Art of Ayurveda Tongue Diagnosis 8 of 9: Tongue Tension & Engagement

Welcome everybody. Today we are here to discuss the Ayurvedic art of tongue diagnosis. Your tongue tells a story about your body and about your health and that's what we're going to learn today. My name is John Immel. I'm the director of Joyful Belly Ayurveda and of our educational programs. Today's talk is included in our Mastering Ayurveda Digestion and Nutrition program. It's included in our Fundamentals of Natural Healing two-year Ayurveda program. If you like what you hear today, consider becoming an Ayurveda student in one of these fantastic programs. In addition to shape of the tongue, long and short tongues, swollen and thin tongues, we also have the engagement or intention on the tongue. How engaged are those muscles? So a normal tongue has good tone without being too flaccid or stiff and we had some examples of that. I actually talked about it earlier. If the tongue is deviated to the left or right, if the client can't seem to put their tongue out straight, that's a nervous system disorder and that could be quite severe actually. A wind condition in Chinese medicine, it would be a serious disturbance of prana in Ayurveda prana value and there's a functional disorder in the nervous system. So if the tongue is moving a lot, that means the nervous system is irritated in some way. In fact, if the tongue is constantly moving and the moving is larger movement, that like a deviated tongue points to a serious nervous system disorder. But if it's just quivering or trembling, then the nervous system is a little irritated, often by ama. So if the client sticks out their tongue, the tongue appears to tremble or move or slight movements or the client just can't quite seem to hold it very still, the nervous system is out of control and often that means it's irritated by something or vata dosha is aggravated and that could be electrolyte imbalance or a lack of electrolytes. It could also be the presence of toxins. It could be hypoglycemia and all that is too much light quality, mobile quality or dry quality. Again, we're going to look at the color of the tongue to see what's happening energetically. The quivering tongue does mean the nervous system is agitated in some way, but if there's paleness associated with that, we're going to assume it's vata weakness and that there's some serious depletion on the tongue. But if it's red, we're going to see it as more of a heat sign. This is an example of a tongue where there's some tension on the tongue and the sides are curled up as a result. You can try this yourself with a lot of these different tongue shapes actually and especially in this engagement section of the talk, you can actually try to do this. Tense up your tongue a little bit. You'll notice that the edges have a tendency to curl up. When the sides are curling up due to general tension and that is associated in Ayurveda with samana and udana vayu. Udana vayu actually is that upward moving energy or stimulation and that's tension proper. Samana vayu has to do with linear step-by-step movement. Food should go from your mouth down to your stomach step-by-step through the small intestine into the colon and out of the body. That's a step-by-step progression of where food should go. But if things are erratic and peristalsis isn't working right, then the whole colon may clamp down at the same time and then the stool is not going to move anywhere because peristalsis should be moving like a wave. So anything that has to do with spasmodic movements, colicky movements, movements that aren't happening in a smooth fashion, even hormones that are being disturbed is a sign of things not happening in a smooth step-by-step fashion. All that has to do with samana vayu and udana vayu. In Chinese medicine, this is all associated with the liver. Constrained liver chi is what you would call that in Chinese medicine in Ayurveda, samana or udana vayu. And when you see tension in the body, we are going to assume that there's issues in the nervous system. Again, like the quivering tongue, things are irritating the nervous system or there's a deficiency of electrolytes or there's some other disturbance in the natural flow of things. And so we're always going to be analyzing the tongue for general tension. And we're always going to be analyzing the tongue to see if there's that disturbance in the flow. And curled up edges of the tongue are a sign of tension. Now, here's some slides discussing this, that in Chinese medicine, the liver governs synchronous contractions, proper flow, and smooth movement, as well as being in the flow emotionally. But if a person's not in the flow emotionally, then they are frustrated or they have suppressed emotions. And things aren't going to flow smoothly. They're not going to handle change well. So when processes are synchronous, things move step by step. So liver pathologies in Chinese medicine have to do with tension and erratic and asynchronous movement, causing heat to flare upward or hormones going haywire. This will come with mood swings, emotional tension, and tension in the belly, perhaps. And so constrained liver qi, rebellious liver qi in TCM corresponds with vata, not pitta. And that's a little confusing. I know some people who dabble in Ayurveda also dabble in Chinese medicine. And the liver is just handled completely differently in both of them. Liver has a lot to do with heat and pitta dosha. In Ayurveda, it has a lot to do with vata. In Chinese medicine, does that mean one's wrong and the other's right? No. The liver is somewhat involved in both. And we really have to think about what vata looks like in the liver as well as what pitta looks like in the liver. Pitta in the liver has to do with heat. Vata in the liver has to do with a lot of tension in the body. And I've experienced both in regards to my liver issues. I do actually have a liver issue from having thalassemia minor, a genetic anemic condition. And so I do experience the