Spring is the first of the four seasons and the beginning of Vientiane's renewal, just as Huangdi Neijing said: "Spring is March, which is called Chen. Heaven and earth are born and everything is glorious. " It means that when spring returns to the earth, the ice and snow melt, the yang in nature begins to rise, everything recovers, and everything in the world is thriving. "People correspond to the earth." At this time, the yang in the human body also conforms to nature and diverges outward. Therefore, keeping in good health in spring must master the characteristics of qi rising and relaxing in spring, and pay attention to protecting the yang in the body, so as to make it constantly abundant and gradually vigorous. Any situation that damages the yang spirit and hinders it should be avoided. This principle of health preservation should run through diet, exercise, daily life, disease prevention, spirit and other aspects.
How to maintain yang in spring? In Huangdi Neijing, it is clearly pointed out that "virtual evil steals wind, and sometimes it is avoided", which means that it is particularly important to avoid common cold in time, which can make people sick. The reason is that spring is the main order of the atmosphere. Although common cold exists all year round, it is mainly in spring. The surface of the earth is uneven, and the cold and hot are uneven, which forms the wind that comes and goes in a hurry. The wind is not only a green messenger, but also the culprit of fallen leaves. It has always blessed mankind with two faces of meekness, kindness, violence and cruelty.
Common cold can be used as a pathogenic factor alone, and often combined with other pathogens as a disease. Therefore, there are many kinds of wind diseases and complicated lesions. Therefore, Huangdi Neijing says: "Wind is the cause of all diseases", which shows that common cold is the most important pathogenic factor among many external causes. Medical meteorology tells us that when the wind howls, the collision and friction noise of the air makes people feel restless, especially when the frequency of the wind is too low, even reaching the standard of "infrasound". Scientists have found that infrasound waves are killing sound waves, which can directly affect the human nervous system, causing headaches, nausea, irritability and even death. In addition, strong winds often seriously reduce negative oxygen ions in the air, leading to changes in chemical processes sensitive to weather changes in the human body, and a large amount of serotonin is secreted in the blood, which makes people feel nervous, depressed and tired, and will cause some people's thyroid burden to be overweight. In addition, strong wind makes the surface evaporate strongly, driving away a lot of water vapor, greatly reducing the air humidity, making people dry and cleft lip, making the nasal mucosa dry and elastic, prone to small cracks, reducing the disease prevention function, making many germs take advantage of it, leading to respiratory diseases, such as bronchitis, influenza, tuberculosis and other diseases. This is often the result of "wind helping disease". Therefore, Huangdi Neijing also said: "Wind is the beginning of all diseases", which means that many diseases are often related to common cold.
Chinese medicine believes that common cold's invasion into human body can cause the following pathological changes:
First, it hurts the upper part: for example, common symptoms such as headache, stuffy nose, runny nose and itchy throat; At first, the syndromes of geomantic omen were mostly eyelid edema, which was due to common cold's struggle with water and liquid, but the wind was upward. The common symptoms of a cold are headache, bad wind and chills. , is the testimony of lung invasion of common cold. Because common cold often invades the human body from the outside, the lungs and fur bear the brunt. Especially when the thief refuses or the sweat becomes the wind, common cold takes advantage of it, which often leads to improper lung qi, unstable Wei qi, disharmony between camp and Wei, fever, bad wind, cough, sweating and other symptoms.
Second, the range of lesions is wide: Chinese medicine believes that common cold's fickle deeds are variable and often disturbed up and down, so the range of lesions is wide, which can stay between fur or superficial muscles, or wander in meridians; Against the top, you can go straight to the top; It can invade the waist, knees, tibia and fibula. This rapid and changeable shock is not uncommon in clinic. For example, skin rubella, which starts quickly, can even spread to the whole body in a few minutes, and the itching is unbearable. But sometimes I walk very fast and say that I want to go back, always leaving no trace. As for the symptoms of "wind arthralgia" and "walking arthralgia", the common wandering joints are redness, swelling and heat pain; In some typical cases, we can see the lesions from shoulder to shoulder, the shoulders and elbows gradually recede, and the knees and ankles recover, so Huangdi Neijing says that "the wind is good and the number changes".
