Four Health Killers for Modern Women
The Four Major Health Killers Facing Contemporary Women – The First One Can Ruin a Woman’s Entire Life!
Many women fail to grasp a fundamental truth: while men smoke, drink, devour meat, burn the midnight oil, and indulge in excess without suffering severe illness, women who abstain from smoking and drinking, avoid late nights and excess, and even consume less meat, often find themselves plagued by a myriad of health issues. Perhaps this is a matter every woman should seriously contemplate. Just as fate has endowed men with cigarettes, fine wine, and sumptuous feasts to entice them, it has also granted women other temptations that, unbeknownst to them, can be equally harmful to their bodies.
Contemporary women face four distinct health killers unique to this era—each capable of ushering in a host of ailments, with the foremost capable of devastating a woman’s life.
1. The Unbridled Emotions: The Hidden Culprit of Illness
The primary culprit behind many of a woman’s ailments is not her diet or lifestyle habits but the uncontrolled fluctuation of her emotions—those intangible yet potent forces that can wreak havoc on her vital organs. Women often exhibit remarkable restraint when it comes to food and daily habits, readily adjusting their behavior once they realize certain foods or practices harm their health. However, one element remains almost impossible to master: their unchecked emotions.
Women are, by nature, creatures of emotion—born to feel, and sometimes, to suffer from these feelings. While men too experience emotions, most are adept at managing them; women, however, tend to let their feelings overflow. Their moods can change as swiftly and unpredictably as the shifting skies. Joy, anger, sorrow, contemplation, worry, fear, and shock—all when left unchecked, inflict irreparable damage to the body. In traditional Chinese medicine, joy disperses energy, anger causes it to rise, sorrow depletes it, worry leads to stagnation, and fear drives it downward. In the turmoil of these “seven emotions,” a woman’s vital energy becomes chaotic.
Among these, anger is perhaps the most perilous. While it’s often remarked that men too become angry, their anger manifests as explosive outbursts, while a woman’s anger may be triggered by trifles—whether it’s a delayed reply to a text message, a lack of praise for her cooking, or discovering her partner dining with another woman. Few men are in a state of rage every day, yet many women find themselves embroiled in anger from dawn to dusk—even dreaming of it at night. Sometimes, though their lips remain placid, their hearts are besieged by waves of resentment, silently chipping away at their health. This persistent anger has been linked to ailments such as migraines, dry eyes, insomnia, menstrual irregularities, mammary hyperplasia, and uterine fibroids.
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In addition to anger, constant worry is another major emotional burden. A common refrain from men is, “You worry too much.” Indeed, women often live in perpetual contemplation—even over minutiae such as which extracurricular class their child should attend, whether an elder needs a medical checkup, or how to seize early-bird discounts at the supermarket. The endless barrage of domestic concerns takes its toll; while the body may not appear physically exhausted, the heart grows weary. Prolonged worry can lead to a deficiency in both heart and spleen energy. In traditional Chinese thought, the spleen is the root of postnatal vitality, the source of the body’s energy and blood. A damaged spleen leads to diminished blood, which in turn may result in scanty menstruation.
Women, besides anger and worry, also tend to wallow in sorrow. One woman, for instance, could not fathom why she, a non-smoker, developed lung cancer—only to discover that a tragic loss in her past had plunged her into months of ceaseless grieving. In traditional Chinese medicine, prolonged sorrow harms the lungs, as persistent grief depletes lung energy, hindering the body’s ability to expel phlegm and dampness, eventually contributing to nodules or tumors. Thus, a non-smoking woman’s lung disease often stems from either excessive sorrow or chronic anger. Anger may cause an overabundance of liver fire, which, when coupled with an overactive heart, disrupts the balance—a phenomenon known in traditional medicine as “wood fire assaulting metal,” where the liver (wood) and heart (fire) conspire against the lungs (metal). For example, some individuals experience coughing fits as soon as they become angry—a clear sign of this imbalance.
Women also suffer from fear. For many, the gravest terror isn’t professional failure—after all, one can always become a devoted homemaker—but rather the upheaval of marriage and emotional bonds. An overly dependent woman may live in constant dread: “Will he ever stop loving me? Might he fall for another woman? Could we eventually divorce?” Cruelly, the more one fears, the more likely it is that such fears manifest. Fear, a primitive and draining negative force, saps the body’s positive energy, particularly injuring the kidneys, as the adage goes: “Fear weakens the kidneys, and fear leads to the sinking of energy.”
To live well, a woman must learn to master her emotions, forging a harmonious relationship with them rather than being subjugated by them. Embrace your emotions as allies—they will come when needed and gracefully recede when not, without imposing their burden on you.
2. The Perils of Overzealous Weight Loss
For the sake of pleasing a man, many women go to extremes by sacrificing their health in the pursuit of an impossibly slender figure. While moderate weight loss can be beneficial, excessive dieting is nothing short of pathological. An ancient adage even warns: “The Chu king adored a narrow waist, yet many in the palace starved to death.” Today, countless women erroneously adopt extreme dieting methods in the name of maintaining a “waif-like” physique and a distorted ideal of beauty. They forsake staple foods, subsisting almost solely on vegetables and fruits—one cucumber for breakfast, another for lunch, and yet another for dinner—all in hopes of catching a man’s eye with the allure of being “slim as a flash of lightning.” The result is indeed a body as thin as lightning, but at the cost of developing anorexia, amenorrhea, premature ovarian failure, infertility, and other serious conditions.
