Insufficient Yang Qi (Yang Deficiency) is the fourth factor for women’s sensitivity to cold.
Yang deficiency means that the fire of the Mingmen (Gate of Life) is insufficient.
The cold sensitivity caused by Yang deficiency indicates that this person indeed has insufficient Yang Qi, which means that the fire of the Mingmen and the fire of life are insufficient. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) believes that Yang deficiency is a major pathogenic factor harming women’s health.
What are the manifestations of Yang deficiency in women?
The main manifestations of Yang deficiency in women are feeling very cold in the limbs and having a pale complexion. If Yang deficiency reaches a certain degree, the complexion may appear dark.
At the same time, these women may have clear and frequent urination, with increased nighttime urination, often waking up at night.
In addition to feeling cold in the limbs, women with Yang deficiency also lack vitality and often feel listless.
Why is this so? Because the fire of life is insufficient, leading to a lack of vitality, resulting in daytime drowsiness and discomfort, feeling more comfortable lying down, and having a foggy mind; this state is called “desire to sleep in the morning”.
So, is this “desire to sleep in the morning” a genuine desire to sleep?
Not necessarily.
Some people can fall asleep, but most people just lie down and appear to be asleep; in fact, they just feel like they don’t want to think about anything, and squinting their eyes feels comfortable because their energy is insufficient.
Moreover, individuals with Yang deficiency will gradually experience a decline in functions related to growth and development. For example, children with Yang deficiency develop slowly, and elderly individuals with Yang deficiency age prematurely.
What other manifestations do individuals with Yang deficiency have?
Their symptoms of cold sensitivity are particularly obvious; for instance, sitting on a cold bench can immediately cause abdominal discomfort; sometimes, being blown by cold wind can also immediately cause abdominal discomfort; drinking something cold can lead to stomach pain and abdominal discomfort.
Therefore, individuals with Yang deficiency are more susceptible to cold. Changes in external temperature can more easily affect them.
Once these individuals catch a cold, every organ in their body can fall into a problematic state.
For example, they are more likely to experience gynecological issues such as infertility, dysmenorrhea, and leukorrhea.
Many people believe that gynecological inflammation in women can be treated by clearing heat and detoxifying.
If you think this way, you are mistaken, as a considerable proportion of gynecological inflammation needs to be treated through methods such as warming Yang and unblocking meridians.
If you use methods to clear heat and detoxify, it will take a long time to treat her illness.
Thus, it can be seen that women’s Yang deficiency or insufficient Yang Qi has a particularly significant impact on the body.
What causes Yang deficiency in women?
Why does Yang deficiency occur?
First, everyone must understand that your Yang Qi is insufficient only when your organs have been damaged to a certain extent, which makes you susceptible to external cold.
Some people believe that eating cold foods will lead to Yang deficiency.
Not necessarily! Some people eat ice cream without feeling anything, but others feel immediate stomach pain or discomfort after eating an ice cream. Why is that?
(1) Blood deficiency or internal blood stasis, liver Qi stagnation
The internal causes leading to Yang deficiency in women are crucial; the internal cause is that your organs have problems, such as blood deficiency, internal blood stasis, or liver Qi stagnation.
Especially in cases of insufficient Qi and blood, there will be water dampness and pathological factors accumulating in the body. If you are then exposed to external cold, it can easily lead to a rapid development of Yang deficiency.
You must understand this concept; it is not enough to just do moxibustion every day to adjust Yang deficiency. Some people cannot rely solely on warming Yang methods; in fact, they need to use tonifying methods.
In other words, your “ammunition depot” must have supplies; you need to have gunpowder. If you have no gunpowder, no matter how many matches you have, it won’t work.
For example, kidney essence is the fundamental substance of the human body, which can transform into kidney Yin and kidney Yang. If you often stay up late, overthink, or engage in excessive sexual activity, depleting kidney essence, then when kidney essence is insufficient, you are likely to have both Yin and Yang deficiency.
For instance, when your kidney essence is insufficient and you suddenly catch a cold—eating ice cream, drinking cold beer, being in air conditioning, or wearing clothes that expose your abdomen—what will happen? At this point, your Yang deficiency may “set in”.
