Herbalists assess both people and plants in terms of four qualities with the goal of supporting health by nurturing energetic balance. If someone is hot, we will use cooling herbs. If someone has excess dryness, we will use moistening herbs. This might sound strange at first, but once you get it, you’ll see that you’ve long perceived energetics in your life without knowing that’s what it was. Can you think of people in your life who tend to be hotter by nature? Do you know someone who wears a heavy coat, scarf, and hat when others need only a light jacket? Have you ever met someone who has dry skin and needs to constantly slather on lotion and cream? This is due to their different energetics.

Energetics of People

Every person is born with a unique blend of the four qualities, and the energetics of a person is often referred to as their constitution. A person’s constitution exists within a moving scale. External influences, such as weather, food, illness, medication, sleep habits, and stress, all have an effect on your evolving inner landscape. Think of your constitution as different shades of gray rather than simply black or white, hot or cold. Sometimes people’s constitutions can be seen in their preferences. If someone tends to be colder, they may enjoy hot weather more than someone who has a warm constitution.
Someone with a lot of dryness may be aggravated by the desert but thrive in a more humid environment. The more you pay attention to these things, the more the concepts of energetics will become recognizable within your own life.

Quiz - What is Your Energetic Constitution? 

In my book, Alchemy of Herbs, I help you discover your own energetic constitution, and include the two quizzes below that cover the simple basics of hot/cold and damp/dry. Your results will tell you your combination of thermal results and humidity results: hot/dry, hot/damp, cold/dry, or cold/damp.
Remember that these are the very basic principles of personal constitutions. If you went to see a practitioner of herbal energetics, they would likely do a thorough examination to get a more precise understanding of who you are. However, knowing your basic tendencies is all you need to get the most out of my book, Alchemy of Herbs - Transform Everyday Ingredients Into Foods & Remedies That Heal.

When you fill out these quizzes, keep the following in mind:
• Everyone contains some aspect of all four qualities. But you contain a unique mix of strengths and challenges.
• Look for general tendencies—in other words, how you feel most of the time. For example, if you normally feel warm, but you don’t like winter and there was that one time you felt cold in a blizzard, warm wins.
• Although external forces can affect our qualities, we are born with a particular constitution that doesn’t change dramatically. If you can’t decide on an answer, think back to how you were as a child.

If you have an equal number of true statements in a quiz, instead of thinking of yourself as predominantly one type or another, you could frame the results as showing how that particular quality manifests in you. For example, perhaps you have signs of dampness in your
skin and you don’t like humid conditions, but your hair and nails tend to be dry and brittle. In this case, your skin is damp while your hair and nails are dry. An equal total in your quizzes could also mean that you have a fairly balanced constitution.

If you have questions about your constitution, you may want to visit an herbal practitioner to help you see the energetic patterns in your life more clearly. (I also offer a free minicourse on herbal energetics at www.HerbsWithRosalee.com.) However, for the purposes of using  Alchemy of Herbs, these very basic quizzes are all you need! You could philosophize about your constitution all day long, but in the end, what really counts is your continuing observation and awareness.