For example, we often see it in history books or on TV. In order to achieve health and longevity, many dignitaries in ancient times spared no expense to seek medical treatment everywhere, and even sought the "elixir" cultivated by Taoist priests or alchemists. Although this regimen seems a bit silly or even whimsical, we can still see the pursuit of health in ancient times.
But this way of keeping in good health is only an extreme way recorded in history. For most people in ancient times, there is a way to keep in good health. Among them, the effective way handed down is "not greedy in the middle of the night, not loving food in the middle of the night". So, do you know what this sentence means Expert tip: many people in modern times can't do this kind of health preservation of the ancients.
In fact, in the eyes of the ancients, the three most important things for health care are sleeping, defecating and eating. Among them, in their view, sleep is the top priority of health care, and only ensuring adequate sleep is the best way to keep fit. So "don't be greedy at night" means to warn people that if they want to keep fit, they should be careful not to stay up late!
As we all know, in ancient society, there were no modern clocks and watches, and people used overtime to measure time. The ancients divided a day into 12 hours, one hour represents what we call two hours now, and the night is divided into five watch days, and each watch day is equal to one hour. So the first watch refers to 7: 00 pm to 9: 00 pm, and the second watch refers to 9: 00 pm to 1 1 pm, as we said earlier.
From the perspective of Chinese medicine, night is the time for our body to recover. When people are asleep, "midnight" is exactly the best time for our liver to detoxify. If we stay up late for a long time in the middle of the night, it will increase the workload of the liver and accumulate toxins in the body, which will affect our health. Therefore, "three watches are not greedy for color" means that if you want to keep in good health and achieve the effect of strengthening your body, you must not stay up late.
In addition to paying attention to sleep, there is also a diet that the ancients kept healthy! In terms of diet, the ancients also often used the method of "not loving food at midnight" to achieve the effect of strengthening the body. In fact, midnight here, like our "midnight", refers to midnight. The meaning of this sentence is to warn us not to get into the habit of eating supper.
For us modern people, this is actually very rare, because many people often have breakfast and lunch hastily because of work or other reasons. Therefore, people often choose to eat a better dinner in a relatively abundant time to comfort themselves.
Not only that, many men are still socializing late at night, often for work. So many people in life, especially many young people, have developed the habit of midnight snack. But in fact, this habit is very bad for our health. In the evening, it should be time for our stomach to rest. If we eat too much at night, our stomachs will not get enough rest. If this goes on, it will not only easily lead to obesity in our bodies, but also easily lead to some gastrointestinal diseases and threaten our health!
In short, the ancient way of keeping in good health, "don't be greedy for color in the middle of the night, don't like food in the middle of the night", still has a good reference significance for us. For the sake of our health, it is best not to stay up late and eat snacks in life, so as to achieve the effective purpose of strengthening the body.