Maintaining Health With Thai Medicine (泰医养生观)

In Thai medicine, our spirit and body is a holistic system. When health matters, then not only one should maintain the proper functionality of his/her physical body, at the same time it is also important to maintain a good spirit.

For example, most of the Thais are followers of Theravada. Through the practice of Buddhist dharma, they control their heart and donate to the needy. It is through these practices Buddhists achieve peaceful mind and gradually attain enlightenment. The calmness of our mind not only maintains our mental health; it also the health of our physical body. Thus in Thai medicine, ‘compassion’ is also part of curriculum and that human beings should help and love each other so as to avoid unnecessary confrontations. It is also when everyone has a calm and compassionate mind that our world can be at peace too.

Similar to Ayurvedic medicine, Thai medicine thinks that our health is maintained through the balancing of four elements (earth, water, fire and wind) and the ‘panca skandha’ or the five functions (form, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness). The best method to maintain health is through a combination of working hard and relaxations, appropriate food and beverages, control of one’s sexual activities etc. to maintain the balance of four elements (四大) and five functions (五蕴).

Thai medicine thinks that when one consumes food of excessively hot nature, dry, sour or bitter; then these foods would knock one’s ‘earth’ element to be off balance if the foods are not consumed excessively; otherwise not only the earth element would be unbalanced, the rest of elements: water, fire and wind would also become unstable. It is when these elements become imbalance that a person falls sick. 

So it is not healthy if one fails to observe food hygiene, overeating, too hungry or even biased eating, Thai medicine maintains it is only through a balance diet that one’s health can be maintained and no other methods. So, just to sum up; the only means to keep ones mental and body health is through proper exercises, resting and balance diet. This is in line with all other traditional medicines of the world.