It’s 36 degrees for days in Spring and that fan feels so good. But wind is the seasonal pathogen of spring, and we are easily damaged by it. I wrote a little more about that on the Insta.
To which I will add, neck pain can be made worse by wind.
The Chinese Medicine classics recognised that when the weather was different to what it should be in a season we should act according to the real situation instead of the seasonal ideal (for instance Huang di Nei Jing Chapter 71 line 477). The seasonal ideal of spring is warming, but when it is unseasonally hot we should cool ourselves instead. This is best done with water – swims, cool showers, and cooling foods and drinks. But not icy cold, as extremes generate their opposites, which in this case is heat. But as well as wind being the dominant qi of spring that brings wind diseases, it is a time of rising warm energy or yang. Migraines and hayfever are conditions that can be made worse by the seasonal rising yang. Wind can stir and unsettle rising yang, so rising yang illnesses can by made worse by wind, and they often involve combinations of both.
So again, try to avoid the wind. That little fan that blows on your face on the treadmill – turn it off.
Photo: Andre Zaripov