When looking at the tongue image, we mainly observe two parts: the body of the tongue, the tongue coating, and the other parts are what the doctor observes.
We usually first talk about looking at the tongue body to check how the tongue looks. Therefore, we can understand the physical condition of ourselves, our family and our friends by observing the tongue image, and then adjust it. Generally, we can just look at the two parts of the tongue body and the tongue coating.
1) What is the normal or abnormal tongue body of people? The tongue body is the musculature of the tongue. We also often observe through the part of tongue that is not covered by the tongue coating.
a. normal tongue
We look at the circle around the tongue and observe the color of tongue in this area. If there is no problem with the body, the color of the tongue around our tongue is reddish, also known as the reddish tongue, and the tongue coating is thin white coating.
b. There are two kinds of abnormal tongue body.
1） the tongue body develops in the direction of pale white. The tongue’s color is not so ruddy, it is pale, called pale tongue, which is more common. The most serious is the dry and white tongue, but it is rare.
Generally, when you see a dry and white tongue, it means that the person’s health is already very bad.
Second, the tongue is from light red to red. The tongue is red at first and then becomes auburn (deep red). Going further down, the tongue will turn blue-purple, with a hint of blue in the purple.
2) The tongue’s color develops in the direction of light white, which means that the person has blood deficiency or cold and yang deficiency in the body.
If tongue color is white, it means that he has blood deficiency or cold in the body, and the tongue color is whiter indicating that his body cold is getting heavier. However,For cold, we must learn to observe dynamically.
First, cold air comes from outside the body, which is called excess (excessive excess of cold pathogens);
second, cold comes from the inside of body, which means that there is insufficient yang energy in the body. Therefore, after excluding the blood deficiency, there are two judgment indicators for a person’s white tongue color:
- one is the excess of cold evil outside
- The other is the lack of yang in the body.
For example, in winter in the north, when it is minus 30°C, the outside is cold, and people are susceptible to cold. At this time, the tongue’s color will change to the direction of white—the outside world is more than cold.
The other is lack of yang qi.
For example, when you go to Sanya for vacation in summer, the weather is very hot, and everyone else wears short-sleeved shorts, but even if you are wearing a shirt, you still feel cold when the wind blows, which means that your kidney yang is insufficient-the body is cold. But whether it is the cold outside or the lack of yang in body, it means that your body is in a state of insufficient temperature.
Many factors can cause this. It may also be caused by outer and inner cold interweaving. The cold outside is strong, and the yang energy inside the body is insufficient, so that the body temperature drops.
For example, some people drink cold beer, ice drinks, and ice cream every day, which can restrain the yang qi in the body. At this time, the dampness in his body is very heavy and the yang qi is insufficient and Infected with cold evil. Therefore, the cold of the body is caused by various external and internal factors, and the two are interrelated.
External cold will lead to insufficient yang in the body, and insufficient yang in the body will make the body more vulnerable feel the cold outside.
Nowadays, many people do not pay attention to keeping healthy. For example, some men stay up too late and have unruly sex, resulting in insufficient kidney yang, frequent nocturnal urination, sore waist and knees, and cold hands and feet.
At this time, as soon as he felt the cold wind a little, and there was no problem with others, he started to snot and his body became cold. This is because the yang qi in his body is insufficient, which causes the cold outside.
Whether it is external cold or lack of yang qi, the color of tongue will develop towards a white color.
3) The color of tongue becomes red, which means that it is infected with external heat evil or the heat in the body is increasing.
Another development direction of the tongue is that the color becomes red. If your tongue color slowly turns red, then finally turns purple, it means that the heat in your body is increasing. Two factors may cause this.
On the one hand, it may be the heat of the outside environment. For example, in winter, everyone’s tongue may be slightly whitish, but when summer begins in June, the tongue image will change, and the color of people’s tongue will begin to turn ruddy, indicating that your body is full of qi and blood. Therefore, we need to observe the tongue image according to the weather.
The weather outside is hot, which will cause the tongue image to develop in the direction of red, but this change is slight, So,we should always emphasize that tongue diagnosis is a dynamic process, and we need to observe it dynamically.
It cannot be said that this kind of tongue image is standard. Everyone must have this awareness. And the factors that really come from the outside world and will increase your internal heat are external evils.
What is evil?
It’s a fever. For example, a person has an infectious disease that causes dry stool, sore throat, and fever. This is caused by evil qi from the outside world, and it is hot and the tongue will develop in the direction of red.
Because the tongue will turn red when the body is invaded by the evil heat, so febrile disease specialists use tongue diagnosis as one of the main means of diagnosis.
On the other hand, the increase in body heat will also make the tongue become red. Where does the heat in the body come from? There are two kinds. One is self-generated real heat. For example, if there is accumulated food in the body, especially meat food, it will dissolve dampness, generate phlegm, and accumulate and generate heat. At this time, this heat is real heat, which is excess.
Traditional Chinese medicine calls this condition. “surplus.” At this time, the patient’s tongue tends to become red, and the tongue coating becomes yellow and greasy. This heat is easily combined with the heat caused by external pathogens, resulting in more obvious heat syndrome.
Another condition is deficiency heat, which is caused by yin deficiency.
What is Yin? It is the moisturizing and calming substances in the body, including body fluid and blood, which are yin and mainly used to nourish our body. It is like the lubricating oil of a car engine. When the car engine has lubricating oil, it generates very little heat during operation, which is normal. The same is true for the body. When the body fluids and blood that are responsible for moisturizing are sufficient, the body will not produce so much deficient heat.
On the contrary, deficient heat will occur. Therefore, Chinese medicine says: “Yin deficiency produces internal heat.” This internal heat will also make the tongue red, and the greater the internal heat, the redder the tongue. So, the color of tongue changes from pale white to reddish, to red, to crimson, to purple. What does this process mean? It means that the body heat is increasing.
So by looking at the change in the color of our tongue, we can judge what state our body is in, and whether it is out of balance. If the heat outside is abundant, we have to clear the heat; if the yin in the body is insufficient, we have to nourish the yin.
After nourishing the moisturizing substances, the deficient heat will subside, and the tongue’s color will be normal. (The heat produced by the lack of yin in the body is called Deficiency Heat; the heat caused by the invasion of external evils, or the heat caused by the stasis of real evils such as blood stasis in the body is called real heat.) will be different.
If there is a deficiency, it will make up for it. If there is a deficiency, consider it nourishment, and slowly your body will return to normal. There are a lot of external evils. We just need to get rid of them. But whether it is real heat or deficient heat, this place is very easy to make mistakes, and many Chinese medicine practitioners should think it over. Why? Because real heat and deficient heat are sometimes combined, the proportion of medication must be considered.
Some people have a red tongue, and taking Coptis chinensis, Forsythia suspensa, and Shuanghua detoxification and clearing heat will not work, but if they are given raw land, Asparagus, Ophiopogon japonicus and other medicines, the color of his tongue will be normal, which means that the heat in the body is deficient heat, and deficiency is made up for it.
Some people have yin deficiency, their tongue is red, and it is deficient heat, but they don’t understand it. They feel that there is heat in their body, so they take “bezoar detoxification pills” to clear the heat, but it is useless. At this time, as soon as the medicine for nourishing yin is used, his body will be fine; but sometimes, no matter how to nourish the yin, it will be fine.
Internal heat and deficient heat are often combined, and the excess heat outside will consume the body fluids in the body, so when regulating it, you should add some yin-nourishing herbs while clearing heat. This is a two-way adjustment process.
