The Five Elements Interaction

Now that we have a small understanding of what to expect from herbal medication. We will continue to learn how to diagnose the symptoms and to use the correct herbs to treat the corresponding symptom. I will be posting every Monday and Wednesday but I will be active every day to upvote my followers feeds and to provide feedback to any questions.

Promotion

Promotion indicates promoting and improving the orderly function among the five elements. The order of promotion is as follow: wood promotes fire, fire promotes earth, earth promotes metal, metal promotes water, and water in turn promotes wood.
The order of promotion comes from the life. wood promotes fire: Put the wood into the fire, and fire will be better.
fire promotes earth: After the fire, all the things become dust falling down the earth.
Earth promotes metal: Metal mineral come from the mountains, and mountains come from earth.
Metal promotes water: The metal in a certain temperature become liquid such as liquid iron or liquid gold.
Water promotes wood: The plants need water to grow. Without water, without trees.

Restriction

Restriction implies checking and bringing under control among the five elements.
The order of restriction is: wood restricts earth, earth restricts water, water restricts fire, fire restricts metal, and metal restricts wood.
Wood restricts earth: Wood works like a retaining wall for the earth, and keeps earth in place. The trees can hold the soil in place.
Earth restricts water: The dam and sea wall which are made up of earth can prevent floods.
Water restricts fire: Water can put out the fire.
Fire restricts metal: Metal can change its shape through smelting under a certain temperature. And fire can produce the certain temperature.
Metal restricts wood: The trees were cut down with metal tools such as knife.

The Relationship of Promotion and Restriction

In the relationship of the five elements, neither promtion nor restriction is separated.
Without promotion, there would be no birth and growth of things; without restriction, there be abnormal changes. The relationship of promotion and restriction both belong to normal physiological changes.

Over-restriction & Reverse-restriction

They are an abnormal manifestation.
Over-restriction indicates “encroaching on that which is weak”. The sequence of over-restriction and restriction are the same order. The different is that over-restriction is abnormal manifestation, and restriction is normal manifestation.

Reverse-restriction :
Reverse restriction to the elements is “using one’s strength to bully another one”.
That is, one of the five elements becomes too excessive, thus the element that originally restricts it can not controlling it any more, and is restricted by it. This is called “Reverse-restriction”. The order of Reverse-restriction is the counter restriction.

Five Elements and Five Zang

You may be wondering how all of this is linked with diagnostics and how do we use this knowledge of the five elements to treat symptoms. In my previous blog I explained the five elements and the yang and fu organs. Now it is time for me to show you the relationship between those organs and the five elements.

“Mother-child” Relationship

The promoting relationship of the five elements is also known as the “mother-child” relationship, with each element being the “child” of the element that produces it, and “mother” of the one it produces.

The liver is the mother of the heart
(liver wood promotes heart fire):
The liver stores blood and blood nourish heart .
If liver blood is weak, the heart will suffer;
If liver blood deficiency often induces heart blood deficiency ;
So the clinical manifestations of liver blood deficiency always include irregular pulse, poor sleep and memory even nightmare, etc.

The heart is the mother of the spleen
(heart fire promotes spleen earth):
Heart qi pushes the blood and thus helps the spleen function of transportation.
The spleen is the mother of the lungs
(spleen earth promote lungs metal):
The spleen provides food qi to the lungs where it interacts with air to form lung qi.

The lung is the mother of the kidneys: (lungs metal promotes kidneys water)
Lung qi descends to meet kidney qi. The lungs also send fluids down to the kidneys.
The kidney is the mother of the liver (kidneys water promotes liver wood) :
Kidney yin nourishes liver blood.
Liver blood support kidney essence.

The liver restricts the spleen
(liver wood controls spleen earth):
The liver can help the spleen to transform and transport.
The heart restricts the lungs
( heart fire controls lung metal ):
The heart govern blood and lungs govern qi.
qi and blood help and control each other.

The spleen restricts the kidney
(spleen earth controls kidneys water):
Both spleen and kidneys transform body fluids.
Kidney major in producing and passing fluids, and spleen major in transporting fluids.
The kidneys restrict the heart
( kindeys water controls heart fire ):
kidney fluids control the heart fire.

The lungs restrict the liver
(lungs metal controls liver wood):
The lungs send qi downwards
The liver spreads qi upwards.
If the lung qi is weak and cannot descend, liver qi may tend to rise too much, leading to the clinical manifestation such as headache, eyes bleeding, hypertension, and so on.

Diagnosis and Treatment Application

The five elements not only can be used to explain the relationships among the viscera physiologically, but also may be used to explain inter-affection of viscera pathologically. This relates to the law of promotion, restriction, over-restriction and reverse-restriction of the five elements. Abnormal changes in functional activities of the viscera and their relationships can all be reflected in the complexion, tongue, taste and pulse.The five colors, the five flavors and the five pulses correspond to the liver, the heart, the spleen, the lung and the kidney respectively.
So they can be directly used to diagnose disease. A patient whose complexion is greenish with a taste for sour food and wiry pulse may be diagnosed as having a liver disease.

Treatment

The development of some diseases are related to the promotion and restriction relationships among the viscera. Thus in treatment while treating the diseased organs, one should also consider the other related viscera in order to stop the transmission of disease. Examples may include treatment principles such as reinforcing spleen earth to strengthen lung metal.
The spleen and stomach provides food qi to the lungs. And the lungs govern qi of the whole body. If the spleen qi is rich, and the lung qi is also enough. So, reinforcing mother-organ (spleen earth) can strengthen son-organ (lung metal). This treatment is a therapeutic principle used to treat deficiency syndrome.

Thank you for your time, I hope you enjoy my posts. Please leave feedback with your questions and thoughts on any aspect.