The difference between internal nourishment and external nourishment in traditional Chinese medicine

The most essential difference between the two is the different targets of action - internal nourishment targets the "core systems" of the human body such as the organs, qi, blood, and body fluids, and solves the root problems.； Exogenous nourishment works on the "external pathways" such as meridians, skin, and muscles, and mostly solves superficial problems or emergency problems. There is no advantage or disadvantage between the two, only the difference in adaptability to the scene.

A while ago, I treated two girls who also came here to have a dull complexion, and their situation just matched these two paths. One is an Internet operator. After staying up late for more than three months, my aunt was in pain so much that she had to take ibuprofen every time. Her lips were always black, and even her eyes were blue. She had to flick my hand quickly to feel her pulse. This yellow color is the "endogenous yellow" caused by stagnation of qi and blood. I prescribed her flavored Xiaoyao Powder with Guanyuan moxibustion twice a week. After almost two months, not only did her face become brighter, but her pain was basically gone. The other is an outdoor blogger who runs and hikes every day. She only wears a hat and does not apply sun protection on her face. Except for the sunburn on her face, she eats, drinks and sleeps normally. She has a light red tongue and a gentle pulse. This is the "exogenous yellow" caused by ultraviolet rays. She does not need to take medicine at all. She was given Jiajia Yurong Powder to apply twice a week, plus facial scraping once a week to clear the facial meridians. When she came back for a follow-up visit in half a month, her face was one degree whiter than her neck.

To be honest, I have seen too many people take detours in this regard. They either think that external nutrition is a tax on IQ, and nothing they apply is as useful as taking medicine. In fact, when you are not sure what to choose, you should first look at whether your problem "comes from the inside" or "comes from the outside": the kind of chin acne that grows repeatedly, no matter how much acne cream you apply to eliminate it, it will still grow next week. It is essentially caused by liver stagnation or palace cold, so you need to nourish and regulate the roots internally. ； If you get redness, swelling and pimples the next day after eating a spicy hot pot meal, you can apply some golden ointment and it will disappear in two days. It is not like drinking heat-clearing and detoxifying medicine for a week to damage the spleen and stomach.

The preference for these two methods in the industry is actually quite interesting. I know a few old doctors who are in the prescription school. They don’t even use facial cleansers. They drink customized prescriptions every day. They have very few wrinkles on their faces in their fifties. They always say that external nutrition is a "flower shelf". When the qi and blood are clear, the inside and outside will naturally be better. When it comes to children with food accumulation, a dose of Jiao Sanxian will be faster than any massage. But the masters who do external therapy don’t believe this. The master I often go to for massage encounters a child whose spleen and stomach are so weak that he vomits after taking medicine. After twenty minutes of chiropractic massage and panmen massage, the child will cry out that he is hungry. He always says, "The passages are blocked, and no matter how many tonics he takes, he can't get in." In fact, both statements are correct. Wu Shiji, a master of external treatment in the Qing Dynasty, has long said that "the principles of external treatment are the principles of internal treatment, and the medicine of external treatment is the medicine of internal treatment. The difference is the law." The essence is to adjust balance, but the paths are different.

Don’t look down on it because you think that external nutrition only treats the symptoms but not the root cause. Sometimes, the efficiency of external nutrition is incomparable to that of internal nutrition. For example, if you have a stiff neck that hurts so much that you can't turn your head, you can go to a massage parlor for twenty minutes and you can move normally. If you drink kudzu soup, it may take a day or two to recover. ； If your face becomes red due to allergies and oozes yellow water, you can wait for half a month just by drinking dehumidification tea, but it will dry up after three days with a wet compress of cork and purslane. But the shortcomings of external support are also obvious. Take stiff neck as an example. If you lower your head and browse your phone for more than ten hours every day, you will definitely make it again after three days. If you want to completely avoid it, you must either practice more Baduanjin to adjust the stress of the cervical spine, or take some medicine to replenish qi and blood to nourish the neck muscles. This is the role of internal support - the effect is slow, but once it is adjusted, it can be maintained for a long time.

I usually maintain my health both internally and externally. Recently, I stayed up a few nights to write a manuscript. My breath was heavy and my eyes were dry, so I soaked some chrysanthemum, wolfberry and Ophiopogon japonicus water to drink. This is a foundation for internal nourishment.； If you stayed up until 2 or 3 o'clock the day before, and your face is so shabby the next day that you can't see anyone, just take five minutes and use a scraper to scrape along the jawline a few times. After scraping, it will become tight immediately. This is an emergency treatment. I never worry about which one is more noble, comfort and usefulness are the most important.

To be honest, there is no black and white standard answer to health care in traditional Chinese medicine. There is no need to insist on the dead principle of "internal care is the real health care", and there is no need to be superstitious about the gimmick of "external care to change the face in 7 days". If the problem is urgent and the symptoms are superficial, treat it externally first. If the problem is repeated and the root cause is inside, slowly treat the root internally. If you don't mind the trouble, you can often get the effect of 1+1>2 by combining internal and external care.