Summer is the yang season in Yakuzen and is associated with the below.

Element – Fire
Yin organ – Heart
Yang organ – Small Intestine
Emotion – Joy
Taste – Bitter
Color – Red

Summer is here! It's time to enjoy BBQ with friends and family in the sunshine and the beach is calling you, but wait a minute...
Let me give you few tips to keep yourself healthy so this summer will be full of joy for you.

As the temperature goes up, your body temperature also rises up, sweating to adjust your body temperature, and your heart has to work harder to pump blood throughout your body.

While your heart is performing its functions during the hot summer, it could cause the exhaustion of Qi and Yin fluid in your body, and summer fatigue symptoms such as irritability, insomnia, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, and indigestion.

Summer is associated with the heart organ as you see above, and eating heart-nourishing foods can help your body combat the hot summer.

What can we eat to avoid summer fatigue?

1. Cool down your body - Bitter melon, mung bean, apple, eggplant, green tea, cucumber, tomato, and other summer vegetables
2. Replenish Qi - Rice, potato, sweet potato, Chinese date, Chinese yam, avocado, green bean, pumpkin, beef, tuna, eel, chicken
3. Nourish body fluids - Asparagus, chicken egg, tofu, white fungus, pork, oyster, and summer vegetables like cucumber, zucchini, tomato

Staying hydrated is important, but regularly drinking cold beverages with lots of ice can weaken your spleen and stomach, which may in turn affect your digestion.
To support your digestive system, I recommend including spleen-nourishing foods in your diet—such as edamame, rice, pumpkin, chicken, oatmeal, shiitake mushrooms, and cabbage. These ingredients can help strengthen your digestion and promote better overall gut health.
Also, if you're experiencing symptoms like excessive sweating or persistent diarrhea, astringent foods such as lemon, Japanese apricot, and pomegranate can also be helpful.

If you are living in a climate with high humidity, I recommend adding food with the property of reducing fluid retention, such as mung beans, coix seeds, cherries, adzuki beans, corn, whitebait, and clams.

Let's stay healthy and enjoy your summer!

*Please remember that we all have different body constitutions and it’s very important to understand what body type you have.