wǔ láo
Also rendered: the five strains (Keeps the slowness of the harm) · the five overuses (Closer to 過用 than to 勞) · the five taxations (The later technical list, which is different) · wu lao (Bare transliteration)
Reviewed · 2026-09
At a glance
The most quotable entry in the chapter and the one that has aged best: long looking injures the blood, long lying the qi, long sitting the flesh, long standing the bone, long walking the sinews. Nothing here is violent. The claim is that a posture kept long enough wears out the tissue it belongs to, which is why the list reads like a description of trades rather than of accidents. Chapter 21 had already stated the principle in a single word — overuse; this entry gives it five applications and says which tissue pays.
Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.
Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.
| Wiseman & Feng | the five taxations | Their rendering follows the later doctrine, in which 五勞 names a wasting condition rather than a habit. |
| Unschuld | the five [kinds of] exhaustion | He takes 勞 as exhaustion rather than as effort. |
| This site | the five strains | Chapter 23 is describing what a habit does, not a disease category — and the later five taxations are a different list that happens to share the number. Strain keeps it about the doing. |
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