Chinese medicine practitioners never do these ten things in their entire lives. Are you still doing them?

Xu Wenqi, a health practitioner in the Qing Dynasty, once proposed the "Ten Taboos" in his book "Shoushizhenzhen". He believed that health preservation should first start with daily life and avoid the ten major bad habits. These precepts still have a lot of reference value today. Below we will interpret them one by one from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine.

1. Avoid getting up early and shaving your head. "Ketou" means not wearing a hat. Morning is the time when Yang energy is first born. At this time, Yang energy is like a sapling. Although it has a strong growth momentum, it is very weak and can be easily invaded by cold evil. The characteristic of Yang Energy is to move upward, so from the perspective of the human body, the head is where Yang Energy gathers. If you do not pay attention to keeping your head warm when you go out in the morning, it is easy for the cold evil to enter the brain and cause illness.

2. Avoid staying in a dark and cool room. For the human body to stay healthy, the Yang energy must be strong, and the Yang energy is very afraid of being invaded by Yin evil spirits. If a room is not exposed to sunlight, the yin energy will be heavier and the temperature will be lower. The cold evil will easily invade the body surface and even enter the body from the outside and cause a series of diseases. Of course, for modern people living in high-rise buildings, it is difficult to ensure that every room has sunlight. At this time, it is necessary to use heating or air conditioning to maintain the room temperature.

3. Avoid sitting in wet areas for a long time. Some people don't quite understand how moisture can cause disease. They think that the body is protected by skin, and the skin is impermeable, so how can moisture from the outside affect the body and cause disease? Of course, real moisture cannot enter the body directly, but the body's qi and the external qi are mutually induced. The external moisture is a kind of sluggish qi, which, when sensed into the body, causes the body's qi to run slowly, thereby generating dampness in the body. Therefore, avoid staying in a humid environment for too long.

4. Avoid wearing sweaty clothes when it is cold. When the temperature is low, your clothes will immediately become wet and cold once you sweat. At this time, the pores of your skin are open, and your resistance to external evil is reduced, so cold and dampness are likely to take advantage of the situation and invade. Therefore, after sweating profusely, you should wipe off the sweat in time and change into dry clothes.

5. Avoid drying clothes when it is hot. Xu Wenqi believed that clothes that had been exposed to the sun for a long time would become heat-toxic and should not be worn immediately. This may be a bit exaggerated. After the clothes are dried, even if there is still a certain degree of heat, it will not cause any harm to your health. Of course, if you are suffering from a fever and have not yet recovered, you may need to be careful not to wear clothes that have just been dried or baked.

6. Avoid fanning when sweating. This needs to be viewed flexibly. If it is the hottest days of summer, the body will be sweating all the time, and it is normal to use a fan to cool down. Avoiding fanning when sweating means that when the temperature is not too high and you sweat due to exercise, do not fan yourself to cool down or drink cold drinks immediately. Although fanning yourself is very comfortable, wind is the root of all evils, and it can bring cold or dampness into the body without you realizing it.

7. Avoid sleeping with lights on. Some people like to sleep with the lights on, which is also not good. Because the nature of light is yang, people need yang energy to enter yin when they sleep. The presence of light makes it difficult for yang energy to penetrate into yin, which can easily cause restlessness and affect sleep quality.

8. Avoid having sex during midnight. During the day, the Yang energy is at its strongest, but it is first born at midnight (23:00~1:00). At this time, the Yang Energy has just sprouted and is very delicate. If you do not take good care of it and have sex, this young Yang will be extinguished. The Yang Energy will not be sufficient the next day and you will easily feel tired.

9. Avoid wiping the mat with cold water in summer and drying clothes with hot fire in winter. These two habits may not be that harmful, and few people dry clothes in the sun nowadays, but this rule still has practical significance, that is, we should not violate seasonal rules for the sake of momentary pleasure. In the summer, don't be too greedy for coolness and set the air conditioner temperature too low, which can easily lead to insufficient sweating and the qi mechanism cannot be fully opened; in the winter, don't be too greedy for heat and set the heating too high, which can easily lead to excessive sweating and the leakage of essence.

10. Avoid watching a play for a long time. This one advises us to pay attention to nourishing our spirits. There are so many entertainment programs on TV and the Internet now, but we should not be too addicted to them, because when watching the programs, our mind will follow them unconsciously and we will no longer pay attention to the feelings in our body. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the heart is the "official of the monarch". If the monarch pursues sensual pleasures all day long, he will not be able to understand the people's sentiments well, nor will he be able to sense any imbalance in the body at any time. Therefore, entertainment should be moderate to avoid damaging your mind by watching or listening for too long.