Summer heat fatigue is a real condition, and it’s debilitating. Are you more tired lately? Do you feel all the muscles in your body hurt–the dull sore kind of hurt? Does it feel like you are treading through mud? Do you have mental fog?
Raleigh Acupuncture Summer Heat Fatigue Treatment
Do you have a hard time getting up in the morning? Often do you want to sit or lie down all day long? Do you have GI discomfort like bloating or stomach pain? Do you suffer from swelling on your face, hands, and feet or whole body swelling? Are you gaining weight no matter how careful you are?
If you answered yes to one, many, or even all of these questions, you are suffering from summer heat fatigue – what Chinese medicine practitioners refer to as heat and dampness-induced fatigue.
What Is Summer Heat Fatigue?
Summer heat fatigue is a condition brought on during the high heat of summer. Our health is affected by our surroundings. We are deep into the summer season. The weather is getting hotter and more humid by the day. That means there is more heat and dampness in our environment.
People typically don’t like change. And our bodies don’t like change either. So the shift from spring to summer causes the body to scramble and adjust. If you are young and healthy, the transition occurs seamlessly, so you do not feel any difference. But if your health is not at its optimal level, you will feel discomfort as your body adjusts to the heat of summer.
Some people can adjust seamlessly to the change of seasons, but others do not adjust as well, especially if their health has been affected by sickness, stress, trauma, or constitutional weakness.
It’s All About Digestion
Our digestion is the key to getting us through the summer season in good health and without struggling with summer heat fatigue. The digestive system includes the stomach and spleen in Chinese medicine. I often hesitate to use the word “spleen” because the spleen is not very important in Western terms. As you know, you can have your spleen removed and still function just fine.
But in Chinese medicine, the spleen is in charge of transforming food and water into nutrition that the body can use. So it is of paramount importance to your health that the spleen is working optimally. If your body can not extract the nutrition from the food and drink you take in, it isn’t easy to function well.
Strong Spleen Resolves Fatigue
In Chinese medicine, organs in the body are affected by environmental conditions. For example, the spleen does not like dampness. So when the weather is humid, the spleen has to work harder to get rid of extra water in the body.
Now imagine that a person’s spleen function is already weak. Let’s say they are overweight, eat too much fast food, and don’t exercise. Now let’s add environmental factors of summer heat and humidity into the mix. This further damages the spleen, impeding its ability to transform fluids in the body.
When your spleen does not transform liquids in your body, the extra fluid accumulates. When fluids collect in the muscles, you have swelling (water retention). As a result, you feel heavy, like you are treading through water. In a sense, you are trudging through water, inside your body! And unlike wading through water in a pool, when it’s inside your body, you take it with you everywhere you go. No wonder internal dampness causes summer heat fatigue.
Overcoming Fatigue With Acupuncture
Now that you understand what’s causing your summer heat fatigue, let’s discuss how you can get better. Acupuncture and Chinese herbs have been used for two thousand years to treat this disharmony. When you come to our clinic, we insert hair-thin, single-use, sterile needles in the points that directly communicate to your spleen to improve its function.
In addition, we prescribe Chinese herbal medicine to take at home to further aid the spleen’s recovery to its optimal functional level. When the spleen is working, you feel energetic again, your mind is clear, and you no longer feel bloated and swelled up. Life is good when your health is good. So don’t wait – let acupuncture boost your spleen so you can regain energy and enjoy the summer!
Next Steps
BOOK NOW to schedule an appointment online.
Exhaustion Acupuncture Case Study.
Learn about all the conditions we treat.
Summer Heat Exhaustion
You don’t need to put up with feeling exhausted all the time. Instead, see how acupuncture can help heal your digestive system and boost your energy.
