Yin Deficiency: Exhausted – Stress and Apathy

More pages to read if you’re Yin Deficient

• Dryness
• Heart Yin Deficiency
• Meditation
• Reasons for insomnia
• Yang Deficiency
• Reading list

Your Questions!

Yin and yang

• How do you know if you are a yin or yang? Yin and yang are aspects of the same thing. Everyone alive has both. But you can have too much of either, and too little of either. This page is about too little yin. To find out more about yin and yang, try reading our page on ‘what can yin and yang offer man‘. After that try ‘balancing yin and yang‘ or perhaps ‘yin and/or yang‘. Each approaches yin and yang from a slightly different angle.
• Is yin or yang more powerful? At different times one or other will be more powerful. When you are resting or asleep, yin is more powerful. When you are yelling at your football team, yang is more powerful, also when you have a fever. When your body is chilled from being stuck immovable in snow, yin: read our page on External Cold and Heat. When trying to deal with being over-heated or caught in a heatwave, yang. If you’re always cold, try our page on how to warm up if you’re always cold!
• Which is the good one –  yin or yang? Neither. Well, actually both! When you are resting you need a surplus of yin; when active, you need more yang. To fight disease you need more yang, but that relies on you having adequate body resources, which are yin.

Yin and Yang apply everywhere;

• when you are motoring along in your nice new car, enjoying yourself the countryside is yin to your yang
• in galaxies and their Black Holes, usually the centre, the inside, is more yin, but in this case it has become so yin that it has transformed into yang, (as the laws of yin and yang predict), so is emitting Hawking radiation
• in politics … everywhere!

For example, yin and yang in politics

• in politics, laws and regulations are yin factors, which restrain yang:
• entrepreneurs, go-getters, pushers and achievers are yang, but whilst creating wealth they can also be very destructive, another form of yang.
• Old industrial complexes (yin) must give way to the new (yang) developments.
• Huge armaments (like aircraft carriers? – yin) become susceptible to tiny drones (yang)
• People in low spirits or in need of care are yin: those who bring healing or spiritual sustenance are more yang
• Neither yin nor yang is perfect, but the interplay between them, as Qi transforms from hot to cold, from gold to wages, from global warming (yang excess) to rising sea levels (yin excess), gives us change and life.
• The ancient Chinese were subject to terrible wars and privations, disasters and terrors, pains and pleasures. Their philosophers and rules became absorbed by the laws of Change. Their equivalent of our Bible was the book known as I Ching – the Book of Change. Check our page on ‘yin and/or yang‘. The I Ching explores Change and is fundamental to Chinese and East Asian medicine. It deals with the energy of life  –   Qi.

Caffeine and yin deficiency

• How much is too much? That depends on your metabolism. For me, two cups together – once a week! For you? … Read the page on coffee to get some advice on this. Then check the remarks about yin deficiency above.
• Why is it bad for you? It isn’t – in small quantities. If you take too much it over-stimulates you. See below, under ‘over-stimulation’.

Dryness and yin deficiency

• What are the causes of this? Lots of reasons for it in Chinese medicine.
• Yin deficiency, which this page is about, is not the first reason.
• More likely is poor nutrition: not enough of the right fats in the diet, for instance, and possibly too many of the wrong foods in your system.
• Also, eating too many dry foods that don’t have enough moisture in them – frequently a problem in ‘fast’ foods and junk food
• Cold is a frequent cause in cold weather;
• Poor lungs – your Lungs look after your skin in Chinese medicine:  cigarette smoking; atmospheric problems; chemicals in the environment or on the skin, and that includes some medications, either over the counter (OTC), or prescribed, often have a drying effect.

What does dryness mean?

For example:

• increased thirst,
• mouth or throat dry
• dry skin, sometimes thicker skin too
• dry stools,
• dark urine,
• dry scalp
• dry eyes
• dry sexual areas
• Deeper in your body it could mean arthritis (inflammation of your joints), caused by inadequate fluids leading to a lack of lubrication. This could come from poor nutrition, including eating too many heating foods – foods that over-heat and so dry your body. Also, as mentioned, you get dryness from eating foods without enough moisture in them, meaning your body has to supply the fluids to digest them, so reducing your overall fluid content, (thereby leading to deficient yin).

Incidentally, lack of good moisturising nutrition leads to Blood deficiency. With deficient Blood, you easily get Blood Stasis (https://www.acupuncture-points.org/blood-stasis.html) which can also lead to thicker, drier skin.

