Chest Pain and a Cold Heart in Winter? Doctor Luo Dalun: People with Insufficient Heart Yang Must Warm Their Yang — This Is No Small Matter
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Dear friends, good morning, everyone. Today we continue chatting about the principles of Chinese medicine by voice. A couple of days ago a friend told me he had run into an emergency — sudden severe pain in the left chest. It radiated toward his left shoulder and arm, the back near the shoulder hurt too, and it pushed upward until even the teeth on the left side ached. He could hardly bear it at the time. He searched online and was terrified.
Opening: why does the pain run to the left? — the classic radiation route of heart pain
When the friend felt pain, it started in the left chest, then shot into the left shoulder and arm, ran along the back, and pushed up into the left-side teeth — Doctor Luo understood at once: this is the classic pain caused by a heart problem.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Sometimes a heart problem presents exactly like this: pain in the left chest, radiating to the left shoulder, then down the arm, sometimes pushing upward; some people even mistake it for a toothache, and the back aches near the shoulder too. This is the typical pain pattern that signals a heart problem. Some people think it is arm pain, others think it is a toothache — but no. It is usually connected with the heart, and you must take it seriously.
The ECG is normal — so is everything really fine?
The friend was badly shaken and hurried to the hospital. The checkup came back: the Western medical examination found no big problem, and the ECG showed nothing unusual. So what on earth was going on?
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Why did the ECG show nothing when he went to the hospital? Here is the thing: when the episode is actually happening, the ECG can catch changes in the heart rhythm. But once the episode has passed, you may go for a test and nothing shows up. So a normal result does not necessarily mean the heart is fine.
The root is right here: after something cold goes down, the heart begins to hurt
Doctor Luo asked a little more, and the friend added the key piece of information — the problem appeared after he ate or drank something cold.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Taken together with what he told me — that it happened after eating cold things — I judged this to be a heart problem caused by insufficient heart yang (xin yang bu zu). This must be taken seriously. What to do? Soak the feet in hot water right away, keep warm, and take some warming yang-supplementing medicine — that will protect the heart. It will be fine.
This winter, Doctor Luo has already seen many patients of this kind — some in truly dangerous situations. So while winter is here, he wants to devote a talk to what people with insufficient heart yang should do.
What is insufficient heart yang? — yang qi deficiency, landing on the heart
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What is insufficient heart yang? Dear friends, yang qi deficiency means the body’s yang qi is weakened overall. When it lands on the heart, it produces heart-specific diseases. That is why Chinese medicine lists each organ separately — for example, kidney yang deficiency, heart yang deficiency — and looks at the yin and yang changes of each individual organ.
What winter looks like for people with insufficient heart yang — chest tightness, suffocating pain, palpitations, cold sweat
The main picture for people with insufficient heart yang: in cold environments, when the weather turns cold, or after eating cold things, they develop chest tightness, suffocating pain, and heart pain.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Palpitations — the heart starts racing chaotically — and cold sweating: the sweat pours out in streams while the whole body feels cold, not the sweat of heat and fever. Then there is fear of cold and limb pain. The heart pain can sometimes carry a sense of impending death, as if one is about to die — a crushing, squeezing pain, extremely intense. Sometimes there is a feeling of qi rushing upward. If checked now, the findings may be arrhythmia, coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure, or shock — it can even end in death.
The heart governs the spirit-ming: drowsy and slow to react as soon as winter comes
When the heart’s yang qi weakens, the first thing to collapse is the “spirit” — because the heart governs the spirit-ming (xin zhu shen ming).
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: First, because the heart governs the spirit-ming, every function connected with the heart-spirit, with thinking, and with deliberation declines in people with insufficient heart yang. Without yang qi to stir and push, a person cannot get revved up. Their spirit and awareness sink low; they are always drowsy and have no energy. There really are such people — as soon as winter arrives they feel sleepy and weak all the time, constantly fatigued.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Such people lack the mental strength for thinking. They easily become listless and slow to react. In winter, even a driver told me: “Why have I become so slow in this season? Even turning left feels slow.” Why? Because heart yang is insufficient — the reactions slow down, the person does not like to talk, and always wants to sleep. In the daytime, when yang qi is insufficient, Chinese medicine speaks of “kidney yang deficiency with a desire to sleep” — people with insufficient heart yang are the same; they always want to sleep.
The heart governs the blood vessels: icy hands and feet, bluish fingertips, purple lips
The heart belongs to fire and drives the blood through the body; blood is supposed to be warm. When heart yang is insufficient, the blood can no longer be “pushed through” and “kept warm.”
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: People with insufficient heart yang are cold all over. Touch their limbs and the hands and feet are icy, because the blood does not get through. They always gravitate toward warm places; being in a cold place makes them uncomfortable. Some people feel heart pain the instant they go somewhere cold or drink a glass of cold or iced water. They fear the cold — in winter, other people can wear a little less, but a person with insufficient heart yang must dress warmly, especially around the chest, or they feel intensely cold and cannot bear it.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Because the power pushing the blood vessels is insufficient, when the weather turns cold the extremities — the most distant places — receive less blood; in severe cases the fingertips take on a bluish tinge. Such patients tend to have a blue-purple tongue body, because the blood vessels are not flowing freely and blood stasis forms; the face also tends to be blue-purple. And the lips turn purple as soon as they reach a cold place. This is what insufficient heart yang does.
