The fifth month of the lunar calendar was called the “Five Poison Month” by the ancients. In this month, the fifth, sixth, seventh, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh days of the fifth month are the “Nine Poison Days of Heaven and Earth”, and the fourteenth day is the “Heaven and Earth Day of Peace”, a total of ten days.
Chinese medicine regards the fifth month of the lunar calendar as a time of trouble. People must be dignified and self-disciplined, and strictly prohibit killing and sexual intercourse, otherwise they will seriously hurt their bodies, damage their qi and consume their essence.
Chinese medicine believes that the sun is scorching in May, the yang energy is on the surface, it is easy to consume the yin essence, the stomach is empty and cold, and pathogens are rampant. “Treatise on Febrile Diseases” says “In May, the yang energy is on the surface, the stomach is empty and cold, and the yang energy is weak inside…” In May, we should rest quietly, be in harmony with nature, control our desires, eat light food, reduce sourness, increase bitterness, and benefit the liver and kidneys.
The ancients called “Heaven and Earth in Harmony” the process of the transition between cold and hot weather. At this time, the weather will suddenly become hot. In traditional Chinese medicine, excessive heat is poisonous, and the human body is prone to some diseases. Because all kinds of snakes, insects, centipedes, scorpions, etc. come out in May, it is called the “Five Poisonous Month”.
The origin of the Five Poisonous Month is long
As early as before the time of Qu Yuan, May was called the “evil month”, “poisonous month” and “death month”, and many taboos and evil-avoiding measures were produced.
In the pre-Qin era, it was generally believed that May was a poisonous month and the fifth day was an evil day. It was said that evil was in power on this day and the five poisons came out.
In the “Yellow Emperor’s Internal Classic”, through the dialogue between Xuanyuan Huangdi and Su Nu, the taboo days for sexual life were pointed out.
Su Nu said: “On the 16th day of the fifth lunar month every year, the qi of heaven and earth intercourse occurs, and men and women cannot have sex. Especially those with strong sexual desire should be careful not to lose their true yang in the five poisonous months. Once the true yang is lost, life will not last long!”
“Records of the Grand Historian: Biography of Mengchangjun” records that Mengchangjun was born on the fifth day of the fifth month, and his father Tian Ying ordered his mother to give up raising him. The latter could not bear to kill her son and secretly raised him, which led to Mengchangjun, who was later listed as one of the four gentlemen of the Warring States Period.
Sima Zhen quoted “Customs and Customs” in “Records of the Grand Historian”: “It is said that if a child is born on the fifth day of the fifth month, a boy will harm his father, and a girl will harm her mother.” Mengchangjun was a contemporary of Qu Yuan, which shows that the concept and taboo of May being an evil month existed long before Qu Yuan’s time.
In order to ward off evil spirits and disasters, our ancestors created many folk customs, such as tying colorful silk on the arm, bathing in orchid soup, drinking realgar, calamus and mugwort wine, offering and eating zongzi (corner millet), inserting mugwort leaves, making mugwort figures, inserting mugwort dragons and mugwort tigers, making mugwort swords, puff whips, garlic fists, hanging tiger ornaments, pasting five poisonous talismans, wearing five poisonous clothes, dragon boat racing, collecting herbs and making medicine, stepping on hundreds of herbs, refining swords and casting mirrors, tug-of-war and shooting willows, etc.
What “poison” is easy to get in the Five Poison Month?
The Five Poison Month is most likely to get “damp heat poison” and “cold damp poison”!
This month spans the three solar terms of Grain in Ear, Summer Solstice and Lesser Heat. It is the month with the strongest yang energy. The summer heat and humidity are getting heavier and heavier. It feels like a sauna, humid and stuffy, so it is easy to get damp heat poison; but our body is actually cold. “Treatise on Febrile Diseases” records: “In May, the Yang Qi is on the surface, and the stomach is cold and empty. Because the Yang Qi is weak inside, it cannot overcome the cold, so you want to put on more clothes.”
This month, the Yang Qi of the human body goes outward, and the Yang Qi of the internal organs becomes weak, especially the spleen and stomach, which are particularly susceptible to cold and dampness.
9 symptoms to see if you are poisoned
Dampness is the most stubborn and sticky. When combined with heat, it becomes an unpleasant damp-heat poison.
If you have the following symptoms, it means you are “poisoned by dampness and heat”
1. Skin problems
In the five poisonous months, the skin is particularly prone to acne, eczema, prickly heat, scabies and herpes. The “Yellow Emperor’s Internal Classic” says: “Sweating and dampness will cause acne and prickly heat.”
