The Same Place Gives Way at Every Change of Season
The short answer
What makes the turn of a season hard is not that it is cold or hot but that it changes quickly. The body's sensors respond less to temperature itself than to the rate at which it changes. And once regulation is kept busy, whichever place is thinnest in that person shows itself first.
Contents
- The body responds to the rate of change more than to temperature
- The same temperature differs by where you came from
- So regulation is called upon often
- When the margin narrows, the thin places show first
- Which makes the turn of a season a season that tells you something
- And it is better to see to it before you go in
- When to be seen first
Certain people come without fail when the seasons turn. What is interesting is that each person gives way in a fixed place.
For one it is the nose that blocks first; for another the stomach that turns uneasy; for another sleep that grows shallow; for another a knee that aches. And it is usually the same place year after year.
What the body goes through in each season I have written separately. (spring · summer · autumn · winter) This is about what happens in between.
The body responds to the rate of change more than to temperature
Look at the nerves that sense cold and the reason shows.
These nerves fire strongly while temperature is falling. Stay at that temperature and the firing quietens. Even at the same temperature they grow quiet. This property is called adaptation.
More striking is the rate. For the same drop in temperature, cooling quickly draws a far stronger response. In experiments, firing rose nearly fourfold with rapid cooling compared with slow cooling.
So what burdens the body is not the value of 15 degrees but how quickly 15 degrees arrived.
The same temperature differs by where you came from
One more thing overlaps here. In studies on people, the range that feels neutral itself shifts according to the temperature you were at just before.
The same 20 degrees reaches the body differently coming down from the end of summer than coming up from the end of winter. This is why "the mornings feel unusually cold" at the turn of a season is not an exaggeration.
So regulation is called upon often
In the middle of a season, values are reasonably settled. The body can hold its regulation in one posture.
The turn of a season is different. Morning and midday differ widely, and the direction reverses within days. Each time, the body saves heat then sheds it, narrows the skin vessels then widens them. (Body Temperature Is Not a Number You Read but a Value You Defend)
Regulation is work too. When that work grows frequent, what is left over for elsewhere runs short.
When the margin narrows, the thin places show first
This is the part I hold to be important.
A narrowed margin does not make the body worse evenly. The thin places in that person show first. What had only barely been holding shows itself before anything else.
Someone whose nasal lining is thin shows it in the nose; someone whose digestion is weak shows it in the stomach; someone whose sleep is light shows it in sleep. That is why symptoms differ so widely among people passing through the same change of season. The season did not create the symptom so much as reveal the place that was already thin.
Which makes the turn of a season a season that tells you something
Seen this way, symptoms at the turn of a season are not purely a nuisance. They tell you, in the same way each year, where that body is thin.
So when someone comes at the change of season I do not ask about this year alone. I ask whether it was so last year, and the year before, and whether any year passed unusually well. That answer sometimes tells more than the present symptom does.
And it is better to see to it before you go in
The middle of a season's turn is when regulation is already busy. It is not an easy time to build margin.
If you know the same place gives way every year, the time to see to it is before that season arrives. Attending to sleep first, having clothes ready for morning and evening, looking to the thin place in advance — these help in getting through it. (Tonic Medicine — Can You Take It Any Time?)
When to be seen first
If symptoms continue regardless of the season, or grow markedly worse year on year, do not leave it to the season; it is better to be seen. All the more so with breathlessness or a fever that lasts.
One long-held view in Korean medicine sits here: the same encounter injures different places in different people. So it asked, before the name of an illness, where that person was thin.
I take that to be an old strength of this medicine. The turn of a season reveals that thin place in the same way each year, so listening well now gives you something to use next year.
Which is why I do not ask about this year's symptom alone. I listen for what that person's body keeps repeating.
Sources
- A study, with recordings and a model, showing that cold-sensing nerves respond strongly while temperature changes and fire far harder with rapid cooling — PLoS One, 2015
- A study in 10 people showing that the range of temperature felt as neutral shifts with the temperature experienced just before — Journal of Neurophysiology, 2017
Written by Dr. Heo Ji-young (Ph.D. in Korean Medicine Pathology, Kyung Hee University · former Research Professor of Herbology, Kyung Hee University)
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