What They Came In For: Painful Menstruation

By the time Meena R. walked into our clinic, her period ruled her calendar.

She had been dealing with severe cramps and heavy bleeding for as long as she could remember. Every month, for five to seven days, her world narrowed: heating pad, dark room, extra clothes packed “just in case,” and a silent prayer that her cycle wouldn’t land on an important meeting, a social event, or a flight. Sometimes she bled through her clothes. Sometimes the pain made her nauseated. Always, she endured.

She had tried birth control pills, which helped at first but came with their own side effects. She tried prescription painkillers, which dulled the edge but left her groggy and bloated. She tried supplements, yoga, pelvic steaming, magnesium, cutting out dairy. Some things helped a little, nothing helped enough.

And every time she brought it up—at her annual exam, during doctor’s visits, in rushed urgent care check-ins—she got a version of the same message: “That’s just your period.”

Which felt, to her, a lot like being told to get used to it.

When Meena came to Root and Branch, she was skeptical—but also exhausted. She didn’t want a miracle. She just wanted one cycle that didn’t leave her drained, curled up, or rearranging her life around bleeding.

We began, as always, by listening. Not just about the cramps, but about the timing. When did the pain start? Was it sharp, dull, dragging, throbbing? What did she notice about clots, color, flow, fatigue? We asked about her cycle from beginning to end—not just the “bad” days, but what led up to them, what came after. We looked at her digestion, sleep, mood. Her tongue, her pulse. Her full picture.

She described herself as “a person who pushes through,” but her body told us otherwise. Her pulse was wiry and tight, her lower abdomen cold to the touch. Her period arrived like a flood—sudden, heavy, painful—followed by days of exhaustion and emotional crash.

We explained that in Chinese medicine, pain and heavy bleeding aren’t random—they’re signs of stagnation and weakness happening at the same time. The blood is stuck, but also not being held. There’s tension, but also depletion. And both need to be treated, in the right order, with care.

We started with a customized herbal formula. That was the cornerstone of her treatment. One blend before her period to move what needed to move and ease the buildup of tension. Another to take during her period to reduce pain and regulate flow. These weren’t off-the-shelf teas. They were carefully selected combinations meant to restore rhythm and clarity to her cycle. She brewed them twice a day, sometimes more during her worst days.

Alongside the herbs, we used acupuncture to move blood, release tension in the lower abdomen, and support her hormonal system. We placed needles with a focus on the Liver and Spleen channels—key players in blood regulation—and paired that with calming points to settle her nervous system, which had been bracing for pain every month for years.

The first cycle after treatment was still painful—but it was different. Less intense. Shorter. She didn’t bleed through anything. She went to work the second day, which felt like a small miracle.

By the third cycle, she wasn’t dreading it anymore.

“I’ve never had a period sneak up on me before,” she said, half laughing, half stunned. “It just… came. And it wasn’t awful.”

The bleeding slowed. The clots lessened. The pain, once all-consuming, became background noise. The fatigue lifted. Slowly, her cycle started to feel like something she could live with, rather than hide from.

What she came in for was fewer bad days.

What she got was a more balanced cycle—and a renewed sense of agency in her own body.

At Root and Branch, we see period pain often—whether from endometriosis, fibroids, hormone imbalance, or no clear reason at all. We treat what’s there, but we also treat what’s underneath. Because pain may be common, but it’s not “normal.” And heavy bleeding doesn’t have to be your monthly reality.

If your cycle has been running your life, we want you to know: there’s another way.

Qi Node 18: 霜降 Shuāngjiàng (Frost Descends)

Autumn Collapses into Winter

By the time we reach this final qi node of Autumn, the truth is unmistakable: yīn qì 陰氣 now holds the reins. Where Summer’s fire once dominated and even early Autumn carried echoes of light and outward movement, now those traces have vanished. What was once yīn growing is now yīn matured. This is no longer the season of transition. It is the season of arrival.

Shuāngjiàng 霜降 means "Frost Descends," and although literal frost may not yet have touched every landscape, the energetic frost has settled in. There is a stillness to this phase that feels heavier, more complete. The movement downward and inward is no longer emerging—it is established. This is yīn that knows its place. It doesn’t ask for permission. It doesn’t apologize. It draws the energy down with confidence.

In cosmological terms, this is the moment when Metal gives way to Water, when the refining, releasing work of Autumn gives over to the depth and silence of Winter. But as with all phase transitions, the stabilizing presence of Earth helps smooth the shift. Shuāngjiàng 霜降, like all last nodes of the season, carries an undercurrent of Earth qi—offering a kind of anchoring support so the descent into Winter doesn’t come with collapse or confusion.

Earth is always there, of course. It’s the foundation beneath the seasonal movements. But now, at the junction between letting go and lying fallow, we can feel its holding quality most clearly.

The Weight of Stillness

One of the most profound qualities of Shuāngjiàng 霜降 is its emotional honesty. There is no more illusion of Summer here. No lingering brightness to pretend we are still in motion. And yet, this honesty doesn’t have to feel heavy. It can feel clarifying. The descent into stillness is not a loss—it’s a relief. The push to do, to grow, to produce has finally passed. What remains is space. Not emptiness. Space.

This is the most powerful aspect of mature yīn 陰. It isn’t a lack. It is a presence. A deep, steady presence that makes room for reflection, nourishment, and rest. It doesn’t beg for attention. It welcomes silence.

You may find yourself craving quieter nights, richer foods, longer baths. You may begin to feel a magnetic pull toward your bed—not out of exhaustion, but because rest finally feels safe, even appealing. These are not signs of laziness. They are signs that your body and spirit are attuning to the qi of the season.

Aligning Conduct with Frost Descends

To align with Shuāngjiàng 霜降 is to honor both the weight and the wisdom of this part of the year. It’s not about productivity or even self-improvement. It’s about readiness. About setting your internal systems for the quietest, coldest phase of the year.

Here’s how to live with the rhythm of the frost.

1. Stay Warm and Out of the Wind

Even if the days are still temperate where you live, now is the time to avoid wind, drafts, and chill—especially around the neck and low back. These are areas where the body’s yáng qì 陽氣 is vulnerable. Wear scarves. Layer up. Avoid open windows or cold breezes on bare skin.

Warmth now is not a luxury. It is a strategy.

2. Embrace the Evening Ritual

The qi of the environment is now strongest around 8 p.m., but not for stimulation. This qi supports restoration—especially through sleep. Your evenings should begin to stretch out longer, with more softness and less stimulation. Turn off the screens. Dim the lights. Let your body unwind.

Create a nightly ritual: a bath, a stretch, a cup of herbal tea, a few pages of a book. Repeat it until it becomes a rhythm your body trusts. Let this ritual be the doorway into a deeper rest.

3. No More Raw Foods

This is not the season for salads, smoothies, or cold snacks. The digestive fire needs to be supported, not challenged. Favor slow-cooked meals: soups, stews, congee, braised vegetables. Use warming spices like ginger, cinnamon, garlic, and clove—but sparingly. Cook with bones, roots, and grains. If it simmers, it's seasonal.

A slow cooker or a Dutch oven should now be your best friend.

4. Prioritize Bone and Blood Nourishment

Cuts of meat with bone and tendon are especially valuable right now—osso buco, chicken thighs, beef shank. The longer they cook, the more deeply they nourish. This supports not just the physical body but the Kidney system, which governs Winter resilience.

Think broth. Think marrow. Think depth.

5. Return to Analog

This is the perfect time to rediscover a tactile hobby. Knitting, journaling, puzzles, calligraphy, even quiet crafts. Your hands want to move slowly. Your mind wants to drift. Reclaiming non-digital time in the evening helps bring your spirit into alignment with the slow descent of the season.

Let your mind wander. Let your attention soften.

6. Organize, But Gently

Get your warm clothing out. Make sure your winter boots are in good repair. Prepare your home, but not frantically. This is the moment to support the coming season, not brace against it. Bring in softness—blankets, warm lighting, familiar sounds.

Make your space a refuge.

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Shuāngjiàng 霜降 marks a true end of Autumn’s influence and thus the beginning of Winter’s cold embrace. It is the deepening of descent. The moment when yīn 陰 shows us not just what to let go of, but how to be with what remains.

And what remains can be beautiful. Stillness is not sterile. It is rich. It is full of memory and meaning. It holds the entire year in its arms and says: you’ve done enough. Now rest.

Foundations of Chiense Medicine: Wèi Qì 衛氣

Your Protective Barrier

In Chinese medicine, one of the most important—and often misunderstood—concepts related to immunity is wèi qì 衛氣, commonly translated as “defensive qi.” This is the aspect of qì 氣 that protects the body from external disruption. When people ask whether Chinese medicine has a concept of the immune system, wèi qì is often the first place we look. But while there are parallels between wèi qì and immunity, they are not the same. They come from different traditions, with different frameworks, and serve different kinds of understanding.

It is helpful to think of wèi qì not as a one-to-one equivalent of the immune system, but as a concept that expresses the body’s capacity to interact with its environment in a regulated way. It includes things that resemble immune activity—like fighting off colds, resisting pathogens, or recovering from illness—but it also includes temperature regulation, boundary-setting, and surface-level vigilance. Wèi qì is responsible for protecting the surface of the body, maintaining the integrity of the skin and pores, and helping the organism respond to change in the external world. It circulates in the space between the skin and the muscles, rising and falling with the time of day, and moving with the rhythm of the Lung.

The idea of wèi qì is deeply rooted in classical Chinese texts. One of the primary sources is the Huáng Dì Nèi Jīng 黃帝內經, or Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic (c. 200 BCE). This text lays the foundation for the concept of defensive qi, describing it as circulating outside the vessels, governed by the Lung, and closely tied to the body’s relationship with Wind and other external factors. The Nèi Jīng speaks of wèi qì as fast-moving and yang in nature—it is active, protective, and constantly in motion. It enters the skin, flows between the muscles, and keeps the pores properly opening and closing. In this way, wèi qì is not just about defense; it is about regulation.

Because of this, wèi qì also has a relationship with things like sleep, energy, and even emotional steadiness. When wèi qì is strong, the body feels well-defended but not tense. People tend to sleep soundly, wake refreshed, and adapt easily to changes in weather or environment. When wèi qì is weak or poorly regulated, people may get sick more often, feel cold easily, or struggle with allergies, fatigue, or restlessness at night.

One of the confusing things about wèi qì is that it is both distinct and not distinct from other types of qì. Chinese medicine describes many kinds of qì—nutritive qì, ancestral qì, upright qì, and so on—but these are not separate substances. They are descriptions of function. All qì is just qì, but the way it behaves in different parts of the body and in different roles gives rise to different names. Wèi qì is simply qì in its defensive role, moving quickly along the exterior to keep things out. This is part of why Chinese medicine often avoids reducing complex systems to fixed categories. The same qì that protects the exterior can also, under other conditions, warm the organs or fuel movement.

The Lung is said to govern wèi qì, but the Spleen and Kidney also play important roles. The Spleen provides the raw material—the gu qì or grain qi—that fuels all other aspects of function. The Kidney provides the deeper constitutional fire that supports circulation and regulation. The Lung, as the uppermost organ, disperses wèi qì to the surface. If any of these systems are out of balance, wèi qì may become weak, scattered, or excessive.

