The Architecture of Balance

Two people walk into a health shop with the same complaint: they're tired. Both buy the same popular energy herb. One feels brighter within a week. The other can't sleep, feels on edge and gets headaches. Same herb, same problem, opposite results. Herbalists have understood why for thousands of years.

Every herb has a nature

In traditional herbal medicine, herbs aren't only described by what they contain or what they treat. They're also described by their energetics: whether they warm or cool the body, dry or moisten its tissues, stimulate or relax.

People have energetics too. Some of us naturally run warm and others cold. Some tend towards dryness, others towards heaviness and congestion. This underlying pattern is your constitution, and it shapes how you respond to food, stress, illness and, very much, to herbs.

The question isn't only "What is this herb good for?" It's "Is this herb good for this person?"

The Western humoral tradition

In ancient Greece, Hippocrates and later the physician Galen described health as a balance of four humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. Each carried a pair of qualities, hot or cold, and wet or dry. A person's natural mix of humours gave them their temperament:

• Sanguine (hot and moist): warm, sociable, energetic.
• Choleric (hot and dry): driven, intense, quick to heat and inflammation.
• Phlegmatic (cold and moist): steady and calm, but prone to sluggishness and congestion.
• Melancholic (cold and dry): thoughtful and sensitive, prone to dryness, tension and worry.

Herbs were given the same qualities, and graded by strength in four "degrees". A herb hot in the first degree warmed gently; one hot in the fourth degree, like the fiercest spices, could burn. A hot, dry herb would be used to restore balance in a cold, damp person, never to push an already hot, dry person further out of balance.

This way of thinking shaped European herbalism for nearly two thousand years. In 1653, Nicholas Culpeper's Complete Herbal, one of the best-loved herbals ever written in English, still described each plant by its temperature and moisture alongside its uses. Western herbalists use these ideas today, often describing the body's "tissue states": heat, cold, dryness, dampness, tension and relaxation, each with herbs that bring it back towards balance.

Traditional Chinese Medicine

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) developed its own rich map. At its heart is the balance of yin and yang: cool, moist, restful yin and warm, active, energising yang. TCM also describes five elements, wood, fire, earth, metal and water, each linked to organs, emotions and seasons.

The five elements are a living web, each one feeding the next and keeping another in check, just as the systems of the body do:

• Wood: spring, the liver, growth and flow, and when out of balance, frustration.
• Fire: summer, the heart, warmth and joy.
• Earth: late summer, the spleen and stomach, nourishment, and when out of balance, worry.
• Metal: autumn, the lungs, letting go, and when out of balance, grief.
• Water: winter, the kidneys, deep reserves of energy, and when out of balance, fear.

Every herb is described by its nature, from cold through neutral to hot, and by its flavours, each with its own action. Pungent herbs disperse and move. Sweet herbs nourish and harmonise. Sour herbs gather and hold. Bitter herbs clear heat and dry dampness. Salty herbs soften. Each herb is also said to have a direction, rising, sinking, floating outwards or moving inwards, and to "enter" particular organ channels, guiding its action to where it's needed. (See Bitter Is Better.)

So a TCM practitioner doesn't treat "tiredness". They identify the pattern behind it, perhaps a deficiency of yang, or of yin, or a stagnation of energy, because each calls for very different herbs, often combined into a carefully balanced formula.

Hot and cold in Chinese medicine

Of all the ideas in TCM, the balance of hot and cold is one of the most practical, and one of the most important when choosing herbs and food. It forms part of the "eight principles" a practitioner uses to read every pattern: yin or yang, interior or exterior, hot or cold, and deficient or excess.

One of the oldest Chinese herbals, the Shennong Bencao Jing, put the guiding rule simply: treat cold conditions with warming herbs, and hot conditions with cooling ones.

Signs of heat

Feeling hot and restless, a red face, thirst for cold drinks, irritability, strong-smelling or dark urine, constipation, inflamed skin, a red tongue with a yellow coating and a fast pulse.

Signs of cold

Feeling chilly, cold hands and feet, a pale face, a longing for warm drinks and warm places, loose stools, pale and plentiful urine, slow digestion and low energy, a pale tongue with a white coating and a slow pulse.

Full or empty

TCM also asks why someone is hot or cold. Full heat is like a fire burning too brightly, as in a fever or an acute infection. Empty heat happens when the cooling, moistening yin has run low, so warmth isn't held in check: hot flushes, night sweats, warm palms and soles, and feeling hotter in the afternoon or evening. It's a pattern TCM often sees around the menopause. In the same way, full cold comes from cold getting in, while empty cold comes from a lack of warming yang, leaving someone tired, chilly and slow.

The difference matters. Empty heat needs herbs that cool and nourish yin, not simply strong cooling herbs, which could deplete the person further.

Herbs by temperature

• Hot: dried ginger and cinnamon bark, for deep cold and very weak warmth.
• Warm: fresh ginger, cinnamon twig, Korean ginseng, astragalus and dang gui.
• Neutral: liquorice, goji berries and poria mushroom.
• Cool: peppermint, chrysanthemum and American ginseng.
• Cold: honeysuckle flower, skullcap root (Scutellaria baicalensis) and coptis, for strong heat and inflammation.

