Doasim Practice For Preventative Health

The pace of modern life can be dizzying and often leaves us with little opportunity to take stock of our health. Whether it is stressed stemming from work, the weight of supporting children or a family, or just the pressures of business-as-usual, our bodies are quietly screaming for an opportunity to recharge their batteries.

But who has the time, right?

As it turns out, turning the tables on common illnesses that plague modern life can be as simple as adding some herbs to your diet. 

The impact of these herbs, though, should not be underestimated - hence their traditional Chinese classification as the ‘three treasures’.

With even a basic understanding of the three treasures, we can harness untapped power within ourselves, reinvigorating our tired inner-self and perpetuating a lifestyle of preventative health that can fight the side effects of the modern world. This has resulted in a number of tonics, filled with beneficial herbs and mushrooms being introduced to tap into our energy reserves, and give us that leg-up we often lack.

Laozi, the founder of what we know today as the Daoist philosophy categorised Jing, Qi and Shen as the ‘three tonic treasures’. Jing is the primary treasure, which can be likened to a battery inside our bodies that gives us the energy we need for day-to-day life. The secondary treasures, Qi and Shen use this primary energy to animate our bodies and reinvigorate our spirit and consciousness.

Without the battery pack, in this case, the primary treasure of Jing, the process doesn’t work, meaning that without directly addressing problematic areas of our lifestyle or diet, we can’t effectively resolve other areas of our life.

Mason Taylor, a health educator, host of the Mason Taylor Show podcast and founder of SuperFeast has found the way to harness the power of tonic herbs and believes this can revolutionise how we understand our bodies under stress, or in the face of immunological disorders.  

Mason says that by first getting an understanding of the primary treasure, our Jing, we can better understand how the rest of the treasures impact our everyday lives, and how we can harness special combinations of herbs and mushrooms to leverage an optimised flow of energy inside our bodies.

“If you have poor Jing energy, you’re trying to build a temple on a swamp.” 

The treasures are the three foundational energies which we can all relate to; they’re a tangible thing, says Mason. At the base of it is our Yin-Yang Wuxin cycle - or the five elements cycle - represents how energy transforms between Yin and Yang in our bodies, through the five major organs. When that cycle is out of step, we see either a drain in one of the treasures, or a development of another one of the treasures.

The powerhouse that gives our bodies energy, in this analogy, is the Jing energy that lives in the kidneys. Everyone can relate to the feeling of a battery with our bodies that loses charge as we push ourselves. “If we can ensure that we don’t fall into that lifestyle - and the emotional and psychological loops - that keep draining the power of the battery, you can avoid physiologically walking on eggshells.”

In the absence of Jing energy, our bodies don’t have the necessary charge they need to power the body. “You go into extreme exhaustion, and what you start to see, especially at those critical points is that you can’t handle stress, you don’t have genetic potential, you don’t have strong bones or brain function because the ‘sea of marrow’ that the Daoists call the brain doesn’t have foundation or the kidneys regulating it properly.”

“What you see is rapid ageing. You see a very sudden deterioration of the physical body because you’ve been flogging yourself. You don’t have the battery to keep regenerating.”

“You don’t have the power to keep regenerating.”

When we start to really take control over our lifestyle choices, and begin making better choices - or consolidating on our good behaviour - the potential health benefits are infinite. The hardest part is knowing what we need to do, as well as getting an understanding of why. As we learn more about the three treasures, and how we can leverage mixtures of herbs and tonics that aim to give our Jing the much-needed boost of energy we need, the positive cycle begins to really get to work.

In much the same way, once we’ve been able to take a step back and identify a particular health problem, or source of stress in our lives, we can then kick-start a cycle of preventative health strategies to tackle the problem area. At its core, it’s incredibly simple, but it is often extremely difficult to break old - and bad - habits. It’s something that remains dependent on your ability to take time out of your day and practice something that is beneficial to your health.

If you’re looking for an easy option when it comes to self-care and practicing something beneficial for your health while staying in the comfort of your home, you should consider adding time in an infrared sauna to your routine. Not only is it an invaluable opportunity to practice mindfulness and enter a state of relaxation and meditation, there are also a huge range of health benefits on offer.

To learn more about how an infrared sauna can help kick-start a culture of preventative health in your life, check out our website, and to hear more about Mason’s body of work in Eastern medicine and herbal therapies, click here to check out the latest episode of The Sauna Show.

If you're interested in an infrared sauna cabin for home, click here to view our range of full-spectrum saunas, far-infrared saunas, and outdoor saunas.