If you live in Australia, no doubt you know it’s summer. Where I am in Perth, it's been up to 44 degrees already! Did you know
that the weather is significant in the cause of disease according to Chinese medicine?
Heat is one of “6 Pathogens”, that can invade the body and cause disharmonies.
Heat can commonly invade the channels of the neck, face and throat causing
sore-throat, hayfever or seasonal allergies. Symptoms of heat include pain –
usually severe or throbbing, as heat dries up fluids it can cause body fluids
to congeal. For example phlegm will get thicker, yellow or sticky, urine can
become more concentrated, darker and the tongue will get redder and more dry
(as the moisture of the mouth can be dried up by Heat).
Heat clearing foods can be used as a preventative during the
hot weather. Fruit & Veg that are watery and not too sweet like Watermelon,
cucumber, lettuce are good at keeping away heat invasions. Drinking Chrysanthemum
(Ju Hua) honeysuckle(Jin Yin Hua) and dandelion (Pu Gong Ying) herbs (by
themselves or add to green tea) are more targeted ways to clear heat –
especially from the face and throat.
Heat can invade not only via the
environment but from our diet also. In Australia this weekend (26th
January) we are coming up to Australia Day – a time of national celebration
where the classic Aussie thing to do is to drink alcohol. Alcohol’s nature is
essentially warm-hot, so combining lots of drinking with warm weather is a
perfect environment to cause Heat-invasion disharmonies. Intoxication from
drinking can cause what we refer to in Chinese medicine as “toxic heat”.
Diarrhea, vomiting, breakouts of acne are all common hangover symptoms which
essentially come from the self-induced toxic heat invasion. The simplest way to
avoid this is to drink less! Space drinks out with water, use some
self-control, and enjoy Australia day. If you do find yourself suffering the
effects of a toxic-heat hangover Chinese medicine employs more “detox” methods
to clear out the toxic heat. Our Tong Kuai Hangover tea is based on the idea of
clearing toxic heat from the digestive system via the bowels. Watermelon is a
good hangover food as well. 
