By Becky La Plante, L.Ac.
Licensed Acupuncturist
http://www.elementaltransformation.com/chinese-herbal-medicine.html

In Chinese Herbal Medicine and Nutrition there are over 365 plants, foods, minerals and animals that known to have medicinal properties. Each herb works with one or more organs, has particular temperatures, flavor/tastes, and directions/flows and energy pathways.

The summer is considered the greatest of yang and humans are effected by the heat, which along with feeling hot and humid we are prone to get other illnesses aggravated by these temperatures and conditions. 

Below are a yin cooling foods and herbs used in Chinese Medicine to help cool you down, and if you do get sick, to help heal you. Herbs are best used in partnership with each other. For any questions, please contact me through my website above. 

Watermelon: There is a reason why this juicy fruit is abundant in the summer. It is used in Chinese Nutrition for summer heat and to cool you down down the body and the blood. Although watermelon is 90 percent water, it can have diuretic properties to help clear toxins from your body, so make sure you don't use it as a subsitute for water. 

Mint
Chinese Name: Bo He
Again, if it grows in the summer it usually can heal ailments of the summer. Mint is abundant in the summer and can be found wild in nature.  Make a tea with some fresh mint, or add it to your water to cool your self down. 

It is used in Chinese Medicine to expel wind heat particularly from the head region -  for fever, headaches, red eyes, cough, sore throat.

Chrysanthemum Flowers
Chinese Name: Ju Hua
Crysanthemum is another cooling herb and is great made into an iced tea. It is used for general cooling and medicinally for fever, headaches, eye problems, and sore throat. It can be used as a compress for red inflamed eyes and infections. 

A Very Common Herbal Formula for a Summer Cold
Chinese Name: Yin Qiao Wan
English Name: Honeysuckle and Forsythia Formula 
Common cold, flu, general immunity, fever w/slight or no chills, headache, desire for fluids, cough, sore throat.

Granville Gorge During a Rain Storm

By Becky La Plante, L.Ac.
 www.elementaltransformation.com 

After 4 days of rain and during a holiday weekend on top of it, we are all cursing the rain and sick of the cold weather. But, when was the last time you slept in being soothed by the white noise of the rain outside, or spent a holiday at home rather than out and about shopping and active?

Rain is an opportunity to go with in and be quiet. In Chinese Medicine, rain is very yin and yin symbolizes the internal, the feminine, the unknown, the water element. 


After being back for a year from Southern California, I have notice that it is only the sunny clear days we appreciate, and the rest of the days that aren't sunny we complain about. Before I moved to Southern California many years ago, I loved nature, but I wasn't fully appreciative of different flavors of the seasons and the elements. It took 11 years of living in a city with only a few rain showers a year, a month of cloudy mornings and a regular forecast of SUNNY days to have me truly appreciating the rain. 

I have taken many classes for wilderness survival skills and the philosophy of living with the earth, and if it was raining for the whole week, there were no other options other than suck it up and get wet and dirty. At first it was hard, cold, uncomfortable, but after a while we got use to it and it turned out to be just like any day and a very bonding experience. 

There is something so freeing to be able to be comfortable in the elements like the animals and to realize that we as humans are tougher and more resistant than we give ourselves credit for, and we are missing out on a whole other side of life. 

So I challenge you to put on some warm clothes, a little rain gear at first, and take a walk in the rain. It is very healing and we all need to toughen up a little and appreciate all states of life even if they are uncomfortable at first. Explore what is beyond your comfort zone! And most important of all, it's the sunny crisp, clear days after the storm that are the most memorable, and as I always remind myself. "You can't experience the light without having experienced the darkness." 

Below is a link to how the negative ions created from the breaking of the water molecules actually causes well being and healing to our physical and mental bodies. Enjoy! 
http://www.iriswellbeing.com/negative_ions.html