Shen Zhiwei

An introduction

She keeps the Shanghai room two days a week and comes back to Hangzhou on the evening train with a notebook full of things to check. She is the one who insists a report says what a person should stop doing before it says what they should start.

Most of what I write down is unglamorous. Warm feet. An earlier dinner. One fewer cold drink. It is also what works.

Areas of focus

• Cycles: timing, cold in the lower abdomen, the days before
• The years either side of menopause
• Tiredness that a full night of sleep does not repair
• People who feel the cold far more than everyone around them

Background & training

31 years · since 1995

• Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine — five years, graduated 1995
• Seven years in a district hospital’s Chinese medicine department, Shanghai

Qualifications

Licensed to practise Chinese medicine in the People’s Republic of China.