☯️ Every summer there’s hey what’s up more clients in the clinic coming for all sorts of pain related complaints and headaches. In the beginning of my clinical years I felt a bit surprised by this, as I expected the pain complaints during the winter to be more prevalent. But it does make a lot of sense to have those complaints during summer. Traditional medicine has a very interesting explanation. Let’s talk a bit about this and get some ancient wisdom.
The Tao of the seasons
Traditional South-East Asian and Chinese medicine is heavily rooted in Taoism, where concepts like Yin and Yang, Qi but also being in balance and in harmony with nature play a big role. In texts that write about the seasonal changes in nature, they are often described poetically with each having their own characteristics balancing each other out. They distinguish five seasons, namely winter, spring, summer, late summer and autumn. Each of this seasons is connected to the five elements, in respective order they are water, wood, fire, earth and metal. And each of them are again connected to their TCM organs Kidneys, Liver, Heart, Spleen and Lungs.
Summer is the season of fire and summer heat
Summer is the season of the Heart and of fire. It is when Yang energy is at its peak. It’s a season full of joy, connection, maybe even fast paced and hot headed.
When all this high Yang energy is manifesting in our bodies, blood flows quicker, Qi could be in excess up until the point it hits the body parts where there’s stagnation and even damp formation. That explains the higher prevalence of pain complaints but also gastro-intestinal related complaints that are related to what TCM calls damp.
TCM tips to survive the summer
Summer heat can therefore be a pathogen. Too much heat, too much excess energy can harm ourselves. So even though summer invites us to expand, we need to stay grounded, cool, and steady.
Besides balancing out activities and opting for the calm and slow ones we can calm the nerve system with acupuncture, and that helps a lot to cope with the heat. Also another way is to balance out food. Even though the hot weather invites us to eat cold foods, drinks, iceblocks, ice creams and salads. It is important to balance those out and don’t forget about the warm foods like cooked vegetables.. Too much cold food intake can cause damp.
If you have any further questions or want to **say anything **reach out to me. Acupuncture by Kim is meant to be an evolving space created together with you and for you 🙏😊
Take care and hope to see you soon ☯️
X Kim
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