First, strengthen physical fitness and keep healthy.
Chinese medicine believes that an important factor of human health is to enhance physical fitness. Physique is an inherent and relatively stable personality characteristic in morphological structure and functional activities, which is inherited and acquired, and is manifested in the correlation with psychological personality. Generally speaking, people with strong physique have sufficient qi, blood, yin and yang, sound viscera function, sufficient vital qi and strong body; On the other hand, people with weak constitution have deficiency of both qi and blood, yin and yang, low viscera function, insufficient vital qi and weak body.
The formation of physique is related to both congenital and acquired aspects. Congenital factors depend entirely on parents ... that is to say, parents' physical characteristics often have a direct impact on the physical condition of future generations, which is the first factor in the formation of people's physical fitness and will have an obvious or potential effect on people's life. In addition to the constitution formed on the genetic basis, whether the mother nursed back to health properly during pregnancy will also affect the constitution of the fetus after birth. Acquired factors mainly include diet and nutrition, daily life and labor exercise. These influences from the acquired living environment, on the basis of heredity, further promote the formation of physique, or promote the stability and consolidation of a certain physique, or promote the transformation of physique.
Although in a sense, physique is relatively stable, and it is not easy to change quickly once it is formed, it is not static, and can be improved by the method of TCM health care and conditioning. Especially those with weak innate endowment, if properly nursed back to health, can make their physique from weak to strong, make up for the acquired deficiency, do their best and prolong life.
Because the key to a child's prenatal and postnatal care lies in his parents, and their physical quality is the basis of future generations' life, it is very important to adjust their physical quality, including pre-pregnancy and post-pregnancy maintenance. Generally speaking, if parents are strong, their offspring will be strong and healthy. Parents are weak, so are future generations. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the beginning of human life is closely related to the rise and fall of essence in parents' kidneys. Parents pay attention to health care on weekdays, and their physique will be strong, their internal organs and blood will be smooth, and their kidney essence will be full. Once pregnant and have children, their offspring often have a strong body. If parents don't take good care of them, so that the five internal organs are deficient in qi and blood, the kidney essence is insufficient, and they are barely pregnant, and the offspring will be weak. If the mother is pregnant, she should also pay attention to diet, daily life, rest and psychology to ensure the normal development of the fetus. Because excellent pregnancy is the premise of eugenics, Chinese medicine also calls it "nurturing a fetus", and its specific methods generally include proper cold temperature, frugal diet, careful living, avoiding sexual intercourse, pleasant mood and soothing movements. Books such as Etiology, Qian Jin Fang Yao also put forward the method of raising fetus month by month.
On the other hand, people with different constitutions should adopt different health preserving methods. For example, people with strong physique should not neglect their health by strength, or even cut down at will, but should pay attention to preventing diseases, because diseases will damage the human body and reduce the quality of the human body, and preventing diseases can maintain their physique; At the same time, we should also strengthen exercise, promote the circulation of qi, blood, yin and yang, and unstoppable evil spirits. For people with weak constitution, in addition to preventing diseases, we should pay more attention to health care in our daily life and work, such as reasonable diet, proper work and rest, proper work and rest arrangements, proper exercise methods, etc., to promote the continuous improvement of physique.
Second, resist evil spirits and prevent diseases.
Diseases do great harm to human health, weaken human function, consume human essence and even shorten life span. However, because human beings live in a certain natural and social environment, they will inevitably be attacked by various pathogenic factors, that is, pathogens. Therefore, how to resist evil spirits and effectively prevent diseases is also the significance of the idea of "preventing diseases before they occur" in TCM health preservation theory. The word "prevention of disease" first appeared in Neijing. ..... The so-called "prevention before illness" includes two aspects: prevention before illness and prevention after illness. Prevention before illness means taking good care of students and doing all kinds of preventive work in advance to prevent the occurrence of diseases before they occur. Prevention of disease means that once a disease occurs, it should be diagnosed and treated as soon as possible to protect the sick viscera and prevent the development and spread of the disease. Of course, in the sense of health care, it is more important to nip in the bud. As Zhu Danxi said, "It is better to prevent the disease before it happens. ..... is the way to cure diseases, so it is the medical method; Treat the disease first, then treat it, so be clear about the principle of living. If the husband is like this, he will think about it and take precautions. Why do you suffer? " ("Danxi Heart Therapy, Preventing Diseases")
Third, delay aging and provide for the aged.
