Chinese Herbs: The Difference Between Us and Them

It’s not what you use but how you use it. That’s the basic premise of the root of Traditional Chinese Medicine’s use of herbal remedies.

For thousands of years Asians have used herbal remedies to reduce stress, eliminate pain, treat gastrointestinal disorder. Basically everything from mild gas to cancer.

But the more we use TCM in the United States, the more some of us question why we have to look east for a remedy.

In a book written by optometrist and oriental medicine practitioner Dr. Jeffrey Anshel, Smart Medicine for Your Eyes, he looks at the entire philosophy behind the uses of herbs as opposed to their origins.

For instance, many of the same herbs are know in the west, by a different name. They are used because of their reputation for having a healing property.

But Traditional Chinese Medicine is forced to look at the person as a whole to see beyond surface symptoms, then the herb as a whole, and as a combination of a system of herbs, to treat an underlying disorder. Or, as Herb Doc puts it, “herbs are used according to their reputed health benefits without necessarily referring to a complex syndrome to be treated or to an integration herbal properties within a formula.”

And finally, Chinese herbs are typically taken in tea form, or in pill form.