3. "Wind will move when it wins": The ancients saw that air flows and becomes wind, so they inferred that common cold was sick, and his syndrome was characterized by movement, that is, "Wind will move when it wins". Therefore, whenever you see abnormal body movements, such as convulsions, spasms, tremors, peristalsis, and even rigidity, it is often attributed to the wind and classified as wind disease. It can be manifested as tetanus convulsion and facial paralysis caused by mouth-eye deviation.
Miscellaneous diseases: The so-called miscellaneous diseases mean that wind and other pathogenic factors often combine to attack the human body. For example, in the long summer, rheumatism often invades the spleen and stomach, and symptoms such as indigestion, bloating and diarrhea are often seen. If it is combined with heat, it is wind heat; Add cold, it is cold; Or wind, cold and wet mixed invasion of the human body. People often say that wind-heat exogenous diseases, wind-cold exogenous diseases and rheumatic arthralgia are obvious examples. Moreover, Chinese medicine believes that wind can also be combined with pathological products such as phlegm in the body to form wind phlegm, which can cause various diseases. To sum up, common cold must pay attention to it, and the key to keeping in good health in spring is windproof. Modern medicine also attaches great importance to the relationship between airflow (wind) and health, because the change of airflow can affect people's breathing, energy consumption, metabolism and mental state. Moderate airflow makes the air clean, fresh and healthy, while abnormal airflow is harmful to human health. Although the strong winds in China are mostly in spring, there are also many in autumn and winter, especially in North China, where the wind is strong and the weather is cold. Due to the strong wind, the heat exchange between air and skin is intensified, which causes excessive heat loss in the body and leads to the decline of people's disease resistance. However, excessive cold will make the blood vessels on the skin contract, which can directly induce the onset of some rheumatic diseases, such as Raynaud's disease and scleroderma. In outdoor work and activities, if the strong cold wind blows for too long, it is easy to cause "crooked mouth madness" (facial paralysis).
Although common cold can cause many diseases, even diseases, after all, spring is the season that brings vitality to everything. As the saying goes, "A year's plan lies in spring". In sunny spring, how should people keep in good health to make their bodies healthier?
Summer refers to the lunar calendar from April to June, that is, from the day of long summer to the day of beginning of autumn. There are six solar terms, including Long Summer, Xiaoman, Miscanthus, Summer Solstice, Slight Summer and Great Summer.
When describing the characteristics of summer solar terms, Huangdi Neijing wrote: "Xia San month is called a beautiful month, and everything is gorgeous", which means that in the three months of summer, the sun is shining, the geothermal steam is steaming, the heaven and the earth interact with each other, and most plants blossom and bear fruit, so it is a prosperous and beautiful season.
In the four seasons of the year, summer is the season with the highest yang, and the climate is hot and full of vitality. For people, this is a period of vigorous metabolism.
The yang of the human body is outward, including yin, and the blood circulation is correspondingly vigorous and active on the body surface. In order to adapt to the hot climate, skin pores are opened to drain water and sweat is discharged. By sweating, regulate body temperature to adapt to the hot summer climate. When talking about how to keep in good health in summer, Wang Qishan pointed out in Xu Li Yuan Jian: "It is necessary to prevent heatstroke in summer, but also to prevent heatstroke and cool down, and to prevent dampness in long summer". The basic principles of summer health preservation are clearly pointed out here: heatstroke prevention in midsummer; Preventing dampness in long summer; At the same time, we should pay attention to protecting the human body's yang, so as to prevent excessive greed and coldness due to summer vacation, which will hurt the human body's yang, that is, "nourishing the yang in spring and summer" as pointed out in Huangdi Neijing, that is to say, even in hot summer, we should still pay attention to protecting the human body's yang.
