Proactive approach to health

Illness brings about uncertainty in our bodies and lives and can create distress and instability while leading a healthy life promotes stability and peace of mind. TCM takes a proactive approach to health, promoting lifestyle habits to prevent ill health, disease and the stress and distress, which accompany such states. In this way TCM is not only an avenue to explore once our health is compromised but also a guide for maintaining good health and a good life.

Chinese people of the more traditional lifestyle often live in great health until the time of their death. They do not necessarily live longer due to their lifestyle habits but their quality of life is often better for a larger portion of their life. They suffer far less from the health issues that we in the West simply accept as being a part of the ageing process.

 

The reason for this is that they lead simple lives, which are in closer accordance with nature’s laws and cycles.

 

• They eat the food that nature provides within each season and not foods which have been stored in supermarket cool rooms for months.

• They use the sun and moon to guide their sleeping habits instead of the constant use of artificial light to overcome what the west sees as nature’s limitations.

• They engage in steady and consistent daily activity while many westerners shock their body as they shift between the two extremes of prolonged sedentary office work and intense gym sessions.

 

Health is best maintained by adhering to nature’s principles in the same way that animals and plants do.

Illness is the body communicating to us that things need to be changed and the symptoms of illness are a form of self protection and healing.

 

This can be witnessed, in western terms, in the common cold as it attempts to rid our body of viruses through a runny nose. The western approach is to take over the counter drugs to prevent our nose from running. In attempting to fix the problem western medicine can often simply stop the symptoms (not the cause) and in doing so impair our bodies natural healing process.

 

TCM understands that illness is brought about by habits and lifestyles that slowly develop imbalance in our body. In order to fix such imbalances we need to address our lifestyle habits and not just the symptoms that they cause.

 

For example, the remedy for obesity is not liposuction but rather new nutritional habits which not only lessen weight but also address the myriad accompanying health issues which develop as a result of poor eating habits.