Five Branches University
TCM Tips for Self-Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Professor of Five Branches University, Dr. Ching Ching Chi (周靖親), PhD, L.Ac, shares TCM tips for self-care during the COVID-19 pandemic. The key to wellness is to provide environments favorable to maintaining homeostasis. Learn some tips to boost your immunity, promote self-healing, reduce stress, and maintain optimal environments within and without!
In general, the signs and symptoms of the COVID-19, in Chinese Medicine, can be categorized into patterns involving Dampness. What is Dampness according to Chinese Medicine? What are its presentations and resulting effects on our bodies? What can we do to prevent or counteract against it? Every organism lives in an environment; we have an environment surrounding us, and we have an environment within our bodies.
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(upbeat music) – Hi, Five Branches University students. This is Dr. Chi speaking. We are living in an unprecedented
time and many people are looking for ways to
stay healthy and safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. But right now, there are unknown numbers of people in U.S. that are suffering from COVID-like symptoms who are simply cannot get tested or tested positive but
with some mild symptoms. So, I know a lot of us already
practice social distancing, and most people have already
been following all the rules about hand-washing, avoid
touching their faces, avoid shaking hands or hugging, or disinfecting surface frequently. But, is there anything else that we can do can help our body? So this video will teach you
how to take care of yourself, or your patient or your friends
at home in self-quarantine, which promotes self-healing
and reduced stress. According to the last
videos that this pathogen is invaded the Mo Yuan area,
cause dampness in our body. Many experienced TCM doctors from China who have treated COVID-19 patients, they all believe that this pandemic belongs to dampness and
they call it Damp-E. E means epidemic diseases. The Mo Yuan is the area in
between interior and exterior or in the Cao Guo they
classify this as (mumbles) pathogen doesn't invade the exterior so we cannot use only the
releasing exterior masses that produce sweating and pathogen doesn't invade the interior so we cannot use the purging masks. Last class we already talk about (mumbles) the first one that
founded that this pathogen enter the bodies through
the mouth and nose and invades and lingers
in our Mo Yuan area and he established a new
method called Fen Xiao. They use dispersing,
transforming and draining three methods together in one in order to get the dampness
out of the Mo Yuan area. And he have used the spicy
and warm aromatic herbs to accomplish this task. He used this Bing Lang, Cau Guo, Huo Po. Those herbs are moving
Qi, remove dampness, open stagnation and promote urination. This kind of herbs can help
to tackle to Mo Yuan area and get rid of the dampness in that layer. During the epidemic disease, tongue coating changes very fast and could promptly reflect
the development of the disease and the condition of the body. It often found their tongues really white and have a thick coating
on top of the tongue so we know that tongue diagnoses is one of the diagnostic
tools that we use very often in our clinic, So today I'm going to teach you how to use the tongue diagnosis. You can do self check every day at home by looking at your tongue and change your lifestyle accordingly. Many COVID-19 patients
have very thick, white, powdery-like coating. There are two patients in the early March with COVID-19 like
symptoms that are helped with traditional Chinese medicine. On the top, with patient one, presented with low-grade fever, dry cough, shortness of breath, and extremely fatigued with low appetite. So at the beginning the
tongue was really pale and the coating was very white. So after seven days of the using herbs, and then you can start to see
that the tongue is improved by the color and also the coating. The color returns to pink and the coating start to thinning up. The second patient in Nevada was also presented with high fever, dry cough, sore throat and chest pain. So after seven days of treatment, the tongue start from
the white, greasy coating and is much lighter white coating. The tongue colors from pale
and start to returning pink. So all the symptoms are improved while the tongue returned to
pink and thin, white coating. In this slide, there two
patients are diagnosed and hospitalized in China with COVID-19. The tongue is presented with very white, thick, greasy, powdery coating. At the same time, the CT
scan also show ground glass opacity saturated with two (mumbles). In the second patient on the bottom, is showing bilateral ground glass opacity when they started to
taking the herbal medicine together with Western medicine. You can see the tongue
start with white coating, become thicker, and
then start to thinning. The ground glass absorption, of the inflammation in the lung. So what is dampness? Dampness seems to rampant
in industrialized society. It is due to the burden of
unnatural substance in our food that need to be eliminated from
