Just at the start of last week, my 17-year-old son woke up with a runny nose, a sore throat and headache. He had had an activity-packed weekend, as the sunny, warm, Spring inspired action: going out on a trip to another city with friends, working out hard at the gym and not having enough sleep. However, when action is not balanced with rest, then we pay a price for it. Since I had spent time in the garden on the weekend, I had noticed that a plant that I have grown in containers for years now, is returning in full growth, after its winter dormancy and this plant would help my son get over his ailments. This is none other than the common Mint.

Mint is one of those common herbs that we find almost everywhere in our modern world. Go to the grocery store and you’ll find it on the herbal tea shelf, probably with many brands offering the same herb. You will also find it in the fresh herb section, packed in neat little boxes ready to be used. Move through the store and you’ll find Mint in so many of the products, from mint stracciatella ice-cream, to toothpaste, to chewing gum and candy that are called mints. Go to a bar or restaurant, order a cocktail and it’s used as a garnish. In Malaysia, where I come from, we use it in food as a garnish, to enhance the flavors; for instance, in Assam Laksa, a spicy, sweet, sour fish noodle soup dish.

Mint is a perennial, grows outside in almost all the continents of the world, except Antarctica, as long as there is sunlight and enough moisture in the Earth. It is an aromatic herb, as such it is often used fresh as a garnish and should not be cooked, in order to maintain its essential oils. If you are not careful to plant it in a container, it will take over your garden. This is the resilience of Mint, its growth will spread throughout the garden, coming back year after year, with little care; as long as conditions are suitable.

In Chinese Medicine, we call this herb Bó Hé  薄荷.Herba Mentha haplocalys or Mentha arvensis or Field Mint is the species of Mint that is used in Chinese Medicine, but there are at least 25 Mint species and numerous hybrid species in existence today. This herb enters the Lung and Liver channels, is spicy, cool and aromatic. It is used to clear the head, eyes and throat, as well as what we call Wind-Heat conditions, which includes the common cold/ flu symptoms, like sore throat, headache, fever, etc. It vents rashes, like in the case of early-stage measles. Mint disperses the turbid in the abdomen, meaning dampness with heat symptoms like abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea, as in the case of a gastrointestinal virus. Finally, it soothes and relieves Liver Qi Stagnation, which manifests as tension in the chest/breast and hypochondrium (rib area), headaches and emotional instability, which are common symptoms in PMS. One of its functions that I learned from my own personal experience but is often not stated as a function is that it slows down breastmilk production, especially useful when one wants to wean a child off the breast. So many functions for such a small, common, rather under-estimated plant, isn’t it?

I hear from new patients drinking the infusion of Mint often, but are unaware that it is cooling. If you are someone who tends to feel cold, this is not the infusion that you should be drinking too often, especially not in winter. Drink it in late Spring or Summer, like now, where days are longer and the sun is shining, and the leaves are in full-growth. If you experience PMS, then drink Mint regularly in that phase of the menstrual cycle. It is by the way, one of the herbs in the famous Free and Easy Wanderer Powder (Xiāo Yáo Sǎn) which I wrote about in previous blogposts.

As in the case of my son, he spent the day resting, taking the famous Wind-Heat formula, Yín Qiào Sǎn, which has Mint as one of its herbs, and drinking fresh Mint infusions, as our plants are right at our front door, guarding the entry to our home. The next day, he was well again ready to go back to school and everyday life. Even though I know the power of Mint, it never ceases to amaze me how this simple, common plant can provide such relief and healing in those moments that we so need. This is the magic of the simple and the everyday. You just have to know when to apply it and it reveals its magic to you.
 


Images by Elaine

The year is 1988, I am in a pre-competition intensive training camp for rhythmic gymnastics. One of our coaches, Coach Annie is doing mental training with us. This is the first time we have ever done anything non-physical in training. She gets us all to lie down on the training carpet. She leads us through a small relaxation exercise and then she asks us to imagine ourselves performing our routine as perfectly as we can, without any mistakes. She tells us to do this as often as we can, but we never really get to this again as a group; trust a 14-year-old to do extra work outside of regular training. About 8 years later, I am in university taking a psychology-in-sport class. Our professor is telling us that research and studies are showing us that athletes who use visualization and mental training in combination with physical training perform better than those who do not. This fascinates me, as I had already had a taster 8 years before. I ask myself what it is that one is training when one does mental training. Some will say that it is training the Mind, but what is the Mind and where is it?

Interestingly, when many in society speak of the Mind, we point to our head; I was researching the Mind on the internet and Wikipedia’s first image is of a head with symbols in it. In the Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries online, it states that the noun ‘mind,’ when referring to the ability to think, refers to “the part of a person that makes them able to be aware of things, to think and to feel.” This definition does not specify any parts of the body, which is quite wise of Oxford Dictionaries to do so, as there is quite a lot of scientific evidence available these days which show us that what we define as faculties of the Mind are actually not only located in the head, i.e. brain, but also everywhere in the body. Often times, what is defined as the Mind is referring to cognitive functions such as perception, reasoning, awareness and memory, psychological capacities of both conscious and unconscious, as well as feeling, motivation and behavior. The definition of Mind in the West encompasses a very broad dimension, as such it can become very vague and often times gets misconstrued as just the brain. What is clear is that the Mind is not just in the brain; hence, the term Bodymind has begun to be in more common usage over the last few decades.

