Eight tips for keeping healthy with traditional Chinese medicine

Eat half full, sleep at noon, slow movement and sweating, calm mood, press three acupoints to avoid cold evil, comb hair often, and do not take supplements rashly. Don’t think these words are nonsense. I treated a 42-year-old patient with hyperlipidemia last year. He had been taking lipid-lowering drugs for more than half a year, but his blood levels were still erratic. So he adjusted according to these words for half a year. This year, his blood lipids returned to the normal range during a review. Even he thought it was amazing.

Let’s talk about the most common pitfall of “not taking supplements in vain”. Now when you open the social platform, nine out of ten health-preserving posts will teach you how to replenish qi, blood, and kidneys. Donkey-hide gelatin cakes, Liuwei Dihuang pills, and Cordyceps sinensis will make you want to stuff them into your mouth. Regarding the matter of supplementation, the traditional Chinese medicine community has different opinions: Old TCM doctors of the warm-tonifying school who are good at regulating deficiency syndromes believe that when yang energy converges in autumn and winter, eating appropriate warm-tonifying foods can indeed replenish it. ； However, most of the febrile disease doctors who advocate regulating the spleen and stomach believe that nowadays people are full of flesh and have excessive nutrition, and eight out of ten people have phlegm and dampness. The things you take supplements cannot be transported and transformed at all, and they are all blocked in the body and become nodules and cysts. I met a 22-year-old girl a while ago. She ate two pieces of donkey-hide gelatin cake every day in order to replenish her qi and blood. After three months of eating, her face broke out with acne. Her aunt delayed it for half a month. When she felt her pulse, it was full of phlegm and dampness. Finally, she drank dampness-removing tea for more than half a month before she recovered. If you really want to take supplements, you have to look at your own foundation first. People with greasy tongues and stools that stick to the toilet should remove the dampness first and then talk about supplements, otherwise it will be all in vain.

Rather than spending money to pay for things like blind supplements, the most economical way to maintain health is to "eat half full". I didn’t make this up. You must have experienced it yourself: I had a hot pot date with my friends at night and was so excited that I couldn’t fall asleep. I woke up the next day with a bitter taste in my mouth and bad breath. Isn’t this the old saying that “a disharmony in the stomach leads to restless sleep”? Of course, some people say that "not eating after lunch" is the best way to maintain health. It depends on the situation. If you are a worker who does manual labor every day, or an office worker who often works overtime until 12 o'clock, you will feel hungry and suffer from acid reflux if you don't eat at night, which is purely harmful to the spleen and stomach. Therefore, eating half full is the most common standard. No matter how many meals you eat a day, stop eating at each meal until you feel no longer hungry. Don't eat until your stomach is bloated and hard before putting your chopsticks away. It will be more effective than how many health supplements you take.

Let’s talk about “Sleeping at Ziwu”, which is also the most controversial one. Many people say that I am a night owl. Can’t I go to bed at 2 a.m. and wake up at 12 noon? According to traditional Chinese medicine, Ziwu is the node where yin and yang alternate. Ziwu (23:00-1:00) nourishes liver blood, and noon (11:00-13:00) nourishes heart qi. Sleep as much as possible. But last year’s sleep study by Beijing University of Chinese Medicine also mentioned that as long as you maintain a fixed sleep rhythm and sleep for 7 hours a day, even if you go to bed late and get up late, the damage to the body will be less than if you sleep for 6 hours a day from early to late. I used to stay up late, but later I tried to lean on my desk chair and squint for 10 minutes at noon. I no longer nodded and dozed off at 3 pm, and my efficiency was even higher than when I drank three cups of coffee before. If you really stay up late, don't be anxious. Just catch up on enough sleep the next day. On the contrary, staying up late and adding anxiety is the most harmful to your body.