Summer heat is the main qi in summer, which is transformed from fiery qi and only occurs in summer. According to Chinese medicine, summer heat is yang evil, which is easy to consume qi and hurt body fluid. This is its pathological feature. In summer, pathogens invade the human body, which usually causes sweating, and excessive sweating leads to the decrease of body fluid, which is the key to the damage of body fluid. When body fluid is injured, symptoms such as thirst, dry lips, dry stool, yellow urine, upset and boredom appear. If it is not treated in time, the injury can develop further and exceed the limit of physiological compensation, which will inevitably consume vitality. At this time, there may be a series of symptoms such as fatigue, shortness of breath, laziness, and even sudden fainting and unconsciousness, leading to death. From this point of view, heatstroke prevention in summer cannot be taken lightly.
Moisture is the main gas in long summer, and it is hot and rainy in many places in China, especially in the south. What people call wet disease is more common in this season. In this season, the humidity in the air is the highest, and most people get sick because of trauma exposure, sweaty clothes, wading in the rain, or living in wet places, or even feeling wet evil.
Traditional Chinese medicine believes that dampness is yin evil, which hurts human yang. Because it is turbid and heavy, it is easy to block qi movement, and it is difficult to heal due to many diseases, which is the pathological feature of damp evil. Not only that, dampness is also good for hurting spleen yang, because spleen likes dryness and hates dampness. Once spleen yang is blocked by dampness, it may lead to abnormal temper movement, abdominal distension, loss of appetite, loose stool, and tepid limbs. Especially after the temper rises and falls, water and liquid will follow it and form common edema, just like silkworms now.
Traditional Chinese medicine also believes that dampness is heavy and turbid, so there are many symptoms such as body weight and head weight after exogenous dampness. Because damp pathogen is sticky, pathological changes are often difficult. If it invades the skin and bones, it is often heavy and sour and fixed in one place, so it is called "arthralgia". He said that generally speaking, dampness is a disease with a long course of disease, such as wet fever, which often has clinical characteristics inseparable from oil. Rheumatic joint pain is caused by rheumatism, which invades the skin and joints and often recurs. It is common that the pathological products of internal dampness disease are mostly dirty and unclean, such as skin lesion exudate and damp-heat leucorrhea secretion, which are sticky and smelly. Therefore, people often call wet "tangible evil", which is filthy and turbid.
Because the formation of moisture is often related to the evaporation of moisture on the ground, its damage often starts from the lower part. Clinical symptoms such as leg ulcers, wet beriberi and leucorrhea are mostly related to dampness.
For humidity, modern science uses humidity to express it, which refers to the moisture content in the air and the humidity degree of objects. The humidity of air is an important factor of climate change and has a direct impact on human body. Generally speaking, the suitable humidity for human body is 40% ~ 60%, and when the temperature is higher than 25℃, the suitable relative humidity is 30%. In autumn, the weather is cool, the humidity is moderate, and people's spirit doubles; In the dog days of summer, due to the effects of high temperature, low pressure and high humidity, sweat is not easy to be discharged and evaporated after sweating, which will make people fidgety, tired, loss of appetite and prone to gastroenteritis and dysentery. If the humidity is too low, the water in the upper respiratory mucosa will be lost in large quantities, thus reducing the resistance and easily causing a cold. Not only that, in the long summer, people will feel uncomfortable because of the sultry weather, constant rain and humid air, and clothes and food are easy to regain moisture, even moldy and hairy. Wearing wet clothes is easy to catch a cold or induce joint pain, and eating moldy and deteriorated food can cause gastroenteritis and even lead to poisoning. So in the long summer, we must pay attention to prevent the invasion of damp evil.
"It is necessary to prevent heatstroke and cool down" warns people that in hot summer, people must pay attention to protecting the yang in the body, just as Huangdi Neijing said: "Nourishing the yang in spring and summer", so how to protect the yang in summer?
First of all, people can't just pay attention to the immediate comfort, avoid the heat and cold too much, such as staying in the open air for the night, or drinking too much cold wine, which leads to the lack of qi and the evil of summer heat and cold. When enjoying the cool, pay special attention to cover your abdomen. Many rural areas like to wear "Dou Du", which conforms to the way of keeping in good health. The book "Providing for the Aged and Longevity" points out: "If it is hot in summer, if you break the window under the eaves, you can't enjoy the cool, in case thieves catch the wind." "Photojournalism" also pointed out: "Don't lie naked under the stars and moons, making people sleepy and enjoying the cool wind." These are valuable health care experiences, which are in line with the spirit of "nourishing yang" in summer. Health preservation in summer, the reason why the ancients proposed to maintain yang is that the key lies in steaming outside in summer heat, sweating a lot and opening pores, which makes the body most vulnerable to wind, cold and dampness.
