How Chinese Medicine Nips Colds in the Bud

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), there is a pesky little thing called “wind.” In the American sense, wind is a good thing… breeze feels great, right? In TCM, it means something completely different. In fact, it’s the reason that grandma always told you to wear a HAT and a SCARF to protect your head, face, and neck in the winter. You were literally going to “catch a cold”, or in other words, if you didn’t bundle up you would let cold (deficiency) and WIND (external force such as a virus, aka a Western “cold”) right into your head.

In nature, wind always wants to go to the tallest point. Taller trees get more wind than lower trees – so wind likes to attack things at the top. Your head is at the top of your body, so it’s very susceptible to “wind”, which as I said is external force (could be pathogens, virus, “cold” etc). This is also why we get a lot of headaches when we’re experiencing imbalance.

“Wind” is considered the most evil of the 6 pernicious evils. The 6 are: wind (external force), cold (deficiency), heat (excess), damp (phlegm or could be infection), summer heat (acute excess) and dry (lack of body fluid).

When you feel a sickness/cold coming on, you are usually experiencing wind coming in. 

In order to remove wind from the body and especially the head, you can press on 2 points of the back of the head (GB20). This is called acupressure. Press on these points at the napes of the neck for 1 minute on and off until relief and calm is felt. This helps a ton with both headaches and the very beginning stages of a cold. Enjoy this quick and easy trick!