August 23rd, 2012. "The End of Heat", the 2nd small Autumn season arrives

    In 2012, the season of "The End of Heat" arrives on August 23rd,same as last year. Celestial longitude: 150 degree. For some of the seasonal information please read this article from last year.

    Here are some additional information:

    Take good care of your skin. Because of the dryness our skin loses good moisture easy thus can cause skin discomfort, aging or even disease. Take foods that are moisturizing in nature such as sesame, honey, white wood fungus, and certain dairy products. Make sure to hydrate your body as well by drink enough water, plus drinking a cup of very light salty water in the morning. Choose the right skincare product for your own skin condition, wash it through and carefully. After all, go to bed early and get enough sleep as this is the easiest and effective way of skin caring.

          This is a transitional season from heat to cool in nature, so is human Yin-Yang energy. We need to adjust our daily life schedule. The first thing needs to be adjusted is sleep, and we have mentioned that go to bed and get up early is the basic rule of autumn sleeping. TCM considers sleep-wake is a Yin-Yang, static-dynamic unified condition of body function. It is a view and perspective of the body-mind relation as well.

First, changes from day to night determine human’s sleep-wake function. The nature exists in the changes of Yin and Yang, and day-night change represents it in a way. Day time is Yang and night time is Yin. Human as part of the nature, their energy follows this change, as the Yang energy being the wake, and Yin energy affects the sleep. Therefore the original human life is to follow the nature, get up when sunrise and go to sleep with sundown.

Second, the physiological basis of sleep is termed as Ying-Wei energy operation. “Ying Qi”, or nutritive energy runs inside of the arteries and veins, and “Wei Qi”, or defensive energy runs outside to protect. According to <<Huang Di Nei Jing>>, the defensive energy affects sleep the most. When the defensive energy runs with and to the Yin energy, we will fall asleep and when it runs towards or to Yang energy, we will be awake.

    Third, TCM considers our sleep and wake is also directed by the “mind” or “Shen” in TCM term. When the “Shen” is resting, so is our body, or vice versa. Therefore, emotion and mental activities from day time affects sleep, as we know, one major cause of insomnia is mental or emotional pressure or tension.