vata tension in my liver and also the heat that comes. So really, we want to be looking at the liver as both a vata and a pitta organ primarily. Actually, when kapha is in the liver, then you get a fatty liver. So all the doshas can be involved in the liver. The liver is such an important organ. There's a lot going on in the liver. So everyone should get really comfortable with how kapha, pitta, and vata affect the liver. So here you see edges being curled up. If the edges are swollen or indented, then that's a more advanced condition. But here, we just see lots of tension on the tongue. Notice this is a thin red tongue. So here, we're seeing an example of pitta and vata being aggravated. And all the signs are there. Dryness, making the tongue slightly more red, also making the tongue thin. We see actually a depression in the tip there, which may correspond to lung issues. We see redness in the tip. So the heart is compensating for the dryness and deficiency by beating a little extra hard. We see this example of scallops on the edges of the tongue or teeth marks on the edge of the tongue without really any swelling. So we know that she's pushing up her tongue against the teeth, and that's a sign of tension too. So yeah, dryness, heat, and tension all go together. And probably pointing to the liver here. So what would we do? We'd want to soothe this person's liver. A little coconut oil will relax vata and pitta. And coconut oil really does soothe the liver nicely. Some blueberry juice, maybe even some chicken livers to nourish that liver. And yeah, so the coconut oil and the blueberries will cool things down a bit. The chicken liver won't. But there's some good remedies probably for this tongue sign. Of course, we're not only going to look at the tongue, we're going to look at the whole client. We're going to look at their case notes and case history before we come to the conclusion of how we should handle it. What about a swollen tongue that we were talking about before? What kind of remedies and treatments will we give for a swollen tongue? Maybe we'll give something simple like CCFT. Think about CCFT for a second. Cumin coriander fennel tea, such a popular, famous tea in Ayurveda. What is it? It's a mild diuretic. So that's going to move some of those fluids. It's also a vasodilator. Some of those herbs in there are good vasodilator. That's going to help drain the tongue when those vessels are a little bit expanded. Now the pungency in CCF, cumin coriander fennel tea, is going to stimulate the heart a bit. Especially that fennel is going to be a bit of a heart stimulant there. So this slightly warming formula with mild diuresis, diuretic properties, is going to drain the excess fluids and move the blood well. And that should help a bit with the swelling. I also love celery root for that too. Celery root, strong diuretic, strong vasodilator, nice and warming, a really good agni tonic, and all that is going to be helpful for a swollen tongue. But of course we have to look at the whole picture. Celery root may be the exact opposite the person wants as well. We're going to be looking at the whole client. All right, back to engagement and tension. Tense tip. That could be a tip that's curled up or curled down. We saw some examples of that earlier with that long tongue. Remember that long red tongue with the redness at the tip? And it was just the tip was curled up just a bit. And that tension in the tip of the tongue corresponds to enthusiasm, being energized and extroverted. And it's also associated with disturbance of the heart in TCM. And in Ayurveda, we would be looking at vyanavayu. We would be looking at circulation there. We'd be looking at why is there a bit of excess heat in circulation. If the entire tongue is stiff, again, that could be a simple sign of exuberance or it could be a more advanced version of the curled up edges that constrained tense liver chi issue, liver issues, or in Ayurveda, udana samanavayu. Notice a person may be simply tensing their tongue in the moment. They may be just a little nervous being in a consultation with you, for example. But if they're truly unable to relax their tongue, then it's going to correspond to a strong vata condition or a stroke. So if the entire tongue is stiff and they can't relax it, we're going to be thinking serious nervous system pathology. But we won't need the tongue to see that. They'll tell you. They'll say they have cerebral palsy or some deep nervous system issue. Oh, here you go. A deviating tongue. Constantly moving tongue or a deviating tongue to one side. A sign of a strong vata imbalance, strong nervous system imbalance. Losing control of those muscles. In this case, the right side of the tongue or left side of the photo is very lax and the other side is very engaged, making the tongue go to one side and not the other. Notice all the coating is on the side that is lax, that it's not engaged. And there's also other issues happening here. The tongue could be very lax, and that's a sign of kapha. It's a sign of low agni, low metabolism, weakness in general, maybe even high apanavayu. Sumanavayu and Udanavayu are those intense, engaged, stimulated subdoshas of vata. And apanavayu is just one that's totally relaxed and not engaged at all. And here we see this right side of the tongue is not engaged and relaxed. So there's a dullness there, and the dullness is reflected in that coating. So I want to thank you for your interest in the tongue, and more importantly, your interest in your body, your interest in health, and in healing yourself, your communities, your families. That's such a great gift that you can offer to the people that you love. I hope you loved learning about tongue diagnosis. Again, my name is John Immel, and this program is included in our Mastering Ayurvedic Digestion and Nutrition program. It's included in our two-year certification program, The Fundamentals of Natural Healing. So if you like what you heard today, come join us. Take care.