Winter is approaching, is your yang energy still there?

There is a type of fat people who are very afraid of cold. When others are wearing vests and shorts, they still wear long underwear. Especially in winter, when others can keep warm by wearing a cotton coat, he has to wear thermal underwear inside. Turn on the electric blanket or cover yourself with two layers of quilts when sleeping. In fact, this is a typical case of kidney yang deficiency. The biggest characteristic of patients with weak kidney yang is fear of cold.

In fact, the reason behind this is very simple. Yang Energy is equivalent to a ball of fire in the human body. When the weather is cold, people rely on this fire in their bodies to keep warm. Once the kidney yang is weak, the "fire" will also weaken and people will feel cold. Men are yang and women are yin.

Generally speaking, young and strong men have stronger yang energy. In the past, there were often old sayings to describe men with strong yang energy, such as "A young man sleeps on a cold kang, all thanks to his strong fire energy" and "A man has three fires on his shoulders". The fire here is the common name for Yang energy. The "masculinity" of men that we often talk about is also yang energy, and can also be understood as the so-called "masculinity".

There are two sources of Yang energy: one is congenital, coming from the father and mother; the other is acquired, mainly transformed from the essence of water and grain absorbed from food. The normal functioning of the human body, work, exercise, sexual life, mood swings, responding to temperature changes, and healing trauma all require the consumption of Yang energy.

Yang Qi is the driving force behind the body's material metabolism and physiological functions, and is the decisive factor in human reproduction, growth, development, aging and death. Normal human survival requires the support of Yang energy, as the saying goes, "Those who have Yang live, and those who lose Yang die." Simply put, the more yang energy there is, the stronger the human body is. If the Yang Qi is insufficient, people will get sick. If the Yang energy is completely exhausted, a person will die.

Because Yang Qi has the function of warming the whole body's tissues and maintaining the functions of internal organs. Weak Yang Qi will lead to weakening and decline of physiological activities, resulting in a decrease in the body's ability to resist cold. It is stated in "Lingshu": "When people reach forty, their Yang Qi is insufficient and the loss increases day by day." This means that as people age, their Yang Qi will gradually be depleted. Therefore, young men are generally not afraid of the cold and often walk around with their bare arms. But the same cannot be said for the elderly. They always wrap themselves tightly. Even so, they have to curl up to keep warm when they feel a little cold.

The important role of Yang Qi in life and health is most evident in its warming and nourishing effect. Yang energy is like the sun, radiating heat outwards. As the saying goes, the sun comes out and it’s warm. The human body's yang energy can also make the body warm. This warming function can be seen in the general population. Some people are overly afraid of cold, and even feel cold in the hottest summer. We usually say that such people have "insufficient basic fire" and "insufficient yang energy". On the contrary, some people are very cold-resistant. When others wear two or three pieces of clothes, he only wears a single piece of clothing. We say that such people have "strong yang energy". Yang Energy can warm the human body and nourish it.

Look at the natural world. In spring and summer, there is plenty of sunshine and the climate is warm, so animals and plants are active and grow rapidly. But in autumn and winter, the weather is cold and everything is depressed and withered. Plants show the "miserable" state of dead branches and fallen leaves, and animals hibernate. The same is true for humans.

The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine highly summarizes the warming and nourishing function of Yang Qi as "like the sky and the sun", "refinement nourishes the spirit, and softness nourishes the tendons". Only when people have sufficient Yang Qi can they be energetic, full of vitality, agile and strong. Although fat people look strong, most of them suffer from qi deficiency, which leads to a higher chance of weak yang qi. Therefore, this type of fat people are strong on the outside but weak on the inside.

We have also heard people comment on certain fat people like this: someone looks strong, but actually has poor health and gets sick every other day. This is mostly what we call the type of weak Yang Qi.

So, why is Yang Qi called "Kidney Yang"? In fact, it is very simple. Since the kidneys store the body's innate and acquired essence, the kidney essence is transformed into kidney qi. Kidney qi is divided into two types: kidney yang qi and kidney yin qi. The kidney yang qi is what we usually call "yang qi".

Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Chinese medicine has always believed that the kidney is the basis of the internal organs, the root of the twelve meridians, and the innate basis lies in the kidney. The kidney and the life gate are originally of the same energy, and are the hub of the rise and fall of yin and yang in the human body. Kidney Yang dominates the Yang energy of the whole body. Kidney Yang deficiency refers to the deficiency of kidney Yang energy, which is a symptom of kidney Yang deficiency. It is mostly caused by factors such as yang deficiency, kidney deficiency due to aging, long-term illness damaging the kidneys, and excessive sexual intercourse.

The clinical manifestations include soreness of waist and knees, cold pain in the waist and back, chills and cold limbs, especially in the lower limbs; and are also accompanied by dizziness, mental fatigue, pale or dark complexion, pale and fat tongue with white coating, and weak pulse. In addition, weak kidney yang can also lead to sexual dysfunction such as impotence.