The acne here refers to acne, which is what we call pimples and blackheads; prickly heat refers to prickly heat.
It means that when you sweat, the sweat pores open, and if you encounter the invasion of dampness, it will accumulate in the skin, which will easily cause acne, scabies, and prickly heat. If you stay up late, eat barbecue, fried food, sweets, and greasy food, the spleen and stomach will accumulate heat, and the external dampness and heat + internal dampness and heat will make the face greasy and shiny, and acne will appear one after another, and even have pustules; some people will also have eczema, etc.
2. Spleen and stomach problems
Bad breath, bitter taste, abdominal distension, poor appetite, dry stool or stool sticking to the toilet, and yellow and greasy tongue coating. These are all reasons for dampness and heat to stagnate in the spleen and stomach.
Usually, the spleen and stomach are weak, or the spleen and stomach are injured by careless diet, resulting in the inability of the qi to “rise the spleen and descend the stomach”, and the qi that should go up does not go up, and the qi that should go down does not go down, so the above symptoms will appear.
3. Urinary system and reproductive system problems
Yellow urine with a strong smell, frequent urination, urgent urination and pain, women have a lot of yellow leucorrhea, and men have a wet scrotum.
These are damp heat stagnation in the lower part of the body, which can cause some problems in the urinary and reproductive systems. For example, girls are prone to excessive and yellow vaginal discharge, and even urethritis and gynecological inflammation; boys have damp and uncomfortable scrotums.
4. When you wake up in the morning, your head is foggy, your head is heavy, and your body is heavy and weak
This is because the damp heat makes the body’s qi flow poorly, and the clear yang does not rise, so the head is heavy and foggy; the dampness is heavy and turbid, and it moves downward, so the body is heavy, especially the lower body.
If you have the following symptoms, it means that you have been poisoned by “cold and dampness”
It is easy to be poisoned by cold and dampness, on the one hand, because our body surface yang is strong and our internal organs are cold in May, and on the other hand, because we are greedy for coolness.
When the weather is hot, eating watermelon, cold fruit and vegetable salad, and using air conditioning 24 hours a day in an air-conditioned room will damage the spleen and stomach and the yang of the body for a long time.
1. Diarrhea, vomiting and diarrhea, cold stomach and stomach pain, poor appetite, and greasy white tongue coating
This is also called gastrointestinal cold, which mainly occurs in summer and is a manifestation of heavy cold and dampness in the spleen and stomach.
2. Body laziness, coldness, and pain
People are lazy and lack energy, afraid of coldness, cold hands and feet, cold shoulders, necks, waists and backs. Girls suffer from uterine coldness, dysmenorrhea, delayed menstruation, blood clots, and dark color.
This is the evil of cold and dampness, which consumes the yang energy, resulting in insufficient yang energy and insufficient fire power, which can neither resist the external cold and dampness nor expel the cold and dampness in the body.
3. Easy to catch a cold, runny nose, and allergic rhinitis
Because of the spleen and stomach deficiency and insufficient blood supply, the lung qi is deficient, so there is a slight disturbance and you will catch a cold, runny nose, and allergic rhinitis.
4. Easy to get angry and have repeated oral ulcers
Because of the lack of yang energy in the middle jiao and the blockage of qi, it leads to upper heat and lower cold, and the upper and lower water and fire cannot blend, and the more the fire is extinguished, the bigger it becomes.
5. Easy to have diarrhea and abdominal obesity is difficult to lose
Eating cold or hot and cold food, or getting a cold stomach, it is easy to have diarrhea or loose stools; there is a beer belly and a small belly, and it is very difficult to lose weight.
This is all because the spleen and stomach are cold and damp, and there is not enough temperature and strength to ferment, digest and absorb the food eaten. Moreover, the spleen and stomach are cold, and the body starts the protection mechanism, covering the spleen and stomach with a thick quilt, which is fat.
Do five things well to eliminate dampness and heat
It is easy to get rid of a thousand colds, but it is difficult to get rid of dampness. The dampness and heat are not easy to eliminate, such as oil in noodles. To eliminate dampness and heat, you must do these five things well and block them from the source:
1. Don’t stay up late or eat midnight snacks
Ensuring sleep is very important for removing dampness and heat, and letting the spleen and stomach rest at night can also reduce dampness and heat in the spleen and stomach;
2. Don’t eat spicy and greasy food
Eat a lighter diet, less meat and more vegetables, eat more green vegetables, which have the effects of nourishing the liver, clearing heat and detoxifying, and promoting dampness and diuresis, such as spinach, green vegetables, broccoli, celery, green beans, cowpeas, lettuce, etc.
