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📢🎤Interview with Carmen Elizabeth & RV👨🏻💼👩🏻💼
☯️ Traditional Chinese Medicine ☯️
" Todays hot topic is Dampness. It's an ancient concept in Traditional Chinese medicine but to many who are new to it theory they find it's quite baffling.
📕Carmen Elizabeth has been running her practice in Nottinghamshire for more than 15 years, the third generation in her family to specialise in natural holistic and spiritual healing therapies and she has a vast amount of over 80 qualifications, various specialists and years of experience when it comes to how to deal with illness and injury in Englands dampness and humidity.
🕉The thorough Recovery Enhancement Practitioner, Specialist And Consultant that she is, Carmen Elizabeth starts by explaining to us what it all involves...
What is this dampness?
🕉Humidity is one of the downsides to life in England. I started to look into it more when furniture in the house was turning mouldy, I knew my breathing and that of my husband's was being affected as I thought there’s no reason the humans all sensative bodily systems should be unaffected by it.
RV speaks to Carmen Elizabeth about how to help damp with our diet.
🕉Dampness simply refers to water retention. Health in Traditional Chinese medicine hinges on striking a balance between all the five elements in our body. A high proportion of water in the human body is a source of illness. At first, the client will feel bulky, bloated and sleepy all the time when they are damp. In more simple terms, it's like being weighed down by concrete. The body feels sticky like a glue and the person feels fatigued and very sluggish. Dampness has been described anciently as cotton that has been soaked in oil.
How do we know if we’re too damp?
☯️Dampness affects people with different constitutions such as yin (cold) and yang (hot) differently. A damp yin person will feel tired, fatigued, their skin gets oily but without many spots. Excess sweating hot flushes. When the dampness seeps into the muscles, bones and joints, that’s when the lethargy sets in. If the problem becomes worse, the dampness will affect their blood vessels and result in high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart palpatations and other issues and kidney bladder problems.
🕉For yang body types, it becomes ‘toxic’. At first, it’s most visible on the skin, in forms such as acne and eczema. On the muscle, bone and joint level, drowsiness is less pronounced for yang people. Instead, there’ll be pain around the shoulders, neck, back of the head, waist and joints. On a more severe level, it will transform into blood diseases, like uric acid or even vasculitis putting some at risk of lower extremity amputation. The probabilities for a yang person to develop growth and tumours are very high too.
How do you know if your yang or yin body type?
A yin person usually feels very sensitive to the cold and tires easily. A yang person feels hot, is prone to muscle and joint aches, and is more susceptible to skin conditions.
What can help erradicate the damp?
☯️Dampness causes dysfunctioning in our body. If our intestines and stomach are not working as effectively as they should, our ability to eliminate dampness is very weak. In Traditional Chinese medicine it suggests detoxing and strengthening the spleen as this is said to increase the body’s ability to dispel unrequired water.
LIMIT THE FORMATION OF PHLEGM AND DAMPNESS
Eat food and drinks at room temperature or warmer
Incorporate bitter, pungent and aromatic foods and spices
Drink bone broth as a snack
Appreciate the flavor of foods
Eat small to moderate size meals and avoid over eating or eating until you are overly full
Drink ginger tea
Exercise regularly
FOODS TO INCORPORATE TO DECREASE DAMPNESS:
Lightly cooked vegetables
Whole grains (brown rice, barley, rye, oats)
Bitter, sweet, pungent and aromatic spices
Includes: cloves, ginger, black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, mustard, mustard greens, nutmeg, thyme, turmeric, basil, parsley, garlic, onions, shallows, horseradish, turnips, radish, cayenne
Legumes (kidney beans, pinto, red lentils)
Meat, poultry and fish in small quantities
Small amount of whole fruits and lemons
Sesame, pumpkin and sunflower seeds
Tea (green, oolong, jasmine)
Bone broth
FOODS TO LIMIT OR AVOID WHEN YOU ARE FEELING PHLEGMY OR DAMP:
Cold, raw foods (uncooked vegetables)
Refined sugars
Fatty meat (bacon or duck)
Eggs
Fruit juices
Coffee and alcohol
Deep fried foods
Nuts
Limit to 1-2 portions per day (8-10 nuts is one serving)
Dairy (cold foods - cheese, chocolate, milk, ice cream)
Wheat Gluten (refined flour or pasta and bread)
Cold or iced drinks
Banana
Avocado
You can make some if your own herbal soup and teas to help enhance the spleen functioning.
My favourite is Soup
Recipe:
Onions
Garlic
Ginger
Tumeric
Scallions
Kidney Beans
Pumpkin
White yam
Sweet potato
Broccoli
Carrots
Parsnips
Green beans
Coconut milk
Scotch bonnet pepper
Pepper pot Seasoning
Wash and peel all the ingredients and place in a pot. Fill with enough water to cover the ingredients. Bring to a boil then simmer down on a low heat for two hours.
Choose roasted root vegetables over salads and leave out the the fried and cold stuff like icecream avacado, smoothie and shakes.
😍Carmen Elizabeth Loves Herbal Teas! Her Favourite Tea's include☕:
Ginger, Lemon & green tea,
cinnamon and cardamom chai
Autumn: White peony tea / Chrysanthamum
Winter: Chai or ginger tea
Spring: Nettle green and red rooibos
Summer: a) Dandilion b) Holy basil or green tea + peppermint
Late Summer (Indian Summer): Rooibos or turmeric tea
Thanks Carmen Elizabeth!
Message to book your road to recovery here: 07392 378 826