Dampness

By: Ricardo Dacosta
aka: Raghavendra Giri

Have you been experiencing more than one of the following sensations/feelings?

- Heaviness in head or "bag over the head" feeling
- Heaviness of arms and legs
- Oppression or heaviness in chest
- Body secretions (sweat, sputum, nasal discharge) are white or mix white & clear
- Loss of appetite or indigestion, abdominal distention
- Localized accumulations of watery fluids: edema; skin swelling.

Lets talk about Wetness (Dampness)!

Wetness or Dampness is seen in Traditional Chinese Medicine as a condition where body fluids congest and accumulate in the body. It is technically link to what the Chinese call “The Long Summer” but actually it is associated with damp whether in any season. It can come from the environment by living or working in damp surroundings or wearing damp clothes or it can be due poor diet or internal organ weakness.

Accumulation of Dampness in the body comes from the failure to burn off (lack of Yang) or transform fluids in the body (lack of Qi). Since Dampness is heavy, turbid and lingering and it has a tendency to move things downward, the lower part of the body are the first affected by it. It is nearly always associated with a weak Spleen, often with a weak Kidney and sometimes with a weak Lung.
As the word suggests, Dampness can makes us feel heavy and tired. It can make us swell up and it can obstruct our body’s functioning. A tendency towards Dampness can be aggravated by a sedentary lifestyle. It needs the transformative power of the body’s Yang to stop it accumulating. Eating in ways which inhibit our Spleen function or which injures the Yang, like raw foods or damp-forming foods: dairy, concentrated sweeteners, oily and fatty foods, bananas, eggs, tofu and juices will increase our tendency to towards Dampness.

A Dampness condition can be corrected by eating more Warming foods, increasing physical activity through Yoga or any other discipline and by using specific Chinese herbal formulas that counteract Dampness by strengthening the Qi and Yang in the body.

Copyright notice : None parts of this essay can be reproduce without permission from the author

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