TCM health tips

Follow the heavens and respond to people, differentiate between syndromes and provide nourishment, which varies from person to person.

Speaking of which, I followed Mr. Li from the Provincial Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctor for half a year, and I saw too many people who carelessly cultivated themselves and caused problems. There was a 23-year-old girl who was told that she ate donkey-hide gelatin cake to replenish qi and blood. She ate it for three months in a row. Her aunt postponed her routine for half a month. The acne on her chin exploded. Her pulse was very slippery and her tongue coating was thick and greasy. It was obvious that she had replenished the accumulated dampness and heat. There is also a 62-year-old man. He heard people say that mung bean soup lowers blood pressure and clears blood vessels. He boiled a large pot of it every day and drank it as water. After drinking it for two months, he suffered from gastric reflux and could not even eat. When he came to the doctor, his tongue was pale white with teeth marks. He has a constitution with a weak spleen and stomach. He could not withstand drinking cold mung bean soup every day to consume yang energy.

Don’t think this is an exception. Nowadays, many people maintain health and always want to find a “standard answer” that everyone can use. However, the most important thing in traditional Chinese medicine is “one person, one person”. Even the way to maintain health, different schools have different opinions. For example, the yin-nourishing school founded by Zhu Danxi believes that modern people think too much and stay up late, and are prone to "more yang and less yin". It is suitable to eat more nourishing and nourishing foods, such as mulberries, white fungus, and lilies, and avoid spicy and hot foods. ； Li Dongyuan’s Tutu-Building School believes that nowadays people are greedy for cold drinks and eat takeaways, which hurts the spleen and stomach the most. To maintain health, you must first replenish the spleen and stomach. Drink more millet porridge and fried malt water. Don’t eat cold fruits to hurt the spleen and stomach. ； There is also the Vulcan sect, which has become popular in recent years. It believes that modern people sit for long periods of time and use air conditioners a lot, and the yang energy is greatly dissipated. It is necessary to focus on warming the yang, use more moxibustion, drink ginger and jujube tea, and eat less yin-nourishing things for fear of stagnating the yang energy.

These statements are all correct. The core thing is to decide which one is suitable for you depending on your physique. As the old Chinese medicine practitioners often say, "the medicine matches the symptoms, and rhubarb also supplements the ； The medicine does not match the symptoms, and the ginseng antler is also poisonous." This is true.

I have been in a trap before. I stayed up late for half a month working on a project the year before last. When I woke up every morning, my mouth was dry and my tongue was as red as a strawberry. I tossed and turned at night and couldn't fall asleep. At that time, my brain was spinning and I followed the blogger to learn "Building Yang Qi and Boosting Qi and Blood" every morning. I drank ginger and jujube tea, and my nose bleeded immediately after drinking it for three days. Later, I read Mr. Li's previous notes, and realized that I had stayed up late to deplete my liver yin. I need to nourish yin. I cooked some lily, lotus seed and tremella soup at night, put a little rock sugar in it, drank it for three days, and my sleep was stable immediately. In the winter, my hands and feet were always cold. No matter how much I wore, I could not keep warm. I would suffer from diarrhea if I ate anything cold, and my stomach would feel heavy when I drank lily soup. I switched to a cup of warm ginger and jujube tea every morning. After drinking it for half a month, I didn’t even catch a cold that winter.

In fact, ordinary people don’t need to memorize so many complex syndrome differentiation methods. They just need to feel their body signals more accurately. For example, if you are usually afraid of being cold, you will have diarrhea after eating some ice, and your tongue will be pale and white with tooth marks on the edges. Don’t follow the trend of drinking chrysanthemum and honeysuckle tea to reduce heat. Drinking too much will only damage your yang energy. ； If you are usually afraid of heat, always have a dry mouth, and have a red tongue with little coating, don’t take ginseng and longan supplements blindly. After taking the supplement, it can cause acne breakouts or nosebleeds. There are also those "eight glasses of water a day" and "walking 10,000 steps a day" spread across the Internet, which are not suitable for everyone. For people with severe moisture and edema, drinking too much water will only aggravate the moisture. For people with poor joints or deficient Qi and blood, walking 10,000 steps will consume energy and damage the joints, but it is not as comfortable as playing Baduanjin at home for half an hour.

After all, there is no "secret recipe" that is universally applicable. Maintaining good health is like watering the flowers at home. If you water the drought-loving succulents every day, they will definitely have rotten roots. If you don't care about the humidity-loving pothos for half a month, the leaves will turn yellow. Human body constitution is determined by the type of flower. How can there be a unified watering schedule? Observe your body more and eat and do whatever feels comfortable. Your own feelings are more accurate than what any expert says.