Shadowing Practice: 15 chinese medicine tips my grandma taught me (basic to advanced) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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So most people today are trying to be really healthy, but the way that they're going about it is actually causing more harm than good.

Whether it's cold smoothies first thing in the morning, fasted workouts, skipping breakfast, or just pushing through exhaustion because of discipline,

and then wondering why you might feel bloated or tired or just a little bit off.

And so in today's video, I wanted to talk a little bit about traditional Chinese medicine

and 15 tips that you can implement into your life from TCM.

TCM is all about balance and understanding the root causes of things

and living life in a way that allows you to be healthy

and happy for the long term rather than running into issues

and then trying to fix symptoms with medication or things like that.

So we're going to be walking through 15 tips broken down into three categories, beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

So the beginner ones are things you can start to do today.

Intermediate you can get into if you've been exploring TCM for a little bit, and advanced it's just things to start thinking about today

that hopefully are within reach for you to work on in the future.

The goal isn't just to copy these, but to start understanding how to look at your life and your wellness with a different framework.

Okay, we're going to start with the basics, five beginner tips in traditional Chinese medicine.

Number one, you guys know the drill, start your day with warm water.

In TCM, digestion is described as a fire or like a pot cooking on the stove.

And when you wake up, the first thing you want to do is turn on the heat before you expect things to be cooked inside.

And so when you have a little glass of warm water, you're telling your system.

It's time to wake up.

It's time to get digestion flowing.

When you wake up and immediately have an iced coffee or iced smoothie, you're kind of dimming that fire.

And then when you try to cook things inside of the pot

and wonder why things aren't cooking or it's starting to get stagnant, it's because there's no energy to heat the things up inside.

And so warm water in the morning, it helps with digestion.

It's soothing.

It helps with energy.

And the whole idea behind warm water is it's not just the warm water going into your body,

but it's the fact that you're doing something kind for your digestion.

When your digestion is warmed up, it can process food into energy well.

And when your body's doing that well, you're going to be happy and you're going to feel good.

In TCM, the root of many problems is weak digestion.

So that's why no matter what pattern you have in TCM,

your acupuncturist or TCM doctor will tell you to introduce more warm water into your diet.

It's exactly because digestion is seen as such a root cause to so many problems in TCM.

So yeah, start your day with warm water, have it throughout the day.

Quick tip, if you are ordering it somewhere, you can ask for half hot water, half cold water, the water will be nicely warm.

I personally don't like to drink super, super hot water.

My temperature test is if I'm able to take a couple sips in a row, then I know that the temperature is right.

So it should not be uncomfortable.

You should not be burning yourself.

And if it's too hot, you probably won't drink enough water as well.

So just warm is good enough.

Number two is to keep your feet warm at home.

So this one seems simple, but it's actually really important.

If you've ever gone to a Chinese person's house, you'll notice that they are either wearing socks, but usually also slippers, especially in the wintertime.

And so why is this?

So your feet are where a lot of your energy channels are, right?

So that's why you'll see people doing foot massages, warm foot baths, and TCM.

But the idea is that when that area is cold, circulation slows in the entire body.

Especially for women, this can affect everything from cramps to energy levels.

It also just doesn't feel good when you have cold feet.

I've always found that if my feet are wet or cold in the wintertime, that's when I'm most likely to get sick, interestingly enough.

So something as small as wearing socks at home, wearing slippers as well.

If you have a lot of cramps, I'd also recommend wearing socks to bed and just trying it out, especially in the wintertime

it can actually support your system more than you might expect okay number three in the same vein

you want to dry your hair after showering before going outside in chinese medicine

there's this idea of external cold basically meaning

when your body is vulnerable like after a shower before

you go to bed cold can enter your body more easily

and cold in the body weakens your immune system makes you more susceptible to illness getting sick fatigue poor digestion

so going to bed with wet hair stepping into cold air like that might not affect you immediately,

but over time it can lead to tension, fatigue, headaches.

