Nourishing Water to Submerge Wood

CORE DEFINITION

A treatment principle from traditional Chinese medicine grounded in the five-phase generative cycle, in which water generates wood. The kidney stores yin, and the liver and kidney are held to share one source, so depletion of kidney yin drains liver yin as well. With insufficient yin to hold it in place, liver yang loses its anchor and rises, producing dizziness, tinnitus, a dry throat and a wiry thin pulse. The method tonifies kidney yin instead of suppressing liver yang directly, and applies only where the pattern is deficiency with internal heat, not excess fire.