Traditional Chinese Medicine Health Preservation 2

The core of traditional Chinese medicine health care is not to eat wolfberries and soak astragalus in the same way, nor to follow the formula of "nourishing yang in spring, summer, and yin in autumn and winter". Instead, it is to first find your own physical baseline, and then dynamically adjust according to the season, work and rest, and current physical condition. There is never a "universal health formula" suitable for everyone.

I didn’t make this up, I learned it after studying with three Chinese medicine teachers from different schools, and after five or six years of exploring the art of health care myself and stepping on countless pitfalls. I just came across two extreme examples a while ago: a northeastern girl who works as an operator in an Internet company, always has American ice cream in her hand every day, and it is normal to stay up until two or three o'clock. She saw a blogger saying that she drinks astragalus water to replenish qi and blood. After following the trend for three days, she got two big blisters at the corners of her mouth. She was so constipated that she couldn't stand up after squatting for half an hour. She complained to me that Chinese medicine is a lie. ； The other is a young man who works on the front end. He usually sits for a long time and wears long sleeves in summer. After drinking astragalus water for half a month, he told me that this autumn, his hands and feet are not as cold as in previous years. It’s also the same astragalus. Some people drink it to cure diseases, while others drink it and suffer. The difference is not the medicinal material at all, but whether it corresponds to their own situation.

In fact, the traditional Chinese medicine community itself does not have a unified view on the direction of health preservation. Doctors who take the route of warming and tonic believe that "Yang is what protects the outside and is solid". They believe that modern people use air conditioners, eat cold drinks, and stay up late to consume Yang Qi. They should pay more attention to Yang Qi and avoid touching cold things. Ginger tea and moxibustion can be kept on hand. ； However, doctors from the febrile disease school believe that nowadays people eat heavy oils and spicy food, are stressed and have a lot of anxiety, and generally have a lot of internal heat. Blind supplementation will only block the fire in the body. It is right to clear the phlegm and dampness first and then talk about supplements. These two views have been quarreling for decades, and no one can convince the other. But when it comes to specific people, they are actually right - if you are usually afraid of the cold and have diarrhea after eating something cold, then you are right to follow the warm tonic school. ； If you get acne as soon as you eat hot pot and your tongue coating is yellow and greasy all year round, then listen to the febrile disease school to clear it first, and you will definitely strengthen it.

I usually give advice to friends around me and never ask them to memorize the classification of the nine physical constitutions. It is too complicated for ordinary people to remember. Just look at three small signals: when you wake up in the morning and haven’t brushed your teeth or drank water, look in the mirror. Is the tongue coating thin or thick, yellow or white? Usually the stool sticks to the toilet, but it cannot be flushed down after flushing it several times? Are you usually more afraid of heat or cold? Don’t underestimate these three questions, they can basically tell you about your current physical condition. For example, if you have thick white tongue coating, are afraid of cold, and have unformed stools, it is most likely due to cold and dampness. You should soak more ginger and tangerine peel water at ordinary times and avoid ice. You are right. ； If the tongue coating is yellow and thick, you are afraid of heat, and your stools stick to the toilet, it is damp heat. Drink more winter melon soup and chrysanthemum and tangerine peel water, which is better than any tonic.

As autumn has come recently, many people have followed the trend of putting on autumn fat and engaging in autumn frost, and there are also many people who have stepped into the trap. Aunt Zhang, who danced square dance downstairs last week, heard from her sisters that the autumn cold can improve immunity. She wore single pants when the temperature dropped. As a result, her knee joints hurt so much that she couldn't walk. She came to ask me what I should do. I asked her to go home and soak her feet in boiled ginger water for 20 minutes every day. After three days of soaking, she recovered. She also told me that she would never follow the trend again. There is also a friend who stews mutton pot-stickers with autumn fat several times every autumn. As a result, he has a sore throat and mouth ulcers every time he eats it this year. When he came to see me, I discovered that he had been working overtime every day to catch up on projects. His tongue coating was very yellow, and he already had a lot of internal heat. If he ate warm mutton, he would get angry.

I have been through a lot of pitfalls in the past two years. In the summer, my shoulders and neck hurt due to the cold air and the air conditioner. I heard people say that moxibustion is very effective. At that time, my oral ulcer was not cured yet. I followed the online tutorial and did moxibustion on Zhongwan and Zusanli. As a result, the ulcer was so swollen the next day that it was difficult to say anything. Later, I told my teacher, who laughed at me and said that if you have fire, don’t moxibustion on all the acupoints on the body, just moxibustion on the Ashi point on the shoulder and neck. I drank chrysanthemum and tangerine peel water for two days to reduce the stomach fire, and then I did it. I followed the instructions, and sure enough, the pain on the shoulder and neck disappeared after two moxibustion, and the ulcer did not occur again.

To put it bluntly, traditional Chinese medicine health care is not like those posted on the Internet, with rigid rules about what time to sleep, what to eat and what not to eat. To put it bluntly, it is a dialogue with your own body. If you are comfortable, you are doing the right thing. If you are not comfortable, even the magical prescriptions promoted by the whole Internet are of no use to you. I have seen too many people who have hundreds of health-preserving posts in their favorites. If they learn this today and learn that tomorrow, they will mess up their bodies. It is better to learn nothing, eat when they are hungry, sleep when they are sleepy, and stop thinking about it, which is better than anything else.