The annual dog days of summer have arrived in the blink of an eye. How can we get rid of dampness during this time? What should we pay attention to during the dog days? Let's take a look together!
Apply dog days patches
Applying dog days patches during the dog days has the effects of "correspondence between heaven and humans," "treating internal diseases externally," and "treating winter diseases in summer." These patches are made from refined traditional Chinese medicine. Applying one patch during the dog days can help the body accumulate yang energy, preventing the body from being harmed by coldness due to insufficient yang energy during the cold winter. Therefore, it has a preventive effect on diseases.
Recommendation: Applying patches is suitable for people who are weak, susceptible to illness, asthma, rhinitis, joint diseases, and menstrual pain caused by coldness. It can enhance immune function. This method is especially suitable for people who frequently cough and catch colds, as well as people with cold diseases.
Do moxibustion
Mugwort leaves are warm-toned medicinal herbs. Doing moxibustion during the dog days can expel the accumulated damp and coldness from the body and clear the summer heat that the body may not tolerate. Therefore, it has the function of relieving summer heat and dampness.
Recommendation: 1. Moxibustion can nourish yang but also harm yin, so it is generally not suitable for patients with yin deficiency and excessive yang or those with internal heat. It should be used with caution in patients with hemoptysis, coughing up blood, liver yang headache, stroke with closing symptoms, high fever and loss of consciousness, convulsions, or extreme debilitation.
2. Avoid moxibustion directly on the face to prevent scarring from burns. Avoid direct moxibustion on important organ areas. Avoid moxibustion on the lower abdomen and lumbar sacral area during pregnancy.
Do steam therapy
As people consume various grains and cereals, some toxins may accumulate in the body over time, which can easily cause health problems. During the dog days, the pores of the body are open. At this time, steam therapy can accelerate the body's metabolism and eliminate toxins from deep within the pores.
Recommendation: After steam therapy, if you feel tired, you can drink some lightly salted water and citrus fruit juice rich in potassium to replenish the potassium and salt lost through sweating. You can also supplement some calcium.
Drink ginger jujube tea
The dog days are the hottest period of the year. During this time, the body's pores are open, making it easy to develop yang deficiency. Drinking a cup of ginger jujube tea can nourish the body and expel excess coldness from the body, promoting health and well-being.
Recommendation: If you often feel stomach coldness and loss of appetite, you can frequently chew fresh ginger slices to stimulate gastric acid secretion and promote digestion. Fresh ginger is moisturizing without harming yin. Cut four or five thin slices of fresh ginger every day, drink a cup of warm water in the morning, and then slowly chew the ginger slices in your mouth, allowing the smell of ginger to spread in your mouth, intestines, and stomach, as well as outside your nostrils.
Soak your feet
Hot water can warm the body and promote blood circulation, and soaking your feet can promote blood circulation in the feet. Moreover, there are acupoints all over our feet. Soaking your feet during the dog days can stimulate these acupoints and improve immune function.
Effect: Soaking your feet in warm water can invigorate the spleen, eliminate dampness, stimulate meridians, and promote diuresis. Soaking your feet in 40°C warm water before going to bed can also improve sleep quality.
Gua sha
The human body is constantly undergoing metabolism, and waste produced during metabolism needs to be eliminated in a timely manner. Gua sha can timely scrape the metabolic "garbage" from the body to the skin surface and deposit it in the subcutaneous pores, making the blood flow smoothly and restoring natural metabolic vitality.
Gua sha therapy originated from the Paleolithic period and is one of China's traditional natural therapies. In the treatment of diseases, gua sha has the effects of promoting blood circulation, eliminating stasis, adjusting the balance of yin and yang in the internal organs, dredging the meridians, and eliminating toxins from the body. After gua sha, it is best to drink a large glass of warm water to help detoxification and protect the gua sha area properly to avoid getting cold.
Eat ginger
Ginger contains volatile gingerol and ginger phenol, which have the functions of promoting blood circulation, dispelling coldness, eliminating dampness, and inducing sweating. In particular, ginger has the functions of promoting bile secretion, nourishing the stomach, relieving nausea, and preventing fishy smells. Fresh ginger is moisturizing without harming yin. If you often feel stomach coldness and loss of appetite, you can frequently chew fresh ginger slices to stimulate gastric acid secretion and promote digestion.
