FAQ
Questions, answered plainly.
Everything people ask before they take the Intake — and a few things worth knowing after. If your question isn’t here, write to us through the contact page.
A nine-section questionnaire, about five minutes, that reads how you run — energy, temperature, sleep, digestion, emotional weather. It returns your climate (your stable constitution), any season passing through (your current pattern), and four lifestyle practices matched to both.
Our plain-English names for the classical constitution patterns Chinese medicine has read for centuries — Clear Sky, Low Tide, Shaded Valley, Dry Wind, Morning Mist, Summer Storm, Still Pond, and Frozen River. Same tradition, clearer language. You can meet all eight on the How It Works page.
Your climate is your stable baseline — how you tend to run most of the time. A season is what’s showing up right now, shifting with stress, circumstance, and the actual weather. The season shifts. The climate stays.
No. Your reading reflects traditional Chinese-medicine wellness patterns, not a medical diagnosis, and it doesn’t replace professional medical advice. If something feels genuinely wrong, see a doctor first.
Your full reading, free — your climate, the season passing through, and four lifestyle practices matched to them: small, daily, food-and-rhythm-level supports you can begin the same day.
No. The reading and the lifestyle practices are free and complete on their own. The herbal formulas, when they arrive, are a deeper layer — not a requirement.
In this tradition, daily habits set the conditions everything else works in. The lifestyle practices are the groundwork — small, repeated adjustments to rhythm and food that make whatever you layer on top work better.
Yes — seasons shift, and rereading is the point. Retake it whenever things feel different, and your newest reading becomes the one we keep.
Seven Intensives, one for each season — each compounded the way a practitioner writes a prescription, every herb with a defined role. An eight-day decoction course of raw herbs, steeped at home, for the season passing through. Your climate is tended differently: by the lifestyle practices in your reading, not by a formula.
Our formulas are made in Southern California in an FDA-inspected, GMP-certified facility, from herbs sourced through Fair Trade Certified growers. Every herb's identity is independently verified on arrival, every batch is produced against formal batch records, and every finished lot is tested by an independent laboratory for microbiological and heavy-metal safety before it ships.
Yes. Your reading routes you to the blend written for your pattern and constitution. And because patterns shift over time, you can retake the Intake whenever things feel different — your seasonal reading moves with you. For a truly personalized prescription, we recommend consulting a licensed acupuncturist. You can find one near you in the NCBAHM directory — it's searchable by zip code; filter by Chinese herbology.
They’re in development with our practitioners and manufacturers now. Leave your email anywhere on the site and we’ll write when they’re ready.
Not always. Pregnancy, nursing, and certain sensitivities call for personal supervision rather than an automated intake — when your answers point that way, your reading will point you to a practitioner directory instead.
They’re used to compute your reading — and if you leave your email, to save that reading so you can come back to it. The details are in our privacy policy.
No. The Intake asks about your ordinary days, not theory — and your reading explains every term it uses, in plain language, as it goes.