Secondly, we should guard against air-conditioning disease: the so-called air-conditioning disease refers to a disease that people suffer from working and living in an air-conditioned environment for a long time. Mild facial neuralgia, lower limb pain, fatigue, headache, low back pain, easy to catch a cold and different degrees of gastrointestinal diseases; In severe cases, skin diseases and cardiovascular diseases will occur. Symptoms of the elderly are more obvious.
There are two reasons for air conditioning disease:
The first point is that people go in and out of the cold air environment many times every day, which makes the human body carry out cold adaptation conditioned reflex many times, prompting sympathetic nerves to secrete a lot of adrenaline, which invisibly increases the burden on the heart. In the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, there has long been a saying that nourishing the heart in summer, because the five internal organs are at five o'clock, and the heart should correspond to it in summer. In summer, people have more outdoor activities, and the amount of activities is relatively increased. In addition, the days are long and the nights are short in summer, the weather is hot, and the sleep time is less than other seasons. Therefore, the body consumes more energy, blood circulation is accelerated, and sweating is more. Obviously, in this season, the burden in my heart is very heavy. If you don't pay attention to the maintenance of your heart, it's easy to hurt your heart. As can be seen from the above, people repeatedly go in and out of the cold air environment in summer, which is bad for the heart, while the heart belongs to fire, and sorrow hurts the yang.
Second, people who have been in a cold air environment for a long time will have a series of physiological reactions once they enter a hot natural environment. In addition to the rapid rise in body temperature, the skin begins to sweat, and sweaty skin often has a lot of bacteria. When people return to the cold air environment, the skin and blood vessels contract immediately, and bacteria can easily enter the human body by using the open pores, causing infection.
In view of the above situation, people must not be greedy in hot summer, and beware of the occurrence of air-conditioning diseases. The way is:
The temperature difference between indoor and outdoor should not be too large, and it is best not to exceed 5 degrees Celsius. The indoor temperature is not lower than 25 degrees Celsius.
When you are asleep, it is best to turn off the air conditioner; Don't close the air-conditioned room for a long time, and always let the indoor air circulate with the outside air when conditions permit.
When you feel cold indoors, you must stand up, move your limbs and body properly, and speed up blood circulation.
If you have chronic patients such as coronary heart disease, hypertension and arteriosclerosis, especially the elderly, don't stay in a cold environment for a long time, and people with joint pain should not live in a cold environment all the time.
There is also the need to prevent the invasion of dampness: as mentioned above, dampness is a kind of yin evil, which is easy to hurt yang, especially spleen and stomach yang. In midsummer, the heart corresponds to it, and in summer, the spleen, one of the five internal organs of the human body, corresponds to it. Therefore, the dampness evil in long summer is the most likely to invade the spleen and stomach function, leading to low digestion and absorption function. Traditional Chinese medicine nutrition believes that the principle of long summer diet is easy to be light and less greasy, and warm food should be given priority to. For example, Qiu Chuji, a famous health care expert in the Yuan Dynasty, advocated that the summer diet should be "warm but not full, and always go in ... be warned when it is greasy". In other words, the diet in the long summer should be warmer, not colder; Don't eat too much, but you can eat a little more frequently. In some areas in the south of China, many people have the habit of eating Chili, because eating spicy food can make people sweat and increase coolness and comfort in a sultry environment. In addition, by eating spicy food, it can help digestion, increase appetite and increase caloric value in the body, thus helping to prevent common phenomena such as decreased secretion of digestive juice and weakened gastrointestinal peristalsis in high temperature and high humidity environment.