Seasonal transitions often reveal the state of someone’s wèi qì. When the weather turns cold and damp in the fall, or swings rapidly in early spring, people with vulnerable wèi qì often experience colds, allergies, or increased fatigue. In these moments, it is not that a pathogen suddenly became stronger, but that the body’s interface with the environment—its wèi qì—was not able to adjust smoothly.

How “Strong” Is Your Wèi Qì?

In clinic, we support wèi qì in many ways. Acupuncture can help regulate its flow, especially when it has become stuck or erratic. Herbs are often used to tonify the Lung and Spleen, clear lingering Wind or Damp, and strengthen the body’s surface layer. Formulas like Yù Píng Fēng Sǎn 玉屏風散 (Jade Windscreen Powder) are traditional remedies aimed specifically at improving the quality of wèi qì and preventing recurrent illness. But we also rely on simple, daily practices: dressing appropriately for the weather, keeping the neck and feet warm, eating well-cooked food, maintaining regular sleep, and not pushing through fatigue with stimulants or stress.

There is also an emotional layer to wèi qì. In some interpretations, this protective layer includes not just physical defense but psychological boundary-setting. People whose wèi qì is thin may feel easily affected by the moods or demands of others, may find it hard to say no, or may feel constantly exposed. While this connection is more metaphorical than anatomical, it reflects the broader truth of Chinese medicine: the body and mind are not separate. How we move through the world physically often reflects how we navigate it emotionally.

When we talk about immunity in Western terms, we tend to focus on pathogens and antibodies, on viruses and white blood cells. These are important, and they tell a certain kind of story. But wèi qì tells another story—one that includes rhythm, texture, sensation, and context. It reminds us that defense is not only about fighting; it is about discernment. What do we let in? What do we keep out? When do we rest? When do we rise?

Understanding wèi qì gives us another lens through which to think about health. It invites us to consider not just whether the immune system is “strong,” but whether the whole system—body, mind, habits, and environment—is in harmony with the world it moves through. There is a tendency for folks to celebrate a body that “never gets sick” because its a sign of virility and potency. But being strong is actually a constellation of factors that include adaptability and resilience. When we attend to that balance, the body tends to defend itself more smoothly and with less effort. Having a strong immunce ssytem doesn’t mean we never get sick, but it means we recover more easily, adapt more fluidly, and feel less at odds with what’s happening around us.

In this way, wèi qì becomes less a shield and more a kind of informed presence. It is the outward expression of the body’s internal intelligence, always negotiating between the self and the world. And when it is working well, we often don’t notice it at all. We just feel like ourselves—connected, grounded, and able to meet the day.

Qi Node 17: 寒露 Hánlù (Cold Dew)

Yang Is in Its Final Retreat

The name is spare, but precise: Cold Dew. Hánlù 寒露 is not the frost. Not yet. But the promise of frost hangs in the air like the breath you can now see in the morning. The temperatures dip just low enough to remind you that the peak of Autumn has passed. The plants know it. The animals know it. And so do we, if we are paying attention.

This is the moment when yáng qì 陽氣—so expansive and dominant through the brighter months—begins its final descent. It has been withdrawing since the Summer Solstice, quietly, steadily. But now its presence above the surface is almost gone. What remains is the deepening strength of yīn 陰. What remains is stillness.

It is not yet Winter. But we can feel its shape forming.

The Season Withdraws

All around us, the visible world is stepping back. Leaves have begun to fall in earnest. Sap retreats into roots. Seeds harden and tuck themselves into the soil. The animal world moves underground—burrowing, storing, waiting. The bustle of Summer and even the golden exhale of early Autumn has faded into a slower rhythm. Life is no longer reaching outward. It is turning inward.

In Chinese medicine, we say that the body mirrors this pattern. In Summer, the yīn fluids are drawn up toward the surface to cool and protect us, especially through sweat. But in this phase, those same fluids begin to retreat. Moisture condenses and thickens, moving inward to preserve. For most healthy people, this shift happens without notice. But for those with latent imbalances—especially in the Lungs or digestive system—it may present as congestion, seasonal allergies, sluggish digestion, or emotional weariness.

This is not a problem to solve. It is a signal to heed.

Listening to the Silence

Hánlù 寒露 is not dramatic. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t demand. It suggests. And the suggestion is this: continue to quiet everything.

Not stop. Not abandon. Just slow. Simplify. Feel for the rhythms that no longer serve and begin the gentle work of editing. This is the time to begin settling into rituals—not for productivity, but for stability. You don’t need to do more. You need to do less, but more intentionally.

The theme of Autumn has been quiet. But Hánlù 寒露 is something deeper. It is quiet that begins to lean toward silence. And in that silence is the opportunity to restore in a way that the brighter seasons simply do not allow.

Aligning Conduct with Cold Dew

The energy of the world is drawing down and in. Your conduct should reflect the same.

1. Let Your Mornings and Evenings Become Ritual

Now is the time to set—or reset—your daily rhythms. Begin the day with a cup of warm tea or coffee and a few moments of aimless thought. Let your mind wander without purpose. In the evening, dim the lights earlier. Put on socks. Read something old or familiar. Find a rhythm that carries you through the dark gently, not out of discipline, but out of care.

2. Solidify Inward Movement

Retire vigorous outdoor workouts, especially cardio that leads to sweating. Avoid cold winds and chilly conditions that invite xie qi 邪氣 (pernicious influences) into the body. Instead, focus on calisthenics, gentle strength training, and long, nourishing stretches. Qi gong, slow yoga, and bodyweight movement indoors are especially helpful now.

Even more important than what you do is where: indoors, away from drafts, and during the late afternoon to early evening when the qì is most balanced.

3. Conserve Your Moisture

Perspiration is no longer your ally. It is a loss of fluid you cannot easily replace during this season. Choose warm, moistening foods. Avoid raw salads and excessive spices. Congee, soup, roasted vegetables, and herbal teas will serve you better than smoothies or iced anything.

Think warmth, density, and hydration.

4. Harvest What Remains

If you have a garden, this is your final chance to bring in what’s left. Roots, greens, herbs—gather them in. If your harvest is metaphorical, the guidance is the same. What have you grown this year that still needs processing? What needs preserving? Canning, fermenting, jamming, pickling—these are not just seasonal chores, but energetic alignments.

Even restarting your sourdough mother becomes a ritual act of continuity—tying Summer’s abundance to Winter’s stability.

5. Tend the Inner World

Return to your favorite podcast or book series. Not necessarily to learn, but to nestle into something that carries you gently. Watch less news. Scroll less. Sit with stories. Sit with yourself.

This is the time to turn toward the inner harvest. What thoughts want to be tucked away for slow ferment? What projects need to be finished, not launched?

This is not the season for ambition. It is the season for practice.

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Hánlù 寒露 is the last whisper before the hush. It does not yet freeze, but it reminds us that we are not far from the frost. The world is still, but not inert. It is gathering. Thickening. Preparing.

So should we.

Make your life smaller, but fuller. Make your habits fewer, but stronger. Let silence guide you to the next thing—not the next achievement, but the next depth.

The Earth is folding itself inward. Follow.

Everyday Alchemy: Be Mindful of Cold Drinks

It’s a warm day. The sun is high, your face is flushed, and nothing sounds better than a tall glass of something cold. Maybe it’s iced coffee. Maybe it’s sparkling water straight from the fridge. Whatever it is, that chill feels like relief—and in the moment, it can be. Cold drinks are undeniably satisfying. But in Chinese medicine, they come with a caution.

This isn’t about forbidding anyone from enjoying an iced beverage now and then. It’s about understanding what cold does inside the body, especially when it becomes a habit. Digestion, in Chinese medicine, is powered by warmth. In the foundational medical texts, the Spleen and Stomach—the central organs of digestion in this system—are said to prefer dryness and warmth. They work best when food and drink arrive at body temperature or warmer. Introducing cold into this system slows things down. It’s like throwing a handful of ice cubes into a simmering pot. The whole process loses momentum.

Physiologically, this makes a certain kind of sense. The body must bring everything you consume up to its internal temperature before it can be broken down and absorbed. That warming process takes energy. If the digestive system is already compromised—through fatigue, stress, illness, or constitution—adding cold drinks can further impair its ability to transform food into usable nourishment. People often describe feeling bloated or heavy after cold beverages, or note a sense of stagnation in the gut. Sometimes it's subtle. Sometimes it's not.

This doesn't mean every cold drink is inherently harmful. Season and context matter. In the height of summer, when the external world is full of heat and the body is actively working to cool itself, a small amount of cold may be tolerable. Some people, especially those with robust digestion and plenty of internal warmth, can handle the occasional cold drink without noticeable consequences. But others—particularly those who tend to feel cold, have loose stools, or experience digestive sluggishness—often find that even modest amounts of cold exacerbate their symptoms.

The problem arises less from isolated choices and more from patterns. A daily iced coffee. Cold smoothies for breakfast. Ice water at every meal. These habits, common in many modern routines, slowly wear down the digestive fire. Over time, people may experience symptoms like fatigue after eating, chronic bloating, irregular stools, or a general sense that food sits heavily in the stomach. In Chinese medicine, these are often signs that the Spleen and Stomach are struggling to transform what they receive into usable qì 氣 and Blood.

One of the challenges in talking about cold drinks is that the culture around them is so strong. Iced coffee is practically a ritual for many people. Smoothies are often framed as health food. Cold beverages are routinely served in restaurants, even in the coldest months. So it can sound strange—maybe even a little rigid—to suggest that room temperature or warm liquids are better for you. But this isn’t about purity or punishment. It’s about support. About making choices that align with how the body actually works, rather than how we’ve been conditioned to expect it to behave.

Chinese medicine views health through the lens of pattern and tendency. That means not every guideline applies equally to every person at every moment. Some people may be able to drink cold brew in July with no ill effects, while others find even one iced tea leaves them feeling off. The goal isn’t to eliminate cold beverages completely. It’s to become more aware of how they affect you—and to adjust based on season, constitution, and context.

Making choices that support your health, wherever you are

If you’re someone who already struggles with digestive issues, especially ones related to cold or dampness—things like bloating, gas, loose stools, or fatigue after meals—shifting away from cold drinks can make a noticeable difference. Drinking warm teas, broths, or even just room temperature water allows the body to engage more directly with what it receives. Over time, this can strengthen the whole system, making it more resilient and efficient.

In the colder seasons, the argument for warmth becomes even stronger. Autumn and winter already call the body inward. The external environment becomes colder and wetter, and the digestive system has to work harder to maintain internal temperature. Adding cold drinks in this season adds stress to a system that’s already doing its best to stay balanced. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a crisp cider in the fall or a cold glass of water after a workout—but it does mean that the default should shift toward warmth.

There are also ways to enjoy cooler things more thoughtfully. If you really enjoy iced beverages, consider timing them to the warmest part of the day and the warmest parts of the year. Pay attention to what you eat alongside them—pairing a cold drink with hot, cooked food may be easier on the body than drinking one with a raw salad. Some people find that adding warming spices like ginger, cinnamon, or cardamom to cold drinks helps offset the chill. And when possible, let things warm up a bit before drinking—lukewarm is still better than ice-cold.

None of this needs to be absolute. Like many things in Chinese medicine, it’s less about rules and more about relationships. The body thrives on balance. If you’re constantly adding cold, you may need to add more warmth elsewhere—through food, movement, or rest. If your digestion is strong, you may tolerate some cold with little consequence. But for most people, especially those with sluggish or sensitive systems, reducing cold beverages—even by half—can have a surprising effect on energy, clarity, and comfort after meals.

