The secret to long life, health and fertility in Chinese medicine is cultivating a way of life that promotes inner balance, puts you in harmony with nature and conserves your essential jing or energy.

According to Chinese medicine theory we have three sources of energy that keep us alive: the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the inherited jing essence we are born with. Each of us receives a finite amount of jing essence from our parents which enables us to develop in the womb. After birth this essence is stored where it becomes the material for our growth, development and reproduction. While we supply our daily needs for energy with the food, water and air we consume, our essential jing--- our “family trust fund”-- provides us with backup energy we can call on for health emergencies and for reproduction.

To maintain health and promote longevity we must replenish our daily energy with nourishing foods and conserve that “jing” essence as much as possible through proper lifestyle and relxation.

Known as the “root of life,” in Chinese Medicine the kidneys govern over birth, growth, and reproduction. Kidneys are described as housing the essence and being the root of yin and yang for the entire body-mind. The kidney involve all the physiological functions included in the Kidney-Urinary system along with the endocrine systems and the adrenal glands.

However, for many of us living in the West, our frenetic pace of life, high stress levels and poor nutrition forces our bodies to live beyond our daily income of energy supplied by food and air and to dip into our “jing account” on a regular basis. Living beyond our daily income, we are continually depleting our essential source of vitality, accelerating aging and reducing fertility.

Kidney energy or Qi is the source of sexual desire, fertility, reproduction, and growth. If we were to draw a parallel between Chinese and Western physiology, we might compare Kidney Qi with the endocrine system that controls the hormonal balance . Substances that stress the adrenal glands are draining to Kidney Qi. Deficient Kidney Qi could mean issues with infertility, slow growth and low libido,

Adrenal exhaustion or “burn out” is a common complaint of modern day life. The adrenal glands--those glands that supply our body with the juice we need to respond to dangers and emergencies --are on continual high alert, pouring out adrenalin and cortisol in response to the threats and fears that we are constantly bombarded with. Over time our adrenal system becomes worn out and less able to respond to real threats like infections, illness and aging. Fertility declines as the endocrine system divert hormones from the reproductive system.

For the last 2000 years Chinese Medicine has developed ways of conserving jing and promoting increased health and longevity by a daoist practice of self-care called yang sheng.

According to the Tao Te Ching (Chinese classic text written around the 6th century BC), those who practice yang sheng know how to preserve their jing, prevent disease and optimize their qi through proper diet, lifestyle and mental and spiritual attitude. Fertility, in this view, is the natural outgrowth of balance and vitality.

Embracing a way of living that “nourishes life” can reduce the leakage of jing and build up your natural fertile vitality.

The Chinese character of “yang” in yang sheng means to nurture, take care of, and nourish; “sheng” means life, birth, and vitality. Together “yang sheng” means Nourish Life — fostering health and well being by nurturing body, mind and spirit in harmony with the natural rhythms of nature.

The principles of yang sheng are:

• Practice loving compassion
• Live in harmony with the laws of nature
• Develop mindfulness through cultivating a calm and serene state of mind
• Care for your body through proper nourishment, rest, relaxation and daily exercise

Loving Compassion

According to the Tao Te Ching virtues such as kindness, loyalty, love, and compassion benefit both the individual and the society. Those who practice these virtues are more likely to enjoy a happy, long life. It is interesting that Western research is finding tangible health benefits in people performing acts of kindness.

In The Healing Power of Doing Good: The Health and Spiritual Benefits of Helping Others Allan Luks shows the health benefits for those who perform selfless act of kindness. These include:

• Helper’s high – the release of feel good endorphins that happens after doing an act of kindness produces a heightened sense of well being. This is often followed by an extended period of calm.
• Reduced stress --helping others reduces feelings of depression, hostility and isolation and can lower blood pressure and reduce levels of stress hormones like cortisol.
• Recurring benefit--acts of kindness don’t just affect you at the time you do them Each time you remember the kind act you are flooded with good feeling that enhance your sense of well being for hours or days.
• Happy thoughts – Helping others can increase feelings of joyfulness, emotional resilience, well-being and optimism.
• Affiliate connection – acts of kindness make you feel more connected to others--and this sense of connection can have a positive effect on your health by lowering blood pressure and strengthening the immune system.

If you shift your focus from yourself to others, extend your concern to others, and cultivate the thought of caring for the well-being of others, then this will have the immediate effect of opening up your life and helping you to reach out. His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Nature

According to Chinese medicine being close to nature attunes you to the daily and seasonal rhythms of the natural world--the dao.

The research of environmental psychologists like Roger Ulrich into the psychological effects of environment on peoples health confirms this age-old wisdom. Studies have shown that direct contact with nature, living plants and even photos of nature increase the rate and extent of recovery from stress.

Mindfulness

Frequent emotional upsets, excessive worry and anger can undermine your health and seriously deplete your jing essence according to Chinese medicine. This is in accord with the modern medicine’s understanding of the havoc that prolonged stress plays with your endocrine and adrenal system. Constantly high levels of cortisol can eventually exhaust your body’s ability to adapt to stress, compromise your immune system and cause your reproductive system to shut down. Cultivating mindfulness through mind-body practices like meditation, qi gong, and yoga every day help nourish emotional calm and foster a serene and optimistic outlook.

Diet and Lifestyle

A nourishing diet has long been considered the cornerstone of health and longevity in Chinese medicine. For thousands of years food, according to Chinese medicine, has been the primary way to preserve health and the first line of treatment in treating illness.

Where Western views of diet tend to focus on the chemical properties of food --vitamins and antioxidants for example- Chinese medicine considers the energetic qualities of food: the balance of yin and yang, the qualities of taste, texture, and colour. The combinations of foods, as well as season, method of preparation and geographic location all contribute to its healing power.

Yang sheng advocates a locally grown, mostly vegetarian diet with simple, balanced flavors without alcohol consumption or cigarette smoking. Grains, beans, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and fruits comprise the foundation of the diet.

For the human body to remain in a healthy and balanced state, nothing else is required but to care about its nourishment. Sun Si Miao --Chinese proverb

The five basic principles of yang sheng eating are

1. Mindful eating: Relax, eat slowly, and enjoy your food
2. Whole food: Eat food as nature intended it in as unadulterated a state as possible
3. Local food: Eat food that has been grown close to home minimizing your environmental impact and maximizing the freshness and energetic quality of the food. Try practicing the 100 Mile Diet as much as possible.
4. Seasonal food: Nature provides just the right foods for the season. Summer vegetables and fruits tend to be cooling and lighter while winter produce tends to be more warming and denser in nutrition. .
5. Moderate Eating Eat only when you are hungry, stopping before you are completely full.

Exercise

Incorporate regular, consistent physical exercise into your lifestyle. Physical exercise can strengthen the body, improve the mind, stimulate digestion, increase circulation, improve insulin response, reduce stress and build up your immunity.

In summary

This diet is offered as a practical guide to integrating these recommendations into your lifestyle in order to increase your fertility. It is based on the best research and practice experience available and is recommended for all men and women trying to conceive. We have included a Fertility Food Guide; meal plans, shopping lists, and recipes as well as suggestions for fine-tuning your nutritional plan for specific conditions such as endometriosis and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). We invite you to join us in an exploration of the research, the benefits and the practical aspects of choosing to eat for optimal fertility and we respectfully suggest that you consider these self nourishment changes with a curious, open, fertile mind.