What body information can we get fro looking at the tongue?

Tongue examination is the most intuitive way of diagnosis in Traditional Chinese Medicine. If you look at your tongue, you can get many information about your body condition and can learn about whether your body is healthy enough.

First, shortage of positive energy( vital Qi)

In the theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine, positive energy keeps human body healthy. A Chinese medicine doctor usually analyze the level of positive energy by the method of tongue diagnosis, in which the coating of the tongue could provide more obvious evidence.

One situation is that the tongue coating is gone, which usually represents severe weakness of the stomach or dryness of the body. The other situation is that the coating on the tongue becomes thicker, which usually means food accumulation or aggravation of phlegm and dampness. That is usually caused by excessive drinking and eating, which leads to dysfunction digestive system. Both two situations indicates the low level of positive energy of the body.

A normal tongue should be ruddy, flexible with proper coating. So besides the abnormal tongue coating, there are some other possibility to show the shortage of positive energy. Such as pale tongue, thin tongue. Or some people may have difficulty to pull out the tongue and when the tongue is pulled out, it tends to tremble. These situations of the tongue must be brought to the forefront because they often indicate very severe problems.

Second, severity of pathogens( evil Qi)

Through the observation of the tongue image, one can determine whether the pathogens are powerful and prosperous. Let's take dampness for example. Actually, dampness is not very easy to judge through methods other than tongue observation. Sometimes, a doctor can't make clear diagnosis just by asking the patient because the answers from the patient are often vague.

Dampness and tongue coating are linked directly. When a person's tongue coating is thick and sticky and is full of saliva, it can indicate the dampness is heavy. Meanwhile, when the tongue body is fat and has teeth marks on the side of the tongue, it may be also related to the severe dampness.

Third, nature of the pathogens

Tongue image also help us to estimate the quality of pathogenic factors. There are two opposite nature of pathogens: cold and heat. In the theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine, exogenous factors and internal factors are all called negative energy ( evil Qi) , which are obstacles to the body's movement of blood and liquid essence. Before regulating the balance of body, a Chinese Medicine doctor must identify the nature of the pathogens accurately, and then select correct herbs and acupoints for treatment. Treating the heat problems as if it were cold would not have any effect, but would exacerbate the condition. The color of tongue( white and red) can provide the simplest and most effective diagnostic basis for identifying the nature ( cold and heat) of pathogens.

Fourth, Status of recovery

By examining the tongue, we can certify whether we are recuperating properly and how our health condition turns to be. After the recuperation measures, such as acupressure, acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine and so on, are carried out, the body condition really starts to improve of the tongue sign changes. If the tongue sign does not change, then these adjustment measures may only have a superficial effect, even most symptoms of the condition are reduced. Why? That is because the tongue shows that the problems still exist in body. So the further treatment is very necessary until the tongue image changes. Sometimes the tongue picture changes very quickly, and the Chinese Medicine doctor will make a new treatment plan for the new condition.

As a result, learning tongue diagnosis, can help us to understand the status of the body, and guide us to a healthy life. It is so intuitive and simple that even common people can master the methods easily. This is very meaningful for everyone to keep healthy for themselves and their family.

Start to learn tongue diagnosis

Tongue Reading

Tongue reading is one of the most important method of Traditional Chinese Medicine diagnosis. Through the tongue diagnosis, a experienced acupuncturist can get more details about your conditions. And more experiences he has, more details he can get.

Before you start reading your tongue, a very important viewpoint of Chinese medicine must be accepted. That is: any diagnosis methods of TCM, including Tongue Reading, is a dynamic observation process. There is no particular standards of one-size-fits-all. There is only a rough standard: light red tongue with  thin white coat. However, everyone's tongue is different. Someone's tongue is a little bit fat, whereas some others' may be a little bit thin. If someone's tongue is not as same as others, you can't say that  one of them is sick on that condition.

We should learn our body's condition from reading our tongues' changes. For example, the coating of the tongue used to be very thin. And recently, it has become thicker.  Or, the tongue is supposed to be light red, but it becomes very red recently. All of those could make diagnostic sense.

In what conditions that you can't recognize your body's physical state from reading your tongue?

First, be careful not to let your tongue be stained by foods, drinks, drugs and so on. When we observe the tongue, we must avoid artificially changing its color. Drinking orange juice, strong tea, coffee or some other colored things, may mislead the observer's diagnose.

Second, don't check  your tongue in  the morning. Many books say that looking at tongue images in the morning can get the most accurate diagnose. But in my experience, reading the tongue images in the morning usually leads to inaccurate conclusion. When you get up in the morning, your tongue tends to be light in color and the coating of the tongue tends to be thick and  dry. That can not represent your physical state during the day.

Third, try not to observe a person's tongue within half an hour after his/her meal. That is because the tongue is fully involved in food stirring and  chewing. The increasing of blood circulation makes the tongue red. On the other hand, during the course of eating, some foods, like celery, can thins the coating of the tongue, and some foods, like mild, can thicken the coating on the tongue. These can affect the observation of tongue images. Therefore, try not to see a Chinese medicine doctor within half an hour after a meal.

In addition, there are some certain physiological stages such as a woman's menstrual period, when the tip of her tongue turns red. So when a woman see a TCM doctor, she has to tell the doctor whether it is during the menstruation or one or two days before or after the menstruation. If it is not, then the doctor can judge the tongue as a performance of the heart fire.

Once all these special factors above are excluded, the observation of the tongue can be more accurate for a diagnose of the illness.