed about graduating, you're stressed about doing certain things by a certain time frame, like passing the boards within a certain amount of tries or by a certain time frame. Just remember, embrace the pace of your own journey. All right. So now let's get into some acupuncture educational content, which today we're going to talk about two important functions of the heart that I've been re-reviewing for myself and for my patients, which function number one is that the heart governs blood. Now, this had to do with the heart being part of that blood production pathway. Now, on the screen, you've seen this blood production pathway, this diagram where the spleen is sending that transformed food essence to the lungs. And it also sends it to the heart. And it's at the heart where that food chi is going to be transformed into blood. And the heart combines that food chi with kidney ching and original chi. So from a clinical standpoint, when you're treating your patients and if your patients presenting with blood deficiency manifestations, we have to realize that there's a lot of different routes that that blood deficiency could be coming from. So like, for example, the spleen, the spleen is on that blood production pathway, right? The spleen has a function to transform and transport. So it takes the food that we eat and it transforms it into usable food essence and it sends it to the body for nourishment. One part of that is that it sends it to the lungs and the heart to turn it into blood. The kidney is also part of that as well, right? Kidney ching is on that blood production pathway. And we know that the kidney stores ching. It stores the essence. And then we know also with the liver, the liver has a function where it stores blood. So that's also a part of what as well. So if there's spleen deficiency, if there's kidney deficiency or there's liver chief stagnation or liver blood deficiency, all of that can cause a general blood deficiency presentation in your patient. Now, here on the screen, I'm going to put a list of all the general blood deficiency manifestations that your patient can present with. So we have things like a dull, white, sallow complexion, which a dull, white, sallow complexion is basically an unhealthy, dull, white complexion. And we know through differential diagnosis that if your patient's complexion is bright white, then that's indicative of young deficiency. But if your patient's presentation is dull, white like here, then that's blood deficiency. We also have pale lips. Now, pale lips shows us that it's a blood deficiency presentation as well. If the lips were purple, then that could be something like blood stasis. Or if the lips are dry, then that could be heat or some sort of dryness that's affecting the patient. We also have here dizziness. We have poor memory. We have numbness and tingling. Now, these are all really general blood deficiency manifestations. So when you see them, you think blood deficiency. With poor memory, that manifestation is usually part of the heart because the heart has a function to house the mind. Now, on this list, we also have here blurry vision. So if you see this word on your exam question, you see blurry vision. Then you usually should think liver blood deficiency. And that's because the sense organ of the liver is the eyes. And the liver, we know, has a function in which it moistens and it nourishes the eyes. So if there's blurry vision, then that's usually indicative of liver blood deficiency. So you can see what I mean when I say there's a lot of general blood deficiency manifestations, but there's a lot of different roots that that blood deficiency can come from. But going back to the function of the heart, which number one is that the heart governs blood and the heart is part of that blood production pathway. Now, another thing about that is that the heart is also responsible for circulating blood. So the heart makes sure that all of our tissues are properly nourished. And the heart isn't the only organ that does this. It does this with the partnership from our lungs because the lungs, they govern qi and qi, we know, is the commander of blood. So that has a role in circulation. Spleen also has a function to transform and transport. So it transports things, especially to the arms and the legs, which is why when you look at a pattern such as spleen qi deficiency, you might see some manifestations like weak limbs or weak arms and legs. And that has to do with the transportation aspect of the spleen because it transports nourishment to the arms and legs. And then the liver also helps out with circulating blood because the liver has a function to store blood. And the storage of blood has two facets where liver is going to determine, is the body resting? So it should bring all the blood back into the liver and let that blood recover. And then the liver knows when to send blood out to the body because it determines that the body is in motion. The body needs that blood at that muscle or at that sinew in order to move appropriately. My point is that even with circulating blood, if your patient presents with poor circulation, you can see how many routes that we just went over. We went over the heart, governing blood, circulating the blood. We went over the spleen with the function of transformation and transportation. We talked about the liver with the storing of blood and the moving blood out to the body when it needs it. We talked about the lung, the lung governing qi and qi being the commander of blood. So as acupuncturists, we need to keep an open mind when we're evaluating and when we're treating our patients. And we need to use multi organ treatments to affect those general presentations. So blood deficiency, for example, is going to need involvement from the spleen, from the lung, from the kidney, from the heart and from the liver. Or if you can pinpoint exactly what the route is, you can specifically cater your treatment to tonify that specific organ. All right. Now, function number two we're going to talk about today is that the heart houses the mind. Now, the mind is known as our shen. And in school, you probably heard the term shen disturbance. And shen disturbance is someone who, when you look at them, their lights are on, but nobody's home. You can see it in their eyes. You can see it in their face. You can see it in the way they carry themselves. You can even hear it in the tone of their voice. And probably without even realizing it, you've been assessing shen right from the second you say their name and call them in from the waiting room. Because what happens when you call their name, they look up and you, you look at them and you see, how do they stand up? How fast do they respond to you? You look at their form. You look at their bearing form is their posture. Bearing is how they carry themselves. That's a part of the looking pillar. When we evaluate someone in the looking pillar, we're looking at their form and bearing. We're looking how upright their posture is, how strong and tight their muscles and how good their joints are. We're looking at their bearing. How do they carry themselves? Do they carry themselves confidently? How do they stand up? How do they walk? Are they groaning when they get onto the treatment table? All that is an assessment of their bearing. Do they get up slowly from this chair? Do they groan while they stand up or do they sulk? And are they really sad? Do they look very defeated or do they stand up and they walk with purpose? That's all a part of bearing. And actually, this is also a part of an assessment of their spirit. So it determines are they with spirit or are they without spirit? Meaning, are they with Shen or are they without Shen? And Shen is housed in the blood. So Shen is actually an assessment of the health and status of the blood. Because when your patient talks to you and they're focused, they're present. That means that their mind is getting enough nourishment from the blood. But if they're not focused, the lights are on, nobody's home, then their spirit is impaired. So that's actually a direct representation of the health And because the heart houses the mind, the mind is our Shen and the heart governs blood, the assessment of their Shen, you can actually drill back to the blood and to the heart. And actually, to expand on this even more, Shen is actually inclusive of the other spiritual aspects of the body, which we have five of them. We have the ethereal soul, which is the Hun. We have the corporeal soul, which is the Po. We have the intellect, which is the Yi. We have the willpower, which is the Zi. And then we have the mind, which is the Shen. Now, these five together, just like the five Power Rangers together, they're called the five Shen. And each of them actually hold residence in different Yin organs. So, for example, the mind is housed in the heart. The Hun we know is housed in the liver. The Po is in the lungs. The intellect is in the spleen. And the willpower, that's the Zi Qi that is in the kidneys. Now, in next week's episode, I'm going to go over the actual characteristics that each of those spiritual aspects have in our body. So please make sure you don't miss that episode, which that brings us to the end of this episode. And if you're enjoying my content, I want to let you know that I do have an email list in my email list. I share more about my life and I also share some really fun, useful study guides. So don't miss those emails and sign up for the email list at my website. My website is www.studyacuwithme.com. All right, everyone. Until next time, God bless and happy studying.