Basics Of Traditional Chinese Medicine Health Care And Rehabilitation: Theoretical Analysis Of The Integration Of Health Care And Health And Longevity
When we modern people talk about health preservation, we can’t avoid eating.
There is an old saying that "medicine and food come from the same source". Food is not only a filling of the stomach, but also a kind of "slow fire and fine medicine" that can regulate the body.
After reading through many traditional Chinese medicine dietary therapy materials and sorting them out in an orderly manner, I discovered that the body of health-preserving wisdom that contains practical value is actually hidden in every bowl of porridge and every mouthful of rice in daily life.
Just today, I will break down the knowledge related to eating and health care, and then share it with you, hoping to help you find a more suitable way of eating and health care.
The basis of dietary therapy is to first distinguish the "temper" of food
If you want to regulate your body through diet, you must first understand the "temper" of food.
Traditional Chinese medicine divides the properties of food into five categories: cold, cool, warm, hot, and neutral.
This is not metaphysics, but the experience practiced by our ancestors for thousands of years.
For example, in the summer, the weather is very hot, causing the body to feel unbearably hot. At this time, eating some watermelon and drinking a cup of green tea will immediately make you feel much more refreshed. This is taking advantage of the heat-clearing and fluid-promoting effects of cold foods.
To put it another way, when the climate is cold in winter, people's hands and feet will feel cold. At this time, drinking a bowl of steaming ginger brown sugar water with a suitable temperature will warm up all parts of the body. To achieve this effect, it relies on the properties of warm foods that can enhance and spread warmth and dispel cold evil.
There is a small rule here. Flat foods are the largest in quantity, such as rice, pork, and soybeans, which are the safest to eat in daily diet; warm foods are second in quantity, and cold foods are relatively less in quantity.
So, our first step in conditioning is to determine whether our current physique is more cold or hot, and then choose food in turn. For people with a cold physique, use warm foods, and for people with a hot physique, use cold foods.
Recognize food by looking at its “taste”, and the five flavors harmonize to nourish the internal organs
In addition to "sex", food also has "taste".
Sour, bitter, sweet, pungent, salty, different tastes have very different effects.
If you suffer from a slight cold attack, boil some scallions and dried ginger into water and drink it when you first get sick. The pungent ones used here can diffuse and circulate qi, thereby driving away the cold air existing on the body surface.
If you notice that your mouth is bitter and accompanied by signs of internal heat, you can eat some bitter melon to clear away heat and reduce internal heat. This is the benefit of the bitter taste’s ability to clear away heat and reduce internal heat.
If you have a poor appetite and feel your stomach is bloated, eating some hawthorn or some aromatic condiments can help wake up the spleen and stimulate the appetite.
There are many foods with nourishing properties, such as yams and jujubes, which taste sweet. Most of these foods have tonic effects and can nourish qi and blood.
When cooking, there is no need to chase after a certain style and keep exerting effort, but you must always have the idea of paying attention in your mind, so that when the body gives some subtle cues, you can rely on the most common ingredients in the kitchen to give it useful help.
Common diseases, clever use of dietary therapy to treat "minor problems"
Some small conditions in the body are often signals of organ dysfunction.
If you have been feeling dry eyes and blurry vision recently, which the older generation often said was "insufficient liver blood", you can moderately tend to nourish the liver and kidneys in your diet, such as making a stir-fried pork liver with wolfberry seedlings, or soaking wolfberry and mulberry in water to drink.
If oral ulcers reoccur repeatedly and the tip of the tongue turns red, this condition is most likely caused by strong heart and stomach fire. At this time, stop eating spicy and greasy food, cook some rush porridge, or drink bamboo leaf and reed root tea for several days. This will clear the fire, and the effect will be very good.
There are some situations that are more complicated. For example, if kidney deficiency affects the lungs, resulting in dry cough and dry mouth, you can try lily and wolfberry soup. It can not only nourish yin fluid to moisten the lungs, but also nourish the kidneys.
Friends with high blood pressure who are usually short-tempered and prone to anger, which is what Chinese medicine calls hyperactivity of liver yang, may wish to include chrysanthemum tea and celery porridge as part of their daily diet to help clear the liver and subdue yang.
Body signals you can “see” every day
In fact, whether your health is good or not is written on your face and tongue.
If you notice that your eyelids are swollen when you get up in the morning, and you feel a sticky feeling in your mouth, and you also feel particularly tired, this situation is most likely a reminder to you that there is a problem with the function of the spleen and stomach and needs to be adjusted.
Look in the mirror again and look at your tongue.
If the color of the tongue is extremely light or even white, it means that the blood is in a state of deficiency, or there is cold air in the body.
If the tongue coating is yellow and thick, it may be a sign of inflammation in the digestive tract or respiratory tract.
Pay attention to the presence of complexion. Dark yellow complexion is mostly related to the spleen and stomach. Dark complexion is often a manifestation of weak kidney qi.
We usually pay more attention to these subtle signals, and when the problem first appears, we can resolve it by adjusting our diet and daily routine.
Conditioning during special periods requires keeping pace with the times.
Different seasons and different groups of people have completely different priorities in dietary conditioning.
Ancient people said that "nourishing yang in spring and summer, nourishing yin in autumn and winter", winter is a good opportunity to take tonics, animal medicines and foods.
As all things grow hair in spring, it is not advisable to overuse tonics, and excessive liver qi should be properly suppressed.
Another example is that women after childbirth often suffered from deficiency syndrome in ancient times and needed major supplements.
However, with the superior nutritional conditions of modern people, many postpartum mothers happen to show the tendency of "nourishing yin, clearing heat, digesting food and losing weight", which leads to significant changes in their physiques and great changes.
At different ages, the key points of conditioning are different. Children are full of vitality but have immature bodies. The focus is on strengthening the spleen and stomach and promoting digestion. It is very suitable to make some yam porridge.
If women in the menopausal stage often feel hot flashes and have memory loss, this is a typical symptom of yin deficiency. Usually eating more yin-tonifying foods such as cherries and Ophiopogon japonicus can greatly improve the physical condition.
Maintaining good health is not something that can be accomplished overnight, nor is it just a matter of following a book.
It is more like a gentle dialogue with the body, which requires careful observation and patient experience.
To give you a new perspective on your own body, today I’m going to talk about these dietary therapy ideas and methods.
Start by clearly distinguishing the hot and cold of food, then start by understanding every subtle signal of the body, and transform the act of eating into a daily practice of health care. As time passes day by day, you will naturally gain health and peace.