So yeah, if I shower at night, I'm always blow drying my hair before I go to bed.

And if I'm showering in the morning and it's a little cold outside, I'm always blow drying it before I go outside.

And yeah, I think it's also better for your hair health

if it's dry before you go to bed

and you're going to look a little more put together if you dry it before going to work in the morning.

So trust me on this one.

Okay.

So number four, we're making our way down the body is to keep your neck warm, especially in the winter time.

So in Chinese medicine, the neck is believed to be the entry point for something called wind.

Wind is, think of it like external pathogens.

So bacteria, illness, allergens.

The idea is that wind enters your body through an exposed neck and affects your lung system first, right?

So this kind of tracks with the idea of like when you get allergies,

the first thing to be affected is you're sniffling and coughing your respiratory system.

Same thing with when you get a common cold, the first thing you expect is a sore throat or kind of like mucus in your lungs.

So the idea in Chinese medicine is that it enters kind of through an exposed neck.

So especially if you frequently get sick or you get a lot of colds, it's really important to protect that area.

Scarves and layers in the wintertime, it's cute and it protects your body.

And then if you're kind of in that springtime, like I am right now in New York, those lighter layers, lighter scarves also help as well.

Number five is to choose warm cooked vegetables over big raw salads.

So raw foods are not bad.

They are just a little bit harder to digest.

And what that means is it requires a little bit more energy from your body to break them down

so you can imagine like there's degrees of severity here too right

so an iceberg lettuce salad is easier for your body to digest than a big bowl of kale

and the idea is if you've ever had one of those big salads

and felt bloated afterwards and wondered why because you ate

so healthy the idea is that there's

so much fiber in some of these raw leafy veggies it's just harder for your body to break down.

In Chinese medicine, there is this idea

that there is a finite amount of energy in your body dedicated to doing specific tasks.

So when you eat foods that are easier to digest,

it means your body can digest it properly and then get back to whatever it was doing, whether you're thinking about a really hard problem,

whether you need energy to go on a walk or go somewhere or exercise later in the day.

When you eat something that's a little harder to digest, like some of these very high fiber veggies raw,

your body's going to put a lot of energy into digesting

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that and breaking that down and have a little bit less left over for doing other things.

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So if you've ever eaten a huge salad and then had some brain fog afterwards, I remember when I was in corporate world,

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I used to experience that almost every day and been confused because I was like, well, I just ate a really healthy salad.

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Why am I having brain fog now?

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It's because your body is putting all of its energy into digesting that salad.

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Now I'm not saying to stop eating your kale and your veggies.

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No, no, no. I'm saying to cook them and eat them warm.

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So when you cook them,

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you help break down some of those harder to digest fibers and it just becomes easier for your body to break down.

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So especially if you're prone to bloating, fatigue, constipation, anything digestion wise, I would definitely give this a try

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because you want to support your digestion instead of taxing it

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and eating warm cooked things is one of the easiest ways to do that.

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Okay, once you have those down, the next five get into our intermediate layer, which require a little bit more awareness

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so I believe in you I think

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you can do it let's get into it number six is to warm your system before eating cold foods

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so I'm a firm believer in balance right

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so you understand now eating warm things supports your digestion it allows your digestion to function better and

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that means you have more energy to do other things the reality is it's April 15th

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we're getting into the summer

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it's 80 degrees out today how are we just gonna eat warm things it seems a little bit unlikely unreasonable.

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And I don't want you to just completely abandon the path.

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So I'm going to walk through the framework of how to eat cold things.

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The idea is you don't want or have to eliminate cold foods entirely.

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It's important to eat and drink things that make you happy, but to approach it from a position of balance.

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So the underlying framework is we want to make sure our digestion is warm so that it can function well.

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So the same idea applies to eating cold things.

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You want to warm up your digestion before eating anything cold.

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So your timing matters here.

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So ideally, if you really want a smoothie for breakfast, you warm up your digestion first with some hot tea or hot bone broth.

