Wake Up With A Glass Of … Hot Water

Some are surprised when they discover that traditional Chinese medicine recommends drinking a glass of hot or warm water on an empty stomach in the morning. This small ritual allows the kidneys to drain, wake up the intestines and prepare the body for breakfast, the first meal after hours of inactivity.

The benefits of drinking hot water according to Chinese medicine

But why hot or warm and not cold or room temperature? If we look at Chinese cuisine, few recipes are raw and curiously the last dish is not fruit, but a bowl of hot soup in order to better settle the food and promote digestion.

The colder the drink, the more heat the body must generate in order to heat it up and then absorb it. This act of heating makes the body work more, so instead of cooling us, the opposite effect is achieved: the body is heated to neutralize the cold temperature of the drink.

Drinking hot water relaxes and activates chi (life energy) from the inside, just as hot baths do the same from the outside.

Improve your digestion

Hot ingredients are easier to digest and absorb into the stomach than cold or raw foods. Keep in mind that the nature of heat is always relaxing, activating, mobilizing chi and also neutralizing cold.

The digestive system is characterized by the movement of your digestive tract; if this system flows, everything flows. Heat is fluid and has the ability to warm up and make muscles relax and not tense. Therefore, after an intense day of work, if we take a hot bath, a consommé or a steaming drink, we will relax.

A glass of warm water every morning

A good way to start the day and gently wake up the body is to make a mouth rinse with warm water so as not to irritate the gums (governed by the chi of the spleen / stomach), nor the teeth (the teeth are extensions of bone that are identified with the chi of the kidney).

After rinsing, we will drink half a glass of hot-warm water in small sips. This will awaken the chi of the stomach to receive the first food of the day.

Drinking hot water or green tea during meals (in moderate amounts) is also a good way to preserve good stomach chi , as it promotes digestion and absorption. Hot water quenches thirst better, hydrates the oral mucosa and eliminates the sensation of dryness.

In the event of sunstroke, the neck, back and forehead should be sprayed with hot or warm water, with a gentle friction to open the pores and favor the elimination of heat accumulated in the skin. When we are cold, our extremities are cold or we are out of temper, the best way to activate internal chi is to drink a glass of warm water and take hot water foot baths, with a tablespoon of coarse salt, for about 20 minutes.

The 3 types of water in Chinese culture

The custom of drinking hot water originated in China as a prophylactic measure against epidemics. The daily practice of drinking tea generalized this custom used in traditional Chinese medicine, which sophisticated its use to unimaginable levels. In the same way that food is classified by its energetic nature, Chinese culture meets the same criteria with water.

In China a distinction is made between fresh, boiled and raw water.

• The fresh water may be boiled or raw water (at room temperature).
• In turn, boiled water is divided into boiled water (hot in nature), warm boiled water (warm nature, that is, warm boiled water whose temperature when drunk does not differ from one’s own body temperature) and cold boiled water (nature neutral, which is water cooled after boiling).
• The raw water is divided in turn into cold water (cold nature waters without passing through fire) and ice water (very cold nature, ice water and raw).