Poetry for old age and health

The "classical poems dedicated to elderly health" that we often look for do not actually have a clear classification, but the relevant content scattered in the leisure and health-themed poems of the past dynasties not only hides the wisdom of the ancients in caring for the elderly, but can also correspond to the care logic of modern geriatric medicine, which is much more practical than empty auspicious words.

Don’t mention it. Last time I accompanied Director Zhang from the city’s Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital to give a health lecture in the old city community. Before he came up, he read out the salt and sugar control indicators in the PPT. He first read Bai Juyi’s line, “The old world is nothing like it, it’s only the same as the youth. Drink, peck, chat, and walk and hide.” The elders and aunts sitting down laughed loudly at that time, saying that this was written about old man Li in the courtyard. At the age of 82, he held a table tennis racket and played with the retired physical education teacher all afternoon. Director Zhang later told us, "Don't underestimate this poem. It just hits the mark on the "de-aging mentality construction" that is very important in geriatric medicine now - don't always label yourself as "frail and sick and need care", and maintain a similar pace of life to when you were young, which will be more conducive to the stability of immune function. Of course, there are different voices. Many researchers in the field of public health have mentioned that this kind of poems that emphasize "not accepting old age" can easily mislead some elderly people to endure physical discomfort. In the past two years, some elderly people read similar poems and went hiking in the wild mountains without knowing their high blood pressure. However, they had an accident on the way. Therefore, this content must be viewed dialectically. Only what suits you is useful.

Oh, by the way, I went to a public nursing home on the outskirts of the city to do research, and I saw a lot of old people with handwritten notes taped to their bedsides. When I looked closer, it was written by Lu You, "Pecking and swallowing, laughing at oneself like a lonely crane, guiding five birds. The apricot pulp in the cup is freshly brewed, and the pine nuts are buried deep by the stove at night." It was said that the nurse Xiao Zhou copied it for everyone. Lu You lived to be 85 years old, which was definitely a long life in the Southern Song Dynasty. He wrote no less than a hundred poems related to old age health care in his life. There are many clues in this sentence: "Daoyinghuo Wuqin" is the appropriate technique of traditional Chinese medicine now promoted as Wuqinxi. "Apricot juice" was a common fresh fruit drink at that time, with high vitamin content. "Pine nuts buried by the stove" were roasted and eaten, and high-quality fat and trace elements could be supplemented. I later met a 78-year-old chronic bronchitis patient who said that he changed his living habits based on this poem: playing a simplified version of Wuqinxi for 20 minutes every morning with the nurse in the nursing home, making a cup of water boiled with dried apricots in the afternoon, and peeling two roasted pine nuts to eat before going to bed at night. He persisted for half a year, and last winter he didn’t even suffer from the usual cough. Some people also think that this is a psychological effect. How can it be so magical? In fact, last year, the "Chinese Journal of Geriatrics" just released a set of controlled trial data, which divided 120 elderly people with the same basic diseases into two groups. One group only took conventional medicines as prescribed by the doctor, and the other group added additional psychological suggestion + behavioral intervention such as "poetry visualization". After 3 months, the latter's elderly quality of life score was 17.2% higher than the former. It is really not metaphysics.

When many people think of poems related to old age and health, their first reaction is to auspicious words such as "Blessings are as long as the flowing water of the East China Sea, and life is as long as the everlasting pines in the Southern Mountains." In fact, the ones that are really useful in daily life are those sentences that do not specifically write "health". Just like what Su Shi wrote when he was demoted to Huizhou, "Mr. Reporter sleeps well in spring, Taoist hits the fifth clock." My mother had insomnia for the past two years and was always anxious about the standard "elderly people must sleep 6 hours a day" mentioned on the Internet. The more anxious she became, the more she couldn't sleep, and her blood pressure fluctuated. I wrote this poem on a note and put it on her bedside, and told her that the great writers in ancient times didn't care what time they slept, as long as they slept comfortably. Later, she simply didn't think about sleeping for long enough, she just lay down when she was sleepy, and got up to water the flowers when she woke up. Within two months, the quality of her sleep improved, and her blood pressure stabilized a lot.

In fact, there are no poems specifically written for "old age health". To put it bluntly, it was the old people in ancient times who lived to their old age and figured out ways to live a comfortable life, and they just rubbed it into the ordinary. These sentences are like small prescriptions contained in old pages. If you close your eyes, pick the one that suits you and follow it, it is much more reliable than buying a bunch of useless health care products. It doesn't matter if you feel that these literate things are not to your liking. If you eat well, sleep well, and have something to look forward to every day, then the life you live by yourself is the best old-age health poem.