Achieving Well-Being

This web page contains short extracts of more in depth discussions on how Traditional Chinese Medicine helps and advises us on achieving and maintaining well-being. If having read the extract/ abstract you feel inclined to read further, then please click on the appropriate link to download the extended document in PDF format. Patients who have been asked to return to this site should also feel free to explore other areas of interest as well as the recommended discussion.

1. Food for thought

An essay on the art of eating; ‘it aint what you eat, it’s the way that you eat it’.at least in part.

“Underpinning the practice of TCM Dietary Therapy is recognition that appropriate absorption and utilisation of foods, their nutrients and energy, is dependent upon the healthy functioning of the digestive system. A healthy digestive system in turn, is not only the product of the foods that we eat, but of equal importance; the preparation, timing and manner in which we consume them”.

2. Food as medicine

An essay on the principles of food preparation to allay and treatment conditions according to TCM.

“Foods, according to TCM, are categorised according to their energetic qualities, and by this I mean according to the energetic impact that each food exerts on the human body. TCM is not so concerned with the analysis of food according to their relative amounts of minerals, vitamins, protein, carbohydrate and fat etc. Rather, individual foods are accredited with a number of energetic attributes. In this discussion we will be exploring the impact of food by way of relative temperature. TCM categorises foods according to whether they Hot, Warm, Neutral, Cool or Cold, and each of these qualities will exert a specific influence on the digestive system or Spleen and in turn on the general constitution. Put more simply, foods can either warm us up or, cool us down. Depending on an individual’s constitution and or their present condition, foods can either enhance function or disrupt it”.