Recommendation: There is a saying, "Eat radishes in winter and eat ginger in summer." Ginger has the function of warming and dispelling dampness. It is recommended to eat more ginger in summer to replenish yang energy. Fresh ginger is warm and spicy, with the effects of dispelling coldness, inducing sweating, resolving phlegm, stopping cough, harmonizing the stomach, and relieving vomiting. Drinking ginger tea is a simple and effective method to dispel dampness and promote health. The dog days are the most suitable time to drink ginger tea.
Eat lamb
According to traditional Chinese medicine, although the weather is hot during the dog days, the body is prone to be invaded by summer heat and dampness. This has been deeply studied by nutritionists, and the results show that lamb is the most nutritious food to eat during the dog days. During the dog days, the body accumulates heat, so drinking lamb soup while adding chili oil, vinegar, and garlic into it will make you sweat profusely. Sweating can take away the accumulated heat in the five organs and eliminate toxins from the body, which is extremely beneficial to health.
Recommendation: However, "eating lamb during the dog days" is not suitable for everyone. People with a hot constitution, who are prone to get angry, and those who are prone to "boils and abscesses" are not suitable for "winter disease treatment in summer," including "dog days supplementation." Do not try it casually.
Cupping therapy
Cupping therapy can expel coldness, eliminate dampness, dredge the meridians, eliminate stasis, promote qi and blood circulation, reduce swelling and relieve pain, and detoxify and relieve heat. It has the function of adjusting the balance of yin and yang in the body, relieving fatigue, and enhancing physical fitness, thus achieving the purpose of supporting yang and expelling evil and curing diseases. Therefore, cupping therapy can be used to treat many diseases.
Recommendation: The time for cupping therapy in summer is best controlled within 10 minutes. Cupping therapy is not suitable for patients with certain blood diseases, such as leukemia and hemophilia. It is also not suitable for people with skin allergies, extreme thinness, or loss of skin elasticity. It is not suitable for certain cancer patients as it may promote tumor metastasis. Cupping therapy is not suitable for patients with weak constitution, children, pregnant women, and others. For ordinary people, do not cupping on broken skin or prominent bones to avoid infection and other consequences.
Eat sweating and diuretic foods
Eat sweating and diuretic foods, such as red beans, mung beans, coix seed, winter melon, watermelon, ginger, green tea, and chrysanthemum tea, to excrete dampness through the skin and urine, and promote the body's metabolism.
Recommendation: You can also drink ginger brown sugar water, red bean, mung bean, and coix seed soup, coriander and luffa soup, and green tea and chrysanthemum tea to achieve the goal of diet therapy for dispelling dampness.
Exercise more
The best way to prevent and dispel dampness is "slight movement of the four extremities," which means gently moving the limbs to gradually restore the body's yang energy and gradually dissipate dampness.
Recommendation: Do not engage in intense exercise that causes excessive sweating. Excessive sweating will cause the loss of qi, and the metabolism of water and dampness will be affected. Although some dampness will be eliminated with sweat, internal dampness will resurface. Ultimately, the dampness will not be eliminated.
Press Chengshan acupoint
Every morning when you wake up, stretch your legs outside the bed and place the Chengshan acupoint (the tail end of the posterior calf muscle that floats up slightly when applying slight force to the tiptoes) on the edge of the bed. Swing your legs left and right to massage the Chengshan acupoint. Massaging the Chengshan acupoint will cause noticeable soreness and pain, which is due to dampness in the body. After massaging the Chengshan acupoint for a period of time, you will feel a slight warmth in your body, which is the result of the bladder meridian's yang energy working. The dampness in the body will escape along with the slightly elevated body temperature.
Drink hot water
The dog days are when people's yang energy is at its peak. At this time, the body is in a state of "external yang energy is strong while internal yang energy is weak." The purpose of drinking hot water is mainly to induce sweating, also known as the external treatment function of inducing sweating and dispelling the surface, which helps to clear away heat and maintain normal metabolism.
Recommendation: This is just one method of health preservation. Although it is feasible, it requires long-term persistence and cannot eliminate internal dampness and coldness in just one dog days period.
What to eat during the dog days
Yuzhu Sigua Meat Soup
Ingredients: Pork, wax gourd, polygonatum, wolfberry.
Method: 1. Wash the pork and slice it.