Yin deficiency and Fever

• What temperature is a sign of a fever? It depends who you ask! But over 38.5C is probably accepted by most people as indicating fever.
• Having a fever does not mean you are yin deficient. A fever in reaction to an acute infection, such as a cold, may be a sign of health: your body produces the fever to burn out the bug. Usually this works fast – you often see this in your child who produces a sudden, almost alarming, short fever then goes to sleep and recovers completely after just a few hours. Congratulations – you have a healthy child! (Please don’t always resort to anti-inflammatories like paracetemol or Calpol! There’s really often no need, and they work against your child’s metabolism by preventing it from producing the energetic fever it needs to clear the bug quickly. If you always prevent that fever, your child’s body will accumulate detritus, even a ‘remaining pathogenic factor‘, and go on to present you with low-grade symptoms and eventually lower vitality which nobody can explain. Its constant attempts to produce a fever are blocked which gradually diminishes its reserves, potentially leading to earlier development of – guess what – yin deficiency!)
• Having a disease which gives you many fevers or a continuous very high fever, especially if with much overtiredness and perspiration, could lead on to your becoming yin deficient.

Fullness and Emptiness

• What is empty Heat? Well … there’s also Empty Cold: we’ve got a page on them both – Empty Heat and Cold.

Meditation

• What is meditation used for? To steady your mind, to help you manage your body and your emotions, to lead to a calmer more stable life; less susceptible to life’s slings and arrows. Your mind, when directed, can help heal  your body. Eventually it may help you understand or plumb life’s meaning. We’ve got a page on an easy-to-learn method, used worldwide even by ‘advanced’ meditators and widely praised: meditation.

Nutrition

• What is nutrition and why is it important? It’s what food provides for your body to function. You need the right foods for your particular needs, water, and knowledge of how to prepare, cook and eat them. You need oxygen from air which you inhale to assist the process of digestion, and time for your body to do it. If you choose the right foods – and eat them the right way – they’ll keep you healthy and help your body fight disease. In the West, science explains the necessary ingredients for health in terms of minerals, vitamins, protein, carbohydrate and fat. Two thousand and more years ago, people lacked modern scientific analysis machines so they used common sense and experience to work out what was good, or not. We can use their vast experience to keep us well. To get you started, read our page on nutrition!

• Which nutrition is good for health? First reduce foods that harm you. Then choose foods that help. Cook them properly and chew them well.

Over-Stimulation

• Does over-stimulation feel good? Usually, yes! For a while, depending on your constitution and metabolism, of course. You may think it’s the drug or excitement that is powering the feeling! It’s not – the energy comes from your body and the chemicals it produces. Once you’ve exhausted your body’s resources, you’ll feel worse. Then, if you’ve been over-stimulated too much or too often, you may get yin deficiency, the subject of this page. Make sure you read our page on the causes of yin deficiency!
• What does over-stimulation feel like? Pleasant to start with then increasingly overwhelming, even terrifying, as you go to pieces. Take tickling! Most people enjoy being tickled a little – often a sign of familiarity and love. But if you are very susceptible to it, it quickly overloads you and you become desperate for it to stop. At some point it becomes stressful and, in a way, painful. Same with many caffeine-type drugs. They boost you for a while – and you may feel great at this stage – but with more and more of it, you become hyper, and your body shakes or trembles, you may become breathless, perhaps feverish, you become hysterical, cannot sleep. Eventually it destroys your ability to calm down. Not pleasant!

Yin deficiency Neurological symptoms

These aren’t listed as such in the literature, but one can surmise they might include symptoms or conditions like the following:

• Various kinds of neuropathy, such as tingling, burning, numbing or twitching extremities are more likely to be due to either Blood deficiency or Blood stasis than Yin deficiency
• Multiple sclerosis
• Parkinson’s disease – though this also has a high incidence of Blood deficiency rather than yin deficiency
• Migraines if due to Liver or Kidney yin deficiencies. Read more under Migraine and Headache
• Transverse myelitis
• Motor neurone disease
• NB Although head injury and stroke are considered neurological at least in part, they don’t mean you are yin deficient.

