There was once a report that a rural farmer in Anhui Province did not drink a mouthful of water for seven consecutive days and did not eat any food for twenty consecutive days, but he still went to work as usual and cured his illness. The farmer knows a kind of kung fu called Bigu, that is, not drinking water or eating, to mobilize the internal potential of the human body, so as to achieve the purpose of fitness and treatment.

It is also reported that there is a young woman in Shanxi who has been living and working well for five years, mainly eating fruits and the like, just like ordinary people.

There is a female barefoot doctor in Henan who has also stayed in the valley for three years and can treat people village by village.

Can the human body really survive without eating for dozens of days? What exactly is a valley? Is it really that effective?

What is Pigou?

Bigu is a special health preserving technique handed down from ancient times in China.

The early valley digger may be a single leopard in the Spring and Autumn Period. Huai Nan Zi describes that he lives in a deep mountain, in a cave, drinks streams, wears silk and hemp, and doesn't eat whole grains. He is seventy years old, but he still has the skin color of a boy. Since then, there have been many stories about Broken Valley, including Sean who helped Liu Bang conquer the world, Kou, a Taoist priest in the Northern Wei Dynasty, and Su Dongpo, a writer in the Song Dynasty.

How to break the valley?

Before the Han people, people who avoided the valley mostly used the method of persuading themselves to take off the valley, that is, only practicing breathing qigong and not eating. Some alchemists preach: real people eat gas, eat gas. Later, there were so-called methods of sucking the sun, the moon and the stars and swallowing saliva.

If you break the grain, you will not eat. However, the more popular way to break the grain now is to eat substitutes instead of eating nothing. A few years ago, it was reported that Shi Zhiyun, a descendant of Longmen Sect in Gansu Province, went to the valley for a year and still ate homemade pills and a little dried fruit every day.

In ancient times, people who believed in Taoism often took Bigu Dan to live longer. This method is to consciously and gradually reduce eating, and then stop eating grains and only take Dan medicine. Some people have studied the ingredients of Bigu Dan in modern times and found that it at least includes nourishing drugs and foods, such as Astragalus membranaceus, Chinese yam, Poria cocos, Atractylodes macrocephala, jujube, peanut kernel, walnut kernel and chestnut kernel.

Can BiGu really prolong life?

What is the function of grain piercing?

Let's go back to the historical debate first.

Han people have a saying: a living immortal who eats gas, a living immortal who doesn't. Wang Chong, a famous scholar, retorted: People are born to eat for gas, while plants are born to soil for gas. If you gag people, you will be hungry and won't live long.

In the western Jin dynasty, some people said: if you want to live forever, your intestines should be clear; If you want to live forever, there is nothing in your intestines.

Ge Hong, a medical scientist and alchemist, believes that people who break the valley can only pay for food and vegetables, but can't live forever.

Obviously, people of insight have refuted the view that crossing the valley can prolong life and become immortal since ancient times.

Nowadays, physiologists believe that an ordinary person can endure six or seven days, and some can last longer. However, if you only practice qigong, it is absolutely harmful to the human body if you don't eat or drink. Of course, both ancient people and modern people believe that proper fasting methods are still beneficial to health. What people oppose is the unbridled myth of broken valley and its function.

How long can people live without eating?

If you want to ask: how long can a person live without eating? Let's look at this example.

1970, 43-year-old Dr. Taylor went on a hunger strike for 40 days and only drank a glass of water every day in order to carry out political protests;

In Washington, some people only drink distilled water for 42 days;

A Russian spent 58 days drinking soda and smoking.

The most famous hunger strike was recorded in Ireland, where 10 prisoners went on a hunger strike, one died on the 76th day, and the other nine survived miraculously for 94 days. The longest fasting time is said to be a 6 1 year-old Fausta. She only drank water and soda, and died after a hunger strike 102.

Then, why can hunger strikers survive without eating for dozens of days?

It turns out that our body needs six kinds of nutrients, namely sugar, fat, protein, water, vitamins and inorganic salts.

Among them, sugar, fat and protein are three main energy substances. The storage of sugar is small, and it will be used up quickly if you don't eat. At this time, fat and protein will be converted into sugar for the body to consume, and people will gradually lose weight.

The reason why fasting people can persist for a long time is related to the metabolic level of the body-fasting people will relax psychologically and physically, and their energy consumption will be relatively reduced, which will naturally be minimized, so they can relatively extend some days. But you can't cut off the water. People who have no water at all often die after a few days.

Correct fasting method

Master Hongyi, a famous monk, calligrapher and musician in modern China, once fasted for fitness.

19 16, the mage stopped eating in the West Lake in Hangzhou in this way: in the first week, he stopped eating gradually, in the second week, he didn't eat at all except water, and in the third week, he gradually increased from porridge soup to constant. According to the writer Xia Gaizun, the mage stopped eating smoothly this time, not only without pain, but also relaxed physically and mentally.

However, he was later deprived of food and died. According to his disciple Feng Zikai, the master felt unwell on 1942 10.02, stopped eating and treated himself, and died a few days later. A lady, the current president of Taihai Yoga Association, is in her eighties and in good health. One of the ways to keep in good health is to practice fasting occasionally.

According to the research, the advantage of fasting is that it can clean the stomach, change the evil morality, get rid of the old cloth, adjust the physiological function and reach a new spiritual realm.

In fact, doctors sometimes use fasting. Anyone who has read A Dream of Red Mansions must remember that doctors often adopt the principle of giving priority to net hunger when dealing with diseases of people who are bored with intestines. Today, fasting therapy, or temporary fasting therapy, is still a medical measure taken by medical staff for certain diseases. It is reported that it has a considerable effect on headache, paralysis, joint pain, smoking, drinking, obesity and partial eclipse.

Fasters who usually aim at treating diseases can only eat porridge the day before to prepare for fasting. Take vegetable juice and fruit juice many times on the day of fasting and drink water at any time; In the future, patients can drink about 250 grams of milk every day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. After 7 days, began to resume eating. At the beginning, you should only drink rice soup, gradually from eating a very small amount of porridge to increasing it day by day, and you can completely return to normal diet in a week or so.

The implementation of fasting therapy needs to be carried out under the guidance of doctors; Weigh yourself when fasting. If you have been fasting for 5 days and lost 10%, you should consider stopping fasting. In addition, fasting method is not suitable for active pulmonary tuberculosis patients, cancer patients, already weak patients, the elderly and developing children.

(Author: Wang Zuyuan, Zhou Zhou)

(Yu Juan from "Enigma")