Is it okay to soak Chinese medicine overnight?

Traditional Chinese medicine has the effect of curing diseases and regulating the body. If you need to soak Chinese medicine, you must understand some precautions. For example, the soaking time of Chinese medicine should not be too long. To avoid deterioration, you should prepare the Chinese medicine at any time and drink it at any time. Once the medicine deteriorates, it will often have an adverse effect on the health of the body. Let us briefly understand this aspect below.

Is it okay to soak Chinese medicine overnight?

Chinese medicine should generally be soaked for a maximum of two hours. It is best not to boil it and drink it again after soaking overnight. In this case, the Chinese medicine will easily deteriorate and be harmful to the body after consumption. In the future, you must pay attention to following the doctor's instructions for decocting medicines. The soaking and decocting time of Chinese medicines for treating different diseases are different. These factors will affect the efficacy of the medicines.

Things you should know when boiling Chinese medicine

There are many things to pay attention to when boiling Chinese medicine. In addition to the first-hand utensils and cleaning work, the medicinal materials also need to be prepared. The most important thing is the heat and time required to boil Chinese medicine. These are very particular and if you are not careful it will affect the efficacy of the medicine. Specific precautions for boiling Chinese medicine are as follows:

First: Selection of equipment

Traditional Chinese medicine tells us that when boiling Chinese medicine, it is best to choose a sand pot, which is what we usually call a clay pot. These sand pots are made of ceramics and can best maximize the efficacy of Chinese medicinal materials. In addition, stainless steel is also a good material choice. It will not rust and is more common in the market. However, it should be noted that when boiling Chinese medicine, you must not choose an iron pot or a copper pot, as these will affect the efficacy of the medicine.

Second: Do a good job of cleaning

In fact, most of the medicinal materials purchased in professional pharmacies do not need to be washed, so don’t worry about them being unclean. If you must wash the medicinal materials, just put them in clean water and wash them quickly. Never soak them to wash. If the medicinal materials that need to be boiled are small particles, such as Plantago seed and Cassia seed, you must pay attention to protecting them during the cleaning process and make sure they are not washed away.

Third: Water usage

The important thing is to use clean water for boiling, so the amount of water needs to be specially selected. Many people say that when boiling medicinal materials, three bowls of water can be boiled into one bowl of water. Is this statement really correct? In fact, this method is not scientific, because first of all, the size of the bowl is different in every family. When boiling Chinese medicine, the added water must be able to submerge the medicinal materials by two to three centimeters. You can also press the medicinal materials with your hands until the water just covers the back of your hand. Special attention should be paid to the fact that some Chinese medicinal materials absorb a large amount of water, especially floral and herbal materials. After soaking them in clean water for half an hour, the water level will drop. At this time, you must continue to add some water before starting to boil the Chinese medicine.

Fourth: The size of the fire

Experienced Chinese medicine practitioners told us that the temperature when boiling Chinese medicine will generally affect the efficacy of the medicine. It is recommended that when boiling Chinese medicine, you should use high heat at the beginning, and then reduce the heat to low after boiling. However, if you are decocting some medicine that has the effect of treating external infections, you should continue to use high heat after the water boils, and simmer it for about fifteen minutes.

Fifth: The time of boiling Chinese medicine

Precautions for boiling Chinese medicine: the time required is a question that many people are concerned about. Generally, boil the water over high heat and then simmer over low heat. If it is a general Chinese medicine, the first decoction time should be controlled at about twenty to twenty-five minutes, and the second decoction time should be controlled at about fifteen to twenty minutes. If the medicinal effect of the boiled Chinese medicine is to relieve exterior symptoms, the first decoction time should be shortened to ten to fifteen minutes, and the second decoction time will be about ten minutes. If it is a tonic, the decocting time should be increased appropriately. The first time should be controlled within half an hour to forty minutes, and the second time should be controlled within twenty-five minutes to half an hour.