I wrote this as a comment on a friends blog, but thought I’d re-post it here as well:
1. There is no magic point prescription to prevent getting sick. One has to look to the individual constitution and support the deficiencies and resolve accumulated stagnations to promote health and wellness, harmonize ying and wei and boost yang/wei qi, etc. We are treating individuals who get sick, not sickness/illness.
2. Why do you want to prevent getting sick? I think most people will be shocked by this question. But the reality is that getting sick (and we are talking about external invasions) provide a very valuable opportunity to the bodymind to release accumulated stagnations. An example of this is chickenpox. I won’t get into the vaccine debate here, but according to classical Chinese medicine and pediatrics, children are born with inherited toxins from there parents. It is the exposure to a virus that allows for the release of this toxicity. And if handled appropriately, the child becomes stronger and healthier after the illness. I believe this to not be limited to pediatric infectious diseases. Of course, we are not talking about the reckless behavior that gets people sick, but why are we all so paranoid about getting the flu? You just might be healthier on the other side of it……
I so agree to this.
Here's a recent news article that supports this:
http://tinyurl.com/y89hx2t
Thanks for the link, David.