Friends, do you also experience this: you're very careful about what you eat, but your stomach always seems to have a mind of its own? With just a little cold or spicy food, the bathroom becomes your second home. You've spent a lot of money, trying various stomach medicines and probiotics in turn, but they always provide only temporary relief rather than addressing the root cause.

If you have this condition, stop just treating the symptoms as they appear—like dealing with a headache when your head hurts or a foot ache when your foot hurts. From a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) perspective, this is likely due to our body's "central engine"—the spleen and stomach—lacking sufficient "firepower." This "firepower" is what TCM often refers to as "yang qi."

The spleen and stomach are our "acquired foundation," responsible for transforming the food we eat into qi, blood, and energy that our body can use. Spleen yang is the driving force and heat energy for the spleen and stomach's functioning, much like the fire used to cook rice. If the fire is too weak, the rice won't cook properly, and the food we consume won't be digested and absorbed effectively, naturally leading to various health issues.

Today, I'll share with you the most valuable insights I have, focusing on three approaches to reignite that "fire" in your spleen and stomach!

First Technique: Warming the Middle and Dispelling Cold—"Adding Firewood" to the Cold-Fearing Spleen and Stomach

The most typical manifestation of this condition is "deficiency cold." When the spleen and stomach lack sufficient yang energy, it's like a room without heating—cold and lifeless.

Your feelings: Your hands and feet are always cold to the touch, and your abdomen feels chilly as well. You are particularly sensitive to cold and avoid drinking cold water or eating chilled foods. Consuming them leads to bloating, discomfort, gurgling sounds in your stomach, and an urge to use the bathroom.

Observing stool and tongue: Stools are usually loose, soft, and unformed, sometimes even containing undigested food particles. When you stick out your tongue, it appears pale with little color, and the tongue coating is white and smooth, like a light dusting of snow.

Approach to regulation: In this case, you need to "warm the middle and dispel cold," directly stoking the fire in your spleen and stomach. By driving away the cold and replenishing yang energy, the "boiler" of the spleen and stomach can heat up again and restore normal digestive function.

Second Technique: Raising Yang and Transforming Dampness—Helping the "Waterlogged" Spleen and Stomach "Open the Windows for Ventilation"

If the first type is "cold," then this one is "dampness." Insufficient spleen yang and inadequate "firepower" prevent the body from effectively "evaporating" and transporting moisture. When this dampness lingers in the body, a person feels heavy and sluggish.

How you feel: General fatigue, lack of energy, and a sensation like being wrapped in damp clothing. Despite eating little, the abdomen often feels bloated and full. Waking up in the morning with a foggy head and a tendency for the face to become oily.

Observe stool and tongue: Stool is particularly sticky, requiring multiple flushes to clean the toilet. The tongue has a thick, greasy coating, as if covered by a layer of something, and the mouth also feels sticky.

Approach to regulation: At this stage, simply "adding fire" isn't enough—"raising yang to transform dampness" is also necessary. This involves strengthening the digestive and transformative capacity of the spleen and stomach (raising yang) while simultaneously opening the body's pathways for expelling dampness (transforming dampness). It’s akin to lighting a fire in a damp room while also opening a window to ventilate, thoroughly driving out the moisture.

Third Technique: Replenish Qi and Lift Prolapse, Providing "Support" for the Spleen-Stomach That "Lacks Strength"

This is a relatively severe stage in the development of spleen yang deficiency, which we refer to as "sinking of middle qi." The weakness of the spleen and stomach has reached its extreme, to the point where they lack the strength to hold and support the organs of the body.

How you feel: It’s not just poor digestion; you may also frequently experience dizziness and blurred vision, become breathless with even slight exertion, and speak with a faint voice. Some people may develop conditions like gastroptosis (dropped stomach) or rectal prolapse. The entire body appears pale and lacks vitality.

Look at the tongue: The tongue color is very pale, and the key sign is that there may be a distinct depression in the middle of the tongue.

Treatment approach: In this case, the focus is on "boosting qi and lifting the sinking." The priority is to "raise" the sunken qi mechanism, stabilize the foundation of the spleen and stomach like a great tree, and help it regain the strength to support the entire body.

Final words:

As you can see, even with the same issue of poor spleen and stomach health, the emphases in the three directions of "cold," "dampness," and "sinking" are entirely different. Therefore, regulating the spleen and stomach is a delicate task that must never be generalized.

I hope this article helps you better understand your own body. Of course, what is provided here is a line of thinking, and specific situations still require guidance from professionals. Only by identifying the root cause and using the right methods can we truly "warm up" and "strengthen" our spleen and stomach!