The 5 Ancient Methods of Longevity

The news and wellness magazines are never ending with all the various methods of longevity. Whether it is superfoods or whether it is some very obscure thing like kelp or algae or some unique plant from the Amazon, we're bombarded with all this information about how to live forever. Now I think longevity is really not so complicated which is why it's such a big business. If the secret were simple, most people don't want to do what's simple but it's hard to do, on a daily basis. But in this video I thought I would share five of the original pieces of longevity advice from our truly our most ancient medical texts, the Huangdi Neijing. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hein, doctor of Chinese medicine and licensed acupuncturist. So before we jump into this video here today, two very important links right below the video. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, you can contact my private practice by going to the link below this video which is info for contacting my clinic, my practice. The second is for a free download which is four daily rituals that could potentially help you add years to your life with Chinese medicine. So check those out right below this video. Now I think the most important way to introduce this video is really this idea that longevity has never been complicated and I think in fields like diet and fitness or wellness where the truth is not complicated, it is very often obscured by fads, right? Because why would I do what's known but it's hard to do, eating right and exercising and managing my stress and getting good sleep, being a part of a community, being happy, having meaningful work, having spiritual purpose or psychological purpose, emotional purpose, why would I do all that stuff which is hard to do on a daily basis versus go buy some goji berries, right? So this is a ploy, this is really a failure of human psychology in some sense that it's always easier to fall prey to silver bullet thinking, this novelty thinking, than it is to do the work. That's just the reality of being a human being and I think especially living in California for the first time, I'm an east coaster so we kind of make fun of Californians a lot, but being in California what I see people fall prey to is thinking that colonics cure everything or some obscure kelp or algae cures everything or one herb cures everything or 100 herbs taken every day cures everything or certain new agey practices or spiritual practices and I think all of this is human fallible thinking. There's this amazing quote in the Tao Te Ching that I wish I took the time to prepare this video better but it says, the great way, the Tao is easy but people prefer the side paths and I think that really encapsulates this logical fallacy. So let's go to chapter one of the Huangdi Neijing, the yellow emperors, I think it's translated as interclassic and chapter one it's called the Shanggu Tianzhen Lun which just means the truth of longevity in ancient times. That's a very liberal translation but that is the content of this chapter and it talks about this dialogue between the mythical yellow emperor and an advisor called Qibua and Qibua is going through this dialogue of why people in ancient times live to be 100, their fully allotted or genetically potentially endowed lifespan and why people today are old and gray at half that time at 50. And Qibua says in ancient times what people did was they knew the way of the Tao, the methods of yin and yang and they harmonized themselves to yin and yang and to the seasons. They had regular eating and regular drinking, they balanced rest and work, made sure they weren't overly exhausted and through doing this they were able to essentially protect their spirit and not let's just say overwork their physical body, right, not exhaust their body. So there's this implication of not only balance and an understanding of yin and yang in daily life, whether that yin and yang was work and rest, yin and yang was how much to eat, how much not to eat, whether it was keeping the heart peaceful and tranquil. This is very common in ancient Taoist and Buddhist texts to keep a peaceful heart, not be too stirred up by life and as a result of these practices they were able to live a long life, right, and still have a high quality of life. So let's break down some of these a little bit more. Let's talk about the five practices that are encapsulated in this very first chapter and I have other videos in this as well because it's a very important chapter which is why these ancient doctors I think put this as the very first chapter of 80 some odd, I think 81 chapters in the very first half of the Neijing because it is the core philosophy, right, it's the essence of this message here. Let's talk about regulating or adjusting ourselves to yin and yang. We've talked about adjusting ourselves to the four seasons in another video here that took a lot of time to put together but when we talk about understanding yin and yang, more unsexily said balance, when we talk about balance in daily life, yin and yang means balance in terms of work, right, fundamentally our modern culture is very overworked and underrested but yin and yang can also mean, you know, it's not about necessarily working 35 hours or 85 hours, everyone has experienced working 35 horrible tiring stressful hours versus putting in a 15-hour day towards something you love, right, it's totally different. So it's not just about the quantity of hours, it's about the quality, it's about the effect on the nervous system and the qi dynamic as we've talked about here, what it does to your physiology. Now yin and yang obviously apply to food and sleep, right, the number one cause of death in America today is really food, it's dietary and exercise. So clearly we have a yin yang imbalance with what we're eating and how much we're eating but that's also true for sleep, how much we're pushing in life versus how much we're allowing life to pull us by things that excite us and make us feel alive and feel happy and on top of that are really our inactivity to activity ratio, how much of our life is spent inactive, sitting, versus active, physical exercise, right, that's an important one. So first is understanding yin and yang and applying it to your own life. The second one I would say that's really important is maintaining a peaceful state. So this free download that I have below the video is of this supposed 256 year old Taoist dude and I share it not because I really believe he lived to be 256, I don't think he did, but because his pieces of advice when he was interviewed from a Taiwanese general, Yang Sen, was translated by the New York Times and one of his pieces of advice was keep a quiet heart and I think this is a reference to a lot of what ancient Taoist and Buddhist texts talked about which is really cultivating the inner state of being calm. Now there's a great quote later in this first chapter in the Neijing and it says the mind is relaxed and one has few desires, the heart is at peace and one is not in fear, the physical appearance is taxed but is not tired. So this translation by Paul Unschuld is elaborating on the inner qualities that predispose one to longevity. Habit or ritual or longevity principle number three is regulation of eating, really diet and eating. So this was written about 2,000 years ago, no surprise, it was probably also catered towards these wealthy elites that had abundant food, not like the average poor person working in the fields. But I'm going to leave this because we all know this, but the number one leading cause of death in America really is food. Go figure. So the fourth longevity principle is rising and retiring with regularity, right? So rituals, regular rituals and habits, but this is regarding sleep and rest. I was reading a book by Matthew Walker, a sleep researcher, and he said one of the single most important factors in good quality sleep and good restorative sleep is waking at the same time every single day, is one of the most predictive factors of having better good sleep. And what's interesting is that what we see in Chinese medicine is we often advise our patients to go make sure they're sleeping between that 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. time, which is the liver time from our perspective. And what's interesting is that apparently that's one of the highest periods of HGH secretion, human growth hormone, so important for rest and recovery, especially if you're exercising. And the fifth principle is not overly taxing oneself. Now I want to specify because in the poor farmers, you know, physical manual labor jobs. So what's important and is a little bit insidious, it's sneaky, is that for the modern human, the taxation is nervous system taxation because of the phone, the computer, this technology. The danger for the modern human is overtaxation of the nervous system because even in our rest hours, now we're not sitting around with family at a nice two, three hour dinner like French or Europeans do with wine and no technology and we're all together as a community. It's now I'm off work at five and I'm on my phone for the next six hours with Netflix, with my computer answering emails off hours. This idea of rest is almost eroded to a point that's laughable. So I would say being careful of your nervous system burden of using technology. One of my mentors is fond of saying that we've talked about the idea of yang damage here, of taxation of the nervous system. And the phone is a big one in my experience because we're laying on a couch and even though the physical body is resting, the nervous system is doing this. Cat, dog, hot person, cat, dog, hot person, beach, cat, dog, hot person, beach, cat, dog. That's what the nervous system in the brain is doing for hours. It's not getting the kind of rest that it needs. It's not the same as going for a walk in the Five important ancient principles of longevity. I've tried my best to explain them in plain English for today's people. I hope that helps. That is what I have for today. So before you go, check out these two related videos here and I'll catch you in the next video.