The season has entered summer. According to Chinese medicine, the heart corresponds to summer, and summer health care focuses on nourishing the heart. It is written in the “Su Q”: “The heart is the essence of life and the change of the mind.
How to nourish the heart in summer?
The patient, Zhang, has suffered from hypertension for more than 20 years, as the so-called “long illness into a doctor”, over the years he concluded an experience: blood pressure will automatically come down in the summer, and every year after May 1 can stop the drug, saving time and worry. This year, after May, Zhang stopped using any antihypertensive drugs, a month later, Zhang had a sudden headache at night, and the corners of his mouth slanted, slurred speech symptoms. He was rushed to the hospital, where his blood pressure was measured at 188/106 mmHg, and CT confirmed a hemorrhagic stroke. As we all know, the culprit is hypertension. Old Zhang’s tragic experience should draw our attention to summer hypertension and reacquaint us with it.
It is generally believed that blood pressure fluctuates, with high blood pressure in the morning and low blood pressure in the evening. Blood pressure rises in winter and falls in summer, and many people stop taking antihypertensive drugs in summer because of this. This is often not the case. That’s why we talk about this awareness of blood pressure must be comprehensive. And the point is to monitor blood pressure, we often self-test blood pressure at home, do a good job of needing to monitor it in the morning and in the evening, and then record it for your doctor to assess.
From the Chinese medicine side, we’d better distinguish the body type over the summer. People are generally divided into several body types that are relatively easy to distinguish. For example, there is generally hyperactive liver yang. Many patients have dry mouth, bitter mouth, headache, poor sleep, and irritability, and this part of the patient is “hyperactive liver yang”. There are also patients with spleen deficiency and qi weakness, mainly the elderly, who are generally weak and have no voice and loose stools. There is also a part of patients classified as phlegm-damp internal obstruction, this part is mainly in the fifties, they are fat, mainly abdominal distension, thick and greasy tongue, and is mainly smoking and drinking.
Eat
This part of the patient in the insistence on taking antihypertensive drugs, more importantly, how to eat it? That dietary therapy is also very critical, first briefly introduce you to a few dietary therapy methods. It is generally believed that, as just mentioned, the part of hypertension patients who belong to the phlegm-damp internal obstruction, is generally to eat some dry food, do not eat too much fat, sweet and greasy.
Tianma Chrysanthemum Porridge
It is suitable for hypertension with hyperactivity of liver yang, such as those who have headache, dry mouth and bitterness as mentioned before. It is based on asparagus, chrysanthemum, rice, sugar put in a piece of decoction and then eaten in the form of this porridge.
Fu Ling Cake for Spleen
It is mainly for people with weak spleen, and is a pastry made of poria, flour, baking powder and alkaline water. It can play the role of strengthening the spleen and dispelling dampness, tranquilizing the heart and calming the mind. Combined with the joint treatment of Chinese medicine and Western medicine, it is believed that the blood pressure of this part of the patients should be relatively well controlled.
In summer, the body will sweat a lot to dissipate heat, if you drink less water, it will increase the blood viscosity, resulting in poor blood flow, which will lead to the formation of blood clots, causing heart attacks and threatening life safety. Especially the middle-aged and elderly, their thermoregulatory center is not sensitive. If sweating is not followed by timely hydration, it often causes electrolyte disorders in the body, which can also lead to sudden death. Often many people think that the mouth is dry before drinking water, which is a wrong concept. If your mouth is dry it means that your body is dehydrated, and often drink a lot of water at once, it will also increase the burden on the heart and aggravate the original heart disease.
Drink
So in terms of drinking, if you are a patient with hyperactive liver yang, that is, this part of the population with dry mouth, bitter mouth and headache, you must drink some herbal tea, which is the Cantonese herbal tea to clear the fire. This part of the population is suitable to use herbal tea to solve the symptoms of hyperactivity of liver yang, such as Xia Ku Cao plantain tea. You can use 10g of Xia Gu Cao and 10g of fresh plantain, then wash it and put it into a pot to make tea. This can treat the symptoms of dizziness, headache and dizziness caused by hyperactive liver yang. Of course you should also monitor your blood pressure when consuming these herbal teas to prevent dizziness due to low blood pressure.
