In Chinese medicine, we look at individuals as different from each other and each manifestation of a symptom as a result of a particular set of circumstances. However, we do have some very simple underlying views of the human body and generalizations that lead to better health. To this end, the Beijing Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Hospital used to hand out a slip of paper to each patient who came in with some simple suggestions for health. It read something like this:
TCM Department of Beijing Hospital Patient Instructions
- Read a Buddhist book and calm down.
- Pain is mostly due to cold. Warm yourself with hot compress & salt granule rubs.
- Overeating may impair the body. Eat less, chew food thoroughly and slowly.
- Have a good rest, especially after treatment, and stay away from wind and cold.
- Avoid cold food and uncooked food. Also avoid cold places. Get more sunshine in the summer and also avoid too much air conditioning.
I want to go through the five points and expand on them a bit so that you can think about them and perhaps put some of them into practice, at least while you’re suffering and having a hard time.
1. Read a Buddhist book and calm down.
Oftentimes when we get sick or in pain, we get overly worried, even to the point of panic. This extra burden of stress on top of whatever is actually going on exacerbates whatever is happening. So, to that end, calming down and relaxing help whatever it is that you’re suffering. Why a Buddhist book? Well, most Buddhist books address our lives with suffering being inevitable and our reaction to it being within our power. Most also start right in on meditation practice as well, which will often include focus on breathing and posture. The takeaway, when you’re suffering, calm down, focus on your breathing, hold yourself in as good a posture as you can, and if you have the means to delve into a Buddhist book, do so.
2. Pain is mostly due to cold. Warm yourself with a hot compress and salt granule rubs.
For the most part, this is addressing musculoskeletal pain. Besides banging your elbow against something, incurring a burn or abrasion, or some other traumatic incident, most aches and pains in the muscles and tissues of the body are due to stagnation — we would say the qi and blood are stuck and not moving properly. Anytime there is stagnation, there is pain. Therefore, most of our treatments move the qi and blood to help alleviate pain. For anyone with arthritis on a bitter, cold winter day – the pain will get pretty bad. So, warm up the area. They suggest a hot compress but you can use a heating pad, a hot water bottle, or any other method to apply head. We don’t often do salt rubs in this country, but we do a lot of epson salt baths. Same same. If you have a hot bath with some salts, wonderful. The key takeaway from a Chinese medicine perspective is that you don’t go to icing something because it hurts. It is very rare for TCM to suggest cold for anything, especially for musculoskeletal pain. Heat helps us heal.
3. Overeating may impair the body. Eat less, chew food thoroughly and slowly.
This is all about digestion, energy, and our ability to heal internally. Mindless eating, especially without chewing properly gives the digestion system too much to deal with in an unprepared state. Therefore, much of that excess food will go through the system improperly digested, this leads to excess in the digestive system, excess in the body, and often little time to process before the next wave of overeating begins. Our body only has so much energy to devote to self-care, and if you are suffering some illness or pain, it is best to keep your food intake light so that your body doesn’t have to expend all its energy on digestion, and can instead focus on more pertinent issues at hand. Eat mindfully, at regular times. Don’t overeat. Don’t forget to chew your food. These are simple ideas but it is amazing how hard they can be to put into practice. Yet, they are a worthwhile goal, so keep them in mind, especially when you are feeling poorly.
4. Have a good rest, especially after treatment, and stay away from wind and cold.
Acupuncture treatments help to subdue the sympathetic nervous system (our stress response) and activate the parasympathetic nervous system (rest, digest, repair). So, rest and repair go hand in hand. When you rest, you allow your body to heal. Your body doesn’t put a lot of energy into healing when you’re running around during the day, it waits to repair during rest periods. If you need to heal, you need to rest.
As mentioned before, cold will stagnate the movement of our qi and blood and slow down healing. Wind (from the outside, through open car windows, a fan in the house, air conditioning vents, etc.) also draws energy away from healing. Wind is an external influence and causes the surface of the skin and shallow muscles to contract. This also leads to a certain stagnation of qi and blood. When you need to heal, you need to rest and not bother your body with a bunch of outside factors it needs to deal with. Find a comfortable place, preferably without cold or wind or noise and get a good rest. Repeat as needed.
5. Avoid cold food and uncooked food. Also avoid cold places. Get more sunshine in the summer and also avoid too much air conditioning.
There’s a lot here, and some of it could have come under the other suggestions above, so let’s treat number five as a review of all above suggestions. Cold and uncooked food is difficult to digest. The stomach likes you to feed it soup, properly warmed and prepared nutrients at or above body temperature. The stomach needs food to reach body temperature in order for digestive reactions to occur. If it doesn’t have time to bring what you feed it up to body temperature — especially if you’ve eaten a lot of cold food — then that food is not digested and is passed on through the digestive system in an undigested state. You don’t receive the proper nutrients, and your body gets slowed by the cold at its core. Uncooked food is also less prepared for digestion than cooked food. Therefore, even simple steaming of your food will bring it into a better state for optimal digestion.
Avoid cold places, and this is about cold both within and without. If our body heals best at body temperature, then cold will slow that healing. If there is enough cold, your body has to expend energy warming itself up instead of healing and repairing what needs to be fixed. Staying at a comfortable temperature will aid healing. Get more sunshine in summer. This will aid your vitamin D creation which will aid your healing, and will also get your body’s circadian rhythm in sync and lead to better sleep. As for air conditioning, this is a combination of cold and wind. A little can bring indoor temperatures to comfortable levels, but too much can force your body to deal with warming itself up and protecting itself from the wind. Moderation is key.
In summation, we can see a few very important points discussed over and over. Keep stress down. Rest well. Eat properly. Stay comfortably warm. Don’t overdo anything. Moderation in all things. Be good to yourself.