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If you start your meal with something warm like that, your digestion is actually prepared to take down something cold.

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Whereas if you were to just eat something cold straight up, your digestion would be like, we have to stop.

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Like we're frozen and we need to process this first.

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Number seven is to chew slowly and eat super calmly

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so this kind of goes back to

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that idea i mentioned earlier where there's a finite amount of energy in your body

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and it can only focus on so much at a time

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and so the second part of that is that

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when your digestion suffers everything suffers

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when we think about eating food we want to eat from a position of being very calm

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and ready to digest if we're mentally in fight

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or flight mode you're not going to digest your meal well

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and it's going to lead to some other problems practically what does this mean?

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If you are distracted with work, I would say, honestly, finish your work and rest for a minute before you focus on eating.

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Otherwise, if you eat while you're distracted with work, you are not going to have the proper energy to digest.

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The digestion process is going to be taxed and then it will borrow energy that's supposed to go towards work.

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So it's really not optimal for either thing.

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it's better to just wait until you're in a position where you can like rest

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and take a five -minute lunch break one tip

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that i like to do every day or

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so is to eat one meal in slow motion basically challenge myself how slowly can i eat

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this meal sometimes the act of slowing down is one of the most calming things

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you can do for your body

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because you're signaling like yes it's safe enough to slow down

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we can focus on digesting this meal i also think that being present like that helps to prevent overeating,

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which can make you feel uncomfortable and tax your digestion in other ways.

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So what I'm hoping you're getting from this is that TCM is not a punishing,

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regulating, very strict diet or way to live or anything like that.

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It's really more of a framework of understanding how to work with your body.

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It's a much more gentle approach and you don't have to be perfect because once you understand the framework,

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you know how to adjust to certain situations in your life and actually make things work for you.

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Number eight is to do a little bit of walking after a meal.

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This is one of the simplest habits, but it's one of the most effective.

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Number one, movement helps with processing food and digestion.

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It's also a relaxing things to do.

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Being in a relaxed state helps your digestion.

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But the second one has to do with this idea of chi.

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And chi is the vital energy inside of your body.

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You can think of it like a battery

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that also has like signal right so the battery is the amount of qi

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that you have

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and the signal is how much flow

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it has people can have too little qi people can also have enough qi

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but it's stuck and not flowing well each of those has their own symptoms

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and i kind of went into this in my previous video

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but the idea here is that movement helps qi flow

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when qi is flowing you feel your best you feel most alive

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and for me it's the number one reason why I want to move it's

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because I feel this sensation of like this energy moving through me

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and it's what motivates me to get out the door in

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the morning take a little walk at lunch take a little walk in the evening as well

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I understand we're busy sometimes you may not have time to do like a million walks during the day especially

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if you're working in office or working long hours

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but I think you can spare a couple minutes after lunch to go on a little walk,

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digest your food, help your chi flow before you kind of go back to your desk for the rest of the day.

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We're going to talk about chi a little bit more in the advanced section,

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but it is one of my favorite concepts in TCM because it's so simple.

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It makes so much advice very intuitive because after learning about it for a while, you know how to make your chi flow.

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You know what it feels like and

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that becomes your north star rather than chasing like activity goals

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and calorie goals and like movement goals and things like

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that it starts to all become very intuitive once you learn how to measure

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and like feel your own cheat flowing through your body okay

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number nine is to use heat wisely with foot baths

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and heating pads so most people only reach for heat

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when something hurts right muscle ache i'm gonna put on icy hot

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or a heating pad period cramps is like starting right now

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so i'm gonna use a heating pad now

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and i think chinese medicine challenges us to kind of acknowledge where the imbalances before the pain actually starts

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and tcm heat is very preventative

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because tcm sees pain sometimes as like a blockage of something

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so maybe with your period it's a blood stasis

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or blood is not circulating well or moving well enough

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and coagulating and causing these painful cramps and so

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if you have cramps like that it's often recommended to use heating pads not just when the pain hits, but throughout your cycle as well.

