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MENTAL MODEL · M3278

Cold Phlegm / Han Tan

Cold Phlegm / Han Tan
BehaviorHigh supportOrganizational Behavior
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Updated 2026-08-04

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

A Chinese medicine pattern of phlegm that is white, thin, and watery, accompanied by a sense of cold and cold limbs. It arises when yang qi is deficient and yin predominates, so fluids congeal rather than transform. Because the substance is essentially unthawed fluid, treatment is warming: hot-natured herbs such as dried ginger and asarum warm yang and transform the retained fluid, the way sun melts ice. Cooling or phlegm-clearing drugs worsen the pattern.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

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- Slush model: read thin white phlegm as fluid that never thawed, not as something to clear. - Warming rule: apply heat-natured herbs to transform it, never cold ones to clear it. - Root check: address the underlying yang deficiency, not only the visible phlegm.

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Deficient yang leaves too little heat to transform fluids, so they congeal into thin, watery phlegm. Warming yang restores the transforming capacity and the congealed fluid disperses, which is why heat rather than cold resolves this pattern.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Source support: Explicit

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    baike.baidu.comhttps://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%AF%92%E7%97%B0ZH · Explicit
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