Understanding the role of cold in digestion isn’t about giving something up. It’s about giving something back. A little warmth goes a long way. And sometimes the simplest things—like skipping ice in your water or choosing hot tea over a cold brew—can quietly support your body in doing what it’s already trying to do.

Digestion is an ongoing process. It works best when we work with it. That doesn’t mean never enjoying a cold drink again. It just means noticing what helps you feel more grounded, more nourished, and more steady. And adjusting accordingly.

Qi Node 16: Qiūfēn 秋分 (Autumn Equinox)

The Balance Tips

There is a moment in the year when light and dark meet on equal terms. When the days and nights are nearly the same length, and the weight of the year feels, if only briefly, perfectly distributed. This is Qiūfēn 秋分—the Autumn Equinox—and it is less a celebration than a subtle pause in the middle of descent.

It is a turning point. Not dramatic, but meaningful.

We tend to imagine balance as something static. As if standing evenly between opposites brings peace. But Qiūfēn 秋分 reminds us that balance is dynamic. It is not the moment when nothing moves, but when everything is held in temporary, delicate tension. The tipping point is here, and while the day may feel calm, the underlying qi is in motion. Descent has dominated for some time and now we see its effects. The dark grows stronger.

If the earlier Autumn nodes were the gathering of yīn 陰, Qiūfēn 秋分 is its quiet coronation. This is the season of harvesting what we’ve cultivated—not just the food grown from the Earth, but the internal practices, the mental shifts, and the emotional edits we’ve made along the way.

And just like harvesting crops, this work is both practical and symbolic. What are we gathering? What are we willing to release into the Earth again, to rot and reseed in seasons to come?

Equinox Conduct: Living with the Tipping Point

This time of year is not a peak. It is a slope. The descent into the darker half of the year becomes evident here, not with a crash, but with a lean. Aligning with this movement requires care—not urgency.

1. Do Less, But Do It with Intention

Qiūfēn 秋分 isn’t the time to push projects to completion or set major goals. Instead, focus your energy on maintenance and refinement. What systems are already in motion that could be adjusted or improved? What parts of your day feel rushed, uneven, or imbalanced? Use this node to smooth those places.

2. Rise with the Sun, Sleep with the Dark

Daylight and darkness are in equal measure now. Let that guide your rhythm. Wake up as the sky brightens. Wind down as it dims. A few minutes spent outside at dawn or dusk can reorient your body to the seasonal qi in a profound way.

Avoid artificial stimulation after nightfall. Let your evenings grow quieter. Sleep is becoming a primary form of nourishment now.

3. Eat What Balances, Not What Excites

Favor foods that nourish without overstimulating. This is the time for simple grains, roasted roots, and the lingering bounty of Late Summer vegetables. Add moistening elements to support the lungs—pear, lily bulb, sesame, or honey. Avoid extreme flavors or temperature contrasts. Let meals bring steadiness, not intensity.

Eat slowly. Digest fully. Let the act of eating reinforce your seasonal rhythm.

4. Walk More, Run Less

Movement should continue, but the pace should slow. Walks, especially in the morning or early evening, are deeply beneficial. Take in the shifting colors, the rustling leaves, the lowering light. Autumn is not a season for personal records. It is a season for attunement.

Stretching and gentle strength work can help maintain structure without overexertion.

5. Begin the Emotional Inventory

Now is the time to take emotional stock. What habits or thought patterns are you ready to release? What griefs have ripened? What joys do you still carry from the brighter half of the year?

Write. Reflect. Talk with someone you trust. Qiūfēn 秋分 opens a portal to deeper seeing. Let yourself look.

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The balance of light and dark will not last. Qiūfēn 秋分 offers a rare moment of symmetry before the tilt becomes obvious. It is the hinge on which the door of the year turns, opening us toward Winter.

Do not cling to the light. Do not rush the dark.

Just notice the balance. And let it guide you.

What They Came In For: Constipation

Bill came in because he was tired of feeling stuck. Literally.

For the past few years, his digestion had gotten slower and slower. At first, it just meant less regularity — a missed day here and there, nothing dramatic. But it crept up on him. By the time he showed up at the clinic, it wasn’t uncommon for him to go three or four days without a bowel movement. When things did move, it was slow, dry, and incomplete.

“It’s like my body just forgot how to do it,” he said.

He was 68, semi-retired, and pretty active — still walking his dog daily, still making coffee for his wife every morning. But this one issue had become a constant source of discomfort. He felt heavy after meals, bloated in the evenings, and often had to turn down food he would’ve enjoyed just to avoid the aftermath. He wasn’t in pain exactly, but he was never quite at ease.

His doctor told him it was normal at his age — just slow motility. He’d been told to drink more water, eat more fiber, and take stool softeners as needed. None of it really helped.

“It’s not like I’m eating cheeseburgers every day,” he joked. “I’m doing the right things. But my gut’s just not cooperating.”

When the Basics Aren’t Enough

Bill had already done the basics. He drank plenty of water. Ate oatmeal most mornings. Took a daily magnesium supplement. Tried psyllium husk, probiotics, even prune juice.

But none of it shifted his baseline. He still only had a proper bowel movement once every three days — sometimes longer. And the longer he went without one, the worse he felt. Foggy. Sluggish. Like things were backing up in more ways than one.

From a Chinese medicine perspective, constipation isn’t just a plumbing issue — it’s often a reflection of deeper imbalances. In Bill’s case, his pulse was thin and wiry, his tongue pale and dry, and his abdomen slightly firm on the lower left. What we saw was a pattern of dryness and depletion, layered with a bit of tension.

This wasn’t a case of excess heat or inflammation — it was about a system that didn’t have enough moisture, movement, or rhythm to keep things going. Over time, the body had lost momentum. The digestive fire had dimmed, and the fluids that should help guide waste downward weren’t doing their job.

Gentle, Steady Treatment to Restore Rhythm

We started Bill on a once-weekly acupuncture schedule to begin. The goal wasn’t just to get him moving once — it was to retrain his system to expect regular movement again.

We used points on the abdomen and lower back to stimulate the Large Intestine 大肠 (dà cháng) pathway and restore the downward flow. We added supportive points to nourish the Spleen 脾 (pí) and Kidney 肾 (shèn) systems — the internal organs responsible for transforming food into usable energy and fluid.

We also gave him an herbal formula customized for his constitution: one that moistened the intestines, gently promoted peristalsis, and tonified the underlying systems that had weakened over time. No harsh purgatives. No laxative effect. Just a slow restoration of internal balance.

After the first two weeks, things started to shift. Bill was going every two days without needing to think about it. The bloating had eased. His appetite was better.

After a month, he was having regular, easy bowel movements almost daily. No discomfort. No urgency. Just simple, quiet function.

A Return to Normal

“I never thought I’d feel this much joy over taking a normal crap,” he laughed.

But the truth is, this kind of change runs deep. Constipation isn’t just about digestion — it affects energy, mood, sleep, even mental clarity. Bill had started to feel more like himself again: less irritable, more comfortable in his body, and no longer thinking about his gut all day long.

Chinese medicine treats constipation not by forcing the body, but by reminding it how to move. Through acupuncture, herbs, and a steady rhythm of care, Bill’s system began to remember. And once it did, everything else started flowing again too.

Qi Node 15: 白露 Báilù (White Dew)

Yin Descends to Take Charge

Young girl leads her grandfather by the hand

The yáng 陽 energy of Summer is no longer fierce. Its bright enthusiasm has faded, and its sharp edges have softened with the turning of the season. In its place, something subtler begins to rise. The early morning dew appears like a whisper—gentle but insistent—reminding us that cooler months are approaching. Although the sun still warms your shoulders at midday, the evenings now bring a chill, and the heat of the day fades more quickly than it did just weeks ago.

This is the time when yīn 陰 energy coalesces. It is no longer a distant presence. No longer hidden behind heatwaves and long days. Now it steps forward—not to dominate, but to quietly take command.

At this point in the cycle, yáng 陽 is not absent, but it is no longer steering the movement of the year. It is slowing, retreating, and allowing yīn 陰 to rise. This transition is not marked by conflict or abrupt change, but by the natural rhythm of exchange between these two fundamental forces. One of the clearest metaphors for this moment is that of a young girl taking her aging grandfather by the hand. He forgets things—where he left the keys, when he last ate—but she is his helper. Though slower now and less certain, he carries stories and memories that she listens to carefully. Her presence brings clarity and reordering. She helps him recall who he has been, even as she quietly shapes what will come next. This is yīn 陰 not as darkness or absence, but as a guide and stabilizer.

Aligning Conduct with the Descent of Yin

Báilù is a moment to begin preparing for the interior months. The shifts need not be large, but they should be conscious. Below are a few ways to align your lifestyle and choices with the season’s changing qi.

1. Preserve Body Fluids

As the air becomes dry and the wind picks up, the body becomes more vulnerable to depletion. Avoid strenuous exercise that leads to heavy sweating. Instead, favor gentle, fluid movement—stretching, tai chi, slow walks, or restorative practices that promote circulation without overexertion.

2. Let Activity Follow the Light

Begin winding down earlier in the evening. Try to finish eating before 7 p.m. and resist late-night tasks that demand high cognitive or physical effort. Yáng qì 陽氣 is weakest in the evening, and pushing against that low tide only leads to depletion. Let the outer dark remind you to retreat inward.

3. Favor Moist and Warming Foods

This is the time for broths, stews, and lightly cooked vegetables. Enjoy the last of the tomatoes and squashes, and begin to incorporate grains like millet and barley. Potatoes, corn, and sweet roots provide gentle sweetness and grounding. Avoid raw and cold foods that tax digestion, and begin to minimize greasy, spicy, or heavily stimulating meals.

4. Explore the Dew Ritual

For those managing latent heat or damp-heat conditions, take a few moments each morning for a barefoot walk through the dew. Bundle up, step outside, and walk gently through the cool, wet grass. Let the morning qi settle into your feet. Then return inside, dry them thoroughly, warm them with your hands, and put on socks. This simple practice aligns the body with the cool clarity of early Autumn and helps guide heat down and out.

5. Begin the Harvest of the Mind

You’ve likely been editing your internal life in small ways—letting go of unneeded habits, shedding a few things that felt heavy. Now is the time to gather what remains. Begin organizing your thoughts and intentions. What routines are sustainable? What behaviors feel aligned? What insights want to stay?

This isn’t about goal-setting. It’s about noticing the contours of your inner landscape and preparing to live with them more fully in the months to come.

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Yīn 陰 descends now not as silence, but as structure. Not as absence, but as remembering. It brings with it the opportunity to reconnect with what supports and sustains. Let your choices soften. Let your movement slow. Let your attention settle into the subtler rhythms that are already calling you inward.

The year is turning again. Let yourself turn with it.

Hungry Ghost Festival: When the Dead Show Up Starving

Every year, as the seventh lunar month deepens, a peculiar hush settles across parts of East and Southeast Asia. It’s a quiet that lives in alleyways and courtyards, broken only by the rustle of paper flames and the low murmur of offerings spoken into the dark. It is said that during this time, the gates between the realms of the living and the dead swing open, and what comes through is not just memory or metaphor—it is longing.

This is the Hungry Ghost Festival, a cultural and spiritual event that marks a specific time in the lunar calendar—typically the fifteenth night of the seventh month—when spirits are believed to roam freely among the living. But not all spirits are honored ancestors or celestial visitors. Some are the forgotten. The neglected. The unremembered. They are the éguǐ 餓鬼—hungry ghosts.