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And it's also recommended to stop drinking ice drinks kind of throughout the whole cycle, not just around the period,

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because the idea is you need to increase circulation all month long, not just when the pain is hitting you.

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If your periods are fine, heating pads are also recommended just to have around the abdomen area.

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It improves circulation.

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You have a lot of important organs there, digestion -wise, reproduction -wise, vitality wise and

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so having a little bit of heat there also signals to your body we're well supported we're safe

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and our organs can kind of do everything

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that they are trying to do in terms of foot baths this is something i've introduced more recently

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but again we talked about there being important channels in the feet

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and so it's important to keep your feet warm

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but an extra special thing you can do is use foot baths um i know there's companies

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that make special soaks so special herbs

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that you can put around your feet

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this is just a nice thing to do again it signals to your body we are comfortable we are warm

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and an improved circulation just

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because of how many energy channels are there in your feet number 10 is leveraging chinese superfoods to make tea

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so one of my favorite teas that i love to make is a jujube date

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and goji berry tea

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so i basically just chop up a few dried jujube dates

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add them with goji berries boil them in my kettle or boil them on the stove for five to 10 minutes,

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strain it, and I have a delicious tea.

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So in TCM, we say jujubes and goji berries are both blood.

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building so they help you if you have a lot of cramps

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or fatigue especially around your period because those are signs of having low blood

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and blood here is blood with a capital b

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so it's more than just like the red stuff

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that runs through us keeps us alive it also has qualities of making us feel strong

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and feel grounded so there's some similarities between iron levels

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and levels of blood capital b that you have in your system

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and so it's goji berries and jujube dates are two things that have been used for thousands of years for blood building.

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So it's a beautiful tea.

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It turns out to be a nice like reddish color.

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It tastes amazing.

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It's like slightly sweet, tiny bit herbal, but really lovely flavor.

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And I've started to drink this all the time, but definitely in the days leading up to my period and notice a huge reduction in cramps,

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which is amazing.

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Okay, now we're moving into the more advanced section.

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And so this is where Chinese medicine goes from being things

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that you do and becomes how you think about your life and your wellness so let's go.

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Number 11 is doing qigong to move your qi.

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So we talked about qi being the vital energy inside of us

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and I mentioned how some people they have too little qi so they feel very fatigued and tired all the time.

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Some people have a lot of qi but it's getting stuck like a car spinning its tires.

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That's what I have and that's called qi stagnation and in both situations you want to nourish and circulate your qi.

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So there's many different ways to do this and it's not all medicinal

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or wellness oriented like i always say spending time with your friends doing things

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that you love doing things

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that are authentic to you those are the best ways to move your cheat

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and i think people find this right like if you're in a job

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that you hate your cheat is going to be drained from you

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if you're in a job

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that you love it kind of circulates your energy makes

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you feel alive it makes you want more every day same thing with like hanging out with people

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that you love that circulates your cheap hanging out with people

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that you don't like so much is one of the biggest strains on your chi out there

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but we talk about like doing

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this in a kind of practice way how do we practice moving our chi chi gong

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and tai chi are the practices for that

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so i'm gonna link some youtube videos here

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that you can check out some of my favorite accounts are yoga chi yoga with luchin

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she is amazing she has so many videos out there

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and i think she also has a membership where you can go check out more of her videos every time

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i do chi gong i feel really alive afterwards

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and it feels really silly to say

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but i think qigong would not have survived thousands

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and thousands of years

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if it didn't do something special for you a lot of issues in chinese medicine come down to this stagnation

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that stagnation leads to irritability it leads to having a short fuse

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it can affect your digestion it can affect your sleep

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and make you wake up during the night

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and it's important to move your qi both physically

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and emotionally qigong is a way to gently restore

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that flow it's kind of a mix of like yoga

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and dancing it's really beautiful it's really fun it's not intense

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or extreme but over time it can make a big difference in how you feel

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so i try to do five minutes every morning i don't do it every day

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but i aim for like five days a week and even

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if i wake up feeling good i want to do it

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because again you moving your chi it's a habit it's not just something

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that you do

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when you're in a moment of crisis number 12 is understanding how your chi interacts with your environments

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this is something that we tend to overlook in the western world

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but in chinese medicine your health and your environment are deeply intertwined

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if you're constantly in chaotic stressful environments it will drain your chi

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if you're constantly in an environment where you feel you have to perform

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and it's not authentic to you

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that will drain your chi similarly like we are porous beings and our chi can circulate among other people in our environments.