Sleep

• How can I get good sleep at night? It may take practice and lifestyle changes. Read our page on sleep problems.
• How much sleep do adults need? Everyone is different. Margaret Thatcher apparently did fine on four hours, but I would say that this was because of mental over-stimulation from the exercise of power. As you will have read above, over-stimulation is a cause of yin deficiency, and not long after she lost power she began to develop signs of yin deficiency. (Here’s another link to our page on the causes of yin deficiency.) At least, so it seemed to me from the pictures of her, and from the Meryl Streep film of her final days (“The Iron Lady”) and what I saw on TV. Also, age plays a big part in how much sleep you need. As a baby, apart from eating, most time is spent asleep. Adults need between 6 and 9 hours. Teenagers need more (mostly in school hours, I’m told! No, forget you read that here!) As you age, you may manage on less, but desire more. If you are training as an athlete, you need more, to repair your body. Really, it depends!

Stress

• Can I reduce stress quickly? Well, you may or may not be able to reduce the stressor – whatever is causing the stress – but you can certainly learn ways to manage and reduce your body’s reaction to stress. Exercise is a great way, so is meditation. Exercise uses up excess bodily energy causing stress, and meditation helps you control your mind.
• What are the common signs of stress? Almost any symptom can be a sign of stress. Have a look at our page on Strain and Chinese medicine.

Tinnitus

• How long does tinnitus last? Acute tinnitus, say from hearing a loud noise like an explosion, may last only a few days. When I was about 12 I spent a day learning to shoot clay-pigeons. We did it all morning and all afternoon. No ear protectors! I still have the remnants of tinnitus. But they are probably accentuated by increasing age. Read our page on tinnitus.

Tiredness, Fatigue and Exhaustion

• • Can these make you sick? Yes, definitely! Especially if they go on for too long or become chronic!
  • Can you get sick from overworking your body? Yes, although physical over-strain more commonly causes yang deficiency.
  • What can cause this? Mostly, this happens from over-doing it and not getting enough rest or sleep. But there are lots of other reasons, ranging from disease, accident, surgery and medication to emotional overload and work tension. It’s a big subject! Also read our page on Qi Stagnation, already mentioned above. Or try our page on Qi Deficiency – How to Overcome Tiredness.
  • When should you worry about tiredness? When you don’t recover from it within 48 hours – even with rest, or it gradually worsens over time. Tiredness often indicates your body isn’t repairing itself fast enough, so you become susceptible to disease.
  • Why do you feel so tired all the time? Are you getting enough rest? If, despite plenty of rest you remain tired, then your body isn’t repairing itself and you may need advice or treatment.

Yin deficiency vs Anaemia

• Yin deficiency and anemia are not always the same thing.
• With yin deficiency there may sometimes be pinkness around the malar bones on the face, arising from yang energy rising, unconstrained by yin. With anaemia, there is usually pallor.
• Anaemia suggests a syndrome called ‘Blood deficiency’ but isn’t exactly the same thing, because Blood deficiency is a rather bigger concept. To understand more, read our page on Blood.
• However, as Blood deficiency is a form of yin deficiency, if your anemia is diagnosed as Blood deficiency, then yes, YOUR anemia IS a form of yin deficiency! Well Done!
• But quite a few people are anaemic without being yin deficient.  They become anaemic for all sorts of reasons, ranging from poor nutrition and various diseases to vitamin B12 deficiency, any of which might or might not be part of yin deficiency.

Yin deficiency Balance

• This is a nonsense. Yin and yang are always varying, with one or the other preponderant at any moment.
• For yin deficiency to be in balance you’d have to have yang deficiency too. Many people are deficient in both: they live lives at a lower level of energy and achievement. You couldn’t say they were healthy or in ‘balance’.

Yin deficiency weight gain

• Weight gain with yin deficiency, while not impossible, is rarer than weight gain with yang deficiency. That’s because yang burns yin, so lacking yin you’ll have relatively more yang that will tend to make you thinner.
• But of course, it is possible even with yin deficiency to gain weight but would probably occur with an overall deficiency of both yin and yang, but slightly more of yang than of yin deficiency.
• If you have been yin deficient but are improving, you may benefit from exercise that builds body mass. Doing squats to develop strong thigh muscles would help you, for lots of reasons both Chinese and Western. However, if  you aren’t used to physical exercise, take advice! And build up the number of squats you do only gradually. No need to do 100 squats straight off – start with 5, three times a day! (How to squat? Lots of advice on Youtube, but try this one to start!) Oh! And by the way, you’ll need to eat more Blood Building Foods.
• (Too many yins and yangs? I sympathise – it can be confusing. I once heard a great Chinese teacher, Dr John Shen, say it took 10 years to train a Western doctor, then five minutes for him to write a prescription. Conversely, he said, it takes 5 minutes to explain yin and yang, the fundamentals of Chinese medicine, but 10 years to understand how to apply and use them properly.)