And they are starving.

What Does It Mean to Be Hungry?

The term “hungry ghost” is more than a dramatic flourish. It’s a precise designation. In both Buddhist and Daoist cosmologies, the world is layered—visible life atop a vast substratum of unseen realities. The realm of hungry ghosts is one such layer. It’s not Hell in the fire-and-brimstone sense, but it is a place of torment. Not by punishment imposed, but by craving unfulfilled.

A hungry ghost is often described as having a huge, distended belly and a neck too thin to pass even a grain of rice. It is the very image of insatiable desire paired with the inability to ever be satisfied. These beings are not evil. They are pitiable. They wander, not because they want to harm, but because they are desperate to remember who they were or to be remembered by someone, anyone.

In this way, the Hungry Ghost Festival is not a horror story. It is an act of compassion. It’s a recognition of how thin the veil between nourishment and neglect really is—how easily one can become unseen.

Origins and Mythic Threads

A classical chinese painting of a hungry ghost with a distended belly and a tiny throat

The festival has roots in both Buddhist and Daoist traditions, although the stories and interpretations vary depending on the source. In Buddhist telling, the origin lies in the story of Mùlián 目連, a disciple of the Buddha who sought to save his mother from the torments of the hungry ghost realm. She had, in life, accumulated karmic debts through greed and selfishness, and in death was condemned to a state of perpetual hunger. Despite his powers, Mùlián could not feed her. Every offering he made would turn to flames or ash in her mouth.

Eventually, the Buddha instructed him to gather the monastic community and make offerings on her behalf during the seventh lunar month. Through the transfer of merit, her suffering was lessened. This narrative reinforces a foundational value in East Asian culture: filial piety. It suggests that even in death, we have responsibilities to our kin. It also hints at a wider truth—our actions ripple outward, touching not only the living, but those who linger beyond our reach.

In Daoist practice, the same festival is called Zhōngyuán Jié 中元節 and is connected to the cosmological belief that this is the time when the heavens open for divine judgment. The underworld’s gatekeeper, Dìguān Dàdì 地官大帝, descends to record the sins of the living and offer reprieves for the suffering dead. The festival thus becomes both a moral checkpoint and a moment of shared obligation between the living and the deceased.

But even with mythic backstories and ritual protocols, the festival is deeply human. It’s not just about ghosts. It’s about memory, loss, and the deep ache of disconnection.

Rituals of Nourishment and Remembrance

During the Hungry Ghost Festival, the rituals are as much for the living as for the dead.

Food and incense laid out on an altar for the ancestors

Families prepare altars of food—not for their own consumption, but for the spirits. Dishes are laid out carefully, incense is lit, and prayers are murmured into the smoke. Outside homes, especially at crossroads and open public spaces, people burn joss paper—symbolic offerings shaped like money, clothing, and household goods. These are sent to the spirit world in hopes of easing the discomforts of those trapped in liminal existence.

In southern China and parts of Southeast Asia, lanterns are floated on rivers or released into the night sky. The idea is simple but haunting: help the lost find their way home. Even street performances—operas, dances, or puppet shows—might be staged with front-row seats left conspicuously empty. Those are for the guests who no longer walk in flesh but are welcome all the same.

Yet, for all the care shown, there is also caution. One does not casually walk home late on this night. One does not speak ill of the dead or turn over earth needlessly. The ghosts are hungry, yes—but they are also fragile. Unpredictable. Their needs are vast, and the boundary between honoring and offending is thin.

Why This Matters Now

For modern Americans, the Hungry Ghost Festival may seem distant, a piece of folklore from another time and place. But if you look past the burning paper and the moonlit ceremonies, the relevance is startling.

We live in a culture increasingly marked by disconnection. The dead are tidily buried in cemeteries we rarely visit. Grief is expected to resolve itself in polite time. Elders are often sidelined. Memory fades quickly, not from cruelty, but from the sheer pace of modern life. If someone is not directly in our feed, we may not even realize they’re missing.

The Hungry Ghost Festival presents a radical alternative. It asks us to remember deliberately. It gives space—ritual, symbolic, literal—for the unspoken griefs and unacknowledged lives. And in doing so, it suggests that forgetting has consequences—not just for those passed, but for us.

In psychological terms, the hungry ghost is unresolved trauma. It is inherited pain. It is the part of our family history that no one wants to talk about, now roaming unaddressed through our decisions and relationships. In ecological terms, it is the consequence of living in a world where we extract endlessly without reciprocating. The world itself becomes a hungry ghost—parched, burnt, hollowed.

And yet, the response is simple: remember. Feed what is hungry. Sit down at the table with your ghosts—those of family, culture, and self—and offer something nourishing. Time. Attention. Acknowledgment.

A Contemporary Practice

You don’t need a joss paper bank or a lunar calendar to honor this season. You only need a moment.

Light a candle for someone you’ve lost. Not just the beloved dead, but those who left quietly. The ones you didn’t grieve properly. The parts of yourself you abandoned out of necessity. Write a letter. Cook a dish someone used to love and set a portion aside. Say their name.

If you feel brave, take a walk at dusk. Reflect on what you have inherited—not just your grandmother’s smile or your father’s stubbornness, but the silence, the questions, the ache. What stories were never told? What hungers were never fed?

And then, as best you can, feed them. Feed with attention. With ritual. With small acts that say: I remember you. You mattered. You still matter.

The gates are open during this time. Whether that means spirits of the dead or simply the hidden parts of our own inner lives depends on your view. But something rises. Something comes looking. And not with malice. With need.

The Hungry Ghost Festival is not a celebration of fear. It is an invitation to compassion. To memory. To reckoning.

And perhaps, in this time of endless distractions and chronic forgetting, it is exactly the kind of feast we need.

Foundations of Chinese Medicine: Dampness

Why We Talk About Dampness Like It's a Character in Your Life

In Chinese medicine, dampness is often described as if it were a person. It creeps in. It lingers. It slows things down. It makes itself comfortable. This way of speaking is not just poetic—it’s diagnostic. Dampness behaves in consistent, recognizable ways, and by understanding its tendencies, we can recognize it in the body, the mind, and the environment.

But before we explore what happens when there is too much dampness, it’s important to say: dampness itself is not bad. In fact, it is an essential part of human life. The fluids of the body—everything from joint lubrication to stomach mucus to vaginal secretions—are moistening, nourishing, and protective. These fluids keep tissues supple, carry nutrients, and help regulate temperature and movement. Dampness, in its proper place and proportion, is a key part of health.

Problems arise when dampness accumulates, stagnates, or appears in places it does not belong.

Dampness Is a Pattern and a Substance

Dampness is not a measurable thing you can isolate under a microscope. It is a pattern of imbalance that has a tangible fluid component. In the body, that pattern often shows up as sensations of heaviness, swelling, congestion, or sluggishness. In the mind, it can feel like fogginess, indecision, or a sense that your thoughts are sticking together rather than moving freely.

Some common ways people experience dampness include:

• Waking up tired even after a full night’s sleep

• Feeling bloated or weighed down after eating

• Experiencing frequent loose stools or sticky bowel movements

• Noticing puffiness or fluid retention, especially in the lower body

• Having trouble concentrating or feeling mentally “foggy”

• Developing chronic sinus congestion or phlegm

• Experiencing recurrent yeast or fungal overgrowths

These experiences don’t necessarily mean something is wrong with you. They mean your body is trying to metabolize more dampness than it is currently able to move or transform.

How Excess Dampness Forms

Dampness can enter the body from the outside—for instance, living in a very humid climate or being exposed to moldy environments—but most of the time, excess dampness is generated internally. This is often due to a combination of diet, lifestyle, and emotional patterns.

1. Dietary Sources of Dampness

Food is one of the most common sources of excess dampness in modern life. The digestive system, particularly the Spleen 脾 (pí) in Chinese medicine, is responsible for transforming food and drink into useful qì 氣, Blood, and fluids. When digestion is overwhelmed, improperly supported, or repeatedly burdened, it leaves behind untransformed residue. This residue is what we understand as internal dampness.

Some foods are more likely to generate dampness, especially when eaten frequently or in large amounts. These include:

• Sweet foods, especially refined sugar, syrup, and baked goods

• Cold or raw foods, including smoothies, salads, and iced drinks

• Greasy or fried foods

• Dairy products such as cheese, milk, yogurt, and ice cream

• Highly processed foods and refined flour products

It is not that these foods are always harmful. In moderation, and for some people at certain times, they may be well tolerated. But when the digestive system is already under strain—or when dampness is already present—these foods can worsen the condition.

2. Mental and Emotional Dampness

In Chinese medicine, the mind and digestion are closely linked. Excessive worry, rumination, or overthinking can weaken the Spleen’s capacity to transform. When the mind becomes entangled or stagnant, the body can follow. This can lead to both physical symptoms—like fatigue or bloating—and cognitive symptoms, like poor memory or slow recall.

3. Sedentary Lifestyle

Movement helps distribute and transform fluids. Regular physical activity supports the movement of qì and encourages the appropriate elimination of waste. When people are sedentary for long periods—especially when sitting for work, commuting, or screen use—it creates conditions for dampness to settle in. This can result in weight gain, swelling, or general stagnation.

4. Unresolved Illness or Latent Pathogens

Sometimes, the body has fought off an illness—like a respiratory infection or a period of intense stress—but has not fully cleared the residue. This can leave behind a lingering damp quality, often seen as persistent congestion, low-grade fatigue, or chronic digestive upset. In Chinese medicine, we think of this as something that was never fully metabolized and now lingers, hidden or low-grade, in the system.

The Nature of Dampness

One reason we speak about dampness as if it were a person is because it behaves in predictable, almost temperamental ways. It has qualities we recognize:

• It is heavy and tends to drag things downward. People may feel tired, unmotivated, or foggy.

• It is sticky, meaning it often entangles with other patterns. For example, it can combine with heat and create damp-heat symptoms like inflammation, irritation, or infections.

• It is slow to move. Once present, dampness can be difficult to resolve quickly. It responds best to steady, gentle, long-term support.

Because it resists quick transformation, dampness can also affect mood. People may describe feeling stuck, unclear, or weighed down—not just physically, but emotionally. They may feel as though their usual clarity or brightness is just out of reach.

The Value of Dampness

Despite its challenges, dampness is not something we are trying to eliminate entirely. The healthy body needs moisture. Without it, tissues dry out, digestion becomes irregular, joints become stiff, and skin can crack or itch. A truly healthy system has both warmth and moisture—it moves, nourishes, lubricates, and protects.

In this way, dampness is part of what makes us soft, fertile, and emotionally connected. It is associated with the Earth phase in Chinese cosmology, which governs nourishment, home, and the capacity to receive and contain. We do not aim to eradicate it; we aim to manage its quantity and quality.

How We Work With Dampness in Clinic

When someone comes in with signs of excess dampness, we look for patterns. Where is it accumulating? What is contributing to its formation? How is it affecting other systems? From there, we tailor treatment to support transformation.

Common strategies include:

• Strengthening the Spleen to improve digestion and fluid transformation

• Supporting the Lung to help distribute and descend fluids

• Using gentle, aromatic herbs to help penetrate stagnation and promote movement

• Encouraging appropriate physical movement, especially light exercise after meals

• Offering dietary guidance to reduce damp-producing foods while emphasizing warm, cooked meals that are easy to digest

No single herb or intervention can “clear dampness” on its own. Treatment involves working with the whole system, including food choices, sleep, emotions, and environment.

