To sedate the liver using the creative cycle I sedate the element supported by wood thus causing that organ to draw more energy away form the liver. Wood supports fire. Since liver is a yin organ I need to sedate the yin organ corresponding to the element of fire, i.e. the heart.

At the same time I should use the controlling sequence. To sedate the liver, a yin wood organ, I need to tonify the yin organ associated with the element that controls wood. This is the lungs.

In order for jiaogulan to be effective in managing high blood pressure, jiaogulan would ideally have the effect of sedating the heart and tonifying the lungs.

If we analyze the core functions of jiaogulan from a western allopathic point of view, one of the key effects of jiaogulan is to increase the body’s production of Nitric-oxide. This in turn dialates the blood vessels. Reducing the pressure in the blood vessels and reducing stress on the heart. So there is an argument for jiaogulan sedating the heart. Although the argument seems “bassackwards” to me.  We have sedated the heart by reducing blood pressure rather than sedating the heart in order to reduce blood pressure.

Jiaogulan also increases the body’s production of a natural antioxidant called Superoxide dismutase (SOD). Since anti-oxidants are powerful immune system boosters one could suggest that the strengthened immune system has the effect of reducing stress on the lungs therefore tonifying the lungs. Again, the argument seems a little indirect to me but perhaps it is there.

So, using 5 element theory I can’t create a convincing argument for jiaogulan treating high blood pressure. The allopathic mechanism of increased Nitric Oxide seems more compelling and direct. However, I would be delighted to get opinions from TCM practitioners with more experience than I. Leave me a comment if you can.

See you next time.

Since I’m taking a course in acupuncture that includes a lot of Chinese medicine theory. I’ve been thinking  about our main product, the herb Jiaogulan, and Chinese medicine. Specifically, we’ve been studying five element theory as it applies to treatment. The basic idea is each organ is associated with one of the 5 traditional Chinese elements, fire, earth, metal, water and wood. To treat a condition you need to identify the organ associated with that condition and its related element. You determine if the element needs to be tonified (strengthened) or sedated. You then examine the creative and destructive cycles and then, rather then working directly on the relevant organ, you treat related organs in a manner that either tonifies  or sedates. Probably an example is called for.

Lets say your Kidneys are weak.  The kidneys are associated with the element water. To strengthen them I want to strengthen the element that supports the element water. In the Chinese elements theory, water is supported by metal.  The lungs are a metal organ. So in order to strengthen my kidneys with out doing something directly to my kidneys (they are weak so the idea is that direct action is too aggressive) then I instead want to strengthen the lungs.

On the flip side, the destructive cycle indicates that the water element is controlled by the element earth. The relevant earth organ is the spleen. So for weak kidneys I want to ask  the spleen to back off for a while, reduce the control until the kidneys recover.

OK, so what about jiaogulan. The most widely touted benefit of jiaogulan is controlling high blood pressure. In TCM, blood problems are related to the liver. High blood pressure indicates an excess of Yang energy or fire in the liver. So hypertension requires a sedation of the liver.

I’m out of time. More next time on jiaogulan and five element theory.

I find this kind of nationwide or even global statistics hard to relate to. Obviously, the numbers are huge and frightening in an abstract kind of way. But like most people, I don’t need economists to tell me we’re in a recession. I see it in my ordinary life. I teach tai chi and most of my students are seniors. I don’t charge much but even that small amount is beginning to cause a strain. My enrollment is down to 4 or 5 people. They are from a generation that is uncomfortable talking about money but I can see the strain in their faces and hear in their voices especially before class when they are just chatting amongst themselves.

Our tea business is down as well and the pattern of purchasing is changed. Our most popular item used to be the 100 gr. package of loose leaf tea for $24.95. That’s about enough tea for for 100 cups of tea, maybe 2 months for the average person. Now the purchases have bifurcated. My customers either buy smaller packages, say 30 gr., and try to make it stretch or they’re buying the larger packages to take advantage of the bulk discounts.

All this bad news can definitely have an effect on you emotional and spiritual health. If we are not directly suffering we are at least indirectly suffering through friends and family.

