Today’s episode is an introduction to the world of constitutional medicine. Your constitution is akin to what we’d call in biology, a “phenotype.” This is the way that your genes express themselves, the way that you show up in the world. It’s the way that your body is shaped, the tendencies you have, and the patterns that seem to come up for you again and again. You constitution isn’t set in stone, but it’s a set of “guiding tendencies” that shape the ways that you get sick, the strengths you have, and the way that you relate to the outside world. When you know something about your constitutional tendencies you can take really good care of yourself. You can also cut through all of the confusion that’s out there about which diet is best, which herbs to take, etc. Knowing yourself is an often-overlooked key to self-care.
When herbalists say that we treat people, not diseases, what we mean is that we take the time to understand your constitution before we recommend any dietary therapies, herbs, or lifestyle suggestions. The truth is that there’s no single regime that’s good for everyone. Even people with similar diagnoses often have very different body types, preferences, and strengths. It’s just common sense that they’ll do better with a treatment that’s more customized to their own bodies’ tendencies.
Learning about your constitutional type can help you to gain insight into your behavior, your relationships, the kind of diet that may work best for you, and ultimately which herbal remedies are best suited for your condition. It takes a while to learn this way of thinking, so be patient with yourself! We’ll be talking about this quite a lot in future episodes.
For now, see if you can identify which of the five types sounds most like you. Then, you can secretly guess which type your best friend is, your boss, etc. (No need to share your guesses yet! While you’re still learning, it’s easiest to keep these guesses to yourself. People will always want to ask follow-up questions that you’re not yet ready to answer. We’ll get there…just take this one step at a time.)
Next week we’ll be talking about this same idea, but instead of focusing on the Traditional Chinese Medicine system of constitutional typing, we’ll explore the Ayurvedic system. So if you don’t resonate with any of the TCM types discussed today, tune in next week and work with the Ayurvedic system instead!