Supporting Dampness at Home

For those wanting to address dampness in daily life, small changes can make a big difference over time. Some helpful practices include:

• Eating cooked, warm foods like soups, stews, and roasted vegetables

• Avoiding frequent intake of cold drinks, smoothies, and raw meals

• Reducing sugar, dairy, and greasy foods when feeling bloated, tired, or puffy

• Moving the body gently and regularly—walking after meals is especially helpful

• Creating routines that support clarity and reduce mental overactivity

• Addressing environmental dampness by improving airflow, reducing mold exposure, and keeping the home dry

These shifts don’t need to be extreme. Often, consistent small choices can help the system regain its capacity to manage dampness on its own.

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Dampness teaches us that health is not only about clarity and vigor, but also about the body’s ability to hold, contain, and nourish. It reminds us that the same qualities that weigh us down can also protect us, that the line between pathology and physiology is not fixed, and that healing often begins with recognizing the patterns we are living in. By observing how dampness moves through our bodies, our meals, our habits, and even our thoughts, we gain a deeper sense of how to live in relationship with the world around us—and within us.

Qi Node 14: 處暑 Chùshǔ (Heat Ends)

The name tells you everything and nothing all at once. Chùshǔ—“Heat Ends” (处暑)—suggests relief, a cooling off, a return to balance. But in practice? The heat doesn’t always end on cue. The air might still hum with humidity. The sun, still insistent. And the body, caught between wanting to let go of summer and still clinging to its long, light-filled days, doesn’t always know how to respond.

This is the paradox of Chùshǔ: we’ve crossed a seasonal threshold, but the world hasn’t caught up yet.

We’re entering the last phase of Late Summer—a strange, in-between time in Chinese cosmology. It’s not quite Fall, not really Summer. It’s transitional. Earth phase qi is still humming from the transition period between 大暑 Dàshǔ and 立秋 Lìqiū , which means the concerns of the Spleen and Stomach systems—digestion, nourishment, stability—are still impacted by conduct in this period. But quietly, almost imperceptibly, the energy is beginning to sink. The outward push of Summer is yielding to inward motion. The descent has begun.

When the Season Hesitates

What makes Chùshǔ especially interesting (and occasionally frustrating) is the way it resists a clean break. After all, it’s not called “Fall Begins” or “First Frost.” It’s “Heat Ends,” which is more of an intention than a certainty. In many parts of the Northern hemisphere, it’s still pretty hot during this qi node, but remember that qi nodes express shifts in the qi not necessarily in the weather. These shifts portend changes in the future more than an immediately observable change. For Chùshǔ, it’s a transitional moment when the qi in the environment starts to pull downward, but we’re not quite ready to follow it.

This is the season of lingering.

Tomatoes are still on the vine. Kids aren’t back in school yet—or maybe they just started, but summer break energy is still in the air. Vacations taper off. Work resumes. The fire of summer isn’t out, but it’s starting to burn lower. And there’s often a sense of restlessness as we try to find our rhythm again.

Cosmically, Chùshǔ isn’t telling us to stop. It’s asking us to start considering what it means to shift.

We often think of seasonal transitions as clean slates. But more often, they are layered. Old expectations overlap with new intentions. We still feel warm and outwardly focused while being asked to begin preparing for inward movement. It can feel awkward. Confusing. Tiring.

And that’s completely natural.

The Descent Begins

Chinese medicine views this period as a crucial turning point. The yang qi, which has been rising and expanding since early spring, is now preparing to descend. But it doesn’t plummet. It spirals down slowly, recalibrating as it goes.

Chùshǔ marks the beginning of that descent. Which means this is the time to soften your pace, simplify your routines, and prepare your body and mind for a quieter, more introspective season ahead.

All seasonal change is moderated by the Earth phase, but Late Summer in particular has the most direct alignement with the Qi of Earth: represented by the center—physically, emotionally, and energetically. It’s a time to ground. To stabilize. To gather yourself before the winds of Autumn arrive.

And because we are, in many ways, still warm, still moving, still doing, this qi node is also about recognizing when we’ve had enough. Not out of exhaustion or failure—but because seasons are meant to change.

How to Align with Chùshǔ (处暑)

This is not a time for dramatic transformation. It’s a time for attunement—small shifts that help you match pace with the season’s changing rhythm.

1. Ease into Routine

Start rebuilding rhythm. Think regular sleep, consistent meals, and a little structure—not rigid, but supportive. Your Spleen system loves routine. Offer it a bit of predictability after the spontaneity of Summer.

2. Ground Through Food

Earth phase loves food that is simple, warm, and comforting. Late Summer produce—like squash, corn, carrots, and sweet potatoes—supports both digestion and transition. Keep it cooked, lightly spiced, and balanced. Avoid too many cold or greasy foods, which can burden an already tired digestive system.

Try soups with barley, stewed mung beans, or roasted root vegetables. Tea with ginger and orange peel is a lovely seasonal ally.

3. Create Space Gently

This is a good moment to start editing—not purging but letting go of small clutter, unnecessary tasks, or mental noise that has carried over from the peak of Summer. This isn’t the active and forceful cleaning and clearing of Spring but instead the first evaluation of what you’d like to keep and to let go as you prepare for Winter.

4. Observe Instead of React

You might feel a little unsettled right now. That’s part of the transition. Instead of trying to fix it, watch it. Track your moods, cravings, and thoughts. Let the internal landscape shift without needing to define it just yet.

5. Prioritize Rest Before You Feel Exhausted

Just because you're not crashing doesn't mean you're not ready to slow down. Begin to reintroduce rest into your days. Go to bed a little earlier. Take more time in the morning. Schedule less. Rest isn’t just recovery—it’s how we match our pace to nature’s.

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Chùshǔ (处暑) is a quiet invitation to begin the journey inward. Not as retreat, but as rhythm. It reminds us that not all endings are final. Some endings arrive gradually, with warmth still in the air and leaves still on the trees. But that doesn’t make the shift any less real.

This is your moment to begin the descent—gracefully, intentionally, and with full presence. Let the heat end slowly. Let yourself linger at the edge. Let the season take its time.

And take yours, too.

Everyday Alchemy: Bedtime as a Boundary

Creating Restorative Sleep Habits

In Chinese medicine, the day is not an undifferentiated stretch of time. It has rhythm. It has tide. It rises and falls with light, activity, and attention. Just as the seasons turn from outward growth to inward consolidation, so too does each 24-hour cycle follow a cosmological pattern. And the transition to night — particularly the moment we choose to go to bed — is more than a practical decision. It’s a ritual act. A boundary. One that either protects or erodes our inner resources.

In modern life, we tend to treat sleep as a utility. Something we schedule around productivity, tuck into the margins, or sacrifice altogether when the day spills over. But in the logic of Chinese medicine, sleep is a central pillar of health. It is not just about rest — it is about restoration. And the quality of that restoration depends not only on how long we sleep, but on how we cross the threshold into it.

In Chinese physiology, night is the time when yīn 陰 takes precedence. Where the yáng 陽 of daytime supports activity, thought, and outward expression, the yīn of night anchors inward processes — digestion, cellular repair, blood enrichment, dream activity, and spirit containment. At night, the Shén 神 (consciousness) retreats into the Heart and is nourished by Blood. Without this consolidation, the mind may become scattered, anxious, or dull.

Sleep is also the time when the body moves from action to assimilation. What we take in during the day — food, emotion, experience — is processed at night. The Liver, in particular, has a major role in this. During sleep, Liver qì 氣 helps regulate Blood, soothe the nervous system, and smooth the transitions between mental states. If we don’t sleep deeply or regularly, this “processing” function becomes incomplete. We may wake up irritable, foggy, or physically tight, with a sense that nothing ever quite settles.

Bedtime as a Transition, Not a Stop Button

Most people treat bedtime like a hard stop — one moment you’re scrolling, the next you’re tossing the phone aside and trying to sleep. But the body does not switch gears so abruptly. Yīn needs time to gather. The mind needs time to descend. And if we don’t allow for that transition, we often find ourselves lying in bed with a racing heart or spinning thoughts, unsure why rest feels so far away.

Instead, we can begin to think of bedtime as a boundary — not just the moment the lights go out, but the hour before that in which we begin handing the day back to itself. This doesn’t require perfection or elaborate rituals. What it requires is rhythm, repetition, and signals to the body that it’s time to shift gears.

Simple Ways to Create a Bedtime Boundary

These are not rules so much as invitations. Each of these practices supports the body’s natural yīn movement at night and helps reinforce the internal logic of rest.

1. Choose a consistent bedtime — and stick to it

Our bodies are built on cycles. The Heart, Liver, and Kidney all perform essential nighttime functions that depend on rhythm. Going to bed at the same time each night, ideally before 11pm, supports those organs in doing their jobs. You don’t need to hit the exact minute every night, but choosing a target hour and honoring it as often as you can helps retrain your system toward regularity.

2. Dim the lights after sunset

Light stimulates yáng. Blue light, especially from screens, signals to the brain that it’s still daytime. Dimming lights, using warm bulbs, or even lighting a candle can help shift your sensory field into a more yīn-supportive state. Even 30 minutes of dimmer lighting before bed can have a measurable effect.

3. Stop eating 2–3 hours before sleep

Late-night eating taxes the Stomach and impairs the body’s ability to redirect resources toward rest. When digestion is still active, the mind often remains agitated. Giving your body a few hours to settle after the evening meal supports both physical and emotional quieting.

4. Avoid overstimulating media

This doesn’t mean you can never watch shows or check your phone in the evening, but it does mean being thoughtful about the kinds of input you take in close to bedtime. Violent news, rapid editing, loud soundtracks, and emotionally intense narratives all pull the Shén outward. Sleep requires the opposite: a gathering inward.

5. Transition with ritual

Take a shower or wash your face. Drink a small cup of a calming herbal tea. Climb into bed where it is cold and dark and read. Reading a book that is not the most intense page-turner you’ve ever found is a consistent analog process that reminds your body that it is time to descend from yáng to yīn. Allow your eyes to grow heavy as you read and resist sleep every so slightly. Then put down your book and roll over to sleep.

When Sleep Doesn't Come Easily

Some people struggle to fall asleep even with good routines. Others wake in the night, especially between 1–3am — the time governed by the Liver in the organ clock. These patterns can be signs of deeper imbalances in Blood, qì, or Shén containment, and are worth exploring in a clinical setting.

But often, what seems like a sleep problem is actually a rhythm problem. The body has not been given clear enough cues that it’s safe — and time — to descend. By approaching sleep as something we move toward, rather than something we try to flip on like a light switch, we give ourselves a better chance at deep rest.

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In the logic of Chinese medicine, health is not only measured by activity, achievement, or outward markers of success. It is also measured by return. By the ability to gather in, to restore, to rest. Bedtime, then, is not a pause in life — it’s part of its rhythm. A chance to begin again, better metabolized, better contained, more whole.

It starts not with the lights off, but with the decision to honor the transition. To treat bedtime not as the end of the day, but as the beginning of the next.

Qi Node 13: 立秋 Lìqiū (Autumn Begins)

The Quiet Arrival of Something New

It is still hot outside. The sun still rises early and lingers late. The air still hums with the weight of summer. And yet, something is changing.

