Why is it humid in dog days?

The dog days are the hottest season of the year. The weather is hot in summer. Many people don’t want to move, and don’t want to eat, especially their bodies are sticky. The dog days can easily cause dampness and heat in the human body, poor appetite, insomnia and many other problems. Summer is a better time to eliminate dampness from the body. Many people choose the dog days to eliminate dampness. So why are the dog days humid?

Why should we pay attention to removing dampness during the dog days?

Dampness in traditional Chinese medicine refers to the decline in the body's ability to transport and transform, resulting in "internal stagnation of dampness in the spleen." The sources are divided into external dampness and internal dampness. External dampness refers to the environment, such as the rainy season in midsummer, or an unhealthy lifestyle, such as using air conditioning, falling asleep with dampness, etc. Internal dampness refers to a weak spleen or a heavy diet that causes a decrease in the spleen's ability to transport and transform.

Summer air is dominated by humidity and heat, which is the most humid season of the year. It is the most important season to focus on dehumidification and it is also the best season to do so. Dehumidification can help us get through the heat smoothly and achieve the effect of treating winter diseases in summer.

In summer, especially in the dog days, you should:

① Eat a light diet to give the spleen and stomach a rest and reduce internal dampness.

② Exercise more and sweat more to expel moisture from the body through the skin and promote metabolism in the body.

③ Eat more foods that induce sweating and diuresis, such as red beans, mung beans, coix seeds, winter melon, watermelon (green skin), ginger, green tea, and scented tea, etc., to expel moisture from the skin and urine and promote metabolism in the body. You can drink ginger and brown sugar water, red bean, mung bean and barley soup, coriander and loofah soup, green corn silk soup, green tea and flower tea to achieve the purpose of removing dampness through diet therapy.

④ Ensure good sleep. Adequate and high-quality sleep helps the body repair itself, is the basis for ensuring the body's good functioning, and is a natural dehumidifier.

⑤ Be careful not to use air conditioning or use it less, do not eat or eat less cold drinks, ice cream and other foods, eat less fatty and sweet foods, and try not to eat tonic foods.

Methods to remove dampness during the dog days

During the hot and humid dog days, the human body is easily invaded by dampness. Too much moisture in the human body can cause loss of taste in the mouth, poor appetite, poor digestion, and loose stools. So how do you get rid of dampness during the dog days of summer? The editor teaches you a few methods:

Press Zusanli acupoint

To deal with summer heat and dampness, you can press the Zusanli point, which helps to transport and transform water and dampness. Choose the Zusanli point, also known as the "old hen point", make a fist and tap it lightly 200 times until you feel a slight soreness and swelling. Do this once in the morning and once in the evening, which can achieve the effect of harmonizing the Ying and Wei Qi.

Chengshan acupoint is a major acupoint for removing dampness

When you get up every morning, stretch your legs out of the bed, let the Chengshan point (slightly lift your toes, the end of the raised muscle on the back of the calf is the Chengshan point) rest on the edge of the bed, and swing your legs left and right to massage the Chengshan point. When massaging the Chengshan point, you will feel an obvious sore and swollen pain, which is due to dampness in the body. After massaging the Chengshan point for a period of time, you will feel a slight warmth in your body, which is due to the Yang Qi on the bladder meridian taking effect. The dampness in the body is escaping outwards with the slightly rising body temperature.

Prevent dampness and strengthen the spleen and stomach

Pay attention to the maintenance of the spleen and stomach. People with weak spleen and stomach should drink less cold drinks, eat less cold dishes, and be careful not to let their navel get cold. The dog days of summer are the time when digestive tract diseases are prevalent. We should change our bad habits of eating irregularly, eating unclean food, and having certain dietary preferences. We should not drink too much cold drinks or eat too much cold food. Everything should be consumed in moderation.

Warm foot bath

Soaking your feet in 40℃ warm water before going to bed can remove moisture and improve sleep quality. You can also sweat deliberately to let the moisture dissipate with the sweat. Recommended foot soaking recipe for removing dampness: Patchouli 10g, Perilla frutescens 10g, Perilla frutescens 10g, Lotus leaf 10g, Honeysuckle 10g. Add a dose of medicine to an appropriate amount of water (depending on the size of the foot basin, the water should be enough to cover the ankles) and boil for 30 minutes. Soak your feet when the temperature is right and you can stop after you sweat all over your body.

Gua Sha for Heatstroke Prevention

The humidity is heavy during the dog days, and symptoms such as nausea and dizziness may occur easily. Gua Sha therapy can be used to treat this. Specifically, use a scraping board or gauze disinfected with alcohol to scrape both sides of the spine, or both sides of the ribs or forehead up and down until a dark purple color appears. You can also apply cooling oil and scrape. Or take Huoxiang Zhengqi Pills (water), drink more mung bean soup, lotus leaves, and patchouli instead of tea. If you sweat a lot, you should replenish light salt water in time.

Get a good night's sleep

Adequate and high-quality sleep helps the body repair itself, is the basis for ensuring the body's good functioning, and is a natural dehumidifier. You should follow the weather and go to bed late and get up early, but it's best not to go to bed later than 11 o'clock at night. You need to take a nap at noon, but it should not exceed an hour. Also, remember to remember not to be greedy for coolness, avoid sleeping in an air-conditioned room with very low temperature or on a damp ground, and don't sleep facing the window.

Drink more ginger tea

As the saying goes, "Eat radishes in winter and ginger in summer." Ginger has a warming and tonic effect. You can eat more ginger in summer to replenish your yang energy. Ginger is pungent and warm in nature, and has various effects such as dispelling cold and inducing sweating, resolving phlegm and relieving cough, harmonizing the stomach, and stopping vomiting. Drinking ginger tea is a simple and easy health care method, and summer is the best season to drink ginger tea.

Exercise regularly

The best way to prevent and remove dampness is to gently move your limbs so that the body's yang energy can slowly recover and the dampness can gradually dissipate. Avoid strenuous exercise and sweating profusely, as this will cause the Qi to be lost with the sweat, which will damage the Qi and affect the metabolism of moisture. Although some of the moisture will be dissipated with the sweat, the internal moisture will come out again, and ultimately the moisture will not be removed.

Eat foods that strengthen the spleen and eliminate dampness

Eating more foods that strengthen the spleen and eliminate dampness can also be helpful. Cooking porridge with red beans, mung beans, and lotus leaves, making tea with patchouli, perilla, and atractylodes, and boiling water with sliced ​​ginger all have the effect of removing dampness. Although chili peppers can stimulate appetite and aid digestion, their effect in removing dampness is average.