our body after consumption. So eating a clean and
wholeful diet is so important for our body and for our immune system. So if patient presented with dampness usually they will feel very heavy and it's very difficult to treat. Also it lasts for a long time. It has a tendency to move downward, so a lot of the patients
presented with COVID-19, their lung was being
infected in the bottom 1/3. In Chinese medicine,
dampness is considered to be the cause of the many illness such as high cholesterol,
cancer, metabolic disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, allergy and environmental illness. So we all know that this time for people who have a higher risk of
getting COVID-19 are the people who are already have
underlying medical conditions such as heart condition, diabetes, severe obesity and hypertension. So all this are all classified
as dampness body type in the traditional Chinese medicine. Environment is very crucial for the survival of the microorganism. One of the most central concept of the traditional Chinese medicine is that of the interlink connection between the body of the
men and the environment within which men lives and works and play. The physiology of the cells, tissue, some organs of the body
is in dynamic, internal, equilibrium, and constantly adjusts according to the changes in
the external environment. So Coronavirus transmits in
the dampness micro environment. According to the traditional
Chinese medicine evaluation, it also make our body damp. The patients who have COVID-19
have usually presented with very white, greasy,
coating and also body aches, heaviness, strong fatigue,
loose stool or diarrhea, low appetite, etc. Those are all consider
a dampness condition. If we can eat healthy and getting proper amount of exercise. If our environment pleasant our body have a power to recover itself. What are the lifestyle and practices that will cause our body to become damp and how to change them in order to provide a better environment
for our body to recover. There's two things we can
do to fight this dampness. First of all, we have to keep our body's internal
environment warm and dry and second we have to keep our external environment warm and dry. In our house, we can light the fireplace or turn on the heater. We also can burn or dried sage around that leaving space in our house. Use masa stick, cut
them into small sections and burn a section each time for patient who already have cold like symptoms and then with white
coatings in their tongue and you can burn this matsa in the place where they stay and self-quarantine. That will be a very good way
to change the microenvironment for pathogens to survive. How about our internal environment? If we feel cold, or
have some kind of chills or if we already start feeling
our achiness and soreness in our body or in the back of the body, we can drink a warm ginger lemon water and sit in front of the fireplace
or any other heat sourced with back facing the heat
until it starts sweating. It is a light sweat. The kind of experience when
you drink hot soup or tea. Remember, it cannot be a heavy sweat like from a sauna or intense exercise. Of course lemon, we know that
there is a lot of vitamin C and vitamin C actually
help to fight virus. Ginger can disperse lung
cold and stop cough. It also releases the exterior
and warms the middle Jiao. It help to remove the dampness by warming our stomach
and promote sweating. Because a light sweat with open the pores of the skin so that the
lungs can disperse fluids and the fluids will not
become pathogenic dampness. Then when we warm the Middle Jiao, we can get rid of the dampness by transforming the
dampness in our stomach. There's other ways to avoid dampness and phlegm in our body. First of all, we have to avoid overeating. In traditional Chinese medicine we believe that overeating will weaken the stomach and the spleen and leads to accumulation of the dampness and phlegm. And excess consumption of the cold energy and raw food will also weaken our spleen. Like for example, the refrigerated food, ice water, or ice cream
will cool our stomach and make our stomach not be
able to move efficiently. Raw vegetables, salad
fruit are also considered cold and raw. If you already have COVID-19 like symptoms, you have to avoid refrigerated food and raw vegetable and salad if possible and some other food are also considered as
greasy and (mumbles) for example like deep
fried food, chips, cheese, milk, cream, butter, banana, fatty meats. But when you wake up in
the morning and or nuts because nuts have a lot of oil inside. And then try to eat light. It's crucial during the
time when you already have dampness in your body,
especially in the tongue. Now if you already see white
coating in your tongue. So its actually a good recommendation that when you wake up in the morning and then standing in front of the mirror and take a look at your tongue and see if your tongue is already covering with white coating. If you already see white coating, try to eat light, avoid sweets. Recommendation here is to take
Yi Yi Ren with Chi Xiao Dou. Chi Xiao Dou is very good for moving the blood at the same time have a diarrhetic effect. Together with Yi Yi Ren Yi Yi Ren in transforming dampness in your lung. We can even use Yi Yi Ren