This is the qi node of Lìqiū, “Autumn Begins.” The name alone feels implausible. How could autumn already be here?

But Chinese cosmology doesn’t wait for the leaves to fall to announce the shift of season. It listens earlier, more carefully. It marks the moment Yin begins to rise.

It begins slowly, almost imperceptibly. The mornings are cooler—barely, but enough to make you notice. The breeze carries a different edge. The crickets sound thinner. The world doesn’t feel quite as outward as it did in July. Yang has begun its descent, and Yin is stirring from its long sleep.

The First Turning Inward

In the Daoist calendar, this is not just the start of a new season. It is a turning of the entire cosmological tide.

Where summer was a time of expression, expansion, and manifestation, autumn begins the return toward refinement, containment, and reflection. If summer is the fullness of fruit on the branch, autumn is the seed within that fruit—small, hidden, holding potential.

Lìqiū invites us to begin the long, slow process of turning inward. Not all at once. Not dramatically. Just a gentle shift—a lessening of outward striving, a softening of urgency, a reorientation toward what lies within.

In the natural world, trees begin to draw sap back toward their roots. Grains start to dry. Insects begin to burrow. Life contracts in preparation for rest. So should we.

Unresolved Summer and the Burden of Lingering Heat

The classics warn that if summer heat is not properly released before autumn begins, it can lead to disease. Heat that lingers in the system may combine with the dryness of fall and produce patterns that are difficult to resolve—dry coughs, skin eruptions, stubborn constipation, unprocessed emotional agitation.

In this sense, Lìqiū is not just a threshold—it’s an audit. It shows us what remains unprocessed. What hasn’t cleared. What must be addressed before the descent continues.

If Yang has not been allowed to recede, it may now stagnate. If we refuse to soften our activity, the transition can become jagged. And when we treat this time as an extension of summer, we miss the invitation to begin shedding what we no longer need.

The Philosophy of Restraint

Modern life rarely makes space for seasonal restraint. We are taught to push through, stay productive, plan ahead. But Lìqiū offers a different kind of wisdom: one that values clarity over volume, precision over pace.

This is the season of distillation—of editing your life down to what still matters. It is the beginning of discernment. The first whisper that says: not everything you gathered in summer will serve you in fall.

To align with Lìqiū is to begin listening for what is essential.

What to Do

This node calls for a quieting—not a full retreat, but a subtle downshift. Begin to treat your body like the season is changing, even if the temperature hasn’t caught up yet.

• Wake slightly earlier. Mornings now carry the clearest air of the day.

• Start to eat more simply. Warm grains and lightly cooked foods support digestion as the air dries.

• Ease out of raw fruits and salads. Cooked apples, pears, and steamed greens begin to replace summer’s melon and cucumber.

• Drink teas that clear lingering heat. Chrysanthemum, mint, or mulberry leaf can help.

• Protect your lungs. Avoid late-night outdoor exposure and breathing in too much dry air.

• Walk at dusk. Let the evening wind remind your body of its own rhythm.

• Let go of one thing. A habit, a task, a demand you’ve outgrown. Not in grief—just in rhythm.

What They Came In For: Sinus Congestion

When Jamal came to the clinic, he described it like this: “It’s like trying to breathe through a wet sponge.”

His nose had been stuffy for years. Not in the short-term, post-cold kind of way — but in the chronic, barely-remember-what-clear-breathing-feels-like way. Every morning he woke up feeling heavy and swollen in his face. Pressure behind his eyes, a dull ache across his forehead, and a sense of fog that didn’t lift until late in the day — if at all.

Over-the-counter decongestants helped temporarily, but they dried him out and made him feel jittery. Nasal sprays worked for a while but lost effectiveness. Allergy testing showed some mild reactions, but antihistamines didn’t make much difference either. Doctors told him it was “non-specific rhinitis,” maybe with a component of chronic sinusitis. They offered more sprays, allergy meds, and, eventually, a referral to an ENT.

But Jamal wasn’t looking for a surgery consult. He wanted to understand why this kept happening. Why he always felt puffy, heavy, and clogged — even when he wasn’t sick, even when the seasons changed, even when he ate carefully and stayed hydrated.

“I just want to breathe,” he told us. “Like, really breathe.”

A System Stuck in Dampness

From the outside, Jamal looked healthy. He worked out regularly. He ate well. He didn’t smoke. But his system told a different story. His tongue was swollen with tooth marks along the edges. His pulse was soft and sluggish. He frequently cleared his throat, especially after meals, and he told us he often felt a mild post-nasal drip — not enough to notice constantly, but enough to feel like he was always managing something.

In Chinese medicine, we look at long-term congestion not just as a nasal issue, but as a sign that something deeper isn’t moving properly in the body. For Jamal, the issue was what we call dampness — a kind of internal accumulation that forms when the body can’t properly transform and transport fluids. This "dampness" isn’t just water retention; it’s about the quality of internal flow. When it lingers, it becomes heavy, obstructive, and sticky — especially in the sinuses, chest, and digestive system.

This kind of stagnation often arises from a combination of factors: a constitution that leans toward fluid retention, a gut that isn’t processing efficiently, and a Lung system that’s overburdened and underpowered. Over time, it settles in, and the body forgets what it feels like to be clear.

Treatment to Unstick the Flow

Our first goal was to help things move. We used acupuncture points that open the sinuses, drain phlegm, and stimulate the body's ability to regulate fluid metabolism — not just in the nose, but throughout the system. We supported the Lung 肺 (fèi) and Spleen 脾 (pí) systems, which work together in Chinese medicine to circulate clean fluids, maintain healthy mucosa, and keep the surface of the body (like the nasal passages) clear and defended.

Jamal also began a custom herbal formula. It included herbs to transform dampness, clear the sinuses, and gently strengthen his middle — that is, his digestion — so that he wouldn’t keep creating excess phlegm in the first place.

Within two weeks, he noticed that he was waking up without as much pressure in his face. The mornings were still a little stuffy, but he could breathe through his nose by mid-morning, which was already a big shift. After a month, his breathing felt clearer more of the day than not. He even remarked one afternoon, “I didn’t realize until now that I was mouth breathing all the time. I’m not doing that anymore.”

Regaining Clarity

After a couple of months of treatment, Jamal’s baseline had changed. He still had occasional flare-ups — after a long flight, or if he ate a lot of dairy — but he finally understood what his system responded to. He knew what clear breathing felt like, and more importantly, how to support it.

“I feel like I have more mental energy,” he told us. “Like my brain’s not underwater anymore.”

That’s the thing about chronic sinus issues — they don’t just block the nose. They affect sleep, cognition, mood, and energy. When your breathing is obstructed day in and day out, your whole system runs on lower power.

Chinese medicine doesn’t just aim to reduce inflammation or dry out secretions — it seeks to restore the deeper flow that keeps the body clear, light, and well-regulated. In Jamal’s case, it helped him remember what full, open breathing feels like — and how good life can feel when your head isn’t full of fog.

Qi Node 12: 大暑 Dàshǔ (Greater Heat)

When Yang Refuses To Yield

Since the solstice, yáng qì 陽氣 has gradually begun to recede. There’s no sudden collapse or dramatic turn—just the steady turning of the seasonal wheel, as the arc of a force that reached its height now begins its slow decline.

Still, Yang is not inclined to yield easily.

We are now in the qi node known as Dàshǔ 大暑, or “Greater Heat,” the final seasonal node of summer. At this stage, Yang is no longer growing, but it hasn’t yet dissipated either. Instead, it becomes resistant—less dynamic, more forceful. In classical texts, this state is sometimes referred to as yǒuhài 有害—harmful Yang, a form of excess that oversteps the bounds of harmony. Rather than warming and ripening, this phase of Yang has a tendency to overheat, pushing beyond what is beneficial.

The broader seasonal cycle continues. Autumn will arrive, Yin will gradually take its place. But for now, Yang pushes back against the inevitable transition, and in doing so, it can begin to strain the systems it once supported.

The Final Bloom Of Excess

Earlier in the summer, Yang was expressive and purposeful. It inspired action—bringing us outdoors into sunlit landscapes, into gardens and rivers, toward late evenings filled with movement and momentum. That energy helped bring to life the intentions we set earlier in the year.

Now, as the seasonal crest gives way to decline, Yang doesn’t taper off with ease. Instead, it intensifies. The heat becomes less supportive and more oppressive. The ground hardens. Dampness, once settled, begins to rise under pressure. Crops approach ripeness, but so too do underlying patterns of stagnation and reactivity.

This is the challenge of Greater Heat: the same force that encourages completion can also tip things toward disruption.

We see this in the environment—through wildfire risk, sudden storms, or erratic temperature swings—and in the body, where excess heat might show up as rashes, digestive discomfort, poor sleep, or a general feeling of restlessness or irritability. For others, the effects are more subtle: heaviness in the limbs, low-grade tension, or a vague emotional unease that’s hard to explain.

Conduct, Cosmology, and the Limits of Control

Traditional cosmologies remind us that human life is not separate from the world around it. We are animated by the same cycles that govern sky and soil. And yet the rhythms of modern life often obscure that fact.

We tend to treat time as uniform, asking the same level of output from ourselves in every season. We exercise according to schedule, not environment. We keep lights on late into the night, skip meals when busy, and expect productivity even when our bodies are calling for rest.

Yang, like all forces, has a lifespan. Its presence is vital, but it is not meant to be constant. Sustained health depends not only on growth and achievement, but also on the ability to respond to change, to shift gears, to step back when it’s time. When we ignore this need for modulation, we risk weakening the very foundation we rely on.

The body can accommodate these misalignments for a time. But over the long arc, it seeks to restore balance.

What to do

The medicine now is simple: do less. Cool down. Don’t match the world’s fire with more of your own.

Brightly colored fruit on a plate: blueberries, raspberries, melon, and pineapple

• Rest in the shade. Seek stillness, not just shelter.

• Don’t skip breakfast. Anchor your qi early.

• If you’re going to miss a meal, let it be dinner. The day should begin with nourishment, not end in depletion.

• Drink plenty of water, especially with cooling additions like cucumber, mint, or chrysanthemum.

• Favor simple grains. Cooked white rice is ideal—light, moistening, easy to digest.

• Enjoy fresh fruit like melons between meals or at least several hours after eating.

• Exercise in the early morning. After midday, your body needs to slow down, not speed up.

• Take a cool shower. Wash your hair. It helps release trapped heat from the head.

Foundations of Chinese Medicine: Heat

In Chinese medicine, heat is not simply a symptom or a sign of illness—it is a fundamental part of life. Heat, as a physiological force, makes things move, ripen, transform, and come alive. Without it, we would not be able to digest food, circulate blood, generate thoughts, or maintain consciousness. The natural warmth of the body is what fuels all the processes we associate with vitality.

This healthy, life-giving heat is considered an expression of yáng 陽—the active, dynamic, outward-moving force that balances the body’s cooling, moistening yīn 陰. A warm stomach helps transform food into nutrients. A warm uterus facilitates conception. A warm liver courses the blood and marshalls the qì 氣. In daily life, we see the presence of proper heat when someone feels energized but not frantic, focused but not agitated, and warm without being overheated. It is an essential ingredient in core human function.

