| News and Events | |
| Stay cool during the summer time |
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| 06-26-2010 | |
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Summer is a Yang season too.
Summer is like spring the season of Yang, a time when the body undergoes an active and an energetic metabolic process.
Now Yin Qi (the cooling energy) should be supported to prevent overheating in our body system. TCM teaches us that summer belongs to fire, one of the five elements. Fire is the symbol of maximum activity or greatest Yang, which means that it is a time of heat, outgoingness, and moving outward in nature and in our lives. In human anatomy, the heart, mind, and spirit are ruled by the fire element. Thus, top priority should be given to them in order to stay healthy during summer. The heart’s main function is to pump oxygen-rich blood through the body, therewith our organs and tissues get nourished sufficiently. Only if this is guaranteed humans feel vital and the fire element is in balance as it is said in TCM. When the fire element is imbalanced we show symptoms like insomnia, nervousness, agitation, heartburn etc. There are a lot of ancient advises which we can not follow any longer in our daily routine but some of them still work: - Get up earlier in the morning - Go to bed later in the evening - Rest at midday - Drink plenty of unsweetened water and mind ice cold drinks (E.g. water with lemon and cucumber slices, or peppermint tea) - Bitter vegetable can lower the heart fire - Keep calm and relaxed; try to avoid anger and stress In summer we should go for a light diet and refrain from greasy and heavy food items. During summer time we can find a lot of variety i.e. different salads, fish, vegetables and fruits. We should always try to go for seasonal food items despite that nowadays we can have almost everything in every season. Yin food items which belong to the category cold and refreshing should now be preferred. Further we should try to avoid food and drinks which are too cold as our digestive system can react quickly with diarrhea or indigestion. Here are some food items for the hot days in order to stay cool: - Watermelon, apricot, peach, lemon etc. - Avocado, broccoli, chicory, zucchini, Chinese cabbage, white mushrooms, cucumber, green salad, rocket salad, radicchio (red endive), spinach, iceberg lettuce, bamboo sprouts, watercress, mint, dill etc. If you miss the meat items here, we did not forget; in the category cold and refreshing you can find duck and rabbit. Keep the golden middle that speaks for itself as well as Yin and Yang; just have a good balance in your diet. We wish you a wonderful and refreshing summer time! |
