Early to bed, early to rise, good health! –This is a saying that everyone knows the way to health, but now fewer and fewer people do it, adults and children are the same. Maybe they don’t know what problems will happen to their body if they don’t go to bed early and get up early, or even if they know the harm of going to bed late and staying up late, but the nature of their work determines that they can’t go to bed early (e.g. doctors and nurses). Many friends should have had such an experience, whenever you stay up late or overnight (especially those who are not accustomed to staying up late), after sleeping enough 8 hours or even more than 10 hours, the whole person is still very tired, groggy, the more you sleep, the more you want to sleep. We all know that sleep is very important, modern medical research also believes that adults need to sleep 7-8 hours a day. But how should we sleep these 8 hours? When should we sleep? Does it vary from year to year? Why is it that after enough sleep, mental and physical strength cannot be restored? Let’s see how Dr. Zeng uses theories of Chinese medicine to explain the problem of sleep. Hour sleep In Chinese medicine, 24 hours a day, there are 12 hours, each hour has a corresponding internal organs when the order (operation), there are specific “meridians” need to repair and maintenance. For sleep, the most important is the hour from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. the next day. ■ “Zi Shi” (11 p.m. to 1 a.m.): the most important starting point of sleep time The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine: “All eleven organs are taken from the gall bladder.” The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine says, “All eleven organs are taken from the gallbladder.” This indicates that the gallbladder meridian is the most important source of health, and that the gallbladder meridian is at its peak at Zi Hour every day, which is the most helpful time for health when it is quiet and ready for bed. If you do not sleep at this time, the gallbladder meridian is prone to problems in the long term, there will be a “bitter mouth, easy to sigh, chest pain, face lack of luster (listless and tired), dry skin,” and so on, so often women know to “sleep beauty sleep,” which is based on. Moreover, the role of the gallbladder meridian will also affect a person’s judgment, memory, so early to go to bed in order to always keep memory and clarity of thought. ■ “Ugly time” (1 a.m. to 3 a.m.): the liver needs to rest the most “Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine”: “When a person lies down, the blood returns to the liver.” The liver has no pain nerves, so the liver of those who often stay up late is very pitiful. Even though it is already working very hard and overloaded, it still sticks to its post in obscurity and does not send out a signal to let us know that it is time to let it rest! If you do not sleep at this time, the body’s toxins accumulate in the liver, the liver can not detoxification, repair, will continue to consume their own life, long-term eye fatigue, eyesight loss, and easy to be irritable, prone to various types of liver disease, and even liver cancer. ■ “Yin time” (3 a.m. to 5 a.m.): sleep in order to make up for the lungs The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine: “Lungs, the official of the phase Fu, the rule of the section out of it.” This is the time when the lung meridian is on duty, and the lung meridian is a very important conduit for regulating the internal organs, just like a prime minister assisting a monarch, assisting the heart to regulate our body. If our lungs are not good, we will sleep more lightly during this time, and in the long run, the deficiency of lung qi will affect our ability to speak and do things (because the lungs store the qi). Of course, if the lungs are not good, naturally, they are also prone to respiratory diseases, such as lung disease patients are prone to this time to commit illness. If you sleep well during this time, you will look better in the morning (because the Lungs are responsible for the skin and hair)! So clinically see the bad color of the person, you can initially judge the sleep is not good. Therefore, the saying “it is better to eat ginseng than to sleep for five nights” is very reasonable.