3. Keep walking fast every day: activate qi and blood, increase water metabolism
Lack of movement, uncontrolled diet and high pressure will cause dampness to remain in the body. Exercise can relieve stress, activate the function of body organs, and accelerate the discharge of moisture from the body.
Brisk walking, jogging, brisk walking, swimming, yoga, Tai Chi and other fitness exercises are all very good methods. The simplest and easiest way is to insist on brisk walking every day. Walking for 40 to 60 minutes can help activate the circulation of qi and blood and increase water metabolism.
4. Opening the bladder meridian is a powerful tool for removing dampness and heat poison
The bladder meridian is the largest detoxification channel of the human body. It runs through our entire body and has 67 acupuncture points. The bladder meridian on the back controls the detoxification function of multiple organs of the human body. Moreover, the bladder meridian is the leader of the body’s yang energy. Sufficient yang energy is also conducive to removing dampness, just like the fog dissipates when the sun comes out.
Therefore, it is particularly important to take good care of your bladder meridian in summer and not let it get blocked. If conditions permit, you can often have someone massage the bladder meridian on your back, pressing from top to bottom. In summer, you can also often scrape, cupping, and cupping on the bladder meridian. When the bladder meridian is unblocked, it can detoxify and disperse blood stasis, dispel cold and dissipate heat, and also help the rise of yang energy, which is very effective in removing damp heat poison. But it is not suitable for people with yang deficiency, fear of cold, and very weak qi and blood.
Such people can often do back-to-wall, yoga forward bends, cradle poses and other movements, all of which have the effect of unblocking the bladder meridian.
Back-to-wall method
Method: When practicing, stand naturally with your back to a flat wall, 15 to 20 cm away from the wall, relax your whole body naturally, lean back naturally, touch the wall with your shoulder blades below, and then bounce naturally. When the body hits, open your mouth and exhale naturally, and do not hold your breath. You can practice three times a day, five minutes each time, and avoid practicing when you are full.
Although the back-to-wall method is very simple, you should also pay attention to gradual progress during the exercise process. At the beginning, you can hit for 5 to 10 minutes, and gradually increase to about 30 minutes. When the back is obviously hot, the acupuncture points on the back and the internal organs to which they belong are effectively maintained.
It should be noted that this health care method is that older people can only hit for 3 to 5 minutes, and patients with serious heart disease, undiagnosed spinal disease, visceral sagging, high blood pressure and advanced tumors should not use this method to exercise.
When hitting the back, a few people will feel dizzy, swollen head, headache and other discomforts. This is a normal phenomenon of the human meridian adjustment. Don’t worry, as long as the time and strength of the impact are controlled as appropriate, these symptoms will gradually disappear.
Yoga forward bend
Method: Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Put your hands naturally on both sides of your body and look straight ahead. Inhale, slowly raise your arms from both sides of your body. When your hands are raised to the top, turn your palms to the front, keep your arms parallel, exhale, and slowly lower your upper body at the same time, with your palms touching the ground as much as possible.
When your hands can’t go any further, stop exhaling, hold your breath, and maintain this position for 6-8 seconds. Then start inhaling and return to the original position. Repeat at least 15 times.
The more you can’t reach, the more toxins you have accumulated, but don’t be anxious or use brute force. As long as you feel the stretch on the back of your thigh, it’s fine, otherwise it’s easy to strain the ligament.
Cradle Style
First lie flat, bend your legs, hold your calves with both hands, and swing back and forth.
① Sit on the ground with your legs together and knees bent, hold your calves with both hands, tighten your abdomen and arch your back, and move your body back from the coccyx and lumbar vertebrae to the ground one by one. At the beginning, your feet don’t need to go over your head. After doing it a few times, you can decide according to your physical condition. Roll to the thoracic vertebrae, cervical vertebrae, and toes facing up. Gradually, your feet go over your head, straighten your feet, and touch the ground with your toes.
② Lie on the ground, bend your knees, wrap your arms around your calves, raise your head, tighten your abdomen, and arch your back. Roll your body backwards from the coccyx, lumbar vertebrae, and thoracic vertebrae to the ground one by one, and roll back and forth. It depends on your physical condition. If you can’t do it, don’t force yourself.
Rolling back can correct the spine and stimulate the acupuncture points on the back! It can not only treat cervical spondylosis, thoracic spondylosis, and lumbar spondylosis, but also solve dozens of chronic diseases!
Every day from 3 to 5 pm, about 10 minutes each time, you can stretch the back muscle fascia longitudinally and transversely, give the bladder meridian a benign stimulation, and better play its physiological role.