If you are a patient with this kind of phlegm and dampness, then you should not go for herbal teas alone, you should drink more dampness-removing teas. Then introduce you to a tea to remove dampness, it is called hawthorn lotus leaf tea. Use hawthorn 10g, lotus leaf 20 to 30g, put inside a pot with 1000ml of water, cook on low heat until about 300ml, then add some honey as appropriate. Hawthorn and lotus leaf can dilate blood vessels, lower blood pressure and blood lipids, for hypertension, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, and obesity of this part of the population, is a better tea to remove dampness. For people with weak spleen, it is even more important not to drink this herbal tea, you can choose a tea that can replenish qi and raise yang.
Ginseng and raw pulse drink
We can use ginseng 5g, or prince’s ginseng, American ginseng, plus for Wu Wei Zi 10g, Mai Dong 15g. if it is used for people with serious qi deficiency, while ginseng can replenish qi, Wu Wei Zi can astringent heart qi, and Mai Dong can also replenish essence. In addition, you can also add some ginseng, American ginseng, yu zhu to make soup to drink, in order to achieve the effect of replenishing qi, nourishing yin, clearing heat and dispelling summer heat.
The summer diet must be light, must be low-fat, we advocate “four low a high”. Generally speaking, it is low calorie, low salt, low fat, low cholesterol, high vitamin. We can eat some cold food, such as watermelon, pear, grapefruit, bitter melon, cucumber, strawberries and this green bean soup, lotus seed soup, soy milk, green tea and so on. You can properly eat some lean meat, fish, to maintain a balanced nutrition, and try to eat less greasy, or high-fat food.
Hawthorn stewed lentils
If you are this part of the hypertensive people with liver and spleen deficiency, you can use a soup called hawthorn stewed lentils. Use fresh hawthorn 30g, white lentils 30g, add a little brown sugar, these can strengthen the spleen can resolve dampness. Especially for weakness, loose stools, this part of the spleen deficiency of the people very good effect.
For people with yin deficiency and yang hyperactivity type of hypertension, such as those with dry mouth, great temper, and fire. You can use Xia Ku Cao to boil pork, choose 20g of Xia Ku Cao. 50g of lean meat, and then slowly stew it with low fire, this can clear liver heat, nourish Yin and replenish deficiency.
Lassa
In fact, we should pay more attention to poop and scatter, because we often say that if you can keep the bowels open, it means that his spleen and stomach function is very normal. But in many modern people’s concept of life, their health awareness is very weak and they often eat and drink indiscriminately, and then they do not control. As a result, this kind of patients are very easy to constipation, many people is once every three or five days is often unable to solve the stool. This part of the population, if often constipated, it is easy to cause a stroke due to negative pressure. We have many such cases in the clinic.
There was a patient who had chronic constipation in the clinic. He was hospitalized due to heart attack and high blood pressure, and his stent was put in, he took lipid-lowering drugs and Bolivar, and his blood pressure was relatively well controlled. But the night before he was discharged from the hospital, he was habitually constipated, probably because he was about to be discharged and was in a good mood, so he ate a little more meat. As a result, constipation, in the bathroom, because of excessive force and caused another heart attack and sudden death. So such cases in the clinic, we see a lot of, but you may hear less friends, so I must tell you is to keep the bowel movements smooth.
Of course, if you have constipation, you must have loose stools, and there are many of these people in our clinic. The main manifestation is spleen deficiency, because they may like to eat cold things, like to eat greasy things plus their own spleen qi weakness, can not transport the food, so it leads to loose stools.
The so-called loose stool means that the stool is unformed and very sticky. So many patients, especially in summer, because summer heat and dampness, dampness is particularly heavy, so many people in the south, there are a lot of people with loose stools. These people with loose stools are usually fat and they have high blood lipids. So this part of the people, generally through food therapy or medicinal therapy, so that their spleen function is well restored. So we often say, if you have a spleen deficiency dampness, often have to boil some Huai Shan, barley, lentils, of course, the main thing is to find a doctor with Chinese medicine to regulate the better.
The “pull” reflects the function of our spleen and stomach, digestive function. If your spleen and stomach function is healthy, you will not have these loose stools and constipation.
For many people, “spill” reflects the kidney function, but this is only a part of the concept, not fully attributed to the kidney function.
In the summer many people sweat a lot, and a lot of urine is short, red, and yellow. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the amount and color of your urine.
