Cold Hands and Feet, Yang Deficiency — How Do I Fix My Body? Doctor Luo Dalun’s Grand Summary on Regulating Cold Intolerance in Women

Opening: after days on the cold topic, today’s grand summary

These past days, Doctor Luo has been talking about the problem of cold in women — Wen Jing Tang (Warm the Menses Decoction) for blood stasis, Jiao Ai Tang (Gelatin and Mugwort Decoction) for blood deficiency, and Ai Fu Nuan Gong Wan (Mugwort and Cyperus Pill to Warm the Uterus) for stagnant liver qi. The reasoning has been laid out and the formulas introduced, but many readers still carry the most practical question: if I truly have yang deficiency, how exactly do I regulate my body?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: We have been talking about the reasoning and the formulas — which formula to use for what. Today let me give you a summary: when we truly have yang deficiency, how do we go about adjusting our bodies?

Today’s article is a complete roadmap for regulating yang deficiency. Doctor Luo breaks it into several big steps, taken one at a time.

Step one: regulating your emotions is always first

When it comes to regulating yang deficiency, the first thing Doctor Luo talks about is not moxibustion and not medicine — it is regulating your emotions.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: You must take this seriously — regulate your emotions well, and first of all let your emotions turn sunny. We all know that stagnant liver qi (gan qi bu shu) causes many problems — it could even be called the source of ten thousand diseases. Remember this: do not let your liver qi become stagnant.

How to do it? The method is not mystical — listen to the Dao De Jing, have a religious faith, have some outlet for release. Some friends say, “My emotions are not under my control — I want to be happy but can’t.” Doctor Luo’s answer is blunt:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What does that show? It shows your understanding has not yet penetrated. Such friends should build a positive, sunny mindset — they should have a good outlook on life.

There are three specific practices — gratitude, sympathetic joy, and praise:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Learn gratitude — why? Because you are living well enough. Think about it: compared with those patients, you are already living happily enough. So if you can learn gratitude, you will find yourself much happier.

And there is one particularly interesting practice called “water-washing” (sui xi) — when good things happen to others, you rejoice along with them:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What does water-washing mean? It means: when good things happen to others, I rejoice along with them. What is human nature ordinarily? When good things happen to others, we think: why them? I envy them. Friends, when you are envious, ask yourself — is your state of mind sunny or dark? It is certainly dark. That is why Buddhism has this practice of “water-washing” — what is it for? To walk you out of that darkness. Someone else is happy; someone else bought a beautiful new dress — am I happy for her? Someone else’s husband treats her very well and the couple is happy — do I sincerely rejoice for them? That state is called sympathetic joy (sui xi).

When someone else’s child gets into a prestigious university, you don’t envy — you rejoice: “Education is one part effort, one part return; the child gained because the parents gave, and now I am genuinely happy for them.” When you learn sympathetic joy, praise, and gratitude, you eliminate the greatest darkness in life — envy.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Such people are more easily sunny, with better character. Sunny people are cheerful all day long — what do you think are their chances of yang deficiency? The chance is small — why? Because their qi and blood are vigorous and flowing freely, with no liver qi constraint; once qi and blood flow smoothly they warm the whole body — qi and blood can warm and nourish the whole body, and your body stays healthy.

Doctor Luo adds: regulating emotions is a lifelong practice. Listen to the Dao De Jing when you can, and learn how to let go, how to stop obsessing, how to treat people with kindness — when you are kind to others, in the end they are moved and return kindness, building a cycle of goodness, a cycle of love. Then the world around you will be happy and joyful.

When your emotions are well, the whole family follows

Regulating your emotions is not only for yourself — it is also a gift to your family. When the home is warm, your husband stops having stagnant liver qi too; men are the same — when liver qi is stagnant and qi and blood do not flow, the hands turn cold the moment the outside temperature drops.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: With that kind of character, your husband will also hold his head high. Why? Because the home is warm and he is happy too — his liver qi is no longer stagnant. Speaking of the body, women are more easily wounded, but the principles of the male and female body are the same.

