We are told that comparing yourself to others is the start of unhappiness. Here is a different reading: used well, comparison is one of the most reliable ways to find your own talent and calling.
The Secret of Reverse Aging: Stillness, True Qi, and Why Happiness Begins with Unhappiness
The Huangdi Neijing locates healing in a state of mind: yeomdam-heomu, jin-gi-jong-ji — when the mind is quiet and empty, the true qi follows. The same stillness holds both the secret of happiness and, in my reading, a kind of reverse aging: hold the brief calm after each problem and true qi gathers into essence (jing). Happiness begins with unhappiness, but renewal lives in the stillness that follows.
Feeling Less Lonely: The Gap Between the Connection You Want and the Connection You Have
Loneliness is the gap between the connection you want and the connection you feel you have. Seeing it that way turns a heavy feeling into something you can examine and adjust — and in Korean Medicine, an unmet longing (so-won-i-bu-deuk) whose easing is much of what contentment means.
Singing for Mental Health: Why the Body Calms When You Sing
Singing is one of the simplest things a person can do for their mental health, and the body has clear reasons for responding to it — the vagus nerve, the quieting of the brain’s alarm centers, and a vibration that resonates inside the skull. In Korean Medicine, it is also a way to move stagnant qi.
Insomnia and the Colonotonia Constitution: A Sensitive Gut and the Sweat Trap
Colonotonia’s sleep trouble has two drivers: a strong but touchy large intestine, whose low-grade inflammation and weak digestion unsettle the night, and sweating — which for this type pulls qi and blood into the colon and lung so the blood can’t return to the liver at night. As the professor says, little actively helps this type; not doing harm is what matters.
Insomnia and the Pulmotonia Constitution: Why Sweating Keeps This Type Awake
Pulmotonia rarely loses sleep for long, but when it does the trouble traces to its weakest pair — the liver and gallbladder. The gallbladder steadies the mind, the liver should receive the blood back at night, and sweating works against both by pulling blood into the strong lung instead.
Insomnia and the Hepatonia Constitution: Sweat the Heat Out, Lighten the Evening
Hepatonia loses sleep when its energy pools in the liver, stagnates, and builds heat in the heart and liver. The remedy is to draw that energy outward and support the weaker lung: sweat well before bed, eat a lighter, less meaty dinner, and skip the nighttime drink that only banks more heat in the liver.
Insomnia and the Cholecystonia Constitution: Warm the Lower Belly, Sweat the Heat Out
Cholecystonia loses sleep through the pattern of heat above and cold below: a cold, sensitive large intestine and lower belly, with heat banking up in the heart and liver. The remedy runs opposite to the cold types — warm the lower belly, avoid cold food, and sweat the upper heat out with a hot bath before bed.
Insomnia and the Vesicotonia Constitution: A Weak Stomach and a Jumpy Heart
Of the Soeumin types, Vesicotonia has the weakest stomach — often the root of all its troubles — so it is the most prone to weak-stomach insomnia. Eating little leaves Qi and Blood thin, so the heart flutters at the smallest thing, and an uneasy stomach unsettles it at night. The fix: eat modestly and warm, stay active by day, and never sweat it out before bed.
Insomnia and the Renotonia Constitution: When a Weak Stomach Unsettles the Heart
For the Soeumin Renotonia, insomnia is not a fire problem but a weak-stomach one: at night an uneasy stomach unsettles the heart, bringing palpitations and broken sleep. With somewhat better digestion than its cousin Vesicotonia, Renotonia loses sleep less often — and recovers by eating light and warm, staying active by day, and never sweating itself out before bed.