Yet just as heat is necessary, it can also become harmful. When it accumulates beyond what the body can manage, or shows up in places it doesn’t belong, it becomes pathogenic heat. In this state, heat begins to dry, inflame, irritate, and disturb. Symptoms can vary widely depending on where the heat expresses itself. A person might experience headaches, red eyes, skin eruptions, or bitter taste in the mouth. Others might notice restlessness, irritability, dry stools, or insomnia. In some cases, heat manifests emotionally: a short fuse, a racing mind, or an inability to settle. In others, it shows up in the tongue and pulse—a red tongue body, a rapid pulse, or thick yellow coating.

Understanding heat as both vital and potentially disruptive is central to Chinese medicine, and this duality is not a new idea. The earliest medical texts, including the Huáng Dì Nèi Jīng 黃帝內經 (Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic), describe the importance of internal warmth as a foundation for life, while also warning of what happens when heat becomes excessive or enters from the outside. The Shāng Hán Lùn 傷寒論, a classical text on externally-contracted disease, outlines six stages of cold-induced illness, several of which involve the transformation of cold into heat as the body’s yáng rises to fight back. In this framework, heat often emerges as a secondary pattern—something that develops when the body’s defenses are engaged but not yet successful.

The Wēn Bìng Lùn 溫病論, or Treatise on Warm Diseases, later refined this view by focusing on illnesses characterized by heat from the beginning—febrile conditions, seasonal epidemics, and lingering internal inflammation. These texts laid the foundation for how we understand the progression, location, and treatment of heat in the body. They also taught us to distinguish between heat that arises from external factors (such as weather or infection) and heat that is generated internally due to lifestyle, diet, emotion, or constitutional tendencies.

How Heat Shows Up

In the clinic, we see both types regularly. Pathogenic heat from external sources often shows up acutely—fevers, sore throats, inflamed tonsils, or skin outbreaks that come on quickly and with intensity. Internally generated heat is more common in chronic conditions. This might take the form of persistent irritability, digestive inflammation, hormonal heat signs such as hot flashes or night sweats, or heat in the Heart system causing insomnia and vivid dreaming. Heat may also be subtle at first: dryness in the mouth without thirst, slight flushing in the cheeks, or restlessness in the evening. These early signs are often the body’s way of asking for support before something becomes more entrenched.

Seasonally, heat tends to be more of a challenge in the warmer months. Summer is ruled by Fire in the Five Phase system, and it corresponds to the Heart and Small Intestine. During this time, external heat is more present in the environment, and our own yáng rises to meet the season. For many people, this results in a sense of lightness, expansiveness, and energy. But for those who already run warm, or whose yīn resources are insufficient, summer can easily tip into agitation, sleeplessness, or inflammation. This is particularly true if the heat is compounded by stress, overwork, or drying foods and beverages like alcohol, caffeine, or spicy meals.

That said, heat patterns are not limited to summer. People can experience heat in the dead of winter—especially if their internal systems are out of balance. Deficient yīn can no longer anchor the body's natural yáng, resulting in what we call false or empty heat. In these cases, symptoms may include night sweats, five-center heat (warmth in the palms, soles, and chest), or a sensation of heat in the body despite cold weather outside. This is one reason why we always ask about heat signs, regardless of the season.

What To Do About Heat

Managing heat begins with recognition. If the body feels too warm, if the mind is racing, if sleep becomes difficult, or if digestion feels inflamed or overactive, it may be time to assess how much heat is circulating and why. In some cases, the cause is dietary: rich, spicy, fried, or greasy foods tend to generate internal heat, especially if eaten frequently. Alcohol, coffee, and excess red meat can do the same. In other cases, the root is emotional or lifestyle-based. High stress, constant stimulation, late nights, and a lack of cooling rhythms in the day—such as rest, stillness, and adequate hydration—can slowly build heat over time.

There are many ways to support the body when heat becomes a concern. From a lifestyle perspective, establishing routines that allow for adequate rest and regular meals helps anchor yáng activity and prevents it from rising excessively. Favoring foods that are lightly cooked, hydrating, and gentle—such as cooked greens, mung beans, or lightly sweet fruits—can help cool and nourish without taxing digestion. Herbs are often used as a primary intervention, chosen depending on the nature and depth of the heat. Some formulas clear acute, surface-level heat, while others are designed to nourish yīn and drain deficiency fire.

Acupuncture can also play a role in guiding heat where it needs to go, restoring the body’s internal balance of yīn and yáng, and calming the shén when the Heart is overactive. The approach depends on careful assessment: not all heat needs to be cleared, and in some cases, clearing too aggressively can damage the body's healthy warmth.

It’s important to remember that heat, in itself, is not the problem. Heat is life. It is the force that drives us, that moves digestion and thought, that allows us to act and respond. The goal is not to eliminate it, but to keep it appropriate—to support the body in regulating when to rise, when to rest, when to burn, and when to simmer. When that regulation is working, we feel grounded but awake, clear but calm, energized but not overextended. And in that place, heat is not a burden. It is a companion.

Qi Node 11: 小暑 Xiǎoshǔ (Little Heat)

The Rising Heat and the Art of Staying Cool

At first glance, it might seem logical that the Summer Solstice (xiàzhì 夏至), when Yang energy reaches its peak, would also mark the hottest time of the year. After all, in the cosmological framework of Yin and Yang, the Solstice is the zenith of Yang, the point at which it is most dominant before beginning its gradual decline. Yet, paradoxically, the hottest days of the year are still ahead.

This seeming contradiction is part of the dynamic flow of natural energy. While Yang has reached its peak in terms of light and expansion, heat itself is still accumulating. The Earth, the oceans, and the atmosphere continue to absorb and store warmth, intensifying as Summer progresses. Heat lingers and builds, even as the cosmic tide begins shifting toward Yin. This period—when Yang is technically in decline but its effects are still intensifying—creates a natural tension between momentum and transition, between the height of the season’s power and the first subtle signs that change is inevitable.

It is within this energetic space that we find 小暑 Xiǎoshǔ, meaning “Lesser Heat.” This Qi Node marks the steady climb toward the most extreme heat of the year. While the name suggests that the full intensity of Summer’s heat has yet to arrive, the signs are already unmistakable—long days, warm nights, and an atmosphere thick with rising Yang energy. The world is at its most vibrant and expansive, yet at the same time, it carries the underlying awareness that cycles are turning, that excess will eventually give way to balance once again.

With life fully unfurled in the heat of the season, plants grow rapidly, insects hum in the thick air, and the body naturally craves movement and stimulation. Yet, with this outward expansion comes a challenge—how do we stay balanced in a time of such intensity? Too much heat, whether from the sun or from overexertion, can leave us feeling irritable, exhausted, and drained. Xiǎoshǔ teaches us that in order to thrive in high Summer, we must learn how to release heat, conserve energy, and remain fluid like water in the face of fire.

This is a time of openness, movement, and abundance, but also a time when the body and mind must work to regulate heat and avoid excess strain. If we align ourselves with the rhythm of the season—honoring both its brilliance and its challenges—we can move through this peak of Summer with resilience and ease.

Aligning Your Life with 小暑 Xiǎoshǔ

To maintain balance during this season of rising heat, focus on practices that cool the body, calm the mind, and regulate energy.

Cool the Body from the Inside Out

• Eat light, hydrating foods such as watermelon, cucumber, mint, and mung beans.

• Incorporate mildly bitter foods (e.g., dandelion greens, bitter melon) to clear internal heat.

• Avoid excess spicy or greasy foods, which can increase heat and sluggishness.

Regulate Energy and Avoid Overexertion

• Exercise in the early morning or evening to prevent overheating.

• Prioritize gentle movement (e.g., swimming, walking, qìgōng 气功) rather than intense workouts.

• Allow for midday rest or naps to recharge rather than pushing through fatigue.

Keep the Heart (xīn 心) Cool and the Mind Clear

• Practice breathwork, meditation, or cooling visualization techniques.

• Avoid overstimulation and excessive screen time, which can add to mental heat.

• Spend time near water—lakes, rivers, or even cold foot baths can be incredibly soothing.

Adjust to the Changing Season

• Dress in light, breathable fabrics to allow heat to escape.

• Drink room-temperature or cool beverages, avoiding ice-cold drinks that shock digestion.

• Pay attention to seasonal mood shifts, releasing irritation before it builds into stress.

Xiǎoshǔ reminds us that while Summer is a season of vitality, connection, and joy, it is also a time when balance requires conscious effort. By staying cool, regulating activity, and embracing the fluidity of the season, we can move through the peak of Summer with strength, clarity, and ease—allowing the Fire of life to burn bright, but never out of control.

Everyday Alchemy: Understanding Your Heart

In Chinese medicine, each season is associated with a particular organ system, and each organ system governs more than just its anatomical function. It holds emotional qualities, mental tendencies, physiological rhythms, and relationships with the natural world. Summer belongs to the Heart. Its element is Fire, its direction is south, and its emotion is joy. The Heart governs blood and vessels, houses shén 神, and provides the conditions necessary for consciousness to reside.

We are used to thinking of the heart in terms of circulation, and that’s not wrong. In Chinese medicine, the Heart is indeed responsible for moving blood through the vessels. But the Heart does more than deliver blood and oxygen. It has a dimension that expands beyond its anatomical reality to other aspects of the human experience. It governs presence—our ability to be aware, to make sense of experience, to relate to others with clarity and warmth. The Heart is considered the emperor of the body not because it controls everything directly, but because it must be well-regulated for everything else to function smoothly. If the Heart is unsettled, the whole system feels it.

The term shén 神 is often translated as "spirit," but this can lead to confusion and conflation with Western notion of a soul or of something intrinsically you that persists beyond embodiment. Instead it is more accurate to think of shén as consciousness, awareness, or the organizing intelligence that allows a person to be themselves. It is indeed a collection of functions we think of as an idividual, but the Chinese concept doesn’t extend that individuality beyond the terms of your embodiment, ie beyond death. Shén includes the capacity to think clearly, speak coherently, connect with others, and experience emotions in a regulated way. Shén is not a separate part of you—it is the quality of your presence when all the systems are working together well. And the Heart is where that presence resides.

In the natural world, Summer is the time when everything is at full bloom. Plants stretch toward the sun. Days are long and bright. People tend to stay up later, move more, and gather together. It is a season of fullness and activity, and this matches the energetics of the Heart and Fire. When we are in balance, this expansion feels easy and joyous. There is a natural generosity to summer, a warmth not just in temperature but in temperament. It is often easier to connect, to laugh, to forgive, and to share meals or conversation without effort.

But Fire, by its nature, is volatile. It can nourish, but it can also overheat. And when there is too much Fire—whether from lifestyle, emotional intensity, heat in the environment, or internal imbalance—the Heart becomes agitated. Instead of joy, we get restlessness. Instead of connection, we get emotional overexposure. Instead of clear thought, we get racing minds or difficulty sleeping. This is the shadow side of summer, and the part that many people don’t recognize until they are already overwhelmed.

In clinic, this often shows up as insomnia, anxiety, irritability, or heart palpitations. The person may not feel particularly “stressed” in the way they think of stress, but they describe a kind of internal fluttering, an inability to settle, or a sense that everything is just a little too much. There may be vivid dreams, difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, or emotional lability that seems out of proportion to events. This is often a sign that the Heart—and the shén—are not well housed.

