There is a Chinese saying that goes: the nutrition gotten on Start of Winter Day can support you throughout the whole winter. Chinese people follow the rules of “the hiding of the yang” to keep their health in winter. In order to “nourish the yang,” people get proper nutrition and supplement it with exercise.

During Start of Winter, the qi of the heart and the lungs is weak and that of the kidneys is strong. Thus in this season, people will eat less raw or cold food and food with many calories, and more gentle ones, such as the chicken, the duck, the fish, the sesame, the walnut, the peanut, the black fungus, and the etc. The fruit and the vegetables, such as the pear, the jujube, and the orange also will be used to promote the body fluids. At the same time, some tonic could be nice.

People try to keep calm during Start of Winter. In addition, in daily life, they will go to sleep earlier and get up later to guarantee enough sleep time and keep warm. Washing the feet in the hot water for a certain time before bedtime is good for promoting the harmony of the yang qi and yin qi of the body. People of all different kinds use different methods to keep warm in winter.

In addition, the exercises that Chinese people take in winter are mainly static. They practice eight trigrams boxing (ba duan jin), sixteen trigrams boxing (shiliu duan jin), shadow boxing and other sports, till they sweat a little.