A Special Prescription for Anxiety Relief!

A friend started a startup company, rushing daily to keep the business running smoothly, anxious and irritable.
Another friend, due to anxiety, couldn't move into a villa, and is also restless and upset every day, blaming others and themselves.
Most notably, the male owner of the neighbor's house has been frequently losing his temper since summer, shouting so loudly that the entire floor can hear it.
What major issue could cause him to extend this irritability throughout summer, autumn, and winter?
All these behaviors are just like what an article in the People's Daily once said:
"Anxiety has become a common illness in society."
Anxiety, impatience, and irritability seem to have become common ailments for some people, making everything seem urgent and impatient, always unable to wait, sit still, slow down, or calm down.
They don't communicate properly, don't discuss issues calmly, and when problems arise, they often flare up with "hurry, irritability, and anger," and so on.
The People's Daily pointed out that the cause of all this is: simply put, a lack of patience.
Solution: To avoid being impatient and anxious when encountering problems, patience is needed.
It is both a personality trait and a virtue, a "noble character," capable of achieving success and enriching life.
Unlike the People's Daily's approach of being a happiness medicine, as a public account writing about traditional Chinese medicine, naturally, we should discuss anxiety from a TCM perspective.
After all, many times, negative emotions are signs of poor physical health.
Anxiety, depression, and other mental disorders are called "Bai He Disease" in TCM, a name derived from the main treatment using lily, which has sedative effects and can be applied to nervous system diseases.
The occurrence of Bai He Disease is related, firstly, to the heart's inability to nourish and calm the mind.
The heart governs the spirit; inner restlessness can lead to emotional instability.
As the famous Han Dynasty doctor Zhang Zhongjing said, "Bai He Disease involves all the meridians, caused by fatigue."
This fatigue refers specifically to mental fatigue.
Secondly, inner depression and discomfort, with the heart unsettled, can cause internal heat to rise to the lungs.
Lung stagnation leads to yin deficiency, manifesting as emotional instability, agitation, irritability, difficulty sleeping and eating, waking at night, and vivid dreams.
Therefore, the basic pathogenesis of Bai He Disease is yin deficiency of the heart and lungs, with disturbed spirit.
The Han Dynasty master Zhang Zhongjing created the Bai He Di Huang Tang, a special prescription for treating Bai He Disease.
Ingredients: 7 lily bulbs (split), 24 grams; fresh Di Huang juice, 1 sheng (about 1.4 liters), 24 grams.
Wash the lilies with water, soak overnight until foam appears, remove the water, then use 2 sheng of spring water, decoct to obtain 1 sheng, strain out the dregs, add the Di Huang juice, decoct to get 1.5 sheng, then warm and take.
This decoction method is quite ancient—"using 2 sheng of spring water."
In ancient times, the water used was probably well water or spring water, which was easy to find.
Nowadays, finding spring water is difficult, and even if found, it may be contaminated.
So, use pure water instead!
This formula has a mnemonic rhyme, with the last line being very interesting:
"Di Huang juice, 1 sheng, 7 lilies,
Yin softness most transforms yang's might."
Let's see how Bai He Di Huang Tang uses softness to control hardness.
Lily enters the heart and lung meridians, tastes sweet and bitter cold, can consolidate qi, nourish the heart, calm the spirit, and stabilize the mind, with very definite calming effects.
Di Huang is raw Rehmannia, cold in nature, enters the heart meridian, can nourish yin and generate fluids, treat thirst and irritability, and is effective for emotional unrest, anxiety, and irritability.
The "Shiyi De Xiao Fang" records that raw Rehmannia treats heart diseases regardless of duration or severity:
"Raw Rehmannia, used as needed, can be cooked into porridge or eaten cold, but avoid salt."
These two cold, cooling herbs together nourish yin, clear heat, benefit the heart and lungs, and calm the spirit.
They are not only a dedicated prescription for Bai He Disease but also a basic formula with broad applicability for mental disorders.
However, considering the cooling and heat-clearing effects of Di Huang and Bai He, when treating mental disorders solely with Bai He Di Huang Tang, it is more suitable for those with yin deficiency and internal heat disturbing the spirit.
Later generations of TCM have innovated on this basis, such as adding Zhi Zi and Huang Qin for liver fire blazing; adding Zhi Mu and Huang Bai for yin deficiency with excess fire; adding Sha Shen and Mai Dong for lung and stomach yin deficiency; adding Tai Zi Shen and Dang Shen for long-term qi deficiency, striving to maximize the use of ancestral inventions and carry them forward.
The People's Daily, when discussing patience as a way to treat emotional disorders like anxiety, quoted a line from the Dao De Jing:
"Stillness is the ruler of agitation."
It means that stillness governs movement.
It also says in the "Great Learning":
"Only when still can one be at peace; only when at peace can one think; only when thinking can one attain."
And the Bai He Di Huang Tang from TCM, from a medicinal perspective, helps anxious people settle their minds, find true happiness within calmness, and look at the big picture with a broad view.
Both approaches belong to traditional culture—one from a psychological perspective, the other from a medical standpoint—aiming to bring about physical and mental change, ultimately fulfilling hopes and desires!