This is even truer for children — teaching by example is the greatest gift you can give a child:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: When your character is positive and sunny and your outlook on life is sound, what do you give your child? This is the greatest gift — teaching by example — and the child grows up especially healthy. After I wrote this, many readers left comments: “I often have nightmares now, and I always tend to expect the worst. Why? Because when I was little my father and mother fought every day — their characters were terrible.” Comments like that are numerous. Those parents never realized how their own bad character would shape their child’s entire life.

Doctor Luo puts it very plainly: parents cannot accompany their children for life — there is a time gap in life; you cannot stay with your child until the child is eighty.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: We all hope that one day, when we are no longer here and the child stands alone in the world, he or she will be happy — right? Then on what basis will the child be happy? Friends, give the child a good outlook on life, good values, good character, and then a good body — this is the greatest gift we can give a child in this life. So for your child’s sake, you must adjust your own character.

Step two: nourish the blood and qi, dissolve the blood stasis

Once emotions are regulated, the second step is to nourish the qi and blood fully and dissolve the blood stasis. Many people, the moment they hear “yang deficiency,” only think of warming the yang. Doctor Luo reminds them: first think clearly about why you were wounded by cold.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Why can cold qi wound you? Usually because the body itself is weak and the upright qi is insufficient. For women especially — blood deficiency and blood stasis are far too common, on top of stagnant liver qi. Blood deficiency is often the root of illness in women, so everyone must learn to nourish the blood.

How do you nourish blood? First, break a misconception — don’t reach for red dates the moment someone says “nourish the blood”:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Red dates do not have that much effect — their effect is very small. We have so many methods of nourishing blood: Si Wu Tang (Four Substances Decoction) can be used as a foot soak; add peach kernel and safflower for Tao Hong Si Wu Tang — nourishing blood and freeing the channels at the same time, how good is that; there is also Yu Ling Gao (Jade Spirit Paste) — all with excellent effects. I have explained these methods before, so remember: women must learn to nourish the blood.

Someone asks: every time I supplement, I break out in bumps, get heat symptoms, all kinds of discomfort — what do I do? Doctor Luo’s answer is — open the spleen and stomach first:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Such people usually have a blocked spleen and stomach. Take a little Bao He Wan (Preserve Harmony Pill) for a day or two to open the spleen and stomach, then resume supplementing. Sometimes you still get heat symptoms when supplementing — then pause for a couple of days and resume. In short, whenever a woman is blood-deficient she must nourish the blood; this is very important for women.

Once the blood is nourished, you still need to activate blood and dissolve stasis — but the order matters:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: When your blood is well nourished, add a little something to free the flow: use a bit of san qi powder, or soak your feet with peach kernel, safflower, mulberry twig (sang zhi), and luffa vine (si gua luo) to free the channels; then gua sha scraping, yoga, some exercise — all effective. When the blood is nourished and the qi and blood are sufficient, blood stasis dissolves very easily. But if your qi and blood are insufficient and you try to dissolve stasis, your body may not be able to bear it.

Here is a true story Doctor Luo tells very vividly — the Singapore student who felt dizzy from san qi powder:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: There was a Singapore student — very telling. Before, he ate san qi powder bought on the street, of lower quality, and nothing happened. Later he bought the high-quality san qi powder I recommended — and after taking it his head spun. Why did he get dizzy? I said: your qi and blood are too insufficient. When a person with insufficient qi and blood takes san qi powder, the qi and blood suddenly surge and move — but you don’t have enough, so you begin to feel unwell.

So what to do? Nourish the blood first — like filling the river with water first:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: It is like filling the riverbed with water first so the channel doesn’t dry up; once there is water, then dredge the silt — the moment you dredge, the silt washes away with the current. So nourish the blood to dissolve the stasis. When the blood is nourished and the stasis is mostly dissolved, then warming the yang works even better — and of course the two can proceed at the same time.

Step three: don’t let the cold pathogen wound you

The third point is avoiding cold pathogen. Where does cold pathogen come from? Air conditioning, cold drinks, cold-natured medicines, and antibiotics.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: We have many bad habits: air conditioning blowing very cold, drinking cold drinks, and many people have used cold-natured medicines, including antibiotics and the like. And cold-natured medicines must not be used long-term — when you are ill, use them to clear the heat, then adjust the body from there; you don’t need such cold medicines anymore.

