I used to be obsessed with the Meyer-Briggs personality test back in high school. Little did I know that it was derived from the very ancient Four Humors!

This is a bit esoteric, but I picked it up at the recommendation of a speaker at a conference, who mentioned that if you want to help people lose weight, you should identify their dominant "humor," and make sure they eat according to the foods best for that type. I was skeptical, since it's not like there's any actual scientific backing behind this. But there's probably something to be said for thousands of years of pattern recognition, which is what this really seems to draw upon.

Each of the four humors (choleric, sanguine, melancholic, and phlegmatic) is connected metaphorically to one of the ancient elements (earth, air, wind, and water) as well as to one of the bodily fluids, as the ancients understood them (bile, blood, black bile, and phlegm). But the descriptions of each are extremely detailed, ranging from body type and shape, to personality, to preferred foods, and more. Each description certainly did make me think of particular people, and I found myself identifying the likely humoral classification of strangers for a little while too! The point, for me, was the associated recommendations both of best food types for each, food timing, sleep timing, and other health recommendations. Again, it's all based on patterns so far as I can tell... but since this goes back to Paracelsus, there might be at least a little something to it.

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