🌿 Folk Prescriptions

Dietary Section
1. Chronic bronchitis patients have long disease courses, weakened gastrointestinal function, and reduced resistance. They should moderately increase intake of protein, calories, and vitamins—such as lean meat, eggs, milk, fresh vegetables, and fruits—to promote tissue repair and boost immunity. Eat more foods that strengthen the spleen, tonify qi, and clear dampness—like yam, winter melon, radish, water chestnut, and loquat. Many everyday foods also help treat chronic bronchitis: ginkgo nuts for transforming phlegm and relieving asthma, pears for moistening lungs and stopping cough, winter melon for stopping cough and dissolving phlegm, kumquat pastries for regulating qi and transforming phlegm, lilies for nourishing lungs and moistening them, and silver ear fungus for tonifying lungs and stopping cough. These phlegm-resolving foods can be used more frequently.
2. TCM holds that long-term consumption of fatty foods impairs spleen and stomach function, hindering transformation of food essence into phlegm and dampness, which accumulate in the body. Thus, avoid high-fat foods. Seafood like hairtail, yellow croaker, shrimp, crab, and rubber fish should be consumed cautiously, as they may worsen cough or trigger asthma. Avoid smoking, alcohol, raw/cold, and spicy foods. Control salt intake. Choose easily digestible, non-fermentable foods to prevent constipation and intestinal gas.
Specific Dietary Recipes:
Radish Lotus Seed Porridge
200 grams of white radish, 100 grams of carrot, 50 grams of lotus seeds, 50 grams of rock sugar, and a small amount of water chestnut powder.
Wash and dice white radish and carrot. Clean lotus seeds, remove outer skin, retain inner core, and cook until soft. Boil water, add diced radish and carrot, cook until soft. Add lotus seeds, boil briefly, then add rock sugar and cook another 3–5 minutes until fully cooked. Thicken with water chestnut powder and serve.
Pork Lung Porridge
500 grams of pork lung, 100 grams of glutinous rice, 50 grams of coix seed, cooking wine, scallions, ginger, salt, and monosodium glutamate as needed.
Wash pork lung, add water and cooking wine, boil until 70% cooked. Remove, cut into cubes, then combine with washed rice and coix seed in a pot. Add scallions, ginger, salt, and monosodium glutamate. Bring to a boil over high heat, then simmer over low heat until rice is soft and mushy.
Four-Nut Paste
3 grams of ginkgo nut, 3 grams of sweet almond, 6 grams of walnut, 6 grams of peanut. Grind into a fine powder, mix evenly. Boil in water to make a small bowl, consume in the morning.
Exercise Section
Targeted exercises not only prevent and treat chronic bronchitis but also promote blood and qi circulation, improve metabolism and microcirculation, and enhance lung function. Here are several simple, effective methods:
1. Breathing Exercises:
(1) Inhale slowly while raising arms outward and upward, forming a blunt angle with the trunk.
(2) Exhale while lowering arms. Inhale through nose, exhale through mouth. When exhaling, purse lips as if whistling to increase resistance. Aim for deep inhalation and slow exhalation.
2. Chest Expansion Exercise:
Raise arms, bend elbows halfway, clench fists with palms down. Straighten chest, push arms backward forcefully.
3. Abdominal Breathing:
Stand upright (also possible sitting or lying down). Place one hand on the chest, the other on the abdomen. Practice abdominal breathing: inhale deeply, expanding the abdomen while keeping the chest still; exhale fully, pulling the abdomen inward, pushing out all air. Breathe rhythmically, with inhalation-to-exhalation ratio of 1:2 or 1:3. Perform twice daily, 10–20 minutes each session.
4. Acupoint Massage:
(1) Use the fleshy part of the thumb (big fish际) to rub from Yintang point down along the nasal sides to Yingxiang point (beside nostrils). Apply gentle pressure—just enough to feel warmth and slight tears, with improved nasal airflow.
(2) Press both index fingers firmly on either side of Yingxiang point (located beside the nostrils), rotating clockwise and counterclockwise 15–20 times each. Apply pressure until a sensation of soreness and distension is felt. Ensure accurate positioning.
5. Moxibustion:
Use a lit moxa stick to hover over a set of acupoints with strong health-preserving, lung-regulating, and immunity-enhancing effects:
First set: Feishu (BL13, located 1.5 cun lateral to the third thoracic vertebra spinous process), Qihai (CV6, 1.5 cun below the navel on the anterior midline), and Zusanli (ST36, 3 cun below the outer knee, about one finger width lateral to the tibial crest).
Second set: Dazhui (GV14, at the seventh cervical vertebra spinous process), Geshu (BL17, 1.5 cun lateral to the seventh thoracic vertebra spinous process), and Guanyuan (CV4, 3 cun below the navel on the anterior midline).
Alternate between the two sets, each session lasting 20–30 minutes. A course consists of 30 sessions, followed by a 3–5 day break before starting the next course.