Warmth and self-kindness

Chinese medicine guides us towards warmth throughout our lives.

Warm foods, warm teas, warm water.

We need to stay warm to support our digestive processes and prevent illness. In fact, a canonical text in Chinese medicine - the Shang Han Lun - was written before 220 CE and the title roughtly translates to the “Treatise On Cold Damage”. This text gives us many herbal formulas that help the body get rid of or recover from invasive cold.

Note, however, that this warmth is different from heat. Prolonged hot saunas, hot yoga, high-intensity workouts are instances of intensely heating the body in a depleting manner. Likewise, spicy peppers, chocolate, fried foods, coffee, garlic, and onions are very hot-natured foods that bring hot hot heat into the body. Heat and warmth and not one and the same in Chinese medicine.

It’s important to recognize the the importance of warmth for the miantenance or health and prevention of illness, but especially in these colder months, I also think it’s nice to conceptualize the embrace of warmth in our lives as an act of self-kindness.

It can feel so nice to prepare a cup of warm ginger and cinnamon tea. Or to come home at the end of the day and cozy into some nice, thick wool socks. When we direct a little bit more energy toward the cultivation of warmth in our days, we benefit from the comforting of the stew we remembered to start in the crock pot the night before.

This does not have to be an expensive or super time intenstive endeavor, but I would encourage you to consider what little extra step you could do in this time bring more warmth into your daily life.

Start the day with 2 cups of warm water. Make the water as hot as you an comfortably drink it. Have this before you drink coffee or tea and eat breakfast. Warm water helps to prepar our digestive system for the day ahead, and this simple practice in the morning can be helpful for those who struggle with slow digestion or constipation.

Wear a scarf more often. There is a point on the back of neck, along the taiyang channel, where the cold can enter (invade). Keeping an assortment of scarves on hand allows you to be prepared to take a weather-appropriate scarf with you whenever you are leaving the house.

Slip into slippers. Get some fuzzy slippers - and if you already have some, take them out from wherever you store them in the summer. Set them by the front door so you can remember to put them on when you come home.

Prepare cinnamon formulas. Gui Zhi Tang (GZT) is a well-known Chinese herbal formula that is easy to work with and can be taken right the the first signs of a cold cold (there are “cold” colds and “hot” colds in the Chinese medicine paradigm). GZT and its variations prominantly feature cinnamon twig at the emperor herb - the herb in greatest quantity that carries out the main function.

Make some bone broth or a noodle soup. Wet-cooked, warm foods allow the body to become deeply hydrated. Chinese medicine guides us to eat these kinds of foods daily. Andrew Sterman’s Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup is one of my favorites - we keep it in our cold weather rotation at my house.

Get in bed earlier. Set an earlier bedtime for yourself. Create a bed that is a space of warm, perhaps with a hot water bottle or heating pad, and allow yourself to get more rest. This is a season to prioritize rest.

Let me know how you’re cultivating warmth in your self and your life as we move closer to cold-weather season, I’d love to hear from you! 🧡

Warmly,

Artemisia

Clinical Herbalist | Chinese Medicine

innervillagehealth.com

@innervillagehealth