As we all know, the science of keeping health has a very long history. In China, the field of health keeping had experienced the processes of full blossom and developed respectively. During the process of combining the theories and exchanging the experience, there were different emphasis on the theories and methods in health keeping.
When the foreigners come to learn Chinese in China, they may be told by the teachers that all kinds of schools appeared during the developing process. And then, different branches affected and combined with each other. All of these made a contribution to the cultural treasure of the Chinese traditional science of health keeping.
One important school is the school that focuses on the mental tranquility. For this school, it regarded the mental health as the key point of health keeping. If you come to study Chinese in China, you will hear that by the way of regulating the mental activity, it will achieve the goal of keeping health and keep a long life. This kind of thought originated from the Laozi and Zhuangzi.
Following the thoughts of Laozi and Zhuangzi, the book “Huang Emperor’s Medicine Classic” proposed to keep health by the way of keeping mental tranquility in the view of teaching materials for the first time. Some foreigners who study Mandarin in China may know that this book hold the opinion to regulate the mental activity according to the characteristics of the four seasons.
The tranquility of the mental life is helpful to delay the process of being aged so that to prolong people’ life. For the reason that the mental take the responsibility to decide people’s happiness, anger and anxiety as well as physical activities, people should keep their mental life quiet and calm. Accordingly, people should live in a tranquil environment and keep less desire about the outside society. In addition, students who learn Chinese in China should also know that people should keep doing exercise to maintain the health of the mental life.
In traditional Chinese medical science, “jing”, “qi” and “shen” are the most important three things for human body. “Jing” is the material basis to make up the body and maintain life. “Qi” is the power to maintain the energy. “Shen” indicates people’s mental activity. Therefore, mental tranquility is very important for people’s health.
After knowing the importance of the mental health to the whole health, people should make efforts to keep the mental tranquil so that they can live a healthy life and a long life.