Therefore, remember that the damage to the organs is an important foundation for Yang deficiency.
If you do not understand this principle, you will find it difficult to adjust. You cannot just think about warming Yang; warming Yang refers to the final ignition state, but you must first ensure that the firepower in the ammunition depot is sufficient; that is the key.
In addition, on the basis of your organ damage, phlegm dampness will also arise.
If you are already spleen-deficient or have internal blood stasis, and at this time the dampness is heavy, it will cause different changes in the body depending on external conditions. Dampness is an Yin evil, and its nature is heavy and turbid.
If your organs are damaged and dampness is heavy, and you live in a place like Sanya, where the temperature is over 30 degrees Celsius all year round, the water dampness in your body can easily turn into damp-heat.
Many people who stay in Sanya for a while develop rheumatic heat, such as rheumatoid arthritis and swollen joints, which are caused by internal damp-heat.
If you live in the Northeast, where the external environment is cooler, the water dampness in your body is more likely to develop towards cold dampness.
For example, those with rheumatism fear cold and prefer warmth; this nature indicates that there is cold dampness in the body. Changes in the external environment can cause different changes in internal dampness.
In this case, if your dampness is heavy and you catch a cold, it is easy to transition into a state of Yang deficiency. Each constitution is the result of the interaction between internal and external factors.
(2) Poor emotions can also lead to Yang deficiency in women.
Different emotions can lead our bodies into different states.
For example, a person who prefers to be quiet and does not like to move, as long as they have depressive emotions, is likely to enter a state of Yang deficiency.
Of course, these two are interrelated; Yang deficiency can also easily lead to a state of depression. Because once emotions cannot be uplifted, the circulation of Qi and blood will also be obstructed.
If a person’s emotions are uplifted and they are happy all day, then they are less likely to have Yang deficiency.
Similarly, a person with abundant Yang Qi will also be energetic and in a happy state. Some individuals with extreme personalities may also enter different states.
For example, some people have a cold personality; when a neighbor’s child gets into a prestigious university, they might think, “That child got into university, but there are so many cars in the city; what if they get hit by a car?”
In fact, there are many such people in life—when they see others having good fortune, they feel very upset, and they often want to harm others, saying something harsh; they look at others with a slanted eye, and when others need help, they think, “I won’t help!”… You say, can such a person have abundant Yang Qi?
Think about it; the situation I described may be extreme, but indeed many people have such states, and we must have seen them in life. Such people often have pale complexions, distorted faces, and are very thin.
On the other hand, when someone else’s child gets into a good university, some people will say, “That’s great! Really! That child is amazing; I have relatives in Beijing, and when the child arrives in Beijing, if there’s anything, they can find them, and I’ll introduce them to you then.”
You see, this kind of person is very warm-hearted, right? Why are they warm-hearted? Because their Yang Qi is abundant; do you think such a person can easily enter a state of Yang deficiency? It’s very difficult.
(3) People who “dislike others being poor and resent others being good” are most likely to have Yang deficiency.
Personality and physical state also influence each other; different physical states can affect a person’s formation of different personalities.
However, sometimes it is also a matter of worldview, which is determined by the environment in which you were educated. If you have a good worldview, being positive, helpful, you are more likely to form a good personality, and your body is also more likely to enter a balanced state of Yin and Yang.
If your worldview is very pessimistic, always wanting to harm others, feeling secretly happy when others are unfortunate, and feeling angry when others are happy, always wanting to dig a pit at their door to trip them when they come out.
People who think this way will not have a good personality, and such people are also unlikely to be healthy.
(4) Worldview determines health.
Now many people want to learn TCM; I think the most important thing in learning TCM is to first learn a correct worldview—compassion, kindness, and goodness. Once you establish your worldview, it’s fine to learn various techniques.
If you only focus on techniques and get the direction of life wrong, no matter how many techniques you learn, it will be useless.
I can honestly say that the same technique used by two people with completely different worldviews will yield different results.
Therefore, we must first learn to be a good person, clarify the direction, and then apply the techniques we have learned.
What does worldview have to do with Yang deficiency?
