[Autumn Health Tips] Are you prone to dryness, poor sleep, and dry skin in autumn? Traditional Chinese Medicine suggests that warming foods can relieve dryness.

Autumn belongs to the metal element and corresponds to the lungs. Autumn weather is dry, vegetation withers, and people gradually feel dry. Mornings and evenings become cool, but midday remains relatively hot. Combined with the dry air, this creates what's commonly known as the "autumn tiger"—a fierce and dry heat, often accompanied by symptoms like dry mouth, dry eyes, dry throat, and dry skin. Registered Chinese Medicine practitioner Huang Jingjing suggests emphasizing cooling, nourishing, and moisturizing the body in autumn health maintenance, and offers several dietary and lifestyle tips to cope with the seasonal transition.

1 - How to deal with dry skin in autumn?

Urban dwellers often have busy work schedules, lack of sleep, and insufficient water intake, which can easily lead to a volatile temper, commonly known as "dryness." The dryness of autumn can exacerbate this condition. To avoid dryness, in addition to drinking enough water and getting enough sleep, one can also drink rose tea, mung bean porridge, sugarcane and Imperata cylindrica root water, and eat herbal jelly.

2 - How to treat poor sleep and dry skin?

Autumn mornings and evenings are cool, making it easier to sleep without air conditioning. For those who have trouble sleeping or experience vivid dreams, try cooking some nourishing and calming sweet soups and porridges, such as yam and sedative porridge or lotus seed and lily bulb porridge. If you feel your skin is dry, it is recommended to eat some moisturizing foods, such as bird's nest, lotus seeds, sea coconut, lily bulbs, eggs, snow pears, and snow fungus.

3 - Hair loss worsens in autumn, how to manage it?

Hair is considered an extension of blood, and blood belongs to the yin aspect. Autumn dryness easily damages yin. In addition, the body's growth, development, and metabolism begin to slow down in autumn. Therefore, hair is more likely to fall out in autumn, but growth is slow, and hair loss may worsen. In addition to recommending going to bed early to nourish yin, you may want to add blood-nourishing and yin-tonifying herbs to your diet, such as wolfberry, rehmannia root, he shou wu, black sesame seeds, and black beans.

4 - Is autumn dryness divided into warm dryness and cool dryness? What foods can be eaten for warm dryness?

Autumn dryness easily affects the lungs, leading to lung diseases such as cough, colds, and rhinitis. Dryness can be categorized into cool dryness and warm dryness. Warm dryness occurs when the body is affected by heat in autumn, often in early autumn. Its main symptoms include fever, dry and sore throat, thirst, cough with yellow or little phlegm, irritability, and a red tongue tip—all indicative of heat in the dryness. A decoction made with ingredients like sand ginseng, ophiopogon japonicus, mulberry leaves, chrysanthemum, and polygonatum odoratum can be consumed to clear heat and moisten the lungs.

"Cool dryness" refers to the effects of the cold and dry weather on the body in autumn, which often occurs in late autumn and before winter. Symptoms include severe chills and mild fever, sneezing, runny nose with clear mucus, and cough with little or no phlegm. Dryness combined with coldness manifests as dryness in the nose and throat without a desire to drink water. You can cook some warming foods to relieve cool dryness, such as perilla leaves, almonds, dried tangerine peel, and ginger, combined with lung-moistening ingredients like sand ginseng, pear peel, ophiopogon japonicus, and fritillaria cirrhosa.

Photo by registered Chinese medicine practitioner Huang Jingjing (Everyone's physical condition is different. If you have any questions about the above information, please consult a doctor or other professional.)

Text: UrbanLife Health Editorial

Photos: UrbanLife Health Editorial