🌿 Folk Prescriptions

The Chinese nation boasts a five-thousand-year civilization. Throughout this long history, our ancestors created a splendid culture through wisdom and practice. Traditional Chinese health preservation is one of its most brilliant jewels, making immense contributions to the nation’s survival, health, and development.
TCM health preservation is a branch of traditional Chinese culture, sharing roots and close ties with other cultural streams, reflecting the unique characteristics of Chinese culture. Health preservation aims to cultivate vitality, prevent disease, and achieve health and longevity. TCM health preservation encompasses diverse techniques: dietary nourishment, medicinal nourishment, acupuncture, massage, qigong, martial arts, etc.
Among these techniques, ancient practitioners believed that the best method of health preservation is cultivating character, and the best way to cultivate character is cultivating essence. When essence is abundant, it transforms into qi; when qi is strong, it completes spirit. When spirit is whole, yin and yang are balanced, zang-fu organs are harmonious, and qi and blood circulate smoothly—ensuring physical health and strength. Thus, preserving essence, qi, and spirit is the most important content and the foundation of human health preservation.
Below is an introduction to the methods of cultivating essence:
Essence is the core substance constituting human organs and the fundamental material for growth and development. Essence derives partly from innate inheritance from parents, and partly from postnatal nourishment. Essence is stored in the kidneys and can transform into blood and qi—providing the original material for organ formation and the driving force for organ function. It is continually replenished postnatally. After birth, the body gains the ability to absorb food from nature, converting it into qi and blood to nourish zang-fu organs, tendons, bones, and other tissues. Some of this is transformed into essence and stored in the kidneys. Thus, preserving essence begins with accumulating, cherishing, and conserving essence.
Accumulating Essence:
Accumulating means building up. Accumulating essence means using various health preservation methods to continuously nourish kidney essence, maintaining its abundance. Innate essence inherited from parents is finite and predetermined. Individuals differ in quality. During growth and daily activities, it is continuously consumed. Thus, postnatal supplementation is extremely important.
Natural sources of animal and plant foods are the most extensive and fundamental materials for postnatal nutrition. Fruits, flowers, leaves, roots, stems of plants, and muscles, bones, and internal organs of animals are all products of species utilizing natural conditions. They are manifestations of heaven-earth yin-yang energy. The nutrients they contain can be utilized by humans as raw materials for generating their own qi and blood. However, regarding accumulating essence, ancient people said: "Medicine supplementation is inferior to food supplementation, and food supplementation is inferior to qi supplementation." Accurate wording: when illness is severe (describing advanced disease), when medicine and food are ineffective, only when essence is abundant can the body’s vital energy (qi transformation) activate the body’s openings and passageways, expelling pathogens and restoring health.
Health preservation is a unique method invented by the Chinese people for extending life. It employs specific postures, guided by intention, adjusting breathing and absorbing the yin-yang energy of heaven and earth to achieve purposes such as replenishing kidney essence. For example, the Static Adjustment Method in *Green Therapy of TCM* cultivates primordial qi, replenishes kidney essence, strengthens the body, and resists aging.
Cherishing Essence:
Cherishing means treasuring. Cherishing essence means treasuring kidney essence, avoiding excessive depletion to maintain its abundance. The most important aspect is restraining sexual activity, avoiding early marriage and early childbearing.
Sexual activity is a normal human relationship involving the union of male and female essences and blood, harmonizing yin and yang, and coordinating zang-fu organs and blood. Appropriate sexual activity benefits health and well-being. However, since it involves the fusion of male and female essences and blood, it consumes essence and blood. Frequent sexual activity leads to essence and blood deficiency. Thus, moderation is necessary. Indulgence and lust, seeking temporary pleasure at the cost of exhausting kidney essence, can lead to yin-yang depletion and weakened qi and blood.
For minors, whose essence and blood are not yet mature and whose qi and blood are unstable, special care is needed to cherish and conserve essence. Avoiding early sexual activity and early childbirth preserves the still-inadequate kidney essence (liver blood), safeguarding normal growth and development and mental health. Premature sexual behavior and early reproduction consume immature kidney essence (liver blood), harming zang-fu organs, qi, blood, and overall health—thus should be avoided.
During adolescence, reproductive systems develop rapidly, and kidney essence and liver blood grow continuously. Occasional nocturnal emissions and menstruation are normal physiological responses. Simultaneously, adolescent sexuality begins to emerge, with interest in the opposite sex and curiosity, sometimes leading to masturbation—common phenomena. Occasional masturbation is harmless, but frequent masturbation harms kidney essence and affects health. Bad publications and videos profoundly affect adolescents lacking discernment, disturbing the mind, causing heart fire to rise, disturbing the essence chamber, leading to frequent nocturnal emissions or even seminal leakage—equally detrimental to kidney essence. Thus, these should be avoided.
Consolidating Essence:
Consolidating means strengthening, sealing, and preventing loss. Kidneys store essence; consolidating essence means using various health preservation methods to enhance the kidneys' sealing ability and prevent essence loss.
Essence loss manifests as male nocturnal emission or seminal leakage, female excessive leukorrhea, heavy menstrual flow or prolonged bleeding, milk leakage, hematuria, proteinuria, and other phenomena beyond physiological norms. These are seen as signs of weakened kidney sealing ability due to various reasons, leading to essence loss and eventual physical weakness and shortened lifespan. Physiological nocturnal emission, ejaculation, menstruation, leukorrhea, and lactation are normal organ functions and do not harm health. Conversely, absence of these functions during normal periods often indicates disease.
Common causes of essence loss are: (1) constitutional weakness, inability of kidneys to store essence; (2) yin-yang imbalance, restless spirit disturbing essence. Thus, consolidating essence requires comprehensive adjustments to strengthen constitution, harmonize yin-yang, and stabilize spirit. For example, appropriate exercise and labor (practicing Dynamic Adjustment Method in Green Therapy), avoiding excessive rumination, emotional extremes, nutritious but non-greasy diet, avoiding spicy, stimulating, and fatty-rich foods, etc.
Appropriate exercise and labor promote blood and qi circulation, harmonize zang-fu organs, balance yin-yang, and enhance kidney sealing ability. Excessive thinking and emotional extremes deplete qi and blood, affect circulation, cause heart fire to rise, and disturb the spirit, impairing kidney sealing function. A nutritious but non-greasy diet nourishes the five zang organs and blood, enhancing kidney sealing function. Greasy, rich foods easily generate dampness and heat, disturbing the essence chamber, blocking qi movement, preventing clear yang from rising, causing essence to descend and leak. Spicy, stimulating foods also generate heat and fire, disturbing the spirit and weakening the essence barrier. Excessive sexual activity or masturbation damages kidney qi, reducing sealing function—should be avoided.