A truly graceful figure should be neither overweight nor undernourished, but rather well-rounded and healthy. Many women unwittingly drain their body’s vital energy by engaging in extreme methods such as liposuction, starvation, or laxative abuse. Few realize that the root of obesity lies in an inefficient spleen and stomach—when these organs fail to effectively separate the pure from the impure, metabolic waste accumulates. Therefore, the fundamental remedy for weight loss should be to strengthen the spleen. Ironically, many trendy diets aimed at weight loss actually undermine spleen health by excluding grains—the very source of nourishing energy and blood. Without these essential carbohydrates, the body may become thin, but it is the depletion of vital energy rather than fat loss that marks this unhealthy state. The truth is, one must eat well in order to have the strength to lose weight—an adage that is anything but a mere jest.
3. The Hidden Dangers of “Healthy” Foods
Despite abstaining from smoking, drinking, and excessive meat consumption, many women indulge in fruits, milk, ice cream, and sweets—foods that, although seemingly harmless, can foster imbalances in the body. Ice cream, for instance, can increase a woman’s internal coldness, while fruits may contribute to excessive dampness. Similarly, milk and sweets tend to produce phlegm. In fact, nine out of ten women are prone to a constitution characterized by cold and dampness.
How can women who shun unhealthy habits still fall ill? The culprit might be these so-called healthy foods. While many champion fruit as a source of vitamins, beauty enhancement, weight loss, and improved digestion, traditional Chinese medicine warns that fruits are often cooling and damp in nature; even if not overtly cold, they tend to be moist, and excessive consumption can damage spleen yang. For those already suffering from constipation due to a cold constitution, an overindulgence in fruits is nothing short of disastrous. The Huangdi Neijing offers only a terse recommendation regarding fruits—“Fruits serve as an aid”—yet many women mistakenly treat them as a staple, thus inverting priorities.
Milk, known for its rich and heavy nature, easily generates phlegm; many cases of excessive phlegm in women can be traced back to high milk consumption. The popular marketing slogan “a pound of milk a day makes the Chinese stronger” might boost dairy companies’ coffers, but it often does little to fortify one’s health. Globally, the demand for milk exceeds what nature can sustainably provide—after all, both humans and cows only produce milk during limited periods. Cows, forced into incessant breeding to meet human demand, suffer shortened lifespans, typically enduring only a few years of production instead of their natural 20-year longevity. One must ask: just how nutritious is such milk?
Sweets present an even more insidious temptation. They provide women with fleeting feelings of happiness and satisfaction, offering solace for emotional wounds. Yet, once ensnared by these sugary delights, it is difficult to extricate oneself. Sweets are notorious for producing phlegm, and many mysterious ailments can be attributed to its accumulation. Worse still, modern confections are typically sweetened with artificial sugars and contain trans fats—both of which are challenging for the body to metabolize and are known carcinogens. As for ice cream, it is even more damaging, robbing women of their vital yang energy from head to toe. Fruits, milk, ice cream, and sweets—all inherently cooling and damp foods—exacerbate the natural deficiency of yang energy in women, inevitably leading to a higher incidence of illness.
4. The Fashion Trap: Dressing for Others at the Expense of Health
Truth be told, many women choose their attire solely in pursuit of so-called sexy beauty, thereby gradually depleting their body’s yang energy. Often, women dress not for themselves but to allure men. Consider the case of one woman who, moved by a man’s offhand compliment—“Your neck is as graceful as a swan and your shoulders as alluring as willow leaves”—began a lifelong habit of exposing her shoulders. Regardless of the season, even in the bitter cold or amidst harsh winds, her shoulders remained uncovered, allowing the chill, dampness, and wind to seep insidiously into her body. Eventually, she developed severe shoulder periarthritis; even under the blazing sun, her shoulders felt perpetually cold, necessitating special warming garments at night. Tragically, the man who once praised her soon vanished from her life.
Many women, in their quest for allure, opt for revealing clothing—whether it be bare shoulders, exposed midriffs, uncovered waists, or legs laid bare at the knees or ankles. The result? Those who expose their shoulders may suffer from shoulder periarthritis; those who reveal their midriffs risk uterine cold; exposing the waist may lead to diminished “mingmen fire” (a vital energy associated with kidney warmth), resulting in kidney yang deficiency and cold extremities; and exposing knees or ankles can even provoke joint inflammation. Despite numerous “medical” articles dismissing the notion that revealing attire can harm health—arguing that no data supports claims that knee-baring pants cause arthritis—the evidence is plain for those already afflicted. Modern Western medicine may not recognize wind-cold-dampness as a pathogenic factor, but the reality is evident: the ailments persist. Many, under the banner of modernity, advocate for embracing cold drinks and exposed fashion as symbols of individuality and self-expression. Yet, as age inevitably takes its toll—beginning with the legs, which often suffer first—it becomes apparent that ancient wisdom holds merit. In traditional practice, when one sits cross-legged, one instinctively uses one’s hands to protect the vulnerable knees from the elements, and socks have always been long enough to cover the ankles. Today, however, even in the dead of winter, many deliberately cut holes in their trousers at the knees, swathing their upper bodies in layers while leaving their lower halves scantily clad—bare knees, exposed ankles, and trembling legs in long stockings—all in the name of style. The truth is, very few men even notice; it is mostly an illusion that many women believe they must cultivate for the sake of male approval.