Doctor Luo says people who like Chinese medicine basically all understand the need to avoid cold. What worries him most is young people who have never been exposed to Chinese medicine:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Who is the most frightening? The young people of today, strongly influenced by the West — eighteen, nineteen, twenty-year-olds. These people are especially prone to cold — basically the air conditioning is never off, and whatever they drink must be ice-cold. I genuinely think these people are headed for trouble. Their parents bear responsibility — the parents never passed this culture on to them; and the child may be rebellious — the more you explain, the more they push back: “Americans all eat cold food — what’s wrong with learning from the Americans?”

Doctor Luo says the pandemic gave everyone a great warning — not everything American is right:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: America’s infection rate and death rate were far higher than ours, and the number of patients far greater — partly management problems, partly constitution problems. There are enormous numbers of obese people, eating frozen food every day, eating only delicious things, and never exercising — so their constitutions are very poor. In this pandemic, America was probably the worst-performing country in the world — that shocked us. Many children used to believe “everything American is right” — but look now: they are far behind us Chinese.

And cold food harms Asians far more than Westerners:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Americans may be harmed a little less; Asians are harmed greatly. So we must educate the next generation of young people — at the very least, don’t spend half a day in freezing air conditioning. This will be a big problem in the future, I think.

Step four: embrace the sunshine — sun your back and warm the Governing Vessel

After saying what not to do, next come the things to do. The first good method of warming yang is embracing the sunshine.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Chinese women have one very big problem — they hide from the sun, afraid of getting tanned, believing that whiteness covers a hundred flaws. Let me be moderate: I’m not telling you to face the sun directly and tan your face. What do you do instead? Sun your back.

Why the back? The back is dominated by the Governing Vessel (du mai), which governs the yang qi of the whole body:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: When you warm your back, the yang qi of the whole body flourishes — so women must never hide from the sun. The Nei Jing says of summer, “do not resent the sun” — don’t avoid it, don’t hate the daylight. Sunlight is the source of life; with sunlight we are able to live. In the office, don’t always sit on the shady side — give your back some sun for a while each day, and you will feel wonderfully comfortable, with flourishing yang qi.

Step five: moxibustion — moxa the yang channels first, then the yin channels

The second method of warming yang is moxibustion. Many people say the moxa smoke is choking. Doctor Luo says: that is a quality problem with the moxa stick.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The quality of the moxa stick is crucial. Low-quality sticks give off huge amounts of smoke when lit, and the ash afterwards is slightly black and copious. A truly high-quality stick, refined through repeated processing, gives very little smoke when lit, and the ash is greyish-white and very scanty — it basically burns completely, so the smoke is minimal. How much does a high-quality stick cost per day? Very little. Ventilate a bit, and it won’t choke you.

Where should you moxa? Remember one iron rule — moxa the yang channels first:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: You should moxa the yang channels first — the yang channel on our back, for example the Governing Vessel. Use a moxibustion box on the Governing Vessel, at a few key points around the lower back, and you will feel the yang qi become especially vigorous — it works immediately. Women should mainly moxa the yang channels on the back, and then the ba liao points — you can look up the ba liao points online; because of their influence on the uterus (bao gong), moxa the yang-channel points on the back to make the yang qi flourish.

Here is a point many women get wrong — moxaing the yin channels right away:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Generally you finish the yang channels before moxaing the yin channels. Many women start with the yin channels right away — but you are already blood-deficient, with all kinds of depletion and insufficient fluids; moxaing the yin channels actually affects you badly. So moxa the yang channels first. If, while moxaing, you can also nourish the blood and free the channels a little, the effect doubles.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: You can also moxa the spleen-stomach and the stomach channel — regulating the spleen and stomach increases the source of upright qi. But on the whole, yang-deficient people should pay special attention to the back — once your back is well moxaed, your body improves a great deal. For other points, seek guidance from a physician, or get help from a nearby moxibustion studio or a Chinese-medicine practitioner. Moxibustion itself uses fire to warm our channels and our points — it is an especially important method of warming yang.

