Nail health is something I’ve paid close attention to ever since I began studying Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). What I love most about TCM is that it teaches you how to play a detective role in your own health by looking for key signs and signals from your body – whether that’s through your tongue, eyes, skin, or nails. (If this sounds cool to you, click on tongue and skin to learn what they mean too!) Today we’ll be talking about what your nails can tell you about your health — specifically the meaning of an absence of moons.
Before I begin, I like to give the same disclaimer I provide on my tongue posts: this does not mean anything is “wrong” with you and is not meant to diagnose or treat disease. My goal is to give you a picture of where you may be prone to imbalance, which allows you to make tailored changes to your daily health regimen (such as drinking specific teas, supporting liver detoxification or adding in a targeted nutritional supplement). The technical term for the half moon on your fingernails is lunula, which literally means “little moon” in Latin.
In Ayurvedic Medicine, the ancient Indian “science of life,” the lunula represents one’s “Agni” or “fire” within the body. This is right in line with Traditional Chinese Medicine, which views these lunulas as a representation of one’s “Qi,” also known as energy, metabolism, etc. Essentially, Qi and Agni are the exact same thing (energy, vitality, life force), which to me is beautiful because both systems discovered the same innate energy that drives us and our bodily functions.
When you look at it this way, it can be understood that strong, white moons at the base of each nail indicate strong “Qi” or “fire”: strong digestion, solid immunity, a sharp and energetic mind, a fiery metabolism and a healthy thyroid gland. The more energetic a person is, the whiter (and more present) their moons will be.
It’s normal for the pinky nail to have a small or absent moon, but if you find that moons are absent across most of all of your fingers, it’s a sign that you may need to support this inner fire that governs your digestion, energy and metabolism. If you don’t have moons, let me know in the comments if you suffer from a slow metabolism, fatigue, low energy or poor digestion!
The less moons on a person’s nails, the more likely they are to feel tired and suffer from poor immunity.
