TOWARDS A LONG, HEALTHY AND HAPPY LIFE

In the best of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), payments to a doctor stopped as soon as his or her patients became ill. In other words, a doctor's role was to prevent illness and maintain good health, not just treat symptoms once someone was already sick. The illness of a patient in the fullness of his or her life was seen as a failure, especially on the part of the physician. 

In TCM, a preventative system of medicine, the top priority of any health practitioner is still to help his patients lead a balanced lifestyle conductive to a long, healthy and happy life. That lifestyle is inherently holistic, with an eye to nutritional and mental health needs as well as biological. The TCM doctor accepts that physical and emotional health (body and soul) are intertwined, and the state of one impacts the other.  Excessive or chronic negative emotions can and do transform into physical illness, and vice versa. On the other hand, a balanced lifestyle and proper diet maintain physical as well as emotional health and well being.

In TCM is the recognition, long ignored in our Western view of longevity, that a long life is only a blessing if it is also healthy and happy. Furthermore, TCM recognizes that good health need not depend on numerous medical interventions, and it need not cost the earth. It is much easier to prevent ill health than to cure it.

“Chi and the Mind/Body Connection” 

The importance of emotions

According to TCM, all phenomena in the universe consist of different forms of energy or Qi, be they dense and material, or diffuse and immaterial.  Emotions are forms of energy.  Unresolved emotions represent blocked energy that can lead to the accumulation and/or depletion of energy in specific parts of the body.  This accumulation/depletion and imbalance obstructs the physical body and causes physical ill-health and disease.

Specific negative and unresolved emotions affect correlating organ-systems in our bodies. Excessive worry, brooding and over-thinking (mental activity) block the flow of energy in the spleen-pancreas and stomach, thus affecting primarily the digestive function. Clear thinking and good concentration are signs of a healthy spleen-pancreas.  Chronic fear lodges in and affects primarily the kidneys and their related functions; long-term sadness, melancholy and depression affect the lungs.  Excessive joy or agitation and stress act primarily on the heart.   Anger, frustration, irritation and rage affect primarily the liver and its related functions, and through them the heart. Because the Chinese liver is closely related to menstruation, pregnancy, breast-feeding and menopause, anything that undermines the liver/gallbladder (and that includes stress) is particularly intrusive to women’s health. 

The good news is, positive emotions and states of mind can give their correlating organ systems a boost, and so can proper nutrition.    

The importance of food

In TCM, daily diet is part of a system of preventive health where everything is geared toward balance and optimal function. Food is seen as preventative medicine, to be taken for its curative properties before pills. Diet is regarded as our best defence against disease.
 
This very important, very basic building block to optimal health has largely been lost in contemporary Western culture where the role of food, our very life source, has been reduced to quick fixes and fun snacks, and where the importance of a good, simple meal has been relegated to last. We have fallen en masse for a food industry that cares not a whit about our health.  We have fallen for a system that allows us to spend liberally on industrially-prepared, overly rich foods and to spend equally liberally on the medication required afterwards to cover up our resulting imbalances and their symptoms. 

We live in an environment in which useful nutritional information is blocked by powerful corporations when they won’t profit from the insights gained in independent scientific research .  Take the issue around milk:  It is a highly nutritious food and, because it is so nutritious, in excess it is linked to many of the diseases with which we are so familiar—breast cancer in women, prostrate cancer in men, osteoporosis in both women and men.   The misinformation on this and other subjects has wormed its way into the very hearts of our institutions.  The formulation of the food pyramid in many countries is made with the “cooperation” of representatives from the agricultural- and food industries.  If you think that Western nutritional research is unbiased, think again.

The politics of nutritional research in our western society do not favour public health.  Nutritional research in the West is young, fickle, subject to huge and established economic interests; its views and interpretations change radically every few years.  This leaves us in a quagmire of information and misinformation that is less than inspiring. We need a firm basis on which to ground the health of ourselves and our families. 

