As a Chinese medicine clinician and a married man, it is always fascinating to me how often opposites attract, not just in terms of psyche or personality, but also physiological proclivities, “constitutions,” as we say.
Besides being the more extroverted or chaotic of the couple, my systemic pathologies tend more to heat patterns—that is excitatory and inflamed, while my wife’s tends more cold—inhibitory, lethargic, or vasoconstrictive. On our good days, as is the case with most couples, this nicely balances the division of labor in their complementing one another. On our bad days, as is the case with most couples… well, they’re bad days.
I half-joke that my wife really should live somewhere in southern California, as she tends to have a very slim sweet spot of tolerance for climactic fluctuations. Too hot or too cold and she’s aggravated, which in turn may or may not inevitably aggravate all present parties. I regularly and fully joke to her that never before I met her had I heard so many reports or internal debate around what to set the temperature at.
Based on dialogue with friends and patients, this is a common problem. One partner is forced to layer up in response to the other’s intolerance for heat or humidity—conversely one is forced to walk around naked with a fan on them in response to the other’s intolerance for cold.
From a Chinese medical perspective—you guessed it—the latter is preferable. Cold is organic, sure, the change of seasons is logical with the laws of nature, however it slows (blood) and contracts (tendons and muscles). Air conditioning should be kept to a moderate level, and the partner less tolerant of heat should limit their clothing, have a fan blowing (indirectly) around them, and sip cool peppermint, watermelon, or chrysanthemum tea to mitigate the climate.
Theoretically, in the long run, this will benefit them, as some mild perspiration may rid some of the fluids trapped at their muscle layer perpetuating their intolerance to humidity. Indoor temperatures can be lowered in the evening when it is organic for our internal temperature to come down.
This doesn’t mean to blast the heat with reckless abandon throughout winter, which would make all of us homeowners completely incapable of affording acupuncture or herbs. While we should protect ourselves from the external conditions, it should be to a moderate degree—one that protects, but doesn’t shelter us, so to speak, so our immunological substances remain primed and prepared to encounter whatever they should during our time outdoors.
As a friendly and annoying reminder, please do not use ice on your aches, pains, and injuries beyond the initially inflammatory 24-hour period. Dr. Gabe Mirkin, the doctor who wrote the R.I.C.E. protocol in 1978, has since written a public article rescinding his previous advice, inadvertently but not explicitly in accord with Chinese medical thought.
