Unlock the Power of Your Unique Physiology.
Whether you go to the doctor or read the work of online biohackers, you will often be left with generalized recommendations that don't consider your unique physiologic constitution.
One of the commonly understood problems with the patient-doctor encounter is that once the doctor hears a buzzword he has been conditioned to associate with a certain disease or syndrome, it activates a treatment strategy.
These diagnostic and therapeutic algorithms are increasingly ingrained into doctors-in-training as well as those who seek “continued medical education.”
The result is plain for all to see.
The doctor lets you speak for 30 seconds, hears what he needs to hear to activate downstream testing and treatment, and that’s all there is to it.
For all the talk of “personalized medicine,” this is anything but.
Unfortunately, this isn’t only a problem within the centralized healthcare system. This is also a problem in many alternative pathways that health-conscious people seek out. Especially in the realm of online coaches/gurus.
Let’s take something like diet/nutrition for example.
In recent years, people have been adopting elimination diets like ketogenic and carnivore. The proponents of either of these diets are nothing short of evangelists. Often, they had personal experiences with health that led them down this dietary path. For them, it worked.
Then, as they publicized their experience, they continue to get feedback from others who also experienced benefits. Don’t get me wrong - I think the carnivore diet is a very effective short-to-medium term health optimization strategy for those suffering from chronic disease.
However, it’s not a life-long solution.
More importantly, it is not a solution for everyone nor everything.
Real-life example:
My wife and I both embarked on a carnivore diet many years ago, for myself it was for inflammatory bowel disease. I had great results on this diet. Really helped me get bowel inflammation under control so that I could cure this “lifelong autoimmune” disease.
For my wife, it wasn’t as beneficial. In fact, her gut didn’t respond to in the same way.
Why?
Well, I believe it is because of our temperament. No, not personality or psychology.
I mean, physiologic temperament. Temperament is a concept that has existed across the world for millenia, before the emergence of modern western medicine.
The Greeks, Romans, Indians, Arabs and even Medieval Western physicians understood the importance of temperament.
What is Temperament?
To understand temperament we must first understand the primary qualities of all things in nature. These primary qualities exist on two gradients. The primary qualities are: hot, cold, moist and dry.
Everything can be described by these qualities as a point on this graph. For instance, if we are to take the effective elements of the universe. Fire is hot and dry, and so it would correspond to a point on the bottom right corner of this graph. Water is cold and moist, so it would occupy a position in the top left quadrant.
From this framework, we can see that everything from the cold hard earth to the hot fiery Sun accounts for the extreme qualities of our world. Like all living things, we live somewhere in between. The matter of our body consists of material/fluids which manifest these qualities to varying degrees. Just as the earth is enveloped by water, then air, and the Sun. So too our bodies consist of a core boney structure, surrounded by flesh (which is mostly water), and the vapors of these fluids (as well as the air in our lungs), driven by the fire/heat of metabolism.
Each of our four primary humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm) exhibit a dominant temperament. Our blood is sanguine, which has a hot and moist temperament - naturally epitomized by air and the spring.
At each level of organismal complexity, this temperament manifests in different ways:
Anatomically, the Sanguine temperament manifests as smooth skin, hairy body, middle stature, oval face and head, and prominent veins.
Physiologically, this can manifest as good appetite and quick digestion. Yellow and thick urine. Pleasantly warm to the touch. Sound sleep.
Psychologically, this can manifest as sound judgement, optimism, cheerfulness, extroversion and romanticism. Confidence, grace and enthusiasm.
“Life is sustained by fire, and grows by moisture.”
-Avicenna
So, we can see that the four dominant temperaments have explanatory power at every level: the seasons, the food, the hard and fleshy body, the physiologic processes, the psyche, and of course the spirit of the person contained within the body.
But, Why Does This Matter?
Like the primary elemental qualities, when things of different temperament interact, they intermingle and form a new balance.
At the most basic level, if moisture encounters heat it becomes dry.
Knowledge of this simple phenomenon should be enough to help you see why it is so consequential.
Let’s continue the example of the Sanguine temperament. The health challenges of the sanguine person is not the same as someone of another disposition. For instance, because of their physiologic tendencies, their health challenges are usually related to excess heat or excess blood. These can manifest as inflammatory conditions.
Thus, you’d want to moderate your diet, activity, and environment as follows:
Avoid excess heat in the summer
Moderate exercise, without extreme exertion
Avoid excess red meat and spicy food
Consume cooling foods like fresh fruit
Since the above components will change with the season (weather, food availability, food quality, etc)…you will have to be conscious of these things and make the appropriate changes.
I recently started re-reading a book by Drs. Wighard Strehlow and Gottfried Hertzka called Hildegard of Bingen’s Medicine. Hildegard was a 12th century German Mystic who wrote about medicine from a spiritual and biblical perspective. In one excerpt she profoundly illustrates the importance of understanding the elements, their qualities, balance and changes across time.
When the elements fulfill their purpose correctly and orderly, so that warmth, dew, and rain come separately and in good measure and at the proper time, and maintain the earth and its fruits in health, and thus bring bountiful harvests and good health, then the world will prosper.
If they all come suddenly and at the same time, and not in their season, they would tear the earth apart and make it sick.
Likewise, elements maintain the health of the person when they function in an orderly manner.
As soon as they stray from this order, they make the person sick and cause death.
As long as the flow of the humors in a person functions properly, and maintains warmth, moisture, blood and flesh, then the person enjoys good health.
But as soon as they flow all at once in excess and without caution, they create sickness and cause death.
-Causae et Curae (Part 2 of the Book of Healing Methods)
The Foundational Health Approach
I am currently working on a book (Foundational Health) with the purpose of helping people understand their physiology and environment to such an extent that they can make informed lifestyle decisions. Taken together, these decisions will help reverse disease, optimize longevity and maximize vitality.
Unlike the algorithmic medicine or one-size-fits-all approaches I’ve described above, the foundational health approach requires an understanding of your temperament. And not just your dominant temperament. Yes, there are dominant and sub-dominant temperaments.
There are also states of dis-ease which manifests as different temperaments, masking one’s true temperament. For instance, a sanguine dominant person can have a choleric-appearing temperament which needs to be teased out. This is rather easy to imagine, as both these temperaments are characterized by heat, but vary in their moisture.
THIS IS THE KEY: without knowledge of temperament, you cannot make a complete and informed decision regarding the Four Pillars of health and vitality:
Consumption - food, drink, information, social stimulation
Environment - Climate, home, lighting, EMF, etc
Activity - Exercise, hobbies, breathing, posture, etc
Heart/Intent - Understanding the self, what aligns with your spirit, what moves you, what gives life meaning
There is the correct way to approach this, and the narrow-focused or short-sighted approach.
Temperament Self-Assessment
By combining information from several sources, both modern and ancient, I am currently developing a self-assessment questionnaire that will help you understand your dominant temperament and its implications.
If you’d like to take this quiz when it is complete, subscribe below:
Superb article. Indeed Traditional Chinese Medicine is another ancient system that is very similar to what you described.
Love that doctors like you are expanding the scope and vision of medicine. Physiology and psychology work in sync. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.