Hang on, what season is it?

Hi there folks.

Hasn't this weather been spectacular?

I do remember many years ago having a discussion with a friend about being excited about the sunshine around this time of year. She replied, "But Mum says August is the coldest month! Spring won't be here for ages!". Whilst I might not fully agree with her Mum, because it was damned cold in June (and January for that matter), traditionally speaking, August is pretty cold.

Rabbiting on about the weather, however superficial it may seem, does have a relative importance when it comes to Chinese Medicine and its view of disease. Those of you who subscribe to the Facebook page might have seen a recent post I put up about the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, or Huang Di Nei Jing (Lovingly known by TCM practitioners as "The Nei Jing").

This 2000 year old book, attributed to the legendary character the Yellow Emperor, is the oldest classic of Chinese Medicine and discusses, amongst many other detailed concepts, the Tao, or the Way of the Universe. This includes the shifting of the seasons and the most healthy behaviour in terms of diet and lifestyle according to these shifts.

There is a passage in the Nei Jing which discusses the environmental conditions in which the seasons are out of sync with themselves. It suggests that during these unusual conditions, people are far more vulnerable to catching diseases from the outside. These days we know that colds and flu are caused by viruses but in ancient times the belief was held that weakness in the body's Wei (protective) Qi - similar to the Western Medicine Immune system - could cause Wind to get in from outside and disrupt the opening and closing of the pores.

The symptoms people get when a flu takes hold are interpreted in Chinese Medicine as the body having an argument with the Wind. This generates inflammation in the Lungs and respiratory system and disrupts the Lung's other functions of a) breathing and b) sending fluids to the right place. Fluids congeal in the Lungs, then you get cough and congestion. The argument itself creates what we call "Heat" which can't escape because the pores are blocked, then you get fever.

Whilst "a virus" is an accurate description of what is wrong when a cold or the flu arrives, it doesn't give much explanation about what is *going on* inside our bodies. The ancient Chinese really seem to have had it figured out. Although the way in which disease is described is poetic and based in metaphor, it all makes very good sense. Microbiology wasn't discovered until the 17th Century and in the absence of modern science, treatments had to be devised to heal people from a context that was familiar to everyone, using the materials they had on hand. So they did it.

Those contexts are still completely valid in the modern world. Regardless of technology or scientific advancement, sedentary lifestyles and everything on demand, we are still living on Earth. We are almost completely at the whim of Mother Nature. Climate change is coming thick and fast and these unusual weather patterns are going to start becoming a lot more normal to us. As a result, we may find our immune systems getting thrown around a bit, and subsequently weakened. Those treatments that were current 2000 years ago for times when the weather behaved out of season are still available and in use by Chinese Medicine practitioners all over the world. There are a number of herbs which can be combined to make a formula that supports the Immune system and prevents disease taking hold. There are also dietary and lifestyle considerations that a TCM practitioner can advise you on.

Chinese medicine is ancient medicine for a modern world.