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So when you're in environments that you really love, whether it's with people you love, doing things that you love,

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pay attention to how that feels and understand like, how can I incorporate more of that into my day to day?

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There's obviously with this, like only so much we can control.

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Sometimes work is just chaotic.

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But I think the way to tell is like when you put more energy into your work projects,

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does it come back to you in the form of new energy

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and new opportunities or is it constantly just a leak

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that goes somewhere and doesn't come back to you

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and again it's one of those things

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that once you start to become more attuned to it it's very intuitive

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and easy to understand number 13 is going to acupuncture regularly as maintenance

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so a lot of people think of acupuncture either as a last resort

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or something you do once but it's actually most powerful

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when you can do it consistently because it helps regulate your system over time.

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So what does acupuncture do?

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For me, it does two main things.

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The first is it unblocks areas that have stagnation.

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There are points in my body where I have noticed the pain

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or soreness when the needle goes in has decreased tremendously since I've been going more regularly

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because my chi has been flowing more regularly through those points.

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The second thing is you enter a parasympathetic state.

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So just a state of total relaxation.

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It's almost like force

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meditation but it's more calming than that

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if you've never done it i really recommend

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you reach out to an acupuncturist near you just to experience what it's like

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but just as like we practice qigong every day to keep our qi flowing

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we should go to acupuncture regularly as well just because

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it's a long -term process rather than a quick fix right

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think about it as keeping something balanced rather than fixing something once

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so that the advanced tip is to be going regularly but if you're just a beginner,

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I would say the challenge for you is to go just once and see how you like it.

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Number 14 is to balance your meals using TCM principles.

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So a lot of us grew up learning about nutrition in the Western world as calories made up of your macronutrients,

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carbs, proteins, fats, and while proteins, carbs, fats, fiber, those are very helpful.

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It's not the full picture.

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And I really love combining my understanding of macros with traditional

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Chinese medicine to form a more complete way of looking at food in my body.

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In Chinese medicine, food has qualities.

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So it's not just how much energy or calories does it have, but there's a temperature component.

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So of course, foods can be physically cold or hot, but foods can also be energetically cooling or warming, right?

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So foods like pears, watermelon, cucumbers, those are energetically cooling foods.

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Foods like spices, ginger, nuts, those are energetically warming foods.

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So it's not just about the physical temperature.

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Foods can also be heavy or light.

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Some foods can also be drying for your digestion.

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Some foods can be hydrating for your digestion, right?

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And so the idea is like not everybody should be eating the same way, which is a super important idea.

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Let's say I run more dry and constipated.

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I would want to avoid foods that are too warming and drying, right?

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So ginger is something that I actually don't use that that much because it's not meant for my pattern.

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But someone who runs cold and has a lot of fatigue, they might benefit from using some of these more warming ingredients in their diet

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because they need a little bit more warmth and circulation.

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So instead of asking like, is this healthy point blank,

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yes or no, try to break down the qualities of the plate so that they're balanced for your pattern.

