October 2011

It seems very warm here in Iowa, actually, the daily temps are about 20 degrees higher than normal for our area. So we are all wearing shorts and flip flops. But in the clinic we are seeing lots of colds and intestinal bugs circulating. People always say that after school starts everyone gets sick.

This is interesting to me, because in Chinese medicine, sickness is caused by having ‘wind’ enter the body, go deeply, and disrupt health. They say that the wind comes into points such as those under the back of your head at the top of your neck. Those are the places where you get a stiff neck when you first get a cold.

In China, they would say that even though it feels hot these days, it really is fall, and we should keep our necks covered to keep out the cold wind. It really is cold, underneath this heat, they might say. We should dress more warmly, wear more outerwear, and perhaps even a scarf around the neck.

I wonder if we would see fewer colds in the fall if people lived by these ideas.

But I’m not ready to bundle up yet. We’ve had the clinic windows open and air conditioning on in the hot afternoons. But I might just wear a scarf when I am outside during these deceptively warm days.