How to Relieve Hot Colds

Host: Ready? Susun Weed: Yeah. Well, I would talk cold-colds and hot-colds. In Chinese medicine, there is a set of opposites that are complimentary factors that we look at to see what's going on in the body as might be things like full and empty or dry and wet and hot and cold. Someone who has a hot-cold might be running a fever but they are going to be hot, their cheeks are going to be red, and they would be throwing off the bed clothes, they are not going to be sweating very much, and other fluids are not going to be coming out of that person's body. They are overheating. Someone who has a cold-cold might be running a fever too, but they are going to be the person who has the chills and who is shaking, and wants lots of clothes and lots of blankets on. They are going to have mucus coming out of their nose. It's going to be thin and watery or white mucus. All of the fluids are going to be coming out of their body in a very pronounced fashion. What do we do when we have a hot-cold or a cold-cold where we treat it with the opposite? If we have a hot-cold, we want to cool things off. This is when we might want to drink orange juice or Vitamin C. If we have a cold-cold, we may want to heat it up with some miso soup or eat a baked sweet potato. Herbs that are cooling to cool down that hot-cold would be things like mint and herbs that are warming to heat up a cold-cold would be things like ginger. Echinacea is considered to be neither hot or cold, so it can be used with any kind of cold at all. Host: This has been Susun Weed and granddaughter Monica Jean talking about colds; hot-colds and cold-colds.