Health and network effects

Some products and services become more valuable and/or easier to use as more people use them. This is called the network effect.

The classic example is the telephone. The first telephone was useless. There was no one to call.

The second telephone created value, which increased with each added telephone and user. Now your telephone can connect with pretty much anyone on Earth.

The fax machine, email, the internet, and social media wouldn't have worked without people telling other people.

Our health and happiness strategies probably won't work without getting others involved either.

We tend to adopt the behaviors of the people in our in-group. If those people are eating, sleeping, planning, assigning value, and otherwise behaving differently than what we know to be healthy, then the pull away from a strategy in their direction will be awfully strong and unrelenting.

There's an elephant in the room in a lot my interactions as a healthcare provider: many of the changes people want to make are bigger than just one person. Some are way bigger - they require systems changes.

You're going to need to build a movement.

Despite the stories that break through, most unconventional thinkers probably end up keeping their thoughts to themselves.

That might not be the best strategy here. Health and happiness require a network effect.

Some thoughts on Goodness

In the Traditional Chinese Medicine system, everything is predicated on Qi, including how we feel and behave toward other people.

Things like empathy, care, honor, and duty are not attitudes, but something more material: the pure Qi of the Universe as it makes its way in and out of us and is shared with someone else.

When we feel and behave poorly toward others, it is because our own Qi has become disordered in some way (how this happens is manifold - personal hardship, trauma, diet, illness, loss, worry, conditioning). On its journey through a disordered system, Goodness becomes something less than Good.

There is no such thing as "good Qi" or "bad Qi" per se... Qi can be in a state of order or disorder; moving in accordance with a beneficial natural order or not. The former we might call Goodness.

Qi is shared, including disordered Qi… When our caregivers and peers model for us something maleficent and it sticks (and Qi from one’s in-group is stickier than we like to admit), then maleficence is what we will put back out into the world.

Lastly, Goodness is sometimes destructive… When a predator tries to steal your child, you rage and tear. Until the threat is gone.

I suppose the point of these thoughts is to highlight the assumption that Chinese Medicine makes about where Goodness comes from, what it looks like, and the interconnectedness of things.

Goodness is a natural resource as vital to our well-being and survival as clean food, air, and water.

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[PS: No post on Monday. Our family will be enjoying two days off together in a row.]

May 5, 2025 - Small Fullness

Today is the start of a new Seasonal Node. Each of the four seasons can be broken down into six smaller segments, called "Seasonal Nodes" (or "Solar Terms"), which come with specific instructions about what to do (and what not to do) to stay healthy, happy, and harmonized with the natural world.

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Beware the hardships of the stomach.

To understand the next 15-day period (and its name: "Small Fullness"), we make two assumptions that are fundamental to Chinese Medicine:

One: Everything is made of Qi and there is a free exchange of Qi between our bodies and the outside world.

With this assumption, it makes sense that the outside environment affects our bodies - climatic factors such as heat, cold, dampness, and dryness (which are types of Qi) regularly penetrate the body and create an effect.

Two: Inside our bodies, well-being is (amongst other things) a state in which heat is in balance with cold and dampness is in balance with dryness. Disease/dysfunction is a state of imbalance.

Creating/maintaining balance would be relatively straightforward if there were only two factors - heat-cold or dampness-dryness. But there are four.

Just add dampness to relieve dryness... except dampness accentuates cold. Use cold to clear heat... except cold accentuates dampness. Add heat to warm cold... except heat congeals dampness and forms sticky phlegm. Dry dampness... except dryness makes heat hotter and heat dries everything out more, etc., etc.

Re-balancing these elements once they go off can be like juggling four magnets.

And sometimes, two or three get stuck together.

Now is one of the times of year when that tends to happen. The ground is still somewhat cold from winter. Meanwhile, the air is getting warmer, and we're getting plenty of early-summer rain (dampness).

And here we in the middle.

The cold-dampness comes up from below while the warm-dampness descends from above. They settle in the middle, in the abdomen (stomach and intestines), and form a little complex of cold + damp + heat.

A "small fullness".

Don't they just work things out amongst themselves?

Well, cold and dampness won't easily go away as long they have each other. And the whole complex blocks the smooth flow of Qi to the extent that heat can't be dispersed (like blocking a cool breeze in the summer).

In terms of symptoms, there can be any of the following: bloating, poor appetite, diarrhea, constipation, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, weakness, depression, anxiety, irritability, or poor sleep; all of which indicate the abdomen is blocked.

One's experience depends on the character of one's internal physiological landscape to begin with (another fundamental Chinese-Medicine assumption).

Practically speaking, our main concern related during "Small Fullness" should be diet. This is a time of year to be a blandetarian. Avoid overly palatable foods (they produce dampness) and strongly ​warming or cooling foods​.

Enjoy foods that gently clear dampness and heat: corn, adzuki beans, mung beans, winter melon, celery, cilantro.

Consume rich, sweet, and oily foods only if it's your wish to juggle magnets in your belly for the rest of the year.

[Thank you Henry McCann for curating some of this info.]