To that end, we might look at TCM nutrition.  Going back about 3000 years and rooted to the natural world, it has a long track record.  It is tried, safe and sound.  It can help us to get back to basics. 

Here and now, our first step is to restore the importance of healthy, wholesome foods at every meal. Once that is in place, we can use specific foods toward treating specific health problems.  For example, those who have bloating (fluid retention in the stomach or abdomen) will learn to use more warming and drying foods and cooking methods.  The same applies to those who are perpetually cold or suffer from cold hands and feet. 

Simple? For most people today, it is extremely difficult to avoid overconsumption and to stick to a basic, life-enhancing diet.  Where we are not misled, we are uninformed; the public at large knows next to nothing about the health benefits of a whole foods diet.  We live in a time of oversupply and lack of time. There is no happy medium in our access to food. Many cookbooks and culinary programs, to which we turn to learn about food, focus on foods that are far too rich for regular consumption. On the other end of the spectrum, supermarkets and restaurants emphasize convenience foods that are actually made with chemicals.  Our budgets allow for continual grazing and our daily schedules don’t leave enough time to shop for and prepare wholesome meals.
 
With the fast pace of everyday lives, the last thing people need to stress about is food. That’s not the point. It’s time to be nurtured by food again. It’s time to focus on eating the right quantity of a greater variety of whole foods, on getting exercise and fresh air, on pursuing social and spiritual well-being, and the freedom to live in harmony with our talents and interests. It may sound like a lot, but once we strive to improve the quality of one area of life, the other pieces of this healthy puzzle fall into place. And in traditional Chinese medicine, the best place to start is food. 

Our “Food Pattern”:  A Union of Nutrition and Lifestyle

Here’s the good news: Despite the obstacles, with good information and the right intention, a healthy diet is easy to achieve.  We know in general what is healthy and what is unhealthy. A basic and varied diet of vegetables and grains with some fruit, dairy products, meat, fish and oils is good for us.  Excessive consumption of refined sugars and fats, meats, dairy, additives, luxury foods and drinks, is not.  But what we eat is not the only essential ingredient in healthy nutrition. Our “food lifestyle” or “food pattern” can also impact our health, in other words, how food fits into our lives, how we prepare our food and under what circumstances we consume it.

The first step to eating for optimal health is to prepare our own meals. It's the only way to know what's going into them and how they are cooked. Once in place, good food habits give us instantaneous clues as to the effects of foods on our health and well-being.  How do you feel after a meal? Pay attention to the effects of foods and cooking methods on your unique system. Using traditional Chinese medicine as a tool, we will lend an eye to: appropriate portions; how to maintain nutritional and physical balance through changing seasons and climatic conditions; what foods best suit different age-groups and sexes; and how to tailor our diet to treat specific health problems. 

In tandem, we need to practice mindfulness. To return to a healthy, instinctive relationship with food requires a degree of self-discipline that can come only through awareness. This is why this book starts with a review of emotional stability and spiritual strength. Knowledge about the effects of foods on us is not enough. We need to find the wherewithal to resist temptation, to resist the commercial food industry and its advertising campaigns.  We need to learn to stand up for ourselves and stick to what is right for us. We need to grow in self-responsibility—that is the first challenge.  In TCM-terms, we need to learn to discern and follow our own path in life, our own Tao, one that will serve rather than undermine our families and ourselves.
 
This book aims to achieve two things: to provide an insight into the traditional Chinese rules for healthy nutrition, and to help guide you towards a balanced, health-nurturing food pattern. In the process, I hope to provide some emotional and spiritual tools to help you deal with stress and to withstand the commercial pressures of the food industry.  Ultimately, a healthy food-pattern alone will not lead to optimal health.  Our emotions, our spiritual sense of self, and our overall lifestyle are part of the optimal health equation. 

HEALTH FORUM - You can discuss this topic further on our new Alternative Health Forum.

Author Details: Leni Hurley