Usually you have to pay attention to your urine volume in the morning to see if your volume is more or less? Is it light yellow or dark yellow. If you get up in the morning and find that your urine volume is not much, and the color is dark yellow, it means you need to hydrate. This is because in summer it is easy to sweat, and often is less water. We often have a lot of situations in the morning, such as strokes, heart attacks, or arrhythmias caused by high blood pressure, and the main reason is the increased viscosity of the blood. Therefore, why we often say that in the morning when we wake up to drink water regularly. On the one hand, it can relieve the blood stickiness, on the other hand, it can also prevent the occurrence of heart attack arrhythmia.
Of course, there are some patients who may have frequent urination, urine is very “long”. What do you mean by “long and clear”? It means that there is a lot of urine, and it is long and frequent, such as once every three or four hours. Some of them are caused by the deficiency of the spleen and kidneys, often called kidney deficiency, which can be solved through dietary therapy or Chinese herbal medicine, the method of strengthening the spleen and kidneys. The actual fact is that you can find a lot of people who are not able to get a good deal on a lot of things. The first can lower blood pressure, the second, can relieve the prostate hypertrophy.
The actual fact is that you will need to pay attention to the color of your stool, the state of your stool, the color of your urine, the amount and the frequency. The actual fact is that you can find a lot of people who are not able to get a good deal on a lot of things.
Sleep
The quality of sleep is an important indicator of the level of high blood pressure. We know that people spend most of their time in sleep, and if they do not sleep well, their blood pressure will fluctuate. In summer, some people have normal blood pressure during the day, but their blood pressure rises at night. These people often have mood swings and irritability due to poor sleep quality, which causes their blood pressure to rise at night. Now many people are staying in air-conditioned rooms every day, and staying in air-conditioned rooms for a long time will lead to sweat is difficult to discharge, easy to get air conditioning disease.
From the perspective of Chinese medicine, sweat is the liquid of the heart, too much sweat in the summer will lead to heart qi depletion, but a little sweat is beneficial. A little sweating can expel waste from the body and also make you feel happy. According to Chinese medicine, sweating, vomiting and leaking is a good way to detoxify the normal human body outward, but nowadays people rarely sweat and do not have regular bowel movements, which can easily lead to constipation and loose stools. Therefore, the temperature of the air conditioner should be appropriate when sleeping in the summer (26-28 degrees is appropriate), in general, blowing fan is better, can slightly sweat will be more beneficial.
1, a slight sweat can promote digestion. If you do not sweat, qi and blood running slow will affect digestion, resulting in poor eating and sleeping. Nerve activity will also be affected, leading to sleepless nights, dreamy, easy to wake up, so a little sweating can improve appetite and promote digestion.
2, a slight sweat can lose weight. Obesity is the culprit of many diseases, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high blood pressure are closely related to obesity. Weight loss must not be lack of exercise, when the body into exercise and burn fat, will certainly be sweat out of the body, so as to achieve the purpose of weight loss. Therefore, a slight sweat can lose weight.
3, a slight sweat during summer sleep can enhance memory. The United States once for 20,000 high school students to conduct a long-term experiments show that: active exercise sweating on students will produce positive positive effects, memory, concentration can be substantially improved.
4, a slight sweating can prevent osteoporosis. Many people think that sweating will lead to the loss of calcium in the body, experts point out that only water-soluble vitamins are lost with sweat, calcium has a low solubility and is not discharged with sweat. On the contrary, sweating is good for preventing calcium loss and preventing osteoporosis.
5, the beauty of women should know more, a slight sweating can be skin care beauty. Not sweating leads to slow metabolism of human skin, and some waste is difficult to discharge. So sweating can actually clean the pores and achieve the effect of beauty and skin care.
6, slight sweating is also good for men and can enhance masculinity. The smell of male sweat can make women feel happy and relaxed.
7, a little sweating can control blood pressure. Because hypertension is a phenomenon that occurs when blood flow is restricted due to the narrowing of the inner diameter of blood vessels. Sweating can expand capillaries, accelerate blood circulation, increase blood flow and lower blood pressure.
Overall, it is beneficial to sweat slightly in summer. Especially during sleep, so keep your mood happy, and then and have a good quality of sleep, which will allow the organs to be repaired during sleep and maintain a healthy state.