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And so I think this makes sense when you think about someone who's like very cold and depleted. For them,

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eating cold smoothies raw salads is going to be extra bad

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for their pattern whereas someone who has a very strong digestive fire

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and good bowel movements like they can probably get away with it a little bit more right

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it's just about understanding where you fall on the spectrum where your balance is at

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and what to do about it it's not about one perfect diet it's about context

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and what makes most sense for you a tcm doctor can help you learn more

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and figure out what this diet should look like for you

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but i think understanding like okay over time

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you can just research like this food

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i really like to eat is it warming cooling like what are its energetic properties in tcm

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and figure out if it's meant for you or not

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and over time i think

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it just becomes more intuitive right like for me personally like okay

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i don't want to have a ton of ginger

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but i like the flavor of ginger so how do i balance a dish

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that has ginger with something cooling right so instead of extremes

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which is really tough for your digestion anyway focus on making sure your digestion is supported in a way

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that makes sense for your system okay number 15 is to balance your life using the principles of yin

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and yang so this is really the core principle of everything in chinese medicine

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and you guys know yin yang very famous symbol

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but what does it mean yin is the cooling nourishing restorative side yang is the outward fiery movement

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and momentum side of things and so the idea is

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that like a balanced life you have both yin and yang

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but you also have yin in yang and yang in yin

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so what does that mean

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and how do you apply it to your life you can start to kind of associate different phases

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or moments of your day of your month of your year of your life using yin

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and yang and that will tell you

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when you need to incorporate more of the other

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so let's say i'm going to give you some example let's say you're a student in school and from September through June,

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you are in yang season, right?

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You're studying like crazy.

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Maybe you work a job, you're going out with your friends.

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It's just like nonstop.

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And then the summer, maybe you're just like chilling at home and it's a very yin period of your life.

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So, you know, how would a Chinese medicine doctor look at that?

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They might say like, okay, well, are you getting enough yin during the school period, right?

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Are you baking in time for a restorative rest, a little bit of meditation, a little bit journaling,

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some quiet nights in like are you going through it in a way where like you know

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you're going to make it to the end

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or in a way that's just like i'm springing to the end

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and like seeing what i have left there

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and then they might say like okay and then we look at the summer

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and you're recharging is it because you're completely burnt out

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because you haven't you know introduced enough into your life from september through june now you're just kind of like chilling

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And.. on the couch all day like is there an opportunity to bring more yang into

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that maybe playing some sports working on a new project

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or something like that and

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so the that's a sample idea of like a very specific one

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but i think for people that are working a ton

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and living very yang lifestyles like let's say you live in a city

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and you're working all the time you go to these intense workout classes

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and you're going out with your friends

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and you're traveling a bunch like that's a very yang lifestyle

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how do you just find moments of yin throughout the days

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and the weeks and the months maybe it's meditation journaling

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and qigong in the morning maybe it's like a quiet night in again maybe it's taking a short trip

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if you can just to like really restore and the idea is

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that like someone who's all yang is going to burn out at some point you just can't make it past like

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five ten years or so and

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if you're serious about your career making it further than

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that should be important to you and

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so the idea is like the best way to endure that

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and be a good performer forever is balancing yin and yang throughout.

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And just to say that building in more yin can be really simple.

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Maybe it's just putting your phone away 30 minutes earlier before you go to bed

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and reading a book instead of like doom scrolling until you fall asleep.

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Maybe it's just dimming your lights at night to signal to your body like, okay, I'm winding down, it's time for bed soon.

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It's not realistic to completely eliminate stress or like hardcore activity, but we just wanna be able to signal to our bodies

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that both sides of this exist and that there will always be a little bit of rest amongst the output.

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Okay, well thank you so much for making to the end of this video.

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I'm so curious which of these 15 tips you're most excited to implement and which you're maybe a little bit nervous about.

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Let me know in the comments if you have any questions.

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Let me just say that the goal of this is not to do all 15 things perfectly every day.

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It's just to start understanding a different framework of wellness that's actually going to take care of you

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and improve your relationship with your body.

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Your body is always communicating with you.

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Traditional Chinese medicine just gives you a way of understanding what it is saying and how to respond to it appropriately.

425

So if you're completely new, start small, try a few things, see how you feel, and then when you're ready, come back for more.

426

I'm super excited to be filming more YouTube videos this spring and summer, so if you like this video, definitely leave a like if you can.