5. Press Chengshan acupoint: the best acupoint to remove moisture from the body
Chengshan acupoint is the best acupoint to remove moisture from the body, and its effect is similar to that of barley and red bean porridge.
Chengshan is on the foot-sun bladder meridian, and the bladder meridian controls the body’s yang energy. Chengshan acupoint is the gathering place of tendons, bones and flesh that bear the most pressure in the whole body. On the other hand, it is the hub of the meridians with the most yang energy in the human body. Therefore, it can expel moisture from the human body by invigorating the yang energy of the solar bladder meridian.
Method: Pressing Chengshan acupoint will be more painful, so the technique must be gentle. It will be effective only when you feel soreness, numbness, swelling and distension, and then increase the technique. You can press 1-2 times a day, 10-20 minutes each time, and press from light to heavy with even force.
Mugwort and ginger to dispel cold and dampness
Mugwort can be said to be the nemesis of cold and dampness. Once it is used, the cold and dampness has nowhere to hide.
Soaking feet and bathing with mugwort can dispel cold and dampness and activate qi and blood; cooking porridge with mugwort and making mugwort rice cake can dispel cold and warm the uterus, warm and nourish the spleen and kidneys; using mugwort to make hot compress packs or hot moxibustion patches can warm the meridians, dispel cold and relieve pain.
However, moxibustion is the most powerful. Mugwort leaves have the function of expelling cold and dampness. With a heat, they can reach deep into the muscles and blood vessels, expel cold evil, replenish Yuan Yang, dredge the meridians, and regulate the positive energy. It is most suitable for modern people like us who overdraw our bodies.
For people with cold and dampness, during the period from the summer solstice to the dog days, moxibustion can be performed 3 times a week to expel cold and dampness. The acupoints can be Dazhui, Shenque, Zusanli, Guanyuan, and Mingmen. You can choose 2 to 3 acupoints each time.
Dazhui: Lower your head, and the Dazhui point is below the highest bone behind the neck.
Shenque: This point is located in the middle of the abdomen of the human body, in the center of the navel, that is, the belly button.
Zusanli: It is one of the main acupoints of the Stomach Meridian of Foot Yangming, located on the outside of the calf, 3 inches below the calf nose.
Guanyuan: Located in the lower abdomen, on the anterior midline, 3 inches below the navel, that is, 4 fingers.
Mingmen: Mingmen acupoint is located on the posterior midline of the waist, below the spinous process of the second lumbar vertebra.
A simple method to quickly and accurately locate Mingmen acupoint: Take the navel as the reference, circle the waist horizontally, and the midpoint of the back waist corresponding to the navel is Mingmen.
In addition to mugwort being able to expel cold and dampness, ginger is also a very good medicine for expelling cold and dampness and warming the spleen and stomach.
People with spleen and stomach deficiency can insist on eating vinegar soaked ginger in summer, three slices every morning.
Eating vinegar and ginger in summer can not only expel cold and dampness from the spleen and stomach, but also replenish yang without getting angry. Because ginger soaked in vinegar can not only maximize the role of ginger in dispersing cold and dampness and warming the spleen and stomach, but also warm and replenish yang without getting angry with the help of the astringent effect of vinegar, which is simply better than tonic.
1. Wash the ginger and dry it. Cut the ginger into thin slices, and remove the skin to help the ginger taste better. If you want a better effect, you can cut a few incisions on the ginger. It is best to use fresh ginger, which has very good medicinal effects, and can also enhance blood circulation and promote digestion. The ginger slices should not be cut too thick, otherwise it will not be easy to taste after soaking. They must be cut evenly.
2. Take a bottle or other sealed container, put in ginger and pour in rice vinegar. The vinegar should be original fragrant vinegar. If vinegar essence and blended vinegar are used, it will not play the role described by traditional Chinese medicine.
3. Put the cut ginger in the bottle, and then pour the vinegar into the bottle. Note that the bottle must be clean and there must be no oil in the bottle to prevent the ginger from deteriorating. The vinegar must cover the ginger slices and the ginger slices must not be exposed. Then put the bottle of ginger slices soaked in vinegar in the refrigerator for storage.
4. Cover the lid and seal it firmly. It can be eaten after a week. Eating 2 to 4 slices of fresh ginger every day has a very good effect of lowering blood lipids and assisting in the treatment of arthritis.
5. It is recommended to eat soaked ginger with millet porridge for breakfast. The soaked ginger tastes crisp and tender, with a hint of sourness, spiciness and sweetness, and the fragrance of the porridge is delicately blended together, simple and refreshing. Taking it can prolong life.
Writte by XuanMenJun玄门君
Thank you for the lesson to stay healthy this month