An economic bubble and the body’s inflammation look like problems to be stamped out. Seen differently, both are the same thing: a surge of concentrated resources rushing to where a problem needs solving. Suppress either without understanding why it arose, and the real trouble only returns, larger.
Eating When You Have a Cold or Flu: Why Less Often Beats More (Eight Constitutions)
We are taught to eat well when we are sick. But during an acute infection, eating the same as usual — or a little less — tends to serve recovery better than eating more, because digestion is work and overeating turns the body into friendly ground for microbes. How much less depends on your constitution.
Baths and Colds by Constitution: Who Should Sweat It Out, and Who Shouldn’t (Eight Constitutions)
A cold runs through a fixed set of reactions — fever, aches, cough — and letting them happen well is how you beat it. Korean medicine treats sweating as central to that, and a warm bath is the simplest tool. But how much to sweat depends on your constitution: some types thrive on a full hot sweat, while others must keep it light and finish lukewarm.
The Brain in Korean Medicine: The Sea of Marrow and Its Roots in the Five Organs
Korean Traditional Medicine gives the brain a name that sounds strange to modern ears: the sea of marrow. Built from food through qi, blood, essence, and marrow, and expressing the work of the five organs, the brain is best understood not in isolation but through the organs that feed and steady it.
Autumn Rhinitis in Korean Medicine: Why the Cold Season Weakens Your Guard Qi
Every autumn, cold dry air arrives and a wave of rhinitis with it. Korean medicine reads this through the guard qi (wei qi) at the body’s surface: the cold contracts it inward and thins the protection it gives. The reading points to a simple remedy — raise a sweat, keep warm afterward, and sleep enough.
Stress and Immunity in Eight Constitution Medicine: Why Tension Opens the Door to Illness
Everyone knows stress weakens immunity, but “stress hormones and cytokines” leaves you asking what to do about it. Korean medicine offers a more usable picture: stress reaches the immune system through two concrete routes — internal heat that props the sweat pores open, and a tension that hampers the body’s cleaning work — and some constitutions feel it far more than others.
Digestion and the Colonotonia Constitution: A Powerful Colon, Food That Won’t Stay Down, and the Cost of Anger
Colonotonia is built around a powerful large intestine whose overfunction is the clinical center of the type. Its digestive troubles come in two forms — food that won’t stay down, and inflammatory bowel disease — and running through both is one thread: anger, which disperses energy outward and strengthens the already-dominant lung.
Digestion and the Pulmotonia Constitution: When Food Won’t Stay Down, and the Bowel Inflames
Pulmotonia often digests well — its spleen-stomach is relatively strong. Its digestive trouble comes from two other directions: a lung-dominant tendency that makes food hard to keep down, and a vulnerability to inflammatory bowel disease tied to anger and a meat-heavy diet. And because the liver is its most recessive organ, this type handles medicines poorly.
Digestion and the Cholecystonia Constitution: A Weak, Cold Colon and a Sensitive Gut
Cholecystonia takes in and stores food well, but its large intestine — its most recessive organ — struggles to move waste out. So when the body runs down, the colon fails first, in an IBS-like picture of a cold lower belly, a sensitive gut, and cold hands and feet. The anchors of care: keep the gut warm, and sweat appropriately.
Digestion and the Hepatonia Constitution: A Strong Liver That Forgives the Stomach
On paper the Hepatonia constitution should have a weak stomach — both its spleen-stomach and large intestine sit low. In practice it has fewer digestive complaints than its Taeeumin cousin, because a dominant liver quietly compensates, even forgiving unsuitable food. The real concern for this type is not the gut but metabolism: obesity and fatty liver.