🌿 Folk Prescriptions

Traditional Chinese medicine distinguishes between "external influences" and "internal injuries." "External influences" refer to "wind, cold, summer heat, warmth, dryness, fire"—modern terms would include microbial infections. "Internal injuries" refer to the "seven emotions": joy, anger, worry, thought, sadness, fear, and shock—essentially human emotions. People react psychologically to their surroundings, either favorably or unfavorably. This psychological activity is called emotion.
Regulating negative emotions, preventing them from spiraling out of control, is a vital aspect of health preservation. Traditional Chinese health preservation holds that life activity stems from yin and yang. Only by balancing yin and yang and maintaining harmony can longevity and health be achieved. The yin-yang theory posits that all things in nature possess yin and yang aspects, and their generation, development, and change always involve the interaction of yin and yang energies. Life activity is based on yin essence and yang qi. Although human physiology is complex and varied, it can be summarized as the contradictory movement of yin essence and yang qi. Thus, all life activities are the result of dynamic balance between yin essence and yang qi. The entire life process—from birth, growth, maturity, to aging—is driven by yang qi's propelling and warming functions and yin essence's nourishing and moisturizing roles. Balanced yin and yang in zang-fu organs, meridians, qi, and blood ensures health, resistance to aging, and longevity. Therefore, unbalanced or uncontrollable emotions disrupt mental stability, upset yin-yang equilibrium, and lead to various diseases. Thus, Qing dynasty health expert Shi Chengjin advocated "Harmonizing the Seven Emotions to Enjoy Life," preventing emotional imbalance before it occurs. Harmonizing the seven emotions means not allowing external stimuli to trigger emotional fluctuations, keeping emotions consistently balanced. Enjoying life means facing life circumstances and interpersonal relationships with a calm, joyful attitude, ensuring emotions remain balanced and preventing internal yin-yang imbalance. Clearly, properly regulating emotions to maintain balance is a crucial method of health preservation.
Traditional Chinese health preservation has created many effective methods for emotional regulation over thousands of years. These not only include modern psychological therapies but also unique methods of mutual emotional modulation. Jin-Yuan dynasty famous physician Zhang Zihe believed: "Use sorrow to treat anger, use mournful, distressing music; use joy to treat sorrow, use playful, humorous words; use fear to treat joy, use words about sudden death; use anger to treat overthinking, use humiliating, deceitful situations; use overthinking to treat fear, use words that distract from one concern to another." All these methods must be cunning, bizarre, and extreme to truly move and alter the patient's perception. Historical medical cases demonstrate the practical application of emotional mutual modulation. By different emotional stimuli, internal yin-yang balance can be restored, achieving therapeutic goals.
By moderating emotions and enjoying life, one avoids diseases caused by excessive emotions, benefiting health and longevity. This is a core component of Chinese health preservation. Sun Simiao in *Qian Jin Yao Fang* (Thousand Gold Prescriptions) proposed the Twelve Essentials of Health Preservation: "Less thinking, less worrying, less desire, less ambition, less talking, less laughing, less sorrow, less joy, less happiness, less anger, less preference, less aversion." He stated, "These twelve essentials are the essence of health preservation." Among these twelve, emotional regulation occupies the majority, highlighting the paramount importance and role of emotional regulation in health preservation.