🌿 Folk Prescriptions

At the transition between summer and autumn, the sun shines brightly—retaining summer’s lingering heat while exhibiting autumn’s dryness. After excessive release during summer, the body’s fluids become depleted, and dryness becomes apparent. People may experience varying degrees of dry throat, bitter mouth, nasal blockage, and sore throat. A small misstep easily triggers colds, coughs, bronchitis, and other illnesses. Thus, the key to health preservation during this period is preventing dryness. Eat more fruits and vegetables, reduce spicy foods to moisturize and clear dryness; drink plenty of water, light tea, and soup to quench dryness; maintain calm emotions and ensure adequate sleep to soothe dryness; increase physical exercise to counteract dryness.
“White Dew, Autumn Equinox night, one night colder than the last.” During White Dew, summer heat has faded. Although days remain hot, nights often bring chilly breezes. A folk saying warns: “Do not expose your body at White Dew, or you’ll catch cold and diarrhea”—a reminder to practice self-care.
Autumn is a transitional season from summer’s heat to winter’s cold. After autumn sets in, temperatures gradually decline, day-night temperature differences widen, humidity decreases, and weather changes rapidly—dry and variable conditions cause discomfort. Especially at the end of summer and beginning of autumn, residual summer heat remains, leading to dry mouth, dry skin, and cracking. Additionally, cooling weather easily triggers recurrence of gastrointestinal issues. Thus, autumn health preservation is crucial. Friends should adjust clothing timely according to weather changes, prevent wind-cold invasion, mist indoor spaces regularly to maintain humidity, and pay attention to dietary regulation and physical exercise. (September)
Now is autumn—a transition from summer to winter. Temperatures cool, yang energy gradually declines, yin energy increases, scenery turns bleak, air becomes dry, and people are prone to catching colds, resulting in headaches, dry throat, coughing, and other ailments. For autumn health preservation, diet should be moistening rather than depleting, to prevent damage to lung qi from autumn dryness. Clothing should be light and simple, allowing moderate exposure to cold to enhance cold resistance. Sleep schedules should be early to bed, early to rise, to mitigate the impact of climate change. Above all, strengthen physical exercise to build robust constitution and adapt to ever-changing climates. (October)
Autumn is a transitional period from summer to winter. Weather changes often catch people off guard. Modern medical meteorologists believe that after autumn begins, people should scientifically arrange clothing, food, housing, and travel to avoid adverse health impacts from weather changes and safely navigate “a troublesome autumn.” Due to large temperature differences—hot days, cold nights—one should dress warmly in time. Diet should be clear and moist, drink plenty of water and light tea, eat more fruits to relieve autumn dryness. Autumn skies are high and winds strong, yang energy gradually retreats; sleep should be sufficient, early to bed and early to rise, to accommodate yang energy’s natural expansion and allow lung qi to spread freely. Keep indoor air circulating; cultivate habits of opening windows for ventilation and sleeping with head uncovered. (October)
In deep autumn, day-night temperature differences are large, cold air masses move frequently, and weather alternates between cold and warm. Irregular changes often trigger various diseases—most commonly stroke, bronchitis, asthma, recurrence of gastric problems, and colds. Prevention hinges on staying warm during every cold front invasion. (October)
In deep autumn, northern cold air masses are frequent, day-night differences are extreme, and weather alternates unpredictably—making it a peak season for various diseases. Common ones include stroke, bronchitis, asthma, and gastric issues. The root cause is that cold air stimulation activates sympathetic nerves, raises blood pressure, promotes thrombosis formation, increases histidine in blood, enhances gastric acid secretion, and causes gastrointestinal spasms. Thus, autumn health preservation is extremely important.
As the saying goes: “Cold resistance training begins in autumn.” During autumn, to prepare for harsher winter conditions and resist severe cold, one should continuously improve the body’s cold resistance. Avoid dressing too warmly too early—focus on cold resistance training.