To prevent the invasion of moisture, it is necessary to avoid the moisture in the living environment: Chinese medicine believes that "dampness hurts meat", that is, feeling moisture is easy to damage human muscles, such as common rheumatism and arthritis. Huangdi Neijing also pointed out that "the wet wounded get sick first", referring to the lower part of the human body. It means that the damage caused by moisture often starts from the lower part of the human body, because the formation of moisture is often related to the evaporation of moisture on the ground. Therefore, the harm to people mostly starts from the lower part, such as common beriberi, lower limb ulcers, and women's leucorrhea. Therefore, in the long summer indoors, ventilation, moisture-proof and heat insulation must be achieved. If the room is too humid and the air is dirty, not only the furniture and clothes will be damaged by mildew and long hair. It can also damage the yang of human body. Studies on children's rheumatism in some countries have proved that more than 50% of children are caused by living in damp houses.
Above, we just briefly discussed several basic principles of summer health preservation. Then, how to implement it in spirit, diet, daily life, exercise and disease prevention?
Autumn begins on the day of beginning of autumn and ends on the day of beginning of winter, during which it passes through six solar terms, including summer heat, white dew, autumnal equinox, cold dew and first frost. The Mid-Autumn Festival (the 15th day of the eighth lunar month) is the dividing line of climate change.
"Guanzi" pointed out: "Autumn begins in the shade, so everything is harvested." Yin Qi started here, which means autumn. Due to the gradual collection of Yang Qi, Yin Qi gradually grew up. Everything is a harvest, which means that everything is mature and it is time to harvest. Judging from the climate characteristics in autumn, it turns from hot to cold, that is, the transition stage of "Yang disappears and Yin grows". The physiological activities of human body change from "long summer" to "autumn harvest". Therefore, autumn health care cannot be separated from the principle of "nourishing", that is to say, autumn health care must take the maintenance of yin in the body as the primary task. As Huangdi Neijing said: "Nourish Yin in autumn and winter." Nourishing Yin in autumn and winter means nourishing and storing Qi in autumn and winter, so as to adapt to the law that Yin is gradually flourishing in nature, thus laying a foundation for the growth of Yang in the coming year, and should not consume essence and hurt Yin.
How to maintain yin in the body in autumn? The key is to prevent dryness and protect yin. Chinese medicine believes that dryness is the main qi in autumn, which is called "autumn dryness". Its qi is clear and its nature is dry. When it doesn't rain for a long time and the climate is dry, it is often prone to dryness and evil. Because the lungs can breathe, the lungs have fur, and the lungs and large intestine are inside and outside. When the humidity in the air drops, the lungs, large intestine and fur bear the brunt, which is the pathological feature of dryness and evil.
Drying is harmful to human body fluids. As the saying goes, "dryness is better than dryness." When body fluids are consumed, there will be dryness, such as dry mouth, dry lips, dry nose, dry throat, dry tongue, constipation, dry skin and even chapped skin. The lung is fine and dirty, and it likes to moisten dryness and hates dryness. When dryness enters the lung, it is most likely to hurt its vaginal fluid. Lung loss of fluid and moistening will inevitably affect its function, so it cannot be reduced. From mild cough to less phlegm, phlegm is difficult to stick. In severe cases, the lung collateral is injured and bleeding, and blood is seen in the sputum. After the lung body fluid is insufficient, it will be difficult to dry without body fluid to help the large intestine.
Autumn is dry, which is divided into warm and cool. It is generally believed that the temperature in early autumn is Shang Gao, so it is warm and dry; The temperature drops in late autumn, so it is cool and dry. No matter whether it is cold or warm, it always shows dry skin and insufficient body fluid. But there are still differences between the two in clinic. Warm dryness is harmful to the body, often manifested as aversion to cold or slight aversion to cold, obvious fever and thin pulse; When cold and dryness hurt people, they often have no fever or slight fever. On the contrary, aversion to cold is more obvious, with numerous pulse conditions.
As can be seen from the above, autumn health preservation is mainly to prevent the harm of dryness and evil to people, so as to maintain the yin in the body; This is from the general principle, specific to all aspects of people's lives, such as mental, daily life, diet, sports, drugs and other specific issues, how to maintain it?
