🌿 Folk Prescriptions

Autumn begins from Start of Autumn and ends at Start of Winter, passing through six solar terms: Limit of Heat, White Dew, Autumn Equinox, Cold Dew, and Frost’s Descent. Mid-Autumn (15th day of the eighth lunar month) marks the climatic turning point.
*Guanzi* states: "Autumn signifies the descent of yin qi, hence all things gather." "Descent of yin qi" means that in autumn, yang qi gradually diminishes while yin qi grows. "All things gather" refers to maturity and harvest. From the climatic characteristics of autumn, it transitions from heat to cold—i.e., the transitional phase of "yang declining, yin growing." Human physiological activities shift accordingly from "summer growth" to "autumn gathering." Therefore, autumn health preservation cannot depart from the principle of "gathering and nurturing." That is, autumn health preservation must prioritize protecting internal yin qi. As *The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon* says: "Nourish yin in autumn and winter." "Nourishing yin in autumn and winter" means cultivating the gathering and storing qi of autumn and winter, adapting to the natural trend of growing yin qi, thus laying the foundation for the coming year’s yang qi generation—without exhausting essence and damaging yin qi.
How to preserve internal yin qi in autumn? The key is preventing dryness and protecting yin. Traditional Chinese medicine holds that dryness is the dominant factor in autumn, known as "autumn dryness." Its nature is clear and austere, dry and arid. During prolonged dry, rainless periods, dryness pathogen easily arises. Since the lungs govern respiration and connect with the skin and hair, and the lungs relate to the large intestine, when atmospheric humidity drops, the lungs, large intestine, and skin are first affected—this is the pathological feature of dryness-induced illness.
Dryness harms the body by depleting body fluids—“dryness overcomes moisture.” Once body fluids are depleted, “dryness symptoms” appear: dry mouth, dry lips, dry nose, dry throat, dry tongue with little saliva, hard stools, and dry, cracked skin. The lungs are delicate organs, preferring moisture and disliking dryness. Dryness invading the lungs easily damages yin fluid. Loss of lung moisture impairs function—mild cases cause dry cough with little phlegm, sticky phlegm hard to expel; severe cases damage lung network vessels, causing hemoptysis. After lung fluid deficiency, lacking liquid to descend to the large intestine, constipation results.
Autumn dryness has both warm and cool types. Early autumn, with still-high temperatures, is warm dryness; late autumn, with dropping temperatures, is cool dryness. Both share skin dryness and fluid deficiency as characteristics. However, clinically, warm dryness presents with no aversion to cold or slight aversion, obvious fever, and fine, rapid pulse; cool dryness shows no fever or mild fever, but pronounced aversion to cold, and pulse typically not rapid.
From above, autumn health preservation primarily focuses on preventing dryness pathogen harm to maintain internal yin qi. This is the general principle. Specifically, how to preserve health in daily life—spiritual, daily routines, diet, exercise, medicine, etc.—requires detailed attention.