A woman should not go without sugar for a hundred days. Here, "sugar" refers to brown sugar. Female friends all know to drink more brown sugar during menstruation to help relieve menstrual cramps. In fact, besides this, brown sugar has other benefits. Are you familiar with them?
Benefit One: Regulating Menstruation
Brown sugar water is greatly helpful for women's smooth menstrual cycles. It can warm the body, increase energy, invigorate qi and blood, and accelerate blood circulation, leading to a smoother period. If you feel tired and have a poor complexion after your period, you can drink a cup of brown sugar water with about 20% concentration before lunch each day. For more severe symptoms, you can have another cup before dinner, and this continued for a week will effectively improve your condition.
Benefit Two: Replenishing Energy
After giving birth, mothers often experience significant blood loss and great physical and energy expenditure. Drinking brown sugar water in the 7-10 days postpartum can replenish energy, increase blood volume, and help restore physical strength. It also has a significant promoting effect on uterine contraction, recovery, lochia discharge, and milk secretion.
Benefit Three: Warming and Nourishing
Children with issues such as insufficient qi, poor appetite, or malnutrition can drink brown sugar water in moderation. People who suffer from abdominal pain due to cold exposure or who are prone to catching a cold during their period can use brown sugar and ginger soup to dispel cold. For the elderly who are frail, especially those recovering from a serious illness, brown sugar also has excellent therapeutic effects for tonifying deficiency and replenishing nutrition. Elderly people can also consume a moderate amount of brown sugar to remove blood stasis and activate circulation, benefit the intestines to relieve constipation, and soothe the liver and improve eyesight.
Benefit Four: External Application for Detoxification and Moisturizing
Brown sugar water can also be used for external application, similarly having detoxifying and moisturizing effects. Many people from the older generation have experienced a child being stung by a bee, resulting in a red, swollen, and extremely painful wound. At this time, parents would apply a small amount of highly concentrated brown sugar water to the swollen area. The pain would subside after a while, and the redness and swelling would gradually disappear.
Benefit Five: Relieving Skin Itching
Spring often causes dry skin and itching. You can also use brown sugar water to wash and cleanse the skin, which can effectively reduce the feeling of dryness and itching.
Benefit Six: Beauty and Spot Removal
In recent years, Japanese researchers were inspired by the "brown sugar detoxification and whitening therapy" used by courtesans in ancient Chinese formulas and from Japan's Edo period. They analyzed the natural ingredients and pharmacological effects of brown sugar and found that the natural ingredients extracted from brown sugar are safer and more effective for whitening than currently popular methods like laser spot removal, glycolic acid, and other spot removal treatments.
Benefit Seven: Benefiting Metabolism
The special component "molasses" in brown sugar has a powerful "detoxifying" effect. It can draw excess melanin from the dermis layer and expel it from the body through the lymphatic system, preventing melanin production at its source. Furthermore, the ingredients in brown sugar, such as carotene, riboflavin, niacin, amino acids, and glucose, have strong antioxidant and repairing effects on cells, allowing subcutaneous cells to grow rapidly after detoxification.