Why are some people’s bodies very difficult to adjust?
Because they cannot change their worldview or personality. Adjusting symptoms with medication is very simple, but if the root cause is not resolved, the body will ultimately be difficult to adjust.
05 Summary: External cold and internal causes are often interrelated, with internal causes being the main reason for women’s cold sensitivity as stated in “The Complete Book of Women’s Health”.
Nowadays, many people emphasize that women’s cold constitution is overly attributed to eating cold foods or being in air conditioning.
This somewhat overemphasizes external causes; in fact, internal causes are the main factors leading to women’s cold sensitivity.
In the Song Dynasty, there was a book called “The Complete Book of Women’s Health”, which is a particularly famous gynecological book. It specifically discusses the issue of women being affected by cold—”If a woman suffers from wind deficiency and cold, it is due to the body being deficient and suffering from cold.”
This means that if a woman’s body is affected by cold, it must be due to the body being deficient (insufficient righteous Qi), which allows external cold to invade.
“If a woman regulates her Qi and blood properly, then wind, cold, heat, and dampness cannot harm her.” This means that if your Qi and blood are well-regulated, and the circulation of Qi and blood is normal and vigorous, then wind, cold, heat, and dampness cannot harm you.
In other words, if your Qi and blood are abundant, and your spleen and stomach are strong, and the circulation of Qi and blood is very good, even if you are exposed to cold or air conditioning for a while, your body can quickly recover, so “wind, cold, heat, and dampness cannot harm you.”
“If you suffer from excessive labor and damage your Qi and blood, it will lead to deficiency, and then wind and cold will invade through the deficiency, or stay in the meridians, causing Qi and blood stagnation, which cannot warm the skin; or enter the abdomen, leading to deficiency of the Qi, which cannot digest food.”
If you suffer from excessive consumption, leading to insufficient Qi and blood, and then the circulation of Qi and blood is obstructed, causing the body to enter a state of deficiency.
Then external pathogens will definitely invade through the deficiency, either staying in the meridians or entering the organs. If your Qi and blood are insufficient and the meridians are affected by cold, then Qi and blood will stagnate, and circulation will become even more obstructed.
Therefore, external cold and internal causes are often interrelated.
When your Qi and blood are insufficient, cold pathogens can easily enter the meridians, leading to further stagnation of Qi and blood.
“Cannot warm the skin”—your Qi and blood cannot warm the surface of the body, so you always feel cold.
If cold invades the abdomen, and the Qi and blood in the organs are insufficient, being attacked by cold pathogens will lead to weakness of the spleen and stomach, “cannot digest food”—your spleen and stomach will become even weaker, unable to process food, so you easily feel bloated or have stomach pain after eating.
“The Complete Book of Women’s Health” states that “wherever the external pathogen enters, it will cause disease in that organ, for example, “if the large intestine is weak, it will lead to diarrhea after being exposed to cold; if wind and cold enter the uterus, it will cause coldness in the organs, leading to infertility.”
One of my female disciples mentioned that a relative of her cousin has been married for many years without having children. Later, the couple came from Inner Mongolia to Beijing to see me. Although both of them appeared to be healthy, when I looked at their tongues, they both had a white coating, indicating that it was related to their shared living habits.
As we chatted, the reason came out; it turned out that this couple loved to eat cold foods. To what extent? In winter, they often lay in bed eating ice cream together.
Nowadays, there are not many people whose organs are strong and whose Qi and blood are abundant.
Although people from Inner Mongolia appear strong due to their consumption of lamb and beef, they cannot withstand the depletion caused by eating ice cream every day, which over time leads to increased internal cold dampness.
If your organs and Qi and blood are insufficient, “if wind and cold enter the uterus, it will cause coldness in the organs, leading to infertility,” the ancients made it very clear.
Therefore, when adjusting this couple’s bodies, I mainly focused on warming Yang and transforming dampness.
Years later, I casually asked my disciple how they were doing, and she said their child is now several years old.
Book Title: Three Treasures of Women’s Health by Luo Dalun
Publisher: Jiangxi Science and Technology Publishing House, Publication Date: October 2020
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