“Spring is born and summer is long, autumn is harvested and winter is hidden, the great discipline of heaven and earth; spring is warm and summer is hot, autumn is cool and winter is cold, the outline of the four seasons.” This is a familiar saying to health practitioners. Winter is the best time of the year to take tonic. According to Chinese medicine, winter is the “closed” season, through tonic, the kidney “essence” can be more abundant, so that the next year’s health is good and less sick, which is the idea of Chinese medicine to cure the disease; modern medicine also believes that, after entering the winter, the body metabolism decreases, and the physical strength decreases. Modern medicine also believes that after winter, the metabolism of the body decreases, physical exertion decreases, at this time, tonic, the drug is more easily absorbed and stored, so as to play a greater effect. In this “big course” of tonic, benefitting gas, nourishing blood, nourishing yin, strengthening yang, nourishing the heart and calming the mind, strengthening the stomach and eliminating food are all “popular” branches, and the elderly, frequent brain users, sedentary urban white-collar workers and the physically weak and fatigued are all suitable targets for winter tonic. The actual fact is that you can’t be too fast and too fierce to get acute gastritis. The benefits of the gas diet should be a small amount of a long time to eat Who needs to take a tonic? The elderly, urban white-collar workers, office workers, brain workers, weaker people or those who feel fatigued and weak, are good targets for winter tonic. “Many young people feel that they are strong and do not need to take tonic, but in fact there are many types of tonic, never just for the elderly, such as nourishing Yin, Yang, etc. should be carried out at this time of year.” Generally speaking, middle-aged people are mainly to benefit the spleen and stomach, while the elderly are mainly to benefit the kidney energy. Chinese medicine is concerned about evidence-based tonic, that is, different ages, physical people should not be blind, with the flow, must be based on their own physique, body condition tonic, it is best to follow the guidance of doctors. Take the common qi deficiency in winter as an example, he introduced that the main manifestations of qi deficiency are: less breath and lazy speech, general fatigue and weakness, low voice, shortness of breath when moving, dizziness and palpitations, shriveled face, loss of appetite, etc. “If you are still prone to sweating and have a weak pulse at the current temperature in Guangzhou, this is a sign of Qi deficiency and you can properly supplement Qi.” The herbs often used in the beneficial qi diet are ginseng, codonopsis, astragalus, huai shan, jujube, etc.; the foods used are chicken, fish, pork, quail, sparrow, etc. It is suitable for shortage of breath and coughing, weakness and fatigue, less food and poor food, as well as old age and weakness, prolapse and other diseases. “This kind of medicinal food is a tonic, should not eat too much at a time, should be a small amount of a long time; weak people should prevent ‘deficiency without tonic’. The actual evidence, heat evidence, the early stage of external disease can not be taken.” Blood should avoid menstruation Many sitting less active office white-collar women are prone to blood deficiency in winter, its main manifestations are pale or yellowish face, pale lips, palpitations and insomnia, numbness of the hands and feet, menstruation is low or amenorrhea. The most important thing that women in this category should do at the moment is to use herbs to replenish blood. Commonly used herbal medicines popular among women for replenishing blood include Radix Angelicae Sinensis, Radix Rehmanniae Sinensis, Radix et Rhizoma Polygoni, Radix et Rhizoma Polygoni, Radix et Rhizoma Chuanxiong, Fructus Lycii, Radix Rehmanniae Sinensis, Radix et Rhizoma Ginseng, Radix Codonopsis Pilosulae, Radix Astragali, etc.; the main foods used are mutton, pork, beef, chicken and duck. It is suitable for blood deficiency caused by lack of color, fatigue, dizziness, palpitations and insomnia, tingling of the hands and feet, menstrual disorders, etc. This kind of medicine is mostly nourishing and greasy, so it should not be consumed by those who have actual heat or phlegm-dampness obstruction or external fever. It is best to eat regularly in stages, and blood supplementation should avoid the onset of menstruation to avoid increasing the volume of menstruation. The spleen and stomach weak people should not nourish Yin nourish Yin, Yang, these are the two indispensable areas of winter tonic. The herbal medicines often used for nourishing yin are raw earth, dry earth, yellow essence, mulberry, lady’s mantle, wolfberry, xuan ginseng, asparagus, maidenhair, saxifrage, yucca, dendrobium; the food used is mainly raw fish, turtle, bird’s nest, silver fungus, sea cucumber, snow pear, bamboo cane juice. Their effects often lie in nourishing yin and increasing fluid, generating fluid to quench thirst, and clearing heat and removing annoyance. “It can be applied to thinness, emaciation, dry mouth and throat, false annoyance and sleeplessness, night sweating, choking cough without phlegm, redness of the cheeks, and back pain due to lack of yin and fluid or consumption of yin in prolonged illness.” The expert introduced that because of the nourishing Yin Chinese herbs are sweet and cold and greasy, where the spleen and stomach weakness, phlegm and dampness within the obstruction, should not be used. The aphrodisiac diet often uses Chinese herbs such as deer antler, antler gum, Chuan Duzhong, walnut, seahorse, cuscuta, mealybug, Epimedium and bull whip, deer whip, etc.; the food chosen is based on mutton, dog meat, venison, rooster, quail, sparrow, pigeon, shrimp, etc. This kind of medicinal food is best to eat in winter, they generally have varying degrees of aphrodisiac and kidney, warming the kidneys and dispersing cold, benefitting the essence of blood, for low sexual function, spermatorrhea, premature ejaculation, white turbidity, waist and knee weakness, cold limbs and other diseases. The aphrodisiac diet is mostly warm and dry, where heat disease, internal heat of Yin deficiency, carbuncles and sores can not be eaten. The elderly people should take tonic to nourish the heart and tranquilize the mind The elderly people should take tonic to nourish the heart and tranquilize the mind in winter, such as longan meat, jujube, cypress seeds, sour date, lotus seeds, lily of the valley, etc.; the food used is pig heart, sheep heart and other animal heart. These herbs are suitable for patients with excessive thinking, strain on the heart and spleen, forgetfulness and insomnia, dreaminess and fatigue, but these herbs are ‘thick in taste and greasy in nature’, so they should not be consumed by patients with damp-heat disease. People who are restless are often closely related to mental factors, so in addition to the tonic, they should learn to relax themselves with mental therapy, as well as appropriate physical exercise, so as to receive good results. In addition, the spleen and appetite is also a major tonic “hot”. Such meals often use yam, poria, lentils, cardamom, hawthorn, peel, sand, etc.; the choice of food are lean pork, chicken, fish, pork belly, duck meat, etc.. “They are effective in strengthening the spleen and benefiting the qi, eliminating food and appetite, aiding digestion and promoting appetite. They are suitable for people who have weak spleen and stomach and have difficulty in eliminating little food.” Experts point out that such remedies should be eaten warm, not cold. In comparison with the north, Guangzhou has a more “long” summer and autumn, so people’s spleen and stomach have been used to herbal tea, cold drinks and other “frozen” products, at this time, do not take too fast and too hard, if the tonic excess will increase the burden on the spleen and stomach, liver. The spleen and stomach, liver burden. In addition, winter tonic also has a lot of people eat bad stomach to the emergency room “to report”. This is because winter is also the season of acute gastritis, low temperature is often easy to stimulate gastric acid secretion, if you eat frequently spicy pot, lamb stove and other stimulating warm food, it is easy to eat the disease. The tonic is to pay attention to the step-by-step slowly conditioning, absolutely can not pursue a short period of time in one step, otherwise it may even trigger the tonic ‘poisoning’.