Then there is "sweat slowly". Nowadays, many people run hard and pump iron as soon as they start working out. They have to practice until they are sweating profusely to find it useful. In fact, Chinese medicine has always said that "sweat is the fluid of the heart", and sweating too much is particularly draining of the heart. There are also different opinions on the degree of sweating: Doctors who do research on traditional Chinese medicine about sports believe that young people have a good metabolism, and it is okay to sweat profusely occasionally, as they have a fast metabolism and can eliminate waste. ； But most doctors who adjust the body of the elderly say that after the age of 35, you should try to move as much as possible until your back is slightly damp and your forehead is sweating a little. I used to run 5 kilometers every night, and my knees hurt from running and I always felt tired. Later, I changed to playing Baduanjin for 20 minutes every day. My back feels warm. Now my hands and feet don’t get very cold in winter, and I feel much more comfortable than running hard before. It’s okay if you really want to exercise strenuously. Just remember to replenish some light salt water after exercise and don’t blow cold wind.

“"Emotionally calm" may sound fictitious, but it is actually the most real. I have a 56-year-old patient aunt with type 3 breast nodules. She used to worry about her son marrying a wife and her grandson going to school every day. The nodules increased by 2mm in one year. Later, she sang Peking Opera with people in the park and ignored other things at home. This year, the nodules shrank by 1mm during the review. There are two ways of thinking about emotional regulation: some say that you should be calm and less angry, while others say that your emotions should be relaxed and not blocked. Don't suppress your temper. When you are unhappy, just say what you need to say. Suppressing it will bring out more illnesses than letting it out. On the contrary, I think the latter is more realistic. Who doesn't have a temper? Just don't worry about trivial matters every day to cause internal friction. If the sky falls, there will be tall people to hold it. If you get angry and get sick, no one will take it for you.

“There is no need to remember so many bells and whistles about "pressing three acupoints", there are only three: Hegu, Zusanli and Neiguan, which are completely sufficient for daily health care. If you feel bloated and bloated after eating, press Zusanli. If you have a headache or toothache, press Hegu. If you feel flustered or motion-sick, press Neiguan. Last time I met a little girl on the subway who got motion sick and wanted to vomit. I pressed Neiguan for 5 minutes, and she recovered immediately. As for the strength of the massage, some doctors say that it will be effective only when the massage is sore, numb, and painful. Others say that for daily health care, just gently rub it. You don’t need to rub it so hard that your arms will hurt. It’s enough for you to feel comfortable. It’s not a treatment, so you don’t need to be so particular.

“Many young people don't take it seriously. In summer, they wear navel-baring tops and exposed ankles, face the air conditioner blowing cold wind, and drink iced milk tea and iced Coke. They only regret it when their aunt is so painful that she breaks into a cold sweat and her knees hurt so much that she can't walk. Of course, some people say that it’s okay for Westerners to drink ice water every day, but you have to look at their diet structure. They eat high-calorie steak and bread every meal, while you eat rice and vegetables every meal. The basics are different. I used to drink iced milk tea every day in the summer, and my aunt was in terrible pain every time. Then I stopped drinking iced drinks. Now, my aunt doesn’t feel anything at all. Do you think this is a psychological effect? Anyway, I tried it myself and it worked.

Finally, let’s talk about the simplest method of “combing your hair regularly”. Get a wooden comb in the morning and comb it from your forehead to the back of your head 100 times. You don’t need to buy a horn comb that costs thousands of dollars. An ordinary wooden comb that costs ten dollars is enough. I used to lose hair due to stress, and I would comb it out in handfuls. I kept combing it for 3 months, and now my hair loss has been reduced by half. Some people say you shouldn't comb your hair at night, but it's not that important. When you get back from get off work and you're tired, comb your hair a few times to relax your scalp and help you sleep. Whatever makes you feel better.

In fact, these 8 mantras are not golden rules. You don’t have to force yourself to do them all. Use whichever one suits you. Health care is not about completing KPIs. Your own comfort is the most important thing.