Yin Excess: Full of Yin or Too much Cold

Yin Excess is all too common. (Sometimes it’s called Fullness of Yin.)

Unlike the extremes of Yang Excess, which don’t usually last too long, Fullness of Yin can remain in your body for years, even until you die.

However, it isn’t usually a killer: it just wears you down – so, for long-term health, you really need to clear it from your system.

If you aren’t sure what Yin is, I suggest you first read either or both of the following:

• Yin and Yang
• Balancing Yin and Yang

Yin Excess Symptoms

• feeling cold (this happens particularly if the cause is Cold)
• tightness (but other syndromes also produce tightness, including some kinds of Qi Stagnation)
• slowness
• shivering
• constriction (other syndromes also produce this symptom)
• stiffness (for example, with Damp invasion)
• sleepiness (can occur in other syndromes too)
• listlessness (also occurs in several other syndromes)
• desire to be covered and kept warm (also occurs in Yang deficiency)
• desire for warm food and drinks (also in Yang deficiency)
• pallor (occurs in various kinds of Blood deficiency)
• desire to curl up (also occurs in Yang deficiency)
• weak voice (also occurs in Lung qi deficiency)
• aversion to talking for long (also occurs in Lung qi deficiency)
• rather weak or shallow breathing (also occurs in Lung qi deficiency)

What does the Patient look like with Yin Excess?

The patient looks pale, his pulse feels ‘full’ and a bit slow.

Usually Yin excess develops more slowly than Yang excess. Yin excess also tends to be more common in chronic conditions. (Often, signs of Yin excess develop over a period of many months or even years.)

Why is this? Because Yang is the transforming force. Yin is what is transformed: it tends to continue as it is unless transformed, like our galaxy the Milky Way, which would take a huge ‘yang’ disturbance to push it off course.

Once we get Yin Excess symptoms, they are hard to shift. They become an impediment to change. But we have to clear them before treatment to strengthen Yang energy begins.

Also, being Yin, they have gravity. So if you have one form of yin excess, you’ll probably be more susceptible to other forms of yin excess.

Yin Excess Causes

1. From outside the body

• Cold exposure (such as from sitting on cold ground, or from exposure to cold air) penetrates through the skin and stops Qi moving along the channels and through the joints. This produces ‘Painful Obstruction Syndrome’ with acute pain, cramps and stiffness, initially in the limbs. Untreated, or wrongly treated, this can become permanent, leading to chronic medical conditions such as arthritis.
• Cold can enter via the mouth and nose, leading to Stomach Cold, Cold in the Intestines and Cold in the Uterus. Read up on Cold Foods – Foods that Cool you. Cold in the Uterus and Intestines can also come from Cold in the channels penetrating up them to enter the lower part of the trunk, harming the Intestines and the Uterus. This form of Yin excess can become permanent, chronically dissipating the health of the body.
• Cold, in the form of an external pathogenic factor such as a virus or bacteria, can disrupt the working of the defences of the body, overcome its immune force (its ‘Wei Qi’ and ‘Upright’ Qi) and produce symptoms of Wind-Cold or Cold-Damp.

• Damp can arise from over-exposure to damp, or cold water, including from swimming in cold water for too long, (though it could come theoretically from long exposure to warm water as well), to living in damp environments (think of living ‘rough’, and of damp basements), and to rain or snow.

2. From Inside the Body

When the body lacks the Yang energy to transform or dissipate these Yin energies before they take hold, you get:

• Damp. This often combines with Cold to create a variety of Western Medicine disease syndromes from arthritis and fibromyalgia to commonly experienced problems like stiffness.
• Damp, internally-generated damp, often comes from poor diet or eating habits: eating food that is cold when you are cold or unable to warm it sufficiently inside you to digest it properly, or raw food, sweet food or very greasy food.

• From alcohol, which disrupts your digestion
• Over-eating: a surprisingly common cause of internal Damp. This is eating past the point when you are full, because your metabolism hasn’t caught up with the fact that you’ve eaten enough, and keeps asking for more. Over-eating also causes a syndrome that is called ‘Food Retention‘, which is also a form of excess Yin, (although if you read that page you’ll realise it has other attributes, affecting young and old alike). Usually, if you can control yourself for 30 minutes, you’ll find that the hunger goes.