2. Steam the polygonatum and wolfberry.
3. Wash the wax gourd and cut it into slices.
4. Heat the pan with oil and stir-fry the pork slices until cooked.
5. Stir-fry the wax gourd.
6. Add clear soup, polygonatum, and wolfberry to the pot.
7. Boil and add seasoning.
Function: Nourishes the spleen and kidney, promotes lactation, and unblocks the meridians.
Red Bean Stewed Quail
Ingredients: Quail, red bean, rhizoma smilacis, ham, and shiitake mushroom.
Method: 1. Slaughter the quail, clean it, and blanch it in boiling water.
2. Wash the red beans.
3. Soak the shiitake mushrooms.
4. Wash the rhizoma smilacis and wrap it in gauze.
5. Put the blanched quail and other ingredients in a clay pot.
6. Stew for 1 hour over low heat.
7. Remove the gauze bag.
8. Add ham slices and stew for another half an hour. Add seasoning and serve.
Function: Nourishes the qi and blood, promotes diuresis, and nourishes the body.
Green Plum Black Bean Dessert
Ingredients: Pitted green plum, black bean, agar-agar, and rock sugar.
Method: 1. Grind the black beans and remove the skins. Add water and knead into a paste.
2. Add rock sugar and a small amount of water to the black bean paste, then steam it.
3. Steam the agar-agar with water.
4. Cut the green plums into small pieces and mix them with the agar-agar juice.
5. Mix the green plum mixture with the black bean paste.
6. Stir well and put it in the refrigerator to freeze.
7. Cut into small pieces and serve.
Function: Enhances breasts and body, moisturizes the skin, and brings joy to the face.
Notes and taboos during the dog days
Avoid excessive drinking
During the dog days, the weather is hot, and the body is prone to accumulate damp heat. Excessive drinking of alcohol will further generate heat and humidity, which is like adding fuel to the fire.
Do not gulp down water when thirsty
After heavy labor or exercise that causes excessive sweating, it is not advisable to drink a large amount of plain water. Instead, you should replenish with a certain amount of lightly salted (sweetened) water. Excessive sweating causes excessive loss of salt in the body. If salt is not replenished in time, the ratio of water to salt in the body will be seriously imbalanced, leading to metabolic disorders.
Always have anti-heatstroke medications on hand
During hot summer days, the high temperature and dryness can cause people to lose their appetite and have difficulty sleeping, leading to symptoms such as dizziness, headaches, fatigue, nausea, and vomiting. In order to have a safe summer, families should prepare some anti-heatstroke medications. Common medications and foods include: Shidishui (Ten Drops Water), Huoxiang Zhengqi Water (Agastache Rugosa Water), Qingliang Oil (Cooling Oil), honeysuckle, chrysanthemum, lotus leaf, and watermelon.
Learn to take a good nap
During the summer, the days are long and the nights are short, and the weather is sultry, resulting in less sleep time and poor sleep quality. Taking a short nap in the afternoon can recharge your brain like charging a battery, which is conducive to physical recovery.
Exercise moderately
"Life lies in movement," but it is harmful and not beneficial for elderly and weak people or those who usually lack exercise to engage in intense exercise. The best exercise is walking, according to the consensus of the world.
Hot tea is better than cold drinks
Medical research shows that hot tea is better than cold drinks for heatstroke prevention and cooling down. It also maintains the effect for a longer time. Tea contains abundant potassium. When sweating increases in summer, potassium ions are often lost excessively. Potassium and sodium together maintain normal osmotic pressure and acid-base balance inside and outside cells, which has an important impact on the normal function of nerves, muscles, especially myocardium. When the body lacks potassium, it often feels tired and weak, loss of appetite, decreased heat resistance, and may even lead to heatstroke. Drinking tea regularly in summer can supplement the body's potassium and improve heat resistance, effectively preventing heatstroke.
What to pay attention to during the dog days
Avoid seeking coolness excessively
During the dog days, the temperature is extremely high. At this time, body temperature rises, and eating cold food will dilute gastric juice, stimulate the intestines, promote intestinal peristalsis and excitement, reduce the time food stays in the small intestine, and affect the absorption and utilization of food, resulting in damage to the spleen and stomach.
Avoid excessive sun exposure
During the dog days, the climate is extremely hot. Excessive exposure to sunlight can easily damage the skin, causing sunburn and heatstroke. Therefore, it is generally not recommended to go out during high-temperature periods unless necessary to avoid sunburn and heatstroke.