to remove pus in our lung. It can become a very nice
dessert for your dinner or it can be a very good breakfast for the morning. We can
also keep our body warm by standing medications with the sun warming up our back. We know
the (inaudible distortion) and the channel are traveling
in the back of our body. It helps to eliminate the fluid
in the body at the same time it also protects us
from external invasion. There is also one very
simple exercise we can do if you already have the symptoms of chest pain and tightness. If you find any area that feel discomfort you can just use your finger to tap on area that you feel tight or you can make an empty fist to pounding on the area
that you already feel tight. We know that in the thymus, is there T cells mature and then its very crucial in targeting and destroying the pathogen. If we can press on the area where the sternum bone is and find any sore and achy spots. Tap around this area. Also you can use your finger
to tap along your lung channels and that will help the circulation and chi movement in the lung channel. Moxibustion. We talk about learning the Moxibustion to make
our environment dry. At the same time, we also can use moxibustion
to warm up acupuncture points to help the transforming of
the dampness in our body. The two points we can recommend. Number one is the Ren-12. If you draw a straight line between the end of the sternum bone and your bellybutton, find the center. That is Ren-12. This point is the best
to transform dampness, improve circulation in
your digestion system. ST 36 is also a very
good acupuncture point, which will help you to
transform the dampness, improving your digestion
to increase your immunity. There's also some very simple, the alternative therapies
that we can do at home, to do Gua Sha in the back and also we can use cupping in the back along the urinary bladder channel. Both method can increase
the movement of Qi, eliminating the extra fluid that's been accumulated
in the surrounding tissue. What is the best way to
boost up your immunity? I cannot underscore enough
the importance of sleeping and tending the healthy new system. So please sleep before 11 and try to sleep at least 7 hours. There's really no substitute to good sleep when it comes to the health
of your immune system. There is nothing you can
eat including supplements or herbal medicine or do
to make up your poor sleep. So sleep really needs to
be the highest priority at this time. Talk to your TCM doctor if you will have problems with sleep. The second, is we have
to reduce our stress. The body reacts to chronic stress is to produce more cortisol which can result in
accumulation of a fat tissue which is also an indication of the increasing of the
dampness in our body. So the stress hormone cortico steroid can suppress the
effectiveness of our immunity. It lowers the number of the (mumbles) so stress can also have an indirect effect on the immune system as a person may also using unhealthy
behavior, coping strategy to reduce their stress
such as drinking, smoking, so this is a really bad
for our immune system. Try to call your friends or
prayer or playing some music to reduce your stress. So if you do all the things we recommend, you will have the best
condition to fight this battle. So what TCM can help with the
three stages of the disease? Stage one, we can help the
diseases before it happens. So we can help your body to
prevent you to get COVID-19. And then stage 2, if you already have the
COVID-19 like symptoms, we can prevent it to progress. And then in the third stage if you recovered from the COVID-19, and you still have symptoms of weakness tiredness or poor appetite and poor malfunctions
we can help the patient to return to his best
optimum health condition. So if you have any questions, please leave your comments and we then will try our best to help you and we really can fight
this battle together and please do not be stressed because there's so many things you can do to help your body to recover itself. That's all for today,
see you in next week. (upbeat music)
#TCM #Tips #SelfCare #COVID19 #Pandemic
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excellent lecture! What are those warm herbs called in english – thanks
Thank you do much for this helpfull video and very good presentation in this challenging times
This was so good, thanks for sharing!
This was exactly what I was looking for ! This provides more options for self-treatment opportunities. I am very thankful.
Gonna check this one out! TCM should be with Ayurveda the new Standard of health!
thank you very much,
This video help me a lot of life style change. I love sweet staff, that I have to reduce (Icecream, cake)‥
When I go accupuncture, the therapist always said I have dumpness, but I did not understand what does it means.
Thank you for your lecture.
Thank you.
Thanks a lot!
Hi, may I know what is ma sak for the burning? Thanks
Thank you.
I love this information thank you dr. I live in México queremos can i findes those ingrediets
Wonderful! Thank you so much. Critical information
Does beetroot help with dampness?