Diet In Chinese Medicine
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The following notes provide a brief explanation of the ideas underlying dietary advice in Chinese Medicine.
The basic elements of good health as seen in Chinese Medicine can be summarised as follows:
- appropriate diet
- appropriate exercise
- the ability to relax and rest
- a certain calmness of mind
Medicine is important in correcting imbalances, relieving pain, assisting the mind-body to fight disease, and helping someone to get onto a new path. Yet it has a secondary role to play in maintaining health. How you live your life is ultimately far more important.
None of this will come as a surprise. The importance of lifestyle and mental attitude in reducing physical and mental stress and allowing us to stay healthy is now widely recognised, and a lot of recent health education looks pretty similar to the sorts of things that the Chinese tradition has been saying for 2000 years or more. However, that tradition can illuminate them in a different and powerful way.
In order to explain how diet fits into Chinese Medicine, it will be helpful to say a few words about Chinese Medicine in general.
YIN AND YANG
In the most general terms, any form of life depends on substance and activity. Substance is Yin and activity is Yang. Substance or Yin is the stuff our bodies are made of: bones, muscles, internal organs, blood vessels, nerves, fluid etc. Activity or Yang refers to movement or transformation, including the transformation required to repair and build body tissue.
The relationship between Yin and Yang is similar to that between the wax and the flame of a candle. The wax is the Yin aspect (the substance), the flame is the Yang (activity and heat). These two aspects depend on each other. You need wax to provide fuel for the flame, just as you need the substance of the body to provide energy for any sort of activity. Hence the wax/substance is consumed by the flame/activity. At the same time you need the flame/activity in order to create the changes needed to make and repair body tissue. Yin and Yang cannot exist without each other.
This comparison is not complete because a candle has a fixed amount of substance so that once the wax is consumed the candle dies. A human being takes in food and drink and air on a daily basis in order to keep the flame alive. Still, human beings also have a limited life span: their substance gets worn down with age and the flame eventually goes out.
The way to maintain health and to live a long life (the ancient Chinese reckoned that 100 years was to be expected if you lived in the right way) is to ensure that the balance between these two aspects is not upset. In order to maintain the Yin substance you need to get proper nourishment from food, with sufficient rest and relaxation to help to replenish that substance. In order to maintain the Yang you need a diet that is not too cloying and sufficient exercise to ensure that the dynamic aspect of your energy remains strong. If the Yin (nourishment) is too great relative to the Yang, the organism gets clogged up, the metabolism slows down: the flame is dampened. If the Yang is too strong relative to the Yin then the substance of the organism is depleted too quickly: the flame burns too fast. Either way the energy (Qi) is depleted and health begins to be damaged.
The aim of Chinese Medicine dietary advice and therapy, as of Chinese Medicine in general, is to create a balance between substance and activity which will maximise the Qi/energy available for all life functions, and will ensure that it flows freely and does not get clogged up.