Dwelling During the Grain in Ear Season
During the Grain in Ear season, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River basin in China experience increased rainfall and rising temperatures, marking the beginning of the continuous, overcast rainy "plum rain" season. The air becomes extremely humid, and the weather is abnormally hot and damp, causing all kinds of clothing and utensils to easily become moldy. Therefore, this weather is called "Yellow Plum Days" in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Additionally, the Dragon Boat Festival in China often falls around the time of Grain in Ear. There is a folk saying, "Before eating the Dragon Boat Festival zongzi, do not pack away your winter coat." This saying tells people that before the Dragon Boat Festival, there can still be cold spells, so one should not remove warm clothing to avoid catching a chill.
The key to health preservation during the Grain in Ear season is to adapt to the climatic characteristics of the season. In terms of mental cultivation, one should maintain a relaxed and happy state of mind, avoiding anger and melancholy. This allows the body's vital energy to flow smoothly and freely. In daily life, one should go to bed late and get up early, and appropriately expose oneself to sunlight (avoiding direct sun and paying attention to preventing heatstroke) to harmonize with the flourishing of yang energy, which benefits the circulation of qi and blood and invigorates the spirit. With long summer days and short nights, a short nap at midday can help recover from fatigue and is beneficial for health. After Grain in Ear, the weather is hot at noon, and people tend to sweat, so clothes should be washed and changed frequently. To avoid heatstroke, one should bathe often during this time, which can relax the skin and allow "yang heat" to be easily expelled. However, it is important to note that one should not take a cold shower immediately after sweating. As an old Chinese saying goes, "Do not get wet while sweating." If "sweating and getting wet, acne will arise." If a medicinal bath is used, it can achieve a better effect of fitness and disease prevention.
The use of medicinal baths has a long history in China. According to records, since the Zhou Dynasty, it has been popular to use fragrant herbal baths for cleansing. During the Song and Ming dynasties, this practice spread among the common people, leading to the emergence of "perfume shops"专门供人们洗芳香浴的“香水行”, gradually forming a custom. People would choose specific days to use different medicinal baths for cleansing and disease prevention. For example, on Chinese New Year's Day, a "Five-Spice Bath" could be taken, which would leave the body fragrant and invigorate the spirit. On the second day of the second lunar month, an ancient "Zhonghe Festival" and folk "Dragon Head Raising" day, people would often bathe in a decoction of wolfberry to make the skin radiant and prevent aging and illness. In summer, the "Five-Branch Soup" (made from cassia twig, pagoda tree branch, peach branch, willow branch, and hemp branch) was commonly used for bathing to expel wind, drive away miasma, and nourish the blood vessels. By the Qing Dynasty, medicinal baths were not only a method for fitness and longevity but were also widely used for treating and rehabilitating diseases.
There are various methods for medicinal baths, with immersion baths, steaming baths, and hot compresses being common. For health preservation and wellness, immersion baths are the primary method. Taking the Five-Branch Soup (cassia twig, pagoda tree branch, peach branch, willow branch, hemp branch) as an example, the specific method is as follows: First, wrap equal amounts of the herbs in gauze, add ten times the amount of clear water, soak for 20 minutes, then decoct for 30 minutes. Pour the medicinal liquid into the bathwater, and one can then take an immersion bath. If conditions permit, this can be done daily. This medicinal bath method is suitable for full-body immersion or can also be used for local soaking. Middle-aged and elderly women can choose a beauty and skin care formula: 10 grams each of mung bean, lily bulb, and borneol, and 30 grams each of talc, typhonium rhizome, angelica dahurica root, white sandalwood, and rosin, all ground into a coarse powder, placed in a gauze bag, and decocted into a liquid for immersion. This can make the complexion and skin fair, moist, and delicate, and the body fragrant to ward off evil.
During this solar term, the elderly should not sleep outdoors贪凉而露天睡卧, not be naked and blow wind while sweating profusely, and avoid eating foods like chicken and lamb that generate internal heat and exacerbate heatiness. The diet should be light, and the mood should be tranquil, as the saying goes, "A calm heart naturally brings coolness."
During this solar term, some people start to walk around bare-chested, mistakenly thinking this is cooler. In fact, this is not the case. As is well known, the skin covers the human body and has many functions, including protection, sensation, temperature regulation, secretion, excretion, and metabolism. The human skin has millions of sweat pores, and sweats about 1000 milliliters daily. Every milliliter of sweat evaporating from the skin's surface can take away 246 joules of heat. When the external temperature exceeds 35°C, the body's main way to dissipate heat is through the evaporation of sweat from the skin, accelerating heat loss to prevent the body temperature from rising too high. At this time, if one is bare-chested and unclothed, the skin will absorb heat from the outside and cannot achieve the purpose of cooling through evaporation, leading to a feeling of stuffiness. If one wears breathable cotton or silk clothes, a thin layer of air is created between the clothing and the skin. The temperature of this air layer is always lower than the external temperature, which can achieve the effect of preventing heatstroke and lowering the temperature.
