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HOW TO KEEP HEALTHY DURING THE QINGMING FESTIVAL

HOW TO KEEP HEALTHY DURING THE QINGMING FESTIVAL

Apr 07, 2023

YE LI

How to keep healthy during the Qingming Festival (1)How to keep healthy during the Qingming Festival (2)

The Qingming festival or Ching Ming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day in English, is a traditional Chinese festival observed by ethnic Chinese in China. 

The Qingming Festival features main activities such as cleaning and sweeping graves, worshipping ancestors, offering food to the deceased, and burning joss paper. Its theme is associated with sweeping tombs and cherishing the memory of ancestors. It is also an occasion for Chinese people to go out for a walk and consume Ching Ming Tea and qingtuan (green dumplings made of glutinous rice and Chinese mugwort or barley grass). The traditional concept of “harmony between human and environment” has been vividly reflected in the Ching Ming Festival.

Tomb-Sweeping Day is at the junction of mid-spring and late spring, and it is a good time to upbear clear qi and downbear turbid qi. At this time, how should we keep healthy according to the season? Protecting the liver and invigorating the spleen is the key to health preservation during Qingming.

How to keep healthy during the Qingming Festival (3)

During the Qingming Festival, people’s yang qi is strong, which can easily induce intense liver fire. At the same time, the rain increases and the humidity gradually grows, which may lead to spleen deficiency with damp encumbrance. In daily health maintenance, the following four points will help your body and mind feel comfortable!

From the spring equinox to the Qingming Festival, the weather gradually warms up, yang qi rises to its peak, and the human body’s metabolism is vigorous, and it is prone to “spring dryness” reactions such as irritability and excessive internal heat. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that health preservation during the Qingming Festival should focus on nourishing blood and soothing the sinews, and the diet should be light and tonic.

Compendium of Materia Medica records that honey has the effects of “clearing heat, detoxifying, and moistening dryness”, and honey water is very good for resolving “spring dryness”.

Because Ganoderma lucidum is mild in nature and mainly removes pathogenic factors congealing in the chest, benefits the heart qi, supplements center, and increases wisdom, it is a perfect medicinal material in spring to be used with honey to moisten dryness and nourish the body.

How to keep healthy during the Qingming Festival (4)

Ganoderma lucidum honey water can suppress cough and calm panting, and moisten the lungs and transform phlegm.

Raw materials: 10g of organic Ganoderma lucidum slices and 20g of honey.

Method: Put the Ganoderma lucidum slices into a cup, brew in boiling water for 5 minutes, add honey and drink.

Medicinal diet instructions: This drink is suitable for those suffering from cough and panting and hasty breathing caused by lung deficiency.

You can also add other ingredients according to your own physique. For instance, chrysanthemum is suitable for hot physique while Goji berries and red dates are suitable for deficiency cold physique.

How to keep healthy during the Qingming Festival (5)

Course and nourish the liver

Spring corresponds to the liver. March in spring is a good time to nourish the liver.

It is very important to learn to soothe your emotions at this time. Drink some rose tea or Ganoderma lucidum and chrysanthemum tea when you are irritable, emotionally tense, or have insomnia, which can course the liver and resolve depression.

If you often suffer from flusteredness, shortness of breath, insomnia, profuse dreaming, dizzy head, tinnitus, or even night sweating, you should consider nourishing the liver and enriching yin. On the basis of the “six principles of nourishing the liver in spring” including a balanced diet, staying away from pollution, eating hygiene, paying attention to sleep, less smoking and less alcohol, more movement and less anger, if supplemented with Ganoderma lucidum for recuperation, you can get twice the result with half the effort.

How to keep healthy during the Qingming Festival (6)

Warm the stomach and dispel dampness

Damp qi is heavy before and after the Qingming Festival. At this time, it is necessary to reduce the sweetness and increase the acridity in the diet and use the dissipating acridity of the food to dispel dampness evil.

It is advisable to eat some foods that warm the stomach and dispel dampness during the Ching Ming Festival, such as cabbage, radish and taro.

How to keep healthy during the Qingming Festival (7)

Nourish the lungs

The climate during the Qingming Festival also creates conditions for the spread of various viruses. In order to prevent upper respiratory tract infection, attention should be paid to clearing lung qi.

At this time, you can eat more foods that nourish the lungs, such as wood ear, lily, broccoli, asparagus, apples and pears. Rock sugar tremella soup and lily lotus seed soup also have the effect of enriching yin and nourishing lungs.

Reishi Tremella Soup

How to keep healthy during the Qingming Festival (9)

In this fleeting and beautiful season, why don’t we walk slowly, take advantage of the gentle wind and clear rain to wash away the dust in our hearts, and relax our bodies and minds on this spring day?