Formation of body constitution

Dr. Xu Zhen made a statistical study of the body constitution cases under his care. He discovered that very few cases are determined by heredity or natural causes alone. Body constitution deviation usually shows up midway of the life cycle of a person, such as middle-school, high school, or college.

Why does body constitution deviation pop up at such a time? It usually is the cumulative effects of the bad lifestyle of a person, according to Dr. Xu.

Our internal organs are resilient. They can withstand a little bit of initial damage. But if they hurt a little bit like this every day, the old damage has not had time to be repaired, and the new damage has come again. This is like salt on a wound and the damage accumulates. At some point, it exceeded the body’s ability to withstand, and it broke out.

The body is like a pole. At first, it can bear a little weight. However, if we gradually increase the burden, the pole will bend more and more. Its bearing capacity will decrease, and finally it breaks.

That is how our body constitution deviates from its homeostasis state. Thus we must be careful to nurture a suitable lifestyle, or to correct from one that is doing damage to our body. Let us look at some examples.

If we sleep late once a while, we will recover easily with a nice sleep. If we sleep late continually for one week, we may still be alright if we are young and strong. If we push it to the limits by sleeping late for one or two years, we will see the bad consequences. Just like the piece of land, we have squandered all the nutrients in the land. Now we cannot expect to grow crops from this piece of land. Breast cancer has been known to grow from this lifestyle.

Let us look at sexual activities as another example. Some people do it once a day. If we are teenagers, we enjoy it. We have a strong body with plenty of reserve, and we are not afraid to squander it. Then try to do it for one year. You bet we will be exhausted.

Let us take eating as another example. We enjoy good foods and alcoholic drinks. We do it everyday with friends and on every occasion. Then one day we discover that we have become fat. Moreover, we have a feeling of deficiency despite all these good foods that we have consumed.

We then go for a physical checkup. The doctor told us that we now have problems with our blood sugar level, our blood pressure, our liver, our stomach and a host of other problems. Are we surprised?

Let us look at some positive examples.

Early to bed and early to rise everyday. We never sleep late. Our Life follows a good tempo. We may be more than fifty years old, but we look like young men in their thirties, with a good physical body.

Look at those old folks living on the farm lands. They do not have much desire. They will bring the goats and cows to the pasture to eat. They will talk among themselves. They do it day in and day out, and many of them live to be a hundred years old.

Our body constitution is shaped by our daily events without we being conscious of it. If we persist with a healthy lifestyle, we will end up with a healthy body constitution. Adversely, we will end up with a body constitution with various unbalanced problems. That is right. Our lifestyle decides our fate in life.

Improvement of body constitution

If our body has not been totally destroyed, we may still be able to improve it. That is what practitioners of life cultivation like us do everyday.

As practitioners of life cultivation, some of us insist on going to bed early and refuse to drink and eat cold foods. After a while, we will feel less tired, and our stomach has improved. This is an improvement. As long as we practice it, we will see improvement.

Adhering to a healthy lifestyle is to create an environment for the body to recover on its own. The body has great potential. As long as we provide a good environment, our body will take the initiative to repair the damage.

The sea has a purifying function. Sea water in the next morning will be cleaner, provided that no more pollutants are discharged into it. Thus we must control the source of pollution.

Lifestyle can destroy a healthy body constitution, and it can also shape a healthy body constitution. Lifestyle is the foundation of a healthy body constitution.

In order to improve our body constitution we must first understand our body constitution. Is it a yin-deficient, yang -deficient, qi-deficient, damp-heat, or damp-phlegm body constitution? Is it a mixed body constitution, with a touch of each?

Most of us have a mixed constitution. It is necessary to confirm which body constitution is the primary one and which is secondary. Each body constitution has its own correct corresponding lifestyle. Thus the lifestyle for a yang-deficient body constitution is not suitable for a yin-deficient body constitution. If we do not know our body constitution, there is no way for us to correctly start the adjustment process.

Thus, the correct procedure is first to determine our body constitution type, then we proceed to design a lifestyle that is beneficial to us, and finally, we decide on a diet plan.

As we have discussed before, there is a type A balanced body constitution, and eight that are deviations from the balanced one. The outer manifestation of each body constitution type has been outlined before. The adjustment process and the reasoning behind it has been mentioned before. You may look it up and find the right one for you.