What is a TCM constitution (body pattern) and how do I find out mine?

The nine patterns are a description of tendency, not a diagnosis - here is how the reading is actually done.

In TCM a "constitution" is not a diagnosis and not a disease label — it describes your body's long-term tendencies: do you run cold or hot, how is your digestion, your sleep, your mood under stress. Classical texts group these into nine broad patterns (e.g. spleen-weak with dampness, yang-weak with cold tendency, liver-qi stagnation). The practical way to start is observing four signal groups for two weeks: cold/heat preference, digestion after meals, sleep quality, and emotional baseline. If you want a structured version, we built a free self-check that walks you through exactly these signals and maps them to the nine classical patterns: the self-check on this site — it is educational, not medical advice, and it will not ask you for anything a doctor would need to diagnose you.

Qicura reads a described symptom against this kind of material and returns a pattern in plain language with the sources named. It does not dispense: no herb quantities, no formula composition, no preparation instructions, and no needling technique - those are deliberate limits enforced on the server, not wording we soften for a page.

Start a consultation · All questions · Which books this draws on · The 44 classics