Winter begins in beginning of winter, and passes through light snow, heavy snow, winter solstice, slight cold and severe cold until the day before beginning of spring.
In winter and March, plants wither and frozen insects lurk, which is the season when everything in nature hides essence, and the yang of the human body should also be hidden in it. Therefore, the basic principle of keeping in good health in winter is to conform to storing yang in the body, and to collect yin and protect yang as the foundation. Due to the closed storage of yang, the metabolic level of human body is relatively low, and it is necessary to rely on the "kidney" as the driving force of life to ensure that life activities can adapt to the changes in nature. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the total source of human energy and heat lies in the kidney, which is often called "firepower". Strong firepower, reflecting strong renal function and strong vitality; On the contrary, the vitality is weak. In winter, if the kidney function is normal, it can adjust the body to adapt to the changes in severe winter, otherwise, it will cause metabolic disorders and diseases.
So, how can we ensure strong kidneys, that is, strong firepower? The key point is to prevent the invasion of cold weather in winter. The cold climate that can make people sick is called cold evil in Chinese medicine. Cold pathogen is characterized by low temperature or sudden drop of temperature. Cold is the main qi in winter, mainly in winter, and it is not absent in other seasons. In normal times, people who are easy to catch a cold and engage in some special types of work (such as refrigeration workers) often feel cold evil and suffer from cold diseases.
Traditional Chinese medicine believes that cold is yin evil and often hurts yang. What is Yang? Huangdi Neijing explains that "yang is like the sun in the sky, giving light to warm sex." Without it, nothing can survive. " If there is no yang in the human body, the body will lose the vitality of metabolism, unable to supply energy and heat, and life will stop. In winter, some old and weak people often feel that their hands and feet are not warm, they are afraid of cold and prefer warmth. This situation is usually called "insufficient firepower", and Chinese medicine calls it "yang deficiency".
The rise and fall of human yang often indicates the activity of physiological functions, but nothing threatens human yang more than cold evil. After the cold pathogen injures the yang, the human body's yang is weak, and the physiological function in the body is inhibited, which will produce a cold image. Common situations are:
Hate cold: it's cold. This is because Wei Qi is one of the Yang Qi in the body. When cold pathogen is captured outside the muscle surface, Wei Qi competes with external cold. When the cold closes, the defensive qi is suppressed and cannot be discharged, resulting in aversion to cold. At the same time, you can see symptoms of fever. This is because Wei Qi is stagnant.
Stomach pain: It is caused by this exogenous cold pathogen invading the body surface and directly entering the gastrointestinal tract. Cold pathogen damages the yang of the spleen and stomach, so it causes upper abdominal pain, and can also cause vomiting, clearing the valley and other symptoms, and even cold limbs.
Abnormal pulse condition: abnormal pulse condition caused by cold pathogen attacking people, mainly manifested as tight pulse, late pulse and heavy pulse. The reason is that the invasion of cold pathogen into meridians affects the circulation of qi and blood in the veins. After the cold pathogen remains in the human body, we can still see the images of muscle, skin and tendon contracture.
Pain: This is one of the most common symptoms after cold evil invades the human body. For example, cold pathogen invades the liver meridian, hinders the blood circulation of the liver meridian, and makes the blood stagnate, then the pain of testicular swelling is called "cold deficiency". If the cold pathogen invades the limbs, it will form joint pain, which is what western medicine says about rheumatoid arthritis. When discussing the mechanism of pain disease, Huangdi Neijing clearly pointed out that "blood deficiency leads to pain", but there are many reasons for the formation of blood deficiency, the most important of which is that the blood flow is not smooth after cold pathogen invades blood vessels. There is an obstacle to blood supply, which causes pain.
In short, there are many symptoms of cold pathogen hurting people, so I won't list them here. In addition, the clinical symptoms of cold pathogen injury also have a characteristic, that is, the discharge and secretion are often cold, such as runny nose, expectoration, vomiting water, long urine, clear grain and so on. If exogenous cold pathogen persists for a long time, these secretions will turn from clear to yellow and red, which is a sign of turning from cold to heat.
From the above discussion, we can easily see that it is very important to tonify kidney and prevent cold in winter.