The classical texts say that the Heart houses the shén when the blood is sufficient, the yīn is anchored, and there is not too much internal heat. The blood provides a kind of resting place for consciousness, a cool and quiet chamber for the awareness to dwell. When blood is weak, scattered, or hot, the shén becomes unmoored. We start to feel untethered. It becomes harder to organize our thoughts, regulate our emotions, or rest deeply. Over time, this kind of low-level overstimulation can wear on the body and mind in quiet but significant ways.

Part of the challenge is that many of the behaviors that cause this imbalance are encouraged, especially in Summer. Long days, high stimulation, constant socializing, late nights, alcohol, and screen use can all accumulate. Individually, these may seem harmless—or even enjoyable—but taken together, they tax the Heart’s capacity to stay regulated. The body may begin to show small signs of disturbance: subtle chest tightness, dryness in the mouth, irritability in the afternoon, or shallow sleep. These are not dramatic symptoms, but they are signs that the Heart may be overheating.

There are also emotional patterns that create internal heat. Unexpressed frustration, too much excitement, or a tendency to overextend one’s emotional energy can all produce Fire. It is not just anger or grief that affects the organs; excessive joy—or rather, a kind of manic drive toward positivity—can also unbalance the Heart. In this view, even good feelings must be contained appropriately. The goal is not to suppress joy, but to cultivate a steady warmth rather than a constant blaze.

So what helps keep a heart balanced?

The first step is recognizing when the Fire is starting to tip from nourishing into agitating. If sleep is disrupted, if the mind feels cluttered, if interactions begin to feel draining instead of enlivening, these are cues to slow down. Summer encourages us to go outward, but we still need inward time. We still need coolness, rest, and rhythm.

Simple choices can make a difference. Going to bed before midnight helps protect the Heart and preserve blood. Drinking enough water—not ice-cold, but room temperature or lightly cool—supports fluid balance. Eating bitter foods like dandelion greens, lettuce, or citrus peel can help clear Heart heat. Avoiding overly spicy, greasy, or stimulating foods reduces internal Fire. And creating boundaries around stimulation—screen time, social time, even just how many things we ask of ourselves in a day—can help the shén stay anchored.

Quiet moments are especially important. The Heart thrives on stillness just as much as it enjoys movement. Taking a walk without music or podcasts, sitting outside in the evening without a phone, or even just sipping tea in silence can provide the Heart with a chance to regulate. These small acts of intentional pause create the conditions for the shén to rest, even in the fullness of summer.

It is also worth noting that for some people, the emotional expansion of Summer brings its own challenges. Not everyone feels like being social. Not everyone finds joy easily accessible. If you are someone who tends toward internal processing or who feels overstimulated by light, heat, or interaction, summer may not feel like your season. That, too, is something to honor. Joy doesn’t have to be loud or visible. In Chinese medicine, joy is about harmonious movement of the Heart qì—a sense of internal openness, even if quiet.

As with all things in this medicine, the aim is balance. Fire is not the problem. Fire is what allows us to connect, to express, to engage. It gives life to our days and color to our experience. But fire needs tending. It needs containment. Without it, the flame goes wild and consumes rather than warms. And when the Heart is consumed, it becomes difficult to rest, to relate, or to feel clear.

By paying attention to how summer—and the Heart—are showing up in our own lives, we can make gentle adjustments. We can create small buffers between ourselves and overstimulation. We can recognize the difference between joy that fills us and joy that depletes us. And we can learn to carry the warmth of Fire without letting it burn too hot.

In this way, the Heart stays steady. The shén stays housed. And the joy of Summer becomes something we can actually live with, not just chase after.

Qi Node 10: 夏至 Xiàzhì (Summer Solstice)

Yang Is in Control

Yang qi has finally achieved its position in leadership. For many months it has been growing in strength and clarity. Initially emerging from the heavy weight of the Winter’s dominant Yin, the seed of yang burst from the Earth as the upsurgent growth of Spring. Yang developed and matured as Yin continued to decline — the teenage boy holding grandmother’s hand as they cross the street. By the beginning of summer several weeks ago, Yin had all but vanished and Yang was a young adult, asserting his dominance and sure in his righteous abilities. By the time we reach this Qi Node, Yang has grown into a mature adult. His a leader of industry, a general of armies, the chef de cuisine at a high-end bistro. Yang’s energy is directed, intentional, and forceful. Up early in the morning and late to bed at night, he is able to get things done like no other time in the year.

In modern Western culture, Yang’s characteristics are often the most celebrated qualities we aspire to as people. We are surrounded by popular attitudes that tell us to do more, be more, reach for more; that rest and relaxation, idleness and flights of fancy, are the purview of the weak-willed who are not likely to ever achieve their goals. Even among people who actually take time away from work, DIY tasks, overwrought family vacations, and on-going social engagements fill the space. Thus, Summer seems like a perfect season for our culture, one that we can more intuitively understand and which fits our tendencies more directly. And that is mostly true. Certainly better to be burning the candle at both ends when Yang is available to assist your efforts. But what happens when Yang’s counterbalance, Yin, is so very weak as to be almost forgotten? What do we risk by allowing Yang’s dynamic activity to drive all our activity when Yin cannot restrain Yang’s effects on its own?

Striking a Balance

Like so much of Eastern philosophy broadly, Chinese Medicine and the Daoist/Confucian cosmology upon which it is built urges us toward a kind of reciprocity, a give and take disposition that encourages us to conduct ourselves in such a way as to not allow any part of our experience to pathologically dominate any other. During this Qi Node, that means taking steps to leverage the power of Yang to our advantage while still throttling the intensity that unbridled Yang will bring. It means that we should lean in to the extra energy and motivation many of us have to get up and do things during the summer season: working in the yard, DIY projects, hikes and camping trips, playing with the kids or the dogs at the park. But it also means that we avoid direct sun exposure at the hottest parts of the day. It means that we stay hydrated and take long rests in the shade. It means giving ourselves license to lounge around and it means remembering to eat whole meals even when the weather is particularly warm. All of these more Yin aspects of our daily lives help to protect the hidden seed of Yin Qi while Yang is raging and also serves to anchor some of the strong Yang force so it doesn’t whip into a truly pernicious frenzy and cause health or wellness problems related to heat and toxicity. Just like needing to avoid intense activity in the dark part of winter because Yang is not available to support that movement, so in Summer we must actively engage in Yin nourishing activities because Yin is too weak to restrain Yang on its own.

Yin and Yang are not the Same

While Yin and Yang stem from the same source and they are mutually dependent and mutually transforming, they are not the same thing. Yang is active, moving, hot, and bright. Yang does not want to rest, to sit still, or to stop. It is endless expansion, growth, creation, and consumption. Yin, by contrast, is heavy, substantive, cool, and wet. It wants to contain and to nourish, to fill and to restrain. Yang is resistant to the natural cycle of ebb and flow while Yin relaxes its grip on dominance with relative ease. It is for this precise reason that the time of Yang dominance demands even more caution from us that Yin dominance. The explosive force of Yang qi is disinclined to let go of its superiority as summer wanes and can become reckless and damaging if we expose ourselves to it. While Yin at its height poses danger to good health, it allows itself to fade into spring with infrequent death throes while Yang continues to trumpet its superiority long after it has declined in Fall.

Practically this means that we are more at risk for heat conditions causing acute health problems like heat stroke or dehydration but also for that heat to linger in the body, contributing to heat conditions in Fall and Winter like upper respiratory infections, sinus infections, influenza, and other unpleasant diseases. Additionally, the mismanagement of our conduct during the pernicious nodes of Summer can lead to more insipient conditions like cardiac diseases, irritable bowel, and anxiety but allowing too much of Yang’s defiant nature to linger in our bodies.

What to do

• Design, create, renew.

• Cook outside, not in direct sunlight.

• Eat whole meals, even if you’re feeling hot.

• Drink lots of water with cooling ingredients added like cucumber or lemon.

• Make a salad of fresh garden ingredients like tomatoes, eggplants, and basil.

• Enjoy some fresh cheese and a glass of rose or a cup of green tea.

• Exercise earlier in the day keeping your heart rate from getting too rapid.

• Rest often, in the shade or anther cool place.

What They Came In For: Long Covid

“I just want to feel like myself again.”

That’s what Thomas K. said when we asked him what brought him in. Then he paused.

“And the truth is, I’m not even sure I remember what that feels like.”

He’d had COVID ten months earlier. It was his second time getting it—the first had been over a year prior, and he’d recovered easily. A few days of fatigue, some sniffles, and then life went back to normal. He was vaccinated. He’d done everything “right.” So when he got it again, and it started as a mild case, he wasn’t too worried.

But this time, the recovery never came.

The fever passed. The test turned negative. But the fatigue stayed. Not the kind you push through with coffee or a good night’s sleep—the kind that settles into your bones. He started needing to lie down in the afternoon. Sometimes his chest felt tight—not dangerous, just off. His brain felt foggy, like he was trying to think through static. He forgot words. Simple tasks took longer. His mood got flatter. His sleep got worse.

He kept waiting to bounce back. But the weeks turned into months, and nothing changed.

He’d had all the tests. Labs normal. Lungs clear. “You're just stressed,” one provider said. Another called it post-viral syndrome and offered antidepressants. He wasn’t against medication. He just didn’t feel like anyone was really listening to what was happening in his body.

That’s when he found his way to Root and Branch.

What he wanted was simple: clarity, energy, and the ability to trust his body again.

We started with the big picture. When did the fatigue hit hardest? How did he feel after meals? How had his digestion been since the illness? What about temperature regulation? Sweating? Focus? Anxiety? We looked at his tongue, felt his pulse. Beneath the surface, his system told a familiar story: a body still caught between recovery and defense. Weakness at the core. Stagnation in the chest. A nervous system on edge.

We explained how long COVID presents, through the lens of Chinese medicine, as a pattern of post-viral depletion and dysregulation. Energy isn’t just “low”—it’s blocked. The body isn’t just tired—it’s stuck in a pattern it can’t exit.

So we built a treatment plan to help guide it out.

At the center of that plan was a custom herbal formula—one tailored to nourish the body’s energy without overstimulating it, to open the chest, support lung and spleen function, and gently recalibrate the nervous system. Not a stimulant. Not a sedative. Just medicine that knew how to listen to what the body actually needed.

He took it twice a day, every day. And we adjusted it often—because as his body changed, the formula needed to change too.

We paired it with acupuncture designed to support his recovery on multiple levels: points to regulate his sleep, clear the lingering heaviness in the chest, restore cognitive clarity, and rebuild his sense of groundedness. After each session, he’d say the same thing: “I didn’t know I could feel this calm anymore.”

After three weeks, his fatigue began to shift. Not all at once—but there were longer stretches of clarity. Mornings that started easier. Fewer naps. More consistency. His brain fog started to lift. He could read again, focus on a conversation without drifting.

After six weeks, he said, “I feel like I’m finally climbing out of something.”

We continued to treat the fluctuations—days where his energy dipped again, or sleep became fragile—but overall, the direction was steady. Upward. Back toward himself.

What Thomas came in for was his energy.

What he found was recovery—and something more: a renewed relationship with his body, one built not on pushing through, but on paying attention.

At Root and Branch, we’ve worked with many long COVID patients, each with a slightly different picture. Some come in with chest tightness. Others with digestive distress, insomnia, hair loss, anxiety, or relentless fatigue. No two cases are identical—but the approach is always the same: track the pattern. Treat the root. Support the whole person.

If you’re living with long COVID symptoms that just won’t let go, know this: there is still healing available. It might not be fast. But it can be real.

And we’re here for the long arc of it.