As we grow older, so many things change throughout our bodies. Among them, you may often feel that your nose becomes especially dry and stuffy. Like parched soil, the inside of your nose feels dry and stings, and crusts form so frequently that blowing your nose often reveals traces of blood. You may even notice that the aroma of food no longer smells as rich as it once did. Donguibogam explains these symptoms by linking them deeply to the lung.
In Korean medicine, the lung is viewed not merely as an organ for breathing, but as the zang-fu organ that governs the outermost parts of our body, including the skin and hair, as well as the nose. Among these, the nose is considered the window of the lung. This means that only when the lung is healthy can its window, the nose, function properly. In particular, the lung holds an energy called lung yin that moistens and enriches our body. This lung yin plays an essential role in keeping the skin moist, maintaining a soft nasal mucosa, and protecting our body from the external environment.
However, as we age, the overall yin qi of our body naturally declines. It is just like an aging tree whose leaves wither and branches stiffen due to a lack of moisture. When one enters a state of lung yin deficiency where the yin qi of the lung runs short, the nose, as the window of the lung, parches alongside it. As the nasal mucosa dries out, it becomes easily damaged even by minor irritation, and crusts form readily. Dryness tends to bring about heat, and when heat develops in the lung, the microvessels weaken, readily leading to nosebleeds. Furthermore, when lung yin is deficient, even the olfactory function governed by the lung declines, reducing the ability to smell. Donguibogam emphasizes fundamentally resolving nasal dryness and stuffiness by replenishing lung yin, as if filling a parched lung with moistening water. It is a wise approach that does not merely eliminate symptoms, but restores moisture from deep within the body.