Some people do not want to leave air-conditioned rooms to avoid the misery of the extreme heat, but they do not realize that air conditioning brings both coolness and negative effects. Due to tightly closed doors and windows and indoor air pollution, oxygen levels in the room can become depleted. Coupled with a constant temperature environment, the body's own heat production and regulation functions can become disrupted, leading to what is known as "air-conditioning disease." Therefore, the temperature in an air-conditioned room in summer should be controlled between 26°C and 28°C, with a minimum temperature not lower than 20°C, and the temperature difference between indoors and outdoors should not exceed 8°C. If staying in an air-conditioned room for a long time, one should ventilate it regularly; smoking in air-conditioned rooms is prohibited. People who live and work in air-conditioned rooms for long periods should spend at least 3-4 hours outdoors daily. The elderly, the frail, and patients with hypertension should avoid staying in air-conditioned rooms for too long.
A summer cold is commonly known as "heat cold." In the hot summer weather, to dissipate internal heat, the body's superficial blood vessels and sweat pores dilate, leading to profuse sweating. Falling asleep easily allows the body to become chilled and catch a cold. Summer colds are generally mild, without fever or systemic symptoms, or may only have low fever, headache, and general discomfort. More severe cases often involve high fever that does not subside even after sweating, accompanied by a heavy head sensation, body soreness and laziness, fatigue, dry mouth but no desire to drink, dark yellow urine, and a greasy yellow tongue coating. Some patients may also experience vomiting or diarrhea. Air-conditioning disease is actually also a type of heat cold.
For summer colds, if the condition is mild, taking some cold medicine is appropriate, and recovery usually takes two to three days. For more severe heat-related colds, traditional Chinese medicine (such as Xiangru Yin or Sanren Tang) can be used for treatment. To prevent summer colds, the main method is to exercise the body to enhance its resistance to disease and allow it to adapt to the variability of summer weather. One should add or remove clothing promptly according to the changing weather in the mornings and evenings.
Clinical medicine shows that certain diseases that are common or particularly severe in winter often have their causes originating in summer. These factors simply do not manifest immediately due to the hot summer weather but lie dormant in the body, only to flare up or become more severe once the cold winter weather arrives. Therefore, from the beginning of summer, one must pay close attention to living habits and behaviors related to these pathogenic factors to achieve the goal of disease prevention.
Various conditions like joint pain and limb numbness (including rheumatoid, rheumatoid-like, and traumatic joint pain, and numbness caused by wind-cold and dampness) often flare up in cold weather and disappear in hot weather. Therefore, in the summer, one should not take cold baths or swim, sleep outdoors at night, or sleep on the floor. It is best to avoid wearing short-sleeved shirts, shorts, or skirts to prevent wind, cold, and dampness from accumulating in the meridians. Patients with chronic bronchitis and asthma generally have a pattern of worsening in winter and remitting in summer. These patients should pay attention to wind and cold in the summer. In addition to observing the above prohibitions, they should also eat less or even avoid cold drinks. Patients with chronic diarrhea and deficiency-cold stomach pain, such as enteritis, colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome, often experience abdominal pain and diarrhea after being exposed to cold, which is especially severe in winter. Many patients with stomach pain and various abdominal pains also have a deficiency-cold type. Their condition often stabilizes in summer but flares up in late autumn. Therefore, in addition to the above-mentioned prohibitions, they must also avoid excessive consumption of various melons, fruits, and cold foods to prevent damage to the spleen and stomach's yang energy. There is a type of headache in Traditional Chinese Medicine called "head wind disease," which is extremely painful whenever one is exposed to wind and cold. Patients with this condition should avoid washing their hair with cold water in the summer. After washing, their hair should be dried in the wind, and they must avoid prolonged direct exposure to electric fans or air conditioning cold air.
In summer, there are many mosquitoes, which is often an important cause of illness. In addition to strengthening the cleanliness of living areas, one's own daily life is also important for repelling mosquitoes. For example, eating garlic can effectively repel mosquitoes because mosquitoes dislike the garlic scent excreted by the human body. Taking oral Vitamin B, which is then metabolized and excreted through sweat, produces a smell that mosquitoes dare not approach. The method is to take 1-2 tablets of Vitamin B one hour before bedtime, but it should not be taken in large quantities for a long time. Wearing light-colored clothes like yellow or white can reduce mosquito bites, while wearing dark blue or brown clothes increases the likelihood of being bitten. Therefore, one should wear light-colored clothes in the summer. Before dusk, placing one or two pots of blooming jasmine, milanol, or roses, preferably tuberose, indoors can also effectively repel mosquitoes because mosquitoes cannot stand the fragrance of these flowers. Orange-red indoor lighting also has a mosquito-repelling effect. Because mosquitoes are afraid of orange-red light, orange-red lighting should be used in the bedroom during the summer.