Yellow Emperor's advice for Winter

[anshino23]

“During the winter months all things in nature wither, hide, return home, and enter a resting period, just as lakes and rivers freeze and snow falls. This is a time when yin dominates yang. Therefore one should refrain from overusing the yang energy. Retire early and get up with the sunrise, which is later in winter. Desires and mental activity should be kept quiet and subdued. Sexual desires especially should be contained, as if keeping a happy secret. Stay warm, avoid the cold, and keep the pores closed. Avoid sweating. The philosophy of the winter season is one of conservation and storage. Without such practice the result will be injury to the kidney energy. This will cause wei jue, consisting of weakness, atrophy of muscles, and coldness in spring, manifesting as paralysis, wei/flaccid syndrome, arthritis, or degeneration of the bones and tendons. This is because the body has lost its ability to open and move in the spring.”

 

~ Maoshing Ni. “The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Medicine”. 

 

Agreements or disagreements with the above? Open discussion.  

[Gerard]

None. It's the Bible of harmonious living and wisdom.

 

Make sure your diet consists exclusively on warming foods that enrich the Yin abs subdue Yang.

[Desmonddf]

7 hours ago, anshino23 said:

“During the winter months all things in nature wither, hide, return home, and enter a resting period, just as lakes and rivers freeze and snow falls. This is a time when yin dominates yang. Therefore one should refrain from overusing the yang energy. Retire early and get up with the sunrise, which is later in winter. Desires and mental activity should be kept quiet and subdued. Sexual desires especially should be contained, as if keeping a happy secret. Stay warm, avoid the cold, and keep the pores closed. Avoid sweating. The philosophy of the winter season is one of conservation and storage. Without such practice the result will be injury to the kidney energy. This will cause wei jue, consisting of weakness, atrophy of muscles, and coldness in spring, manifesting as paralysis, wei/flaccid syndrome, arthritis, or degeneration of the bones and tendons. This is because the body has lost its ability to open and move in the spring.”

 

~ Maoshing Ni. “The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Medicine”. 

 

Agreements or disagreements with the above? Open discussion.  

 

 

There's no snow and great cold in my country, so that definition is still appliable in a certain sense, but not completely accurate for the region I live in.

 

One must before all know the nature around oneself and adapt to it, after all.

Besides that, it is great advice, indeed.

[Desmonddf]

41 minutes ago, Gerard said:

None. It's the Bible of harmonious living and wisdom.

 

Make sure your diet consists exclusively on warming foods that enrich the Yin abs subdue Yang.

 

A small point : If you subdue your yang during winter, you're probably catch a cold or pneumonia, as Yang also means Wei Qi and that's your defence against Xie Qi, the invasive cold of winter.

 

Besides, warm foods themselves tonify Yang. So you don't need to subdue Yang, but nourishing Yin is amazing indeed

[Cleansox]

15 hours ago, anshino23 said:

Retire early and get up with the sunrise, which is later in winter. 

Today the sun rose at 08.48 am. 

If I retired early and stayed in bed until that time, I'm fairly sure my body would feel like crap. 

So at least that part isn't so useful when living at an end part of this spinning ball we call home. 

[anshino23]

1 hour ago, Cleansox said:

Today the sun rose at 08.48 am. 

If I retired early and stayed in bed until that time, I'm fairly sure my body would feel like crap. 

So at least that part isn't so useful when living at an end part of this spinning ball we call home. 

 

Same here. In Scandinavia, it's lights out at 4pm, and sunrise at 8.46am. Would be pretty crazy to sleep that long.  

[Cleansox]

Even worse if we were to get up at sunrise during summer 😁

(Du måste vara i närheten av mina breddgrader om vi ligger så nära i tid.) 

Edited December 28, 2020 by Cleansox
Added stuff

[freeform]

Slightly different rules for cultivators - otherwise it’s generally sound advice  

[Paradoxal]

1 hour ago, freeform said:

Slightly different rules for cultivators - otherwise it’s generally sound advice  

Would you be willing to go into detail on this? It's something that I'd love to learn about as someone still fairly fresh on the cultivation path.

[freeform]

Well as a cultivator, you generally don’t need to worry about not sweating or opening the pores (you’d have a clearer idea of whether cold is moving in or if you’re dipping into your reserves). If you’ve developed an inner sensitivity, you can be more loose with the rules because you have a clearer insight into what’s happening energetically.

 

The main difference is that the environment will make certain practices more efficient. Winter is a yin period and presents an opportunity to go inwards... so if you ‘surf’ the wave deeper inside, you’ll be able to get deeper in.

