ExclusiveMagic 7 & 8 and “Nourishing Life” (養生) in TCM, by Lorrain Wilcox

Chinese medicine in large part is based on a book called Huangdi Neijing, the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic. And while Chinese medicine has constantly been updated, the roots of our medicine come from that book. And in Neijing, there's a chapter that talks about that girls and females tend to develop in seven-year periods of time and boys or men tend to develop in eight-year periods of time. So the example, for example, let's talk about what Neijing says is that when a girl is seven, then she starts getting her adult teeth and her baby hair starts to be more adult textured hair. And when she's two times seven, which is 14, then she becomes fertile. That may sound old today because girls are reaching menarche at the age of nine or 10. It's really early what's happening today, but that's because we're so out of balance with our environment. And if you go back a hundred years, then 14 was about the right age for a girl to begin to menstruate and become fertile. At three times seven or 21, it says she gets her wisdom teeth. I'm kind of using some modern terminology, but this is the big idea, okay? And at four times seven or 28, she's at her physical peak. Her hair is as long as it's going to be and her body is strong and so forth. And now comes the depressing part. The next multiple of seven, her face begins to wrinkle a little bit. And the next multiple of seven, her face is definitely wrinkled and her hair is starting to turn white. And eventually at seven times seven, which is 49, then she's no longer fertile. And that is approximately the time that menopause occurs with people today. So, you know, it really does seem to be, yeah, this observation is fairly accurate with the exception that girls are menstruating much earlier at this point. It goes to a similar thing for men and boys, but, you know, childhood development in boys is a little bit later. And so it's, you know, eight is when he starts getting his adult teeth and 16 is when he becomes fertile and wisdom teeth at 24 and 32 is when he's at his peak and then it goes downhill from there. And a point that's kind of interesting is that Chinese medicine books historically didn't really talk about menopause because menopause wasn't looked at as a disease. It was just a normal part of the life cycle. Of course, if somebody has symptoms during menopause, if you're having hot flashes or night sweats, then that needs addressing, but menopause itself is just a normal part of the life cycle. If somebody has been living an appropriate lifestyle all along, when they reach the time of menopause, it's probably not going to be so bad, but we're all rushing around like we're crazy. We, you know, have a job in the daytime and we take our kids to soccer practice in the evening and we don't get dinner until 10 o'clock and, you know, even on the weekend we're rushing around like crazy people and our diet is not so good and and our stress is intense and our emotions are just all over the place. If you live like that, by the time you get to menopause, you're probably going to have more symptoms than if you were able to lead a relatively calm, sane life. And I'll confess, I was not able to lead a totally calm, sane life, but so yes, there are remedies that can help a woman who's having a difficult time during menopause. There are definitely herbal formulas and acupuncture and so forth, but I think one of the amazing things about Chinese medicine that's so neglected is this concept of yangsheng or nourishing life and people don't start thinking about how to live an appropriate lifestyle until they notice themselves aging, but actually we should have been living appropriately all along.