If bruises turn up when you can't remember a bump, your skin looks dull or has darker patches, and your lips run dark, this may be the body type that sounds like you. In the old language of Chinese medicine, blood stasis means blood that doesn't move through the body as freely as it should.
It's one of nine body types, and it's a way your body leans, not an illness. That matters, because it means there are ordinary, everyday things you can adjust. This page walks you through them, and through a simple way to tell whether they're helping.
Your skin tends to look dull, and darker patches of pigment show up. You bruise easily, and your lips tend to run dark.
Cold is the one that gets to you.
Chinese medicine doctors also look at your tongue and feel your pulse. Most of that needs someone in person, so it's not here. If you'd like it checked, an acupuncture clinic near you can look. One sign you can check yourself: lift your tongue in front of a mirror and look at the two veins underneath. What you're looking for is veins that have turned dark purple, or grown thicker than they used to be. If the assessment puts you in this type, your results explain why this sign is worth checking.
Chinese medicine doesn't start from the complaint. It starts from you. The same kind of discomfort can come from quite different body types, and what helps one can make another worse. So the first step is finding out which way your body leans. After that, the part you can do yourself is ordinary: what you eat, how you sleep and rest, how you move, and how you look after your mood, chosen to suit your type. None of it is quick. It's a slow, steady nudge, and it works alongside your regular doctor, not in place of one.
Getting irritated easily and being forgetful are both part of how this type is described. That's not quite the same thing as brain fog. A slide in memory and thinking is listed for a different body type, qi stagnation, among the things it tends toward. For this type, the everyday advice in a Chinese care guideline written for each body type is about keeping things moving: get up from long stretches of sitting, stay out of the cold, and exercise moderately but often. It's all below.
For this type, the one thing we'd start with is getting up from long stretches of sitting. About once an hour, stand up and move around: walk to the kitchen, take the stairs, step outside. Long hours in one seat, whether at a desk, over cards or in front of a screen, are what to break up.
How to tell if it's helping. Keep a notebook by the bed. It takes about half a minute each evening.
For the first three days, change nothing. Just score these three, each from 1 (bad) to 5 (fine). Those days are what you compare against.
Then start your one thing, and each evening add one more line: Did I get up about once an hour today? Yes or no. Don't judge by one day: everyone has off days whatever they do. Keep going for two weeks, then look back.
Reading your two weeks.
Your mood. Take things steadily, try not to get restless or wound up, and keep your spirits easy. Flowing, lyrical music suits this type.
Daily life. Keep out of the cold. Your home should be warm and comfortable; try not to spend long stretches working or living somewhere dark and cold. Wear loose clothes, stay warm, and keep your bowels regular. Keep a regular routine that mixes moving with resting, and don't get too comfortable sitting still. Skip long sessions of card games, sitting and TV. When you're active outdoors, go while the sun is out.
Exercise. Pick things that get your blood moving, and do them regularly, for the long haul: dancing, walking for fitness, calisthenics, tai chi, or ba duan jin (a gentle qigong routine). Let your body set the intensity. Light to moderate effort, repeated often, suits this type better than hard, heavy workouts.
If you get chest pain, chest pressure or suddenly can't catch your breath while exercising, stop and call 911. Don't drive yourself to the hospital. If any of these comes on, stop right away and get checked by a doctor: unusual exhaustion, nausea, dizziness, headache, pain in your ankles, knees or hips, weak legs or trouble walking, or a racing heart.
If you live with a long-term condition such as high blood pressure, diabetes or kidney disease, or you're in the middle of any illness, check with your own doctor before changing your routine.
Eat more. Foods this tradition uses to keep things moving:
If you have an Asian grocery nearby:
Eat less. Go easy on:
Cut back on fatty, rich food too:
No hard liquor.
You may well see yourself in two or three types; that's normal. The assessment asks 26 questions, takes about three minutes, scores all nine types, and tells you which one stands out, or that none does. It uses the questions and scoring lines of China's national standard, translated into English. It's a self-check to help you get to know your body. It isn't a diagnosis, and it can't replace a practitioner who sees you in person.
Take the 26-question assessment
The other body types, each with its own page: Qi deficiency · Yin deficiency · Yang deficiency · Phlegm-dampness · Damp-heat · Qi stagnation · Inherited-special.
If bruising is new, severe or getting worse, talk to a doctor. Home experiments are for the everyday kind. For this type, a few things in particular are for a doctor, not a home experiment:
The nine body types come from Wang Qi, a professor at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. He and his colleagues first sorted people into seven types in the late 1970s, kept refining the idea for more than twenty years, and published the nine-type system in 2005.
It didn't stay an idea on paper. China brought body-type checks into its basic public health service, which offers residents aged 65 and over a check once a year, along with everyday advice for their type. In community clinics the check has been used more than 570 million times, and it's offered in the preventive care departments of over 1,700 Chinese medicine hospitals.
As it spread, clinics weren't all doing it the same way, and the quality varied. So China made it a national standard, giving every clinic one agreed method to follow. It was drawn up by a team of 37 from 20 hospitals, universities and other institutions, with Wang Qi first among them, and came into force in April 2026. The assessment on this site uses that standard's questions and scoring lines, translated into English. The everyday advice for each type comes from a care guideline for adults built on the same nine types.
It's a way of understanding your body's everyday tendencies, not a medical test, and it sits alongside your doctor, not instead of one.
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