So I got to thinking this morning about happiness. A study came out yesterday on the viral effect of happiness. Dr. Nicholas Christikas from Harvard University conducted a 20 year study of almost 5000 people. He found that our happiness is strongly effected by the happiness of people close to us. I have a hard science education, Physics and Electrical Engineering, so I am often sceptical about research findings especially in demographic or social studies. There are just so many factors going on in any given population group that it’s hard to isolate any single factor. On the other hand, I often see studies in which the finding seems so obvious I’m amazed someone, probably John Q. Taxapayer aka your’s truly, paid for such a study. Dr. Christakis’s study falls in this latter category for me. If you are around happy people your chance of being happy also goes up….surprise!.

I suspect Dr. Christakis and I might disagree about the mechanism at play here. Working with qi gong everyday I routinely feel other people’s energy and I can feel if that person is happy, sad, angry etc. I suspect everyone can feel it it is just that I have trained myself to be more aware of the feelings. I sometimes compare it to a sense of smell. Most of just ignore many smells, we’re used to them so our conciousness filters them out. The odor is old news. Our conciousness doesn’t need, or want, to keep being reminded. But if someone who is more consious of smells comes in the room and says, “Wow, do you smell that?” most of us can concentrate our attention and again detect the odor. Feeling other people’s energy is like that. Most of the time we filter it out. But that does not mean that we are not subconciously effected.

The good news is the effect goes both ways. I see it my classes all the time. We start doing a routine. The energy level in the room increases. suddenly, people who were angry or depressed feel better. It is a rare class that doesn’t end with the entire group chatting exitedly and smiling. If Dr. Christakis is right, then those people went out and passed on their happiness to their friends and they passed it on to theirs in a outward expanding wave of good feeling. Of course, just like a wave, the amplitude of the feeling diminishes as it moves outward. Dr. Christakis says the effect is only measurable 3 degrees out, that is, the friend of a friend of the happy person.

OK, I’ll take that. Let’s say 4 people attend my class and leave feeling good. They will each interact with 4 more people before the good feelings wear off and those 4 will interact with 4 more. That means that small class has had some small positive effect on the lives of 84 people. That makes me happy.

So join me. You do not have to go try to make other people happy. All you have to do is do something that makes you happy. That will automatically make other people some degree happier. Try some qi-gong or tai chi. Drink some jiaogulan tea. Studies show it has a mood enhancing effect (shameless plug!) Take a walk. Hug a kid. You get the idea. Start a wave.

One of the things they teach freshmen physics students is about waves. It turns out many physical phenomenon behave like waves, sound, light, earthquakes. In fact Quantum Physics holds that all existence is a probability wave. One of the first experiments I ever did was in a wave tank. This is typically a  square glass tank of water about 3 inches deep. A light shines down on the tank creating a pattern of shadows beneath the tank. You can then observe the effecs of waves by watching the patterns in the shadows. It is a beautiful and fascinating experiment.  One of the effects students learn is wave interference. Simply stated, When waves meet their amplitudes add up. So if a wave peak meets a wave trough the combined waves cancel each other out. But, if two wave peaks meet then the new peak is the sum of the contributing peaks. Cool!

So what about our happiness wave? I’m going to speculate that the same phenomenon holds true. If I start a happiness wave and you start a happiness wave and our waves meet, guess what happens? Double the happiness!. The more hapiness waves rippling through the social fabric the greater the probability. So, I’ll do my part, you do yours. Catch the wave.

(More tomorrow on happiness waves and physics phenomenon called harmonic vibration)

The Happy Couple

Marc and Diana are close friends and they are also my partners in this tea business so that seems like a place to start. Marc and Diana have been together for years now and were first married in Russia (Diana’s home country). They now live in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Diana is a Shaman and clairvoyant and she’s busy practically all the time giving readings and teaching seminars. You can check her out at www.lifeevents.org. A Chinese friend turned them on to jiaogulan and Marc decided to launch a business offering selling jiaogulan and other Thai teas  over the web. A few years later I left my job managing a mid-sized  IT outsourcing company and launched my own site working with Marc as my supplier. Besides giving me a business it also gives me a reason to vsist my friends in Thailand occasionally and for them to visit us.

On their last visit, Marc surprised Diana by planning a wedding here in California with

The Wedding Party

a few close friends. Its tough to catch Diana by surprise but she was truly shocked. The local county clerk married them in the atrium of the county clerks office, which was surprisingly pleasant, filled with plants and gurgling fountains. Then we all went to a nice dinner. It sounds anti-climatic as I’m writing about it but it was a special day.

On the way to the restaurant afterwards, in typical Diana-Shaman fashion, the sky put on a display to let us know her teachers were celebrating too.

Shamanic symbols in the sky.