Health maintenance is aimed at cultivating vitality, preventing diseases, and striving for a long and healthy life. During the Han Dynasty, the culture of health preservation was quite popular. There are about four main health maintenance methods:
1. Take food, that is, alchemy mercury and other internal food;
2. Pigu, that is, gradually reduce food to completely cut off the water valley diet;
3. Acceptance, which is equivalent to today’s Qigong, practising to absorb and absorb;
4. Guidance is equivalent to today’s dynamic or gymnastics. Of course, there are many movements that imitate animals. “Guide” refers to “air guidance”, air guidance and order; refers to ,It can be seen that guidance is a combination of breathing exercise (guide) and limb movement (citation) in ancient China. It is also one of the kinetic exercises in Qigong, which is similar to modern health gymnastics. As early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there have been two bird plays called “Bear Classic” and “Bird Shen” combined with “Blowing Breathing, Vomiting and New”, and then fitness exercise was popular in the Han Dynasty. For example, the guide map unearthed from the No. 1 Han Tomb of Mawangdui
Exercise and health care refers to maintaining health, strengthening physique and delaying ageing by moving the body. The traditional sports health is characterised by: based on the theories of yin and yang, viscera, qi and blood, meridians and collaterals of traditional Chinese medicine, and is characterised by nourishing essence, qi training and adjusting the mind, emphasising the coordination of mind, sucking and body movement. Flowing water does not rot, household centre does not decay, traditional sports health maintenance, after the continuous summary and supplementation of past generations of health care, has gradually formed a health care method of exercising limbs, self-massage to practice form, inhaling, adjusting nose breath to practice qi, calming thoughts, eliminating miscellaneous thoughts to practice.
The specific exercise methods are as follows:
The exercise time should be in line with the development of yang qi. If you choose the right time to exercise, you will get twice the result with half the effort. Traditional Chinese medicine puts forward the concept of “unity between heaven and man”, believing that people’s life must conform to the changes of the four seasons and the characteristics of different times to exercise and maintain health, so as to avoid causing diseases. During the year, the yang qi is “spring, long summer, autumn harvest, winter collection”. Health maintenance should pay attention to the rise of yang qi and protect yang qi. In the spring season of yang qi, you can exercise more to stretch the body’s yang qi and circulate qi and blood, which is conducive to the production of yang qi. In winter, yang qi should change from “receive” to “hidden”. We should reduce exercise, get up late and go to bed early, so that the body and mind can be recuperated, and yang qi can be hidden. The same is true in a day. The morning is like spring, the day is like summer, the evening is like autumn, and the evening is like winter. According to the growth and change of yang qi, the body’s activities should be adjusted in time and conform to nature.
The intensity of exercise should be moderate. Hua Tuo once said, “The human body wants to work, but it can’t make extreme ears.” That is to say, as a fitness purpose, exercise must be within the appropriate limit. If you move too much, if you move too much, you will have qi and blood circulation and full of vitality; if you move too much, you will have qi and blood boiling, which will consume the true qi. In short, the amount of exercise varies from person to person, and it is appropriate to have fever all over the body. For example, fatigue and fatigue after exercise, stomach loss, etc., it means that they have exercised too much.
The mode of exercise varies from person to person. For the elderly or patients, due to the reduction of muscle strength, the nervous system responds slowly and the coordination ability is poor. It is appropriate to choose sports that are slow and soft, the muscles are coordinated and relaxed, and the whole body can be moved, such as walking, Taijiquan, Baduanjin, Yijinjing, For young, strong and in good health, you can choose a lot of exercise, such as long-distance running, playing basketball, playing football, martial arts, etc.
