WHY ARE SO MANY BODIES YIN?

                  Traditional Chinese medical practitioners would say the reason for so many yin bodies is deficient chi or vital energy.  Many factors can deplete the chi including one's diet, lifestyle, stress and other factors.

                  In particular, since 1940 or so, several factors have combined to render most bodies extremely yin.

·           Ionizing radiation. The atomic bomb, through testing and accidents, has spread radioactive fallout all over the planet.  Low-level emissions occur from nuclear power plants, smoke detectors, computer monitors, television sets and fluorescent lamps.  Widespread medical and dental use of x-rays, radioactive dyes and radiation therapy add to radiation exposure.  Uranium mining is another source of low-level contamination.  Fortunately, humanity has learned a lot about radioactive fallout and the safety is improving.  However, the problem of rogue nations developing weapons and using them remains a serious problem. 

·           Electromagnetic pollution.  This is also very yin and growing at an astronomical rate with the advent of cell phone towers everywhere, computers in every home, especially laptop computers and hand-held devices like portable telephones.  These all give off fields that are very yin and chaotic.  Riding in airplanes with large spinning turbines in them near your head, and even riding in automobiles with large alternators spinning nearby also give off electromagnetic waves of varying degrees of chaos.  Even house wiring and common radio and TV signals are quite yin, though not nearly as bad as cell phone radiation.

·           Toxic metals and chemicals everywhere. Industrial development and growth of the chemical industry has spread thousands of yin toxic chemicals throughout the environment.  These include toxic metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, aluminum and beryllium.   It also includes thousands of toxic chemicals such as solvents, pesticides, plastics and many other classes of compounds. 

·           Changes in the food supply.  These have been massive in the 20^th and 21^st century, and almost all are more yin.  They include: soils depleted of minerals due to soil mining, essentially, use of hybrid crops, use of pesticides, use of superphosphate fertilizers. For example, wild fruit, like crab apples, are small, hard and not too sweet.  Cultivated fruit is often larger and sweeter (more yin).
                  Also, food is grown far away and transported thousands of miles in many cases to get to you.  Also, some is irradiated, another very yin procedure. 

·           Food refining. Most food processing and refining have made food far more yin.  This includes refining of wheat, sugar, rice and other grains.  It also includes adding thousands of toxic chemicals to prepared food, most of which are yin or have a yin effect.

·           Dietary changes. The diets have also become more yin, with the consumption of much more white sugar, white flour instead of whole grains, and less red meat and fat consumption.  Items like soda pop, beer and wine are also far more yin than water, tea or coffee.  Sugar-eating is probably the most important of all of these dietary shifts.

·           Medical drug use. This is a more yang approach to health care than some types, but now has turned yin because it is so overused.  Especially the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in America in 1967 and similar socialized programs in other nations, have resulted in tremendous use of yin chemicals as medicines.  Almost all prescription drugs are yin.  This includes most popular drugs such as antibiotics, anti depressants and many others.  Surgery and radiation therapy are also extremely yin. 

·           Recreational drug and alcohol use.  This includes marijuana, heroine, alcohol, tobacco, ecstasy and other psychedelics, all of which are very yin.

·           Planetary pollution. This has caused a mixture of more yin and more yang conditions.  As explained earlier, toxic metals are yang, of themselves, but they cause chaos in the bodies, making them much more yin.  Oxygen in the air is reduced in the cities, which is more yang.  However, this also causes disease that is yin.  Polluted air, water and food, overall, has a very yin effect on mankind today.

·           Planetary cycles play a role.  "The age of Aquarius" is not just the name of a song.  It is a planetary position in the 25,000-year cycle of our solar system through the Milky Way as the galaxy revolves around our central sun located in the Pleiades.  It will last about 2000 years.  Its qualities are a time of change, reflection, questioning and the chaos that goes with it.  It began around 1940 and will last until about 3100.
                  It is a time when a more yang approach to life and yangizing influences are needed to offset new ideas and concepts which tend to be yin.  It is also an age of information which is yin and it is a radioactive age – with nuclear weapons and so on, which is also very yin and these must be balanced with a more yang diet and lifestyle and attitudes that are more yang such as taking responsibility for oneself.  The former age, the Piscean age, by contrast was a more yang time with lead in the environment, for instance, and required more fruit and juices and salads in the diet than is required today.

With these rather severe changes have come new diseases, while some older ones such as tuberculosis and typhoid fever are not as prevalent.  This is how yin and yang, as well as nutrition, interact with disease states, another complex topic for another article.