 

So winter is generally very conducive to meditative practice - with going deep inwardly rather than expanding out, clearing or purging. Working on mental qualities, meditation, sinking, absorption and so on is supported by the Qi of your environment... 

 

Clearing channels, building Qi, purging pathogens, establishing ‘the fire’ are not supported... and in fact it may be difficult to keep ones fire alight in winter... But it doesn’t mean these aren’t possible - they’ll just be going against the grain a little (which may actually be beneficial in certain circumstances).

 

 

[Maddie]

4 hours ago, anshino23 said:

 

Same here. In Scandinavia, it's lights out at 4pm, and sunrise at 8.46am. Would be pretty crazy to sleep that long.  

 

Yes when I first became interested in Taoism I was in college in Alaska and realized this stuff was written in the context of ancient China and not Alaska so some modification is necessary.

[EmeraldHead]

11 hours ago, anshino23 said:

 

Same here. In Scandinavia, it's lights out at 4pm, and sunrise at 8.46am. Would be pretty crazy to sleep that long.  

That's perfect for bi-phasic sleep!

 

The quote says to sleep early not on the sunset.

 

I did that once in my teenage years for a bit while I was on holiday, but my family didn't let me continue. What a shame is lack of education, I think letting me continue to sleep bi-phasic starting with first sleep between 5 and 8pm could have been the most beneficial thing for me back then or any teenager and child in general.

 

I felt a freshness unlike anything else!! Bone marrow and yuan jing must been supported greatly.

 

Western science about sleep or at least the stuff that pops up in my news feed, only seem to talk about sleep debt. Buut, go to sleep at 4 in the morning and get all your hours of sleep. Tell me sleep is quantitative only again

 

Perhaps bi-phasic sleep in winter and 8 hour sleep in summer? (for places with 4 seasons).

 

- also to emphasize the first idea one may have about sleep....8 hours sounds awful for the blood!

Edited December 28, 2020 by EmeraldHead

[anshino23]

6 hours ago, EmeraldHead said:

Western science about sleep or at least the stuff that pops up in my news feed, only seem to talk about sleep debt. Buut, go to sleep at 4 in the morning and get all your hours of sleep. Tell me sleep is quantitative only again

 

Not really. If you're curious about the Western science point of view, I would recommend the book by Matthew Walker called Why We Sleep. There's a good podcast where he goes through the topic in detail here: 

 

https://peterattiamd.com/matthewwalker1/, https://peterattiamd.com/matthewwalker2/, https://peterattiamd.com/matthewwalker3/

 

No one in their right mind has ever recommended "sleep at 4am and just get all your hours of sleep" as something healthy. In fact, leading science shows that chronobiology is a hugely important part of overall health. And that night shift workers generally have worse health due to the disturbance of the natural biological cycle that is mediated through light entrainment. 

 

That said, I agree with you that naps are highly beneficial. I wouldn't call it biphasic however. But a 60-90 minute mid-day nap has been shown to improve all kinds of mental and cognitive performance in the studies I've seen. 

[Cleansox]

46 minutes ago, anshino23 said:

 

That said, I agree with you that naps are highly beneficial. I wouldn't call it biphasic however. But a 60-90 minute mid-day nap has been shown to improve all kinds of mental and cognitive performance in the studies I've seen. 

At least for people that have a lot of sensory input during the day. 

But if one have less, that nap can interfer with sleep architecture and the optimal nightly regenerative functions in the brain. 

For example, people with depressive symptoms should avoid taking naps, because the long time consequenses are negative. 

[freeform]

8 hours ago, anshino23 said:

But a 60-90 minute mid-day nap has been shown to improve all kinds of mental and cognitive performance in the studies I've seen.

I find that longer than 20 to 30 minutes can actually be counterproductive and creates a kind of inner dampness.

 

When doing a lot of training (8hrs + daily) - a 30 minute nap mid-day helps tremendously.
 

It takes a while to train your body to nap in this way (it tends to want to sleep longer - or not at all)... but once it learned the rhythm I wouldn’t even need an alarm - I go through a short sleep cycle and wake up refreshed just before 30 minutes are up.

 

Enter sleep in a meditative state and the rejuvenating effects are multiplied!

[Piyadasi]

28 minutes ago, freeform said:

I find that longer than 20 to 30 minutes can actually be counterproductive and creates a kind of inner dampness

I feel absolutely messed up after anything longer than that. Not sure what it is, or why but I feel groggy and out of balance. If you hit the time right and maybe even don't fall fully asleep it can be really useful sometimes.