Step six: foot soaks — warming yang, nourishing blood, freeing the collaterals, and soothing the liver all at once

The third method is foot soaks. On one hand the water itself is warm; on the other — herbal medicines can be absorbed through the skin.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: People talk about transdermal absorption; some studies say it is very slow — but it is really strange: in my experience, foot soaks with herbs act extremely fast, very fast indeed. Evidently the current technical research cannot keep up with how things actually work. So let us trust practice: since it works, it must have a rationale — your technology just hasn’t reached that level yet and can’t explain it.

What formula should you use for foot soaks? Doctor Luo gives a ready answer:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: A formula I mentioned earlier — for example, the Ai Fu Nuan Gong Wan formula — I use it for foot soaks; it’s convenient. You can boil one dose of Ai Fu Nuan Gong Wan and soak your feet in it. But I think that’s a bit wasteful — if you buy the raw herbs and simmer them, the effect is better.

The most crucial point: don’t warm the yang in isolation:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: For women, if you warm the yang alone — of course warming the yang also helps qi and blood to grow; large doses of warming herbs can generate qi and blood too — but remember, the dose must be large. I think the most suitable approach for women is: while warming the yang, add something to nourish the blood, something to free the collaterals, and a little something to soothe the liver — warm the yang with all of them together, and the effect is much better. Earlier I talked about Ai Fu Nuan Gong Wan — why has that formula been famous from the Song dynasty to the present, sold in every pharmacy? Because its thinking is complete.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: So when you soak your feet, try not to soak with nothing but mugwort (ai ye) every day, or dried ginger (gan jiang) every day — that is too one-sided. Here’s an analogy: the stove has no water in it, yet you insist on lighting the fire underneath, blazing the stove, blazing the kettle — that is not a good thing. So learn to soak in a balanced way; once you master the method, the yang-warming effect is excellent.

Step seven: diet — no fierce heat, slow gentle nourishment

In diet, first of all don’t eat cold things or take cold-natured medicines; secondly — warming supplementation has its own taboo: don’t crave fierce heat:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: You say, “I’m yang-deficient, so I’ll go eat spicy hotpot every day.” Friends, is that good? Eating spicy hotpot daily is roughly the same as lighting the stove when the kettle has no water — the fire is too fierce; that won’t do. What should we do? Supplement gently, with a small slow fire — supplement the spleen and kidney a little at a time, and the effect is actually better. Some people are genuinely yang-deficient, yet after hotpot they get heat symptoms, diarrhea, stomach trouble, and a face full of bumps — that has thrown the body into chaos instead.

So what should you eat? Doctor Luo’s first recommendation is mixed-grain porridge, and he tells the longevity secret of a hundred-year-old master physician:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: In Beijing we have a famous dermatology master, Chen Tongyun. The old lady is exactly 100 by nominal age this year, with exceptionally good skin, very famous in Beijing. Her yang qi must certainly be vigorous — otherwise she couldn’t live to 100. What is this lady’s secret? I learned it many years ago: she eats regularly; at noon she always has a little fish or something for nutrition; and the evening is the most distinctive — her kitchen has many jars and bottles, all filled with mixed grains. She doesn’t use one fixed recipe — today she grabs these, tomorrow those, simmering mixed-grain porridge, and she drinks it every single evening without fail.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Look at what that porridge does — it slowly strengthens the spleen and stomach. Among all those grains, is there anything cold-natured? Basically none; they are all very gentle, and most are sweet-warm (gan wen). She constantly strengthens the spleen and stomach; once the spleen and stomach are sufficient, kidney qi slowly flourishes, and the body’s qi and blood begin to flourish. We speak of “vigorous fire consumes qi” (zhuang huo shi qi) — the fierce fire of anger and heat consumes qi; but a little gentle warming fire is very good for the human body. So when you have the chance, get some mixed grains and drink the porridge regularly.

