?? A Key to Health ??
What determines whether we are healthy or ill ?
Chinese medicine (CM) theory says :
Constitutional strength (includes genetic predispositions). How much money you start out with in the ‘Bank of Health’. But then it depends how you spend or save it too… profligacy with strong constitution may go under quicker than careful lifestyle with weak constitution.
Environment. The ‘Shang Han Lun’ has a lot to say on the regulation of our surface layer to maintain homeostasis (basically temperature regulation). These days we talk about a ‘strong immune system’; I think this actually means our tissue based response at skin & mucous membrane level.
Diet & Lifestyle. I think this is obvious – if you eat poison you get poisoned. If you stay up all night you’ll be wrecked the next day.
Wrong medicine. The CM philosophy would say when we get ill, correct medicine is the minimum necessary to give the body the extra boost, in the exact correct area of physiology, that it needs to resolve the problem. The body heals, the physician ‘facilitates’ the process. See the section on Herbal Medicine, Shang Han Zha Bing Lun, for a more complete explanation. Suffice to say if the medicine not only hits the area that we want, but everything else around, it may do us more harm than good ultimately. A bit like weeding your garden by calling in a B52 napalm strike…not too popular with the neighbours.
SO what can we do for ourselves ?
As we get older, the effects of the latter three on our constitution/general physiology/health start to tell. Like a planet pocked by meteorite hits. I once heard a saying that the practice of medicine is the only job with a 100% failure rate, alluding to the fact that we all die sooner or later. This is just plain weird – everything in nature has a beginning and an end and I think the job of medicine is to help maximise whatever potential for health (and therefore enjoying life) there is in the situation that the practitioner is presented with.
Lots of rules out there for ‘healthy living’, don’t drink alcohol, drink 1.273 units of alcohol every 27 hours, eat 5 portions of vegetables, or is it 6 now ? exercise so hard that your vision dims and blood froths from the ears, or just perform eyebrow and nose twitching exercises in zero gravity. Spend your entire income on supplements packaged nicely. etc etc
If you’re reading this then you can probably figure out what’s appropriate & what’s not for yourself… I just practice Chinese Medicine, I’m not a ‘life coach’ (!) and I don’t sell snake oil. I try to intervene in the most minimalist way possible to fix a problem (although see the article on Advertising standards updates re ‘alternative medicine practitioners & what they can claim’ …. when I say fix a problem I mean, of course, fanny around uselessly while time takes it’s course or placebo wins the day !)
Apart from right diet and lifestyle, my only comments based on my life experience:
Stretching, for health of the physical structure (and probably internal organs too) – I personally embrace Yoga – I did this as a student at uni and have returned to it in the last few years; I see how much benefit it has to the deep tissues of joints. Others tell me their experience of Pilates is similar, and Tai Chi is also great. We don’t seem to have any western traditions of such health systems. Unless you count bog-snorkelling.
AND MOST IMPORTANT
Let go.
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