The most dangerous moment: after exposure to cold, severe heart pain, drenching sweat, a pulse that can barely be felt
Of all the symptoms, which matters most? Heart pain.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Once the person is struck by cold, the heart hurts intensely, then sweat pours down in streams, the breathing feels suffocated and strained, the limbs grow cold, and consciousness begins to blur — trouble is near. When you feel the pulse at this point, it can barely be detected. This is why elderly people in particular, with insufficient heart yang, are prone to accidents in winter.
Doctor Luo cites a striking statistic:
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Japan once counted the elderly people who died while bathing in winter, and the number is very large. That is why the Japanese specifically studied how bathing should be done. In reality, it is insufficient heart yang — the temperature suddenly turns hot, then suddenly cold, the heart cannot take it, and the elderly person is gone. Very sad. So insufficient heart yang can bring danger, even danger to life. If, once winter arrives, drinking a glass of cold water or being blown by a cold wind gives you heart pain — remember, everyone: you must take this seriously. This is absolutely no small matter. From that day on, begin warming the yang, warming and freeing the blood vessels, and adjusting your state.
How does the root get planted? — first qi and blood deficiency, then cold-dampness congealing
Where does insufficient heart yang come from? Doctor Luo breaks it down step by step:
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: First of all, a person with insufficient heart yang certainly has qi and blood deficiency — specifically, the heart’s qi and blood are deficient; that is, upright qi (zheng qi) is insufficient. How does this deficiency arise? For many reasons: a lack of exercise, a weak spleen and stomach — then upright qi is certainly insufficient; add improper diet and overwork, eating poorly day after day and injuring the spleen and stomach, the injury growing worse and worse — some people with heart problems cannot even manage one extra meal.
Worry and overthinking injure the heart-spirit — this is the most important cause.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Many people are lost in excessive thinking all day long. Think how many modern people injure the heart-spirit: they are thinking every moment. Winter is supposed to be the season of storing and closing — a time to rest properly — yet modern people are sprinting to year-end targets: performance sprints, evening social obligations. All of this injures the spirit. Add other illnesses consuming upright qi, plus the seven emotions harming internally and all kinds of emotional upheaval — all of it disrupts the qi and blood and ultimately consumes our heart qi, the qi and blood of the heart.
Once the consumption reaches its limit, the pattern moves toward yang deficiency:
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: After the heart’s qi and blood become deficient, the consumption keeps deepening and the condition trends toward yang deficiency. If the person’s constitution was already yang-deficient, add cold-dampness — in winter cold-dampness is easy to come by, and in fact most of us now carry heavy cold-dampness inside. Then winter’s cold turns dampness into cold-dampness and phlegm into cold phlegm, which congeals and blocks the heart vessels — and that readily produces insufficient heart yang.
Three major triggers — every one of them can be deadly
Insufficient heart yang usually hides quietly; an episode is ignited by a trigger. Doctor Luo names three:
First, sudden weather change. It suddenly turns cold and the person does not add clothes; the cold pathogen injures the body — wherever it lands, even the limbs. The cold reaches the heart through the blood circulation. If clothes are too thin and the cold wind blows directly on the chest area, the effect is even greater.
Second, eating cold things. Whether cold medicines or cold foods — some people eat watermelon in deep winter and the heart pain afterward is unbearable; others drink iced beverages, and one glass of something cold in winter and the heart starts to hurt.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This is where the danger comes from. Immediately give hot water or ginger soup, warm the person up quickly — otherwise there can be danger.
Third, overwork plus exposure to cold. Some people exhaust themselves — staying up several nights in a row, burning the midnight oil night after night — and then catch a chill on top of it. That is the end of it — this is what is called adding frost to snow (xue shang jia shuang). Insufficient heart yang flares up: chest tightness and pain, and it is no small matter.
How to nurture yourself in winter? — remember two characters: warm the yang
How should such people nurture their health in winter? Doctor Luo gives a complete “warming the yang plan”:
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: For people like this, remember how to keep well in winter: you must warm the yang. Anyone who has had heart pain once after a cold stimulus must pay attention from then on — this is called warming the yang, because the danger has already burst into the open. So you must warm the yang; make it your routine treatment.
What exactly should you do?
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Do some moxibustion, and dress warmly in winter. Soak your feet in hot water with some Sichuan pepper (chuan jiao) — the kind sold at herbal pharmacies; boil a dozen or so of the fruits in water and soak the feet in it. Or take some moxa fluff, pull it apart and boil it in water — that works too. You can also eat ginger-sugar products and the like.
And here is a fine trick for “warming and freeing the blood vessels” — medicinal wine:
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: For people like this I suggest they can have a little alcohol — what kind? Medicinal wine. Take some warming Chinese herbs and steep them into a medicinal wine, then drink a little every day, preferably warmed, to promote blood circulation. Good herbs for this: ginseng (ren shen), deer antler (lu rong), Morinda root (ba ji tian), dodder seed (tu si zi) — plenty of yang-warming, qi-supplementing herbs. You can steep a jar, drink a little every day, warm and free the blood vessels, and it is excellent for the body.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: People like this need to nurture themselves, and they need to know where the danger lies. Once you understand that boundary, you can pass through the winter safely. Alright? That is all for today. Next time we will introduce more Chinese medicine knowledge. See you then.
Compiled from Doctor Luo Dalun’s winter health lecture.