01 Introduction: Understanding Vital Yuanqi

A person’s physical strength represents the vital yuanqi in the body. Good physical strength indicates sufficient vital yuanqi. If someone feels slightly unwell, strengthening the spleen and stomach for a period can make them feel energetic and eager to exercise.

Many elderly people, especially men, seem lazy nowadays. This isn’t just a quiet personality; it’s a symptom of illness. The yang-energy, or vital yuanqi, isn’t rising. In traditional herbal medicine, we say:

The greatest treasure of the sky is the red sun. The greatest treasure of man is true yang.

Vital yuanqi is like the sun, rising in the morning and setting in the evening. When it rises, a person is energetic; when it falls, he wants to rest.

02 The Decline of Vital Yuanqi: Symptoms and Causes

If someone isn’t energetic from morning to evening, their vital yuanqi isn’t rising. Traditional herbal medicine teaches that the orderly rise and fall of vital yuanqi ensures a tranquil mind and the production of essence. Essence includes body fluids like sweat and saliva.

Many people experience dry eyes, less saliva, dry stools, and reduced synovial fluid in joints, known as yin-deficiency. Weak vital yuanqi reduces body essence, similar to how young people’s skin is tender while elderly skin is keratinized. This change isn’t just due to reduced moisture but also altered nutritional structure, with decreased protein and fat.

Women often worry about their skin. Expensive cosmetics can’t compare to internal nourishment.

To keep the skin supple, it is essential to nourish the kidneys.

Healthy kidneys retain the body’s essence.

03 The Analogy of Wet Wood and Mushrooms

According to the medical classic Huangdi Neijing:

If you keep your mind focused, you will never get sick.

Feeling strong and energetic means our spirit is focused and our vital yuanqi isn’t wasted. If someone who was lively becomes listless, lazy, and cold, they should check their blood sugar with a formal glucose tolerance test at a hospital, not just at home.

A glucose tolerance test involves drinking sugar water or intravenous glucose and checking blood sugar levels hourly. This diagnoses diabetes. If a doctor advises conditioning, it may be a precursor to diabetes, so strengthening the spleen and stomach is crucial. Improvements in appetite, sleep, and spirits can be seen in ten to fifteen days.

For hypertension and heart disease patients, these improvements are the first step to recovery, indicating revitalized internal organs and sufficient yuanqi and blood. Vital yuanqi is the foundation of health, protecting the body and curing many diseases without treatment.

Professor Fan Zhenglun compares the human body to wood and disease to mushrooms growing on it. Conventional treatments like blood pressure-lowering drugs or insulin are like pulling mushrooms off wet wood; the wood remains wet, and mushrooms regrow.

To prevent disease, we must dry the wood, or in human terms, cultivate vital yuanqi, expel coldness and dampness, and use targeted prescriptions. Strengthening the spleen and stomach, then nourishing the kidneys, will naturally eliminate coldness and dampness. Persisting in this cycle turns wet wood into dry wood, healing minor diseases and simplifying treatment for more serious ones.

Improvements in eating and sleeping during revitalization indicate the drying of wet wood and a positive physical environment. Laziness isn’t just a personality trait; it signals qi-deficiency and excessive dampness.

What can be done about it?

To be continued in part two.