In Chinese Medicine, what has been translated as Mind is actually called 神 shén. The Chinese character shén has two parts, the radical on the left means god or deity, on the right it means to explain. Together they mean god, spirit or expressive. Shén in Chinese Medicine refers to the mental ability on one hand, as well as the emotional and spiritual aspects of a human being. Mental activity and consciousness are said to dwell in the Heart. The Chinese medical scholar, Giovanni Maciocia states that “five functions are affected by the state of the Heart: Mental activity (including emotion), Consciousness, Memory, Thinking, Sleep.” The Chinese medical view goes further to describe Will Power Zhì as residing in the Kidneys, Thought Yì  in the Spleen, the Ethereal Soul Hún as related to the Liver and the Corporeal Soul Pò corresponding to the Lung. Therefore, for thousands of years the Chinese have viewed the Mind as being in the body as well as in the head; this corresponds to the Bodymind concept.

When I ponder back to my time as an athlete at 14 years old, using visualization techniques to perform better physically, I realize that the seeds of Bodymind were already being planted in me. I was already being trained to view my being as a whole being, not as the sum of parts, all it needed was regular practice. Now, I still prepare my intellectual Mind for exams or presentations by warming up my body, as I did as a gymnast and dancer, by stretching and moving my physical body. Just as I still do visualizations of my Tai Ji Quan/ Qi Gong form when I am on public transportation and can’t practice it physically. For me, the Mind is the Body and the Body, the Mind.
 
 
Reference
Macioca, G. (1998). The Foundations of Chinese Medicine. London: Churchill Livingstone.
 
 
 
Image by AdinaVoicu on Pixabay

This morning, like many other mornings over the past years, I took my herbal medicine. One of these is called “Xiāo Yáo Sǎn - Free and Easy Wanderer Powder.” I am reminded of the first time I became aware of the English translation of this formula’s name almost 25 years ago. I was in clinical training at the American College of TCM in San Francisco and I was instructed by my clinical supervisor to obtain this formula in pill form for one of our patients at the clinic. I entered our herbal pharmacy to look for the bottle of pills. I found it on a shelf and looked at the bottle; on it I saw an image of an older Chinese man in traditional garb with his walking stick and small pack, looking out from high into the horizon that spreads over mountains, rivers, waterfalls and trees. Both Chinese in Pin Yin and English names were printed on the bottle, so I was able to distinguish the formula, which I was taught to memorize in Pin Yin. But what stood out for me is the English name and image of the Wandering Daoist; since then it has been embedded into my consciousness.

Not too long ago, I finally got around to attaining the classical Daoist text of Zhuang Zi (365-290BCE), one of the famous scholars/ masters of Daoism. As I looked through the book, I came across the title of the first chapter - “Free and Easy Wanderer.” I found out that this is no coincidence. The Chinese medical experts, who compiled the Tai Ping Hui Min He Ji Ju Fang (Imperial Grace Formulary of the Tai Ping Era), in the Song Dynasty period (960-1279 CE) were themselves scholars of Daoism. They named this formula “Free and Easy Wanderer” for precisely the effect that it should invoke in the individual with her/his use of this herbal combination.

In our modern-day Western society, Xiāo Yáo Sǎn is one of the most prescribed formulas. In my clinical training in the USA, almost every second patient was receiving this formula in her/his treatment. These days, I still prescribe Free-and-Easy-Wanderer Powder regularly to my patients, as well as take it regularly myself. Why? This is due to its function to move Liver Qi Stagnation and prevent Qi congestion, harmonize Liver (Wood) and Spleen (Earth), as well as tonify Blood. Life in our modern-day world appears to make us feel tight and blocked, as shown in the muscles and joints of our bodies; unable to access our “free nature,” our minds too become stuck. Many of us feel restricted, stuck in a “box” too small for our bodyminds with constraints of time and space, leading to us feeling stressed: get out of the door on time so you get your tram or else you’ll be late for work, which would then make your superior angry with you and may dock your salary or worse fire you, then you wouldn’t be able to buy your basics like food or to pay your bills and rent…the list of things could go on and on, if we let it. But pay attention to what has happened to our jaws, necks and shoulders; they contracted together and tighter as the list went on, manifestation of our Liver Qi congesting. Over a longer period of time of reduced circulation, this would lead to a depletion of Qi and Blood, affecting our Spleen’s ability to digest food and make Blood which is needed to nourish our bodies. Another common modern usage of Xiāo Yáo Sǎn is for Pre-Menstrual Syndrome PMS. This is once again a case of being “forced” into a container too small, too restrictive and undernourished, that the body begins to rebel by causing mental irritation, mood-swings, physical tension and pain.

Xiāo Yáo Sǎn - the formula of over a thousand years, helps with all these and more, but it is not and should not be the sole remedy. What we need is Free and Easy Wanderer mentality, find the Wandering Daoist within ourselves. “Unbox” our bodies and minds! Go out into Nature, breathe, move, walk, dance, sing - release and unbind our Qi and our lives regularly from the constraints of the human world. Let it flow free and easy!
 
 

 
Image by Ansgar Sheffold on Pixabay