During the transition from summer to autumn, the summer heat lingers, the weather remains hot, and the air is highly humid, making it the most damp period. Coupled with irregular lifestyles, overeating, and staying up late, people often turn up the air conditioning too low and consume large amounts of iced fruit, drinks, and raw or cold foods for temporary relief, leading to chills. In severe cases, this can cause numbness in the limbs, and women often experience reduced menstrual flow and cold hands and feet. This is also the time when people are most susceptible to damp-heat pathogens, often experiencing irritability, fatigue, heaviness in the body, loss of appetite, and lack of energy. Other symptoms include oily face and scalp, dry mouth, bitter taste, bad breath, strong body odor, incomplete bowel movements, dark yellow urine, and increased, yellowish vaginal discharge in women. Huang Weihong, attending physician of the Sixth Clinic of the Acupuncture and Massage Department at Tangshan Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, explains that these symptoms are all manifestations of a damp-heat constitution.
If you observe the above symptoms on your body, especially your tongue, and find that your tongue coating is yellow, thick, and greasy (with a lot of residue that is difficult to scrape off), this indicates that you have damp heat in your body. At this point, you should be vigilant and seek treatment to regulate your body.
For those who frequently use air conditioning, indulge in cold foods and drinks, and experience symptoms such as chills, body aches, reduced menstrual flow in women, and cold hands and feet, Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner Huang Weihong suggests using the traditional Chinese medicine method of warm acupuncture. This method combines acupuncture and moxibustion, allowing the heat from the moxibustion to penetrate the body through the acupuncture points, warming the meridians and promoting blood circulation, accelerating metabolism, and enhancing immunity from the inside out.
For people with obvious symptoms of damp-heat, dietary therapy can be used to remove damp-heat from their diet, so that their bodies can be in the best condition to work and live better.
Dietary therapy:
1. Job's tears and red bean soup
Wash 30g of Job's tears and 30g of red beans, add an appropriate amount of water, and bring to a boil over high heat until the beans are soft.
II. Kelp and Mung Bean Soup
200g kelp, 50g mung beans, 50g japonica rice, 6g dried tangerine peel, salt to taste. Soak mung beans for 1 hour in advance. Add water to a clay pot and cook until the mung beans split open.
III. Red Bean and Tangerine Peel Soup
Add 200g red beans and 5g dried tangerine peel (add the tangerine peel last), bring to a boil over high heat, then simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. Add salt to taste before serving.
Experts warn that those with a damp-heat constitution should pay extra attention to their lifestyle and dietary habits during the transition from summer to autumn to prevent the formation of a damp-heat constitution.