A person's life goes through different life processes such as birth, growth, maturity and old age. Aging is an irresistible natural law of life activities, but the time of aging and the length of life are different for everyone. The reasons are mostly related to health care.
Aging is a complex biological evolution process, including a series of degenerative changes such as the shape of the body, the physiological functions of tissues and organs, the coordinated control between tissues and organs, and the adaptability of the body to the environment. Aging can be divided into physiological aging and pathological aging. Physiological aging refers to the physiological degradation of the body after it grows and matures with age, which is the universal law of all living things; Pathological aging is a pathological change of human body due to internal or external reasons, which makes the aging phenomenon happen in advance, also known as premature aging. Of course, absolute physiological aging does not exist, and it is often the interaction between the two.
Aging is a stage of life development. Usually, 40-59 years old is called pre-senility or decline period, 60-80 years old is senility period, and 80 years old or older is old age period, which is quite consistent with the signs that women's "May 7th" and men's "May 8th" began to show aging gradually in Neijing. However, because the aging process of human body is gradual and there are great differences among individuals, it is not comprehensive to divide the aging period only by age, and it should be determined by combining the characteristics of aging. The obvious characteristics of aging are: flabby skin, lack of elasticity, increased pigmentation caused by wrinkles, sparse and white hair, slow response and slow action, decreased vision, hearing loss, loss of appetite, restless sleep, decreased memory, decreased sexual function, decreased adaptability and resistance, and possibly senile diseases such as hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, chronic bronchitis, diabetes, and prostatic hypertrophy.
As for the causes of aging, Chinese medicine believes that kidney is the root of vitality, the foundation of life, and spleen is the source of qi and blood biochemistry, so the weakness of spleen and stomach, deficiency of essence and qi, and imbalance of yin and yang are the most fundamental reasons. In addition, viscera deficiency, qi-blood imbalance, qi deficiency and blood stasis are also related to aging. Modern scientists have made unremitting efforts to explore the mechanism of aging. So far, there have been dozens of theories and hypotheses, which can be roughly summarized into the following three aspects:
One is genetic theory.
It is believed that the aging process is determined by heredity, and the growth, development, maturity, aging and death of organisms are the inevitable results of their own genetic programs. For example, according to the biological clock theory, there is a "biological clock-like regulation mechanism" in the hypothalamus of human body, which controls the speed and times of cell division. A middle-aged person is composed of about 50-60 trillion cells, which divide 46-50 times from the embryo, stop dividing and then die. This shows that aging is similar to a "biological clock" in the body, that is, the aging process is gradually advanced according to an established procedure.
The second is environmental theory.
Its main point is that although heredity plays a certain role, environmental factors are also very important to the human body, such as pollution, drugs, diseases, radiation and other unfavorable factors, which will cause cell damage and lead to aging. For example, according to the poisoning theory, aging is due to the accumulation of various metabolites in the body, leading to cell poisoning and death. Cross-linking theory holds that in the process of biochemical reaction in vivo, as long as a very small amount of cross-linking interference occurs, it can cause damage to the body. However, the abnormal crosslinking of colloids in human cells and tissues increases with age, so the cell function is affected by it and leads to aging. According to the free radical theory, in the process of life activities, some free radicals will inevitably be produced, which can react with some components in the body, causing damage to the body and leading to human aging. According to the theory of cell mutation, under the action of some chemical factors, physical factors and biological factors, the genetic material in biological cells suddenly changes, causing the disorder of cell morphology and function, which leads to aging.
The third is comprehensive theory.
It integrates the related contents of various aging theories, and it is an aging theory formed from the perspective of metabolic disorder or cell information damage. For example, according to the theory of error disaster, if the human body makes mistakes in synthesizing protein, it may synthesize a large number of defective protein, and the accumulation of these protein in cells to a certain extent will cause cell aging and death. According to the theory of aging pigment, lipofuscin is widely distributed in human tissues and increases with age. Once a large number of cells appear, they will shrink or die, so some people call lipofuscin "aging pigment". There are also endocrine disorders, central nervous system decline and so on. Although these theories are inconclusive, they reflect one aspect or part of the mechanism of aging, a complex life phenomenon, from different angles and depths.