During those times when you can’t leave home or you are too busy to see your Chinese medicine practitioner, there are other things you can do to keep your immune system strong and healthy.
Chinese medicine is an ancient medical system that has more than 2000 years of history. As you probably already know, it includes several therapeutic techniques. Among them you have acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, cupping, Chinese nutrition, and other techniques that can help maintain yourself perfectly balanced physically and emotionally.
Chinese nutrition for your immune system
Chinese nutrition is a very complete therapeutic technique. Unfortunately, it is a technique that is relatively little used by Chinese medicine practitioners and if’s often not used to its full potential.
Cooking and eating is something you do on a daily basis and can affect your health or well-being if not done correctly.
Nutrition is the foundation for maintaining a strong and healthy immune system.
When I treat a patient with Chinese nutrition, I analyse their eating habits, symptoms and constitution. Next, I create a personalised report with dietary and lifestyle guidelines.
Energy nutrition
Chinese nutrition analyses the energetic action of different foods. There are neutral, warm, hot, cool and cold foods and each one has a specific action. For example, pepper is a warm food, and chili is a hot food. Turmeric is a cold food, and mint is a cool food. To make easier to understand, warm and hot foods have an energising and invigorating effect. And cold and cool foods have a refreshing and anti-inflammatory effect.
Here are 3 valuable tips to help you strengthen your immune system by staying at home:
1. Consume hot food and drinks
I will never get tired of repeating it to my patients, eating hot and cooked food is the best way to preserve your digestive system.
The average temperature of our body is between 36 ° and 37 °. Our stomach needs a slightly higher temperature to break down food, digest it and extract the necessary nutrients.
Eating cold and raw foods affects the ability of our stomach to perform this task. Eating cold things decreases blood flow to the stomach and makes it difficult to assimilate nutrients and slows down digestive.
The stomach and intestine function called peristalsis needs energy and muscles. If the flow of blood and energy decreases due to a drop in temperature, the peristaltic movement is affected.
2. Include spices that have an invigorating and warming effect
An easy way to eat is using foods that have these properties. There are several types of herbs and spices that have different actions.
Herbs that have a warm and invigorating effect are parsley, coriander, fennel seeds, sesame seeds, among others. You can experiment with these types of spices when you cook by simply adding them to your food.
Another option you have is to gather several spices and boil them in water for 20 minutes. And then drink the resulting liquid a couple of times a day.
Here is a simple recipe with ingredients that you can easily find in a supermarket.
Ingredients:
- Goji berries: 2 teaspoons
- Fennel seeds: 1 teaspoon
- Star anise: five pieces
- Ginger: 1 piece of about 2 cm cut into slices
- 1L of water
Method:
- Put the herbs in a pot with 1L of water
- Boil for 20 minutes over low heat and set aside the resulting liquid
- Add again half a liter of water to the above spices and boil for 20 minutes. Mix the resulting liquid with the previous liquid
- This process should give you 1L-1.2L of liquid
- Have a cup in the morning and a cup in the evening before meals
- Repeat the cooking process as many times as necessary and have this drink for two weeks
I hope you like it and it makes you feel better.
3. Let food be your medicine
In Chinese nutrition, foods are categorised into five distinct groups. Each group has a different flavour. And each flavour is related to a different organ.
Acidic: acidic foods are astringent and act above all by strengthening the energy of the liver and gallbladder.
Salty: salty foods have the property of softening and lubricating. They act mainly on the kidneys and urinary tract.
Bitter: bitter foods favor the drainage and evacuation of waste. Its field of action is the heart and the small intestine.
Spicy: spicy foods cleanse and purify the lungs and large intestine.
Sweet: sweet foods promote and increase vital energy and have an effect on the spleen, pancreas and stomach.
The ideal diet includes foods in each of the mentioned categories.
Conclusion
This is a good starting point to focus more on what you eat and begin eating a wider variety of products.
If you are interested in investigating other possibilities of how to strengthen your immunity, you can start here.
Chinese medicine is a very old practice and offers you an interesting and different framework that you can take advantage of to improve your lifestyle and your emotional and physical well-being.