And then there are soups — the Hong Kong people’s long-simmered nourishing soup is the best example:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: When I go to Hong Kong, I see that at every meal Hong Kong people order long-simmered nourishing soup (lao huo liang tang) first — with Huai shan yao (Chinese yam), a few lotus seeds, some pork stomach, some pork lung — what for? To nourish the body. So drinking that soup is equivalent to taking a tonic. Yang-deficient women who understand these soups and supplement regularly — instead of drinking cold things or cold herbal tea — will benefit greatly. Put some warm-natured herbs in and supplement slowly — this is very good for the body. If you can learn food therapy and master what’s in your kitchen, you have already reached a very high level, and keeping healthy is basically no problem.

Step eight: living details — don’t sleep on the shady side, don’t make the bedroom too large

Beyond eating and drinking, Doctor Luo also mentions several details about where you live, which many people have never noticed. First, try not to sleep in a north-facing room, especially in the north:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: In the north — say, North China or the Northeast — try not to sleep in a shady room. If your home must have someone in the north-facing room, take turns sleeping, like a college dormitory, so everyone can feel the yang qi. I have seen quite a few cases where living in a north-facing room in the north left people’s yang qi unflourished. When sunlight reaches into our room, the walls absorb its various spectra and its energy, and slowly release it at night — so a person in there is not harmed by yin pathogen. A shady room sees very little sun and absorbs very little energy — sometimes at night your body must emit heat just to warm the walls and the surroundings, which dissipates yang qi considerably.

Second, the bedroom should not be too large — the ancients explained this long ago:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The old emperors’ saying “the ancient sage kings did not dwell in great halls” comes from the Lüshi Chunqiu — no matter how much land an emperor owns, he sleeps in a small room; he must not sleep in a great palace. Sleep alone in a great palace, and just wait for your health to fail. I once saw such a boss: he built his own house, and his bedroom was enormous — all marble, with many bronze vessels displayed. Tell me — aren’t those all rather yin substances? He slept in there, and in the end he got liver cancer. Such cases aren’t numerous, but they exist.

Third, live at a distance from water:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Some people live right by a lake. Such places easily accumulate heavy yin qi, because the dampness is heavy and can trap the yang qi of your body. These are extra points — certain situations can leave a person’s yang qi unflourished.

Step nine: exercise and singing — interactive and joyful

People with weakened yang qi, once their qi and blood are sufficiently nourished, should exercise more — but the way you exercise matters a great deal:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Exercise more — especially interactive activities that rouse your qi mechanism and make you joyful — like badminton, like ping-pong, laughing as you play. Don’t lonely-walk a treadmill in an air-conditioned gym — the yang-generating effect of that is limited. Interactive, outdoors, everyone happy — that is excellent.

And there is one thing many people overlook — singing:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: When you have the chance, sing some songs — disseminating and releasing the lung qi — sing positive, sunny songs and adjust your breath and spirit. These are all methods for generating and protecting our yang qi.

Why must you fix it? — for yourself, for the whole family, for the next generation

Finally, Doctor Luo stresses the weight of this grand summary: regulating your yang is not only for yourself.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Why do we supplement our yang qi fully? For ourselves, for the whole family, even for the next generation. Many people have insufficient yang themselves — and when they become pregnant, the child is born with a yang-deficient constitution due to inheritance; this is very, very common. So everyone should make their yang flourish, adjust the home environment, and let the whole family’s yang flourish — how wonderful would that be?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What I’ve shared today is only the surface. In the future, when I have the chance, I’ll talk about gynecological formulas — I hope to talk more. I chat about this with you whenever I can; as a Chinese-medicine practitioner, I explain the principles of Chinese medicine — if some point inspires you, or you act on it and it changes your life, I think that is especially worthwhile. Female friends especially — you are too important in our lives. You are the root of everything — when you are happy, the whole family is happy.

Compiled from Doctor Luo Dalun’s lecture series on cold intolerance in women (the blood-stasis installment Wen Jing Tang, the blood-deficiency installment Jiao Ai Tang, and the stagnant-liver-qi installment Ai Fu Nuan Gong Wan — this is the summary installment).