Notice how preparation changes a herb's nature. Fresh ginger is warming, but dried ginger is hot. The same root, prepared differently, does a different job.

Food has a temperature too

In TCM, food is medicine, and every food has its own nature:

• Warming foods: ginger, cinnamon, garlic, onions, leeks, oats, lamb, chicken and slow-cooked stews and soups.
• Cooling foods: cucumber, watermelon, celery, mung beans, tofu, mint, green tea and most raw salads.

Cooking matters as well. Roasting, baking and slow cooking add warmth, while raw and lightly steamed food stays cooling. That's why TCM often advises people with a cold, weak digestion to go easy on iced drinks and raw food, and to favour warm, cooked meals, especially in winter. Someone who runs hot, on the other hand, may thrive on more fresh, cooling foods in summer.

Ayurveda: the three doshas

India's Ayurvedic tradition tells a similar story through three doshas, each made of the elements and carrying its own qualities:

• Vata (air and space): cold, dry, light and changeable. Creative and quick, but prone to anxiety, dryness and erratic digestion.
• Pitta (fire and water): hot, sharp and intense. Focused and driven, but prone to inflammation, acidity and irritability.
• Kapha (earth and water): heavy, cool, moist and steady. Calm and loyal, but prone to sluggishness, congestion and weight gain.

Ayurveda recognises six tastes, sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent, and each one calms some doshas while stirring up others. Warming ginger, for example, is a classic remedy for cold vata and heavy kapha, but too much can inflame fiery pitta. Three great systems, developed in different parts of the world, all arrived at the same insight: people differ, and so must their medicine.

Taste: where energetics meets chemistry

Long before laboratories, herbalists read a plant's actions through its taste. Remarkably, modern science shows that taste often points straight to the chemistry inside:

• Pungent and hot: the warming compounds in chilli and ginger switch on the very same nerve receptors that sense real heat. When herbalists called them "hot", they were describing exactly what the body feels.
• Bitter: bitter compounds trigger taste receptors on the tongue and throughout the gut, stimulating digestive juices, bile and appetite. It's why bitter herbs have been taken before meals for centuries.
• Astringent and sour: tannins, found in herbs like sage, raspberry leaf and oak bark, bind to proteins and tighten tissues. You can feel it as that drying pucker on your tongue.
• Sweet and moistening: soothing herbs such as marshmallow root and slippery elm are rich in mucilage, a gel that coats and calms dry, irritated tissues.
• Aromatic: volatile oils in herbs like fennel, chamomile and peppermint relax the gut and ease wind and cramping.

Energetics, in other words, is not just poetry. It's a sophisticated, sensory way of understanding how a plant will act in the body, built up over thousands of years of careful observation.

When the right herb meets the wrong person

Because herbs are active, a herb that suits one constitution can aggravate the very tendency another person is trying to remedy. A few examples:

• Korean ginseng is warming and stimulating, traditionally given to people who are cold, pale and depleted. In someone who already runs hot, wired or anxious, it can cause restlessness, insomnia and raised blood pressure, a pattern doctors once described as "ginseng abuse syndrome".¹ TCM practitioners often choose the cooler American ginseng for these people instead.
• Ginger, cinnamon and cayenne are hot and drying. They're wonderful for a cold, sluggish digestion, but can worsen heartburn and inflammation in someone with a hot constitution.
• Peppermint soothes many digestive complaints, but it relaxes the valve at the top of the stomach, so it can make acid reflux worse.
• Bitter herbs such as gentian and dandelion are cooling and stimulate digestion. They suit a hot, sluggish system, but may chill an already cold, weak one.
• Liquorice is sweet, moistening and soothing, but it can raise blood pressure,² so it isn't right for everyone.
• Calming and energising herbs such as ashwagandha and rhodiola can be wonderfully supportive, but each suits some people far better than others, and some need care with certain health conditions.

Choosing herbs without knowing your constitution can mean, at best, that they simply don't work, and at worst, that they push you further from balance. Either way, you could be spending time and money on the wrong herbs.

Modern science and individuality

The idea that people respond differently is now well supported by modern science, even if it uses a different language:

• Our genes affect how fast we break down medicines and plant compounds. The same dose can be too strong for one person and too weak for another. (See Not Written in Stone.)
• Our gut bacteria transform plant compounds differently. Only around a third to a half of people have the gut bacteria needed to turn soy's isoflavones into equol, a compound thought to give soy many of its benefits.³ (See The Master Regulator.)
• Our blood sugar responds differently to the very same meal, as a study of 800 people showed.⁴
• Even constitution itself has been studied. In one study, people classified into different Ayurvedic constitutional types showed measurable differences in the activity of their genes.⁵

How a practitioner reads your constitution

Identifying your constitution takes more than a questionnaire. A practitioner will look at how you respond to heat and cold, your digestion, sleep, energy and emotions, your skin, tongue and pulse, and your health history. From there, herbs are chosen, and often combined, to gently move you back towards your own balance point, rather than towards someone else's.

At Rootwise, every herbal plan begins with understanding you: your constitution, your current state and your goals. That way, every herb is chosen to work with your body, not against it.