Chapter 1: What is yangsheng - nourishment of life?
Keeping it simple
What is yangsheng?
The four legs of the chair
Where does modern health and lifestyle research come from?
Longevity in Chinese culture
Chapter 2: Health - the challenge and the opportunity
One life
The limits of medicine
Chronic disease – facts and warnings
What can we do about it?
Chapter 3: What determines how long we live and how healthy we are?
Constitution
The Chinese explanation of constitution – inherited essence
Acquired - post-heaven essence
Constitutional strength - a throw of the dice?
Constitution and longevity – the evidence
Luck
Chapter 4: Why we get ill
The causes of disease
The external causes of disease – climatic factors
The internal causes of disease – the emotions
Neither internal nor external (miscellaneous) causes
Irregular diet
Overwork and overstrain
Sitting
Standing
Insufficient rest
Night work
Lack of exercise
Traumatic injury
Excessive sex
Parasites and poisons
Wrong medical treatment
Ignorance54The teachings of Dr. John HF Shen
Chapter 5: Cultivating the mind and emotions
Moderating our emotions
The harmful effect of unregulated emotions
Anger
Free expression versus repression
Joy (Excitement)
Grief
Thinking and preoccupation
Worry and anxiety
Fear and fright
Other emotions - stress
How to manage the emotions and cultivate the mind
Mindfulness and meditation
Positive emotions
Intimacy
Happiness
Generosity
Laughter
Nature, music and art
Gratitude
Chapter 6: Diet – how to eat
Diet – the challenges
How to eat - quantity
How to eat – regular eating
On dieting, diets and weight loss
Chapter 7: Diet – what to eat
The decline of modern food
The qing dan diet
Adjusting our diet to our needs
Eat real food
What to eat – an overview
What to eat – the detail
Whole cereal grains
Breakfast
Bread
Vegetables
Mushrooms
Pulses
Sea vegetables
Fruit
Nuts and seeds
Fermented foods
Salt
Fresh foods
Fats
Sugar
Vitamins and supplements
Vegetarian – to be or not to be?
Organically-grown foods
Balancing the five temperatures and the five tastes
Chapter 8: Alcohol
Alcohol – the harm
Alcohol – the benefits
What is moderate drinking?
Making sense of alcohol research
A Chinese medicine perspective
Chapter 9: Tea
Tea and health
Principal varieties of tea
Making tea
Drinking tea
A brief history of tea
Chapter 10: Exercise
Ancient wisdom, modern forgetting
What is exercise?
The evidence for exercise and health
Exercise and the mind
Exercise, but how much?
More is not necessarily better
Exercise addiction
Exercise during pregnancy
Walking
A broader view of exercise
Chapter 11: Traditional Chinese exercise
The evidence base
Principles of the Chinese exercise tradition
Integration of body, breath and mind
Internal and external, hard and soft
Free flow
The elastic body – the fascia
Rootedness and balance
Breathing
Internal exercises – the spiritual dimension
A word about practice
Afterword - Chinese sports
Chapter 12: Sleep
The effects of insufficient sleep
Chinese sleep advice
Preparing the mind
Avoiding eating before bedtime
Sleeping position
Washing the feet
Pillows
How much should we sleep?
Siesta
Exercise and sleep
Meditation and sleep
A brief explanation of sleep disturbance in Chinese medicine
Chapter 13: Affairs of the bedroom
Sex as pleasure and joy
Sex is healthy for both partners
Sex is also dangerous
A different perspective on male ejaculation
Females as sources of nourishment
The female perspective
Dual cultivation
About libido and constitution
Erectile dysfunction and male health
Research into sex and health
Aphrodisiacs
Pornography
Homosexuality
Chapter 14: Pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum care, breastfeeding
Foetal education (taijiao)
Emotions
Diet
Exercise
Rest
Modern taijiao
Childbirth
Modern childbirth
Early and preterm birth
The case for a ‘follow nature’ approach to birth
Postnatal depression and anxiety
So what’s the alternative?
A calm birthing environment
Acupressure
Postpartum care
Zuoyezi, or ‘doing the month’
Breastfeeding – the optimum diet for babies
Infant formula
Pregnancy as a ‘gateway’
Chapter 15: Care of children
Causes of disease in children
Diet
Improper feeding - overfeeding
Improper feeding - wrong ‘temperature’ food
Improper feeding – excessively sweet food
Improper feeding - whole foods
Improper feeding - dairy foods
Improper feeding - junk food
Improper feeding - soya
Breakfast
Exercise
Stress
Body image disorders
Wrong treatment
Education
Chapter 16: Nature
Human beings, health and nature – the evidence
Sunshine
Nature in Chinese culture
Nature and Chinese medicine
Attuning life to the ebb and flow of yin and yang
The internal landscape – the neijing tu
The internal landscape - acupuncture
The internal landscape - climate
Five phase theory (wu xing)
Nature and herbal medicine
Nature in the self-cultivation tradition
Feng shui
The dark shadow over the natural world
Chapter 17. Music and dance
Music and healing
Music and the natural order in the Chinese tradition
A brief history of Chinese music
Ritual – music and dance
Dance
Chapter 18. Old age
Ageing and expectation
Healthy ageing
Ageing and free flow
Ageing and exercise
Ageing and diet
Ageing and the mind
Contentment
The ageing brain
Wisdom
Chapter 19. Death
Embracing death
Dealing with advanced ageing
The medicalisation of death
The fixer mindset
Dying
Finding meaning in death
Chinese philosophy and death
Buddhism
Confucianism
Daoism
Appendix A: The extraordinary story of our microbial friends
What is the microbiota
The development of the microbiota - birth and early feeding
The development of the microbiota - diet
The microbiota and calorie restriction
The microbiota and the appendix
The microbiota and antibiotics
The microbiota and the immune system
The microbiota and obesity
The microbiota and the mind
The microbiota and the skin
Faecal (microbiota) transplants
Appendix B: Smoking
Appendix C: Detoxing
Cultural and historical background
Auto-intoxication
Bloodletting
Purging
Diet
Religion
Detoxing - the Chinese medicine perspective
Appendix D: Chinese science
The validity of traditional knowledge
Chinese science and technology
Why was Chinese science so advanced?
Some examples from Chinese medical history
Appendix E: A brief history of Chinese health exercise
Appendix F: A final word - spirituality
Glossary of key terms
Further reading
Index