427

Leave a comment with what you're working on and which habit you're most excited about.

428

Subscribe so you don't miss any videos, and I post a lot more short -term stuff on my Instagram.

429

I post essays on my sub stack, so you can find me anywhere where you like to keep up with people.

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But yeah, thank you so much for making it to the end and super excited for the next video.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “15 chinese medicine tips my grandma taught me”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: digestion, warm, cold. This video has 430 sentences and 5640 words to shadow. The speech runs for 27:26. The speaker talks fast, about 206 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
yang noun	/ˈjæŋ/	A principle in Chinese and related East Asian philosophies associated with bright, hot, masculine, etc. elements of the natural world.
digest verb	/daɪˈd͡ʒɛst/	To distribute or arrange methodically; to work over and classify; to reduce to portions for ready use or application.
meal noun	/ˈmiːl/	Food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity.
salad noun	/ˈsæl.əd/	A food consisting principally of raw vegetables (especially greens, e.g. lettuce), other savoury ingredients (typically cooked), fruit, or confectionary; often…
framework noun	/ˈfɹeɪm.wɜːk/	A support structure comprising joined parts or conglomerated particles and intervening open spaces of similar or larger size.
circulation noun	/ˌsɝkjʊˈleɪʃən/	The act of moving in a circle, or in a course which brings the moving body to the place where its motion began.
ginger noun	/ˈd͡ʒɪnd͡ʒɚ/	The pungent aromatic rhizome of a tropical Asian herb, Zingiber officinale, used as a spice and as a stimulant and acarminative.
fatigue noun	/fəˈtiːɡ/	A weariness caused by exertion; exhaustion.
bath noun	/bɑːθ/	A tub or pool which is used for bathing: bathtub.
intuitive adjective	/ɪnˈtjuːɪtɪv/	Spontaneous, without requiring conscious thought.
wellness noun	/ˈwɛl.nɪs/	The quality or state of being in good health (sometimes emphasizing both health and safety); mental and physical soundness.
beginner noun	/bəˈɡɪnɚ/	Someone who is just starting at something, or has only recently started.
afterwards adverb	/ˈæf.tɚ.wɚdz/	At a later or succeeding time; after that;
layer noun	/ˈleɪ̯ɚ/	A single thickness of some material covering a surface.
principle noun	/ˈpɹɪn.sɪ.pəl/	A fundamental assumption, fundamental law or guiding belief.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
wake up verb	/ˌweɪk ˈʌp/	To stop sleeping; to awake.
break down verb		To stop functioning.
warm up verb	/ˌwɔː(ɹ)m ˈʌp/	To become warmer.
check out verb		To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
figure out verb		To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
go back to verb		To stem from; to originate in.
slow down verb		To decelerate.
walk through verb		To explain (something) to (someone), step by step.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

Why am I having brain fog now?
I'm saying to cook them and eat them warm.
Let's say I run more dry and constipated.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	if it's too hot, you probably won't drink
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	you've been exploring · I've been going · has been flowing
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	you've ever gone · I've always found · you've ever had
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	is described · be cooked · is warmed

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 106 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: bath /bɑːθ/, authentic /ɔˈθɛn.tɪk/, throat /ˈθɹoʊt/, smoothie /ˈsmuːði/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: circulation /ˌsɝkjʊˈleɪʃən/, meditation /mɛdɪˈteɪʃn̩/, associate /əˈsoʊʃi.ət/, reduction /ɹɪˈdʌk.ʃən/, delicious /dɪˈlɪ.ʃəs/
Long words — get the stress right: circulation /ˌsɝkjʊˈleɪʃən/, intuitive /ɪnˈtjuːɪtɪv/, intermediate /ɪn.tə(ɹ)ˈmi.di.ət/, uncomfortable /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/, eliminate /ɪˈlɪm.ɪ.neɪt/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like yang, digest, meal.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: 15 chinese medicine tips my grandma taught me (basic to advanced) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?