Nourishing yin
Wednesday, November 15, 2023 3:55pm
I have somehow missed the Start of Winter solar term this year. Possibly it is because I have a one-year-old whom I am trying to keep away from screens, so I can’t write like I used to. And I can’t write by hand either, because toddlers are very interested in pens and paper, and not very conducive to actual writing. But I have several patients right now who need yin nourishing so I’m hoping to jot down a few thoughts while my Boon is upstairs hanging out with Grandpapa (I hope they are both napping).
The most important thing to nourish yin is to sleep. If your sleep is super disregulated, just sleep as much as you can, whenever you can. But if you have some agency over when you sleep, it is important to be in deep sleep during Liver o’clock (by the 12-hour Chinese chronobiology clock, which I will try to find a link to) so your body can thoroughly detox its blood while you are asleep. When one is awake a certain amount of circulation is necessary, so there’s less blood stored/hidden away in the Liver at any given moment. In the US, this means 1-3am, or 12-2am currently, because of stupid Daylight Savings time. It’s best to deep sleep during Gallbladder o’clock too, since Liver and Gallbladder are partners. Gallbladder’s hour is the one that brackets midnight. So, if you’re an overachiever like me, try to be asleep an hour or half an hour before 10pm (until we switch our clocks in March).
That said, I have multiple patients asking me what they can eat to nourish yin. If you are already sleeping the correct hours, but still not growing yin (i.e., you have dryness, you are restless, there’s not enough yin to anchor your yang so you are hot and bothered frequently), try avoiding spicy and deep fried foods. Oh, and raw, uncooked, unfermented foods!* You can try eating more sesame seeds (both black and white are good, they do different things), root vegetables, especially 山藥 shānyào (they are called nagaimo at Berkeley Bowl, and a Spanish-speaking patient of mine says there are good recipes online under its Mexican name, camote del cerro), taro root 芋頭 yùtóu, and sweet potato. Anything that is naturally gelatinous and slick (like okra) is yin, but note that aloe vera is considered cold in TCM and will slow down your entire digestive tract.
*This is why salads and other uncooked foods are not considered healthy in Chinese medicine, because if your digestion slows down it can’t keep up with its workload of processing nutrients out of the food we eat and distributing it to the parts of your body that need it. Spicy foods create more heat, and fried foods create more damp-heat, which if you are already yin deficient to the point of having hot flashes is something you want to avoid. But this is why just simply eating cooling things won’t necessarily have the intended effect.
