Zaoren Dihuang Tang: Sour Jujube and Rehmannia Porridge to Nourish Blood and Aid Sleep

Zaoren Dihuang Tang comes from Hui Yue Yi Jing (Medical Mirror of Returning). It is made by boiling 30 g of Suanzaoren (sour jujube seed), 15 g of Shudihuang (processed rehmannia root), and about 50 g of rice together into a porridge. When the porridge is done, remove the rehmannia and eat the sour-jujube porridge. This formula nourishes blood and nurtures the heart, calms the spirit and aids sleep. It treats heart deficiency with insufficient blood, vexation, and insomnia.

This is a very simple dietary therapy formula. The processed rehmannia (shudi) in it nourishes yin and blood, and fills essence and marrow; it treats blood deficiency with sallow complexion, palpitations and severe palpitations, liver-kidney yin deficiency, sore and weak low back and knees, and internal-heat wasting-thirst. Shudihuang is the TCM medicinal most commonly used to nourish blood; it is contained in Siwu Tang (Four-Substance Decoction), the famous blood-nourishing formula. The Ming-dynasty physician Zhang Jingyue ranked shudihuang among TCM's "four pillars," alongside renshen (ginseng), fuzi (aconite), and shigao (gypsum) as life-saving medicinals. Zhang Jingyue was himself nicknamed "Zhang Shudi," because he was most skilled through his life at using large doses of shudihuang to rescue critically ill patients.

Suanzaoren is the kernel of the sour jujube, a plant of the buckthorn family. It has a strong spirit-calming, sleep-aiding action. TCM holds that sour jujube seed nurtures the heart and supplements the liver, calms the spirit, astringes sweating, and engenders fluids. It treats deficiency vexation with insomnia, palpitations and severe palpitations, vexed thirst, and spontaneous/night sweating.

Boiling these two medicinals into a porridge makes the intent plain: one action is to nourish blood, the other to calm the spirit. Thus this dietary formula nourishes blood, calms the spirit, and aids sleep, treating insomnia due to blood deficiency. Patients often also have sallow complexion, sore and weak legs and lower back, and dizziness or blurred vision on exertion. The formula uses few but refined medicinals and is given as food therapy rather than a decoction, so patients accept it readily.

Cancer patients who are weak, with sore and weak lower back and legs, dizziness and tinnitus, palpitations and insomnia, may use this formula regularly as dietary therapy.