Getting Angry Easily? It Might Be Yin Deficiency with Excessive Fire

In the hot summer weather, people with yin deficiency may feel even more uncomfortable: excessive sweating, fatigue, dry throat and mouth, and feverish sensation in chest, palms and soles. They may want to nourish the kidney yin, but find that their body too weak to tolerate tonics — as soon as they take tonics, they get worse with heat symptoms. 

Patients with yin deficiency often have poor daily habits, such as frequent stay up late and a preference for heavy, salty foods. These habits accelerate the depletion of the body’s yin fluids, leading to yin deficiency. Additionally, yin deficiency often presents obvious heat symptoms, so it’s important to determine whether the heatiness is due to excess fire or deficient fire.

Excess fire has a sudden onset, short duration, and mild symptoms. For such cases, heat-clearing and fire-reducing medications like Huanglian Shangqing Pills or Sanhuang Tablets can be effective. On the other hand, deficient heat (i.e., yin-fire) originates internally, often caused by prolonged illness damaging yin, excessive consumption of spicy and warming foods, or an imbalance of excessive yang heat in the body. Heat, as a yang pathogen, easily depletes yin fluids. Deficient heat develops gradually and is commonly seen in chronic wasting diseases.

Yin deficiency with excessive fire is not only common in adults but can also occur in children. Delayed growth and precocious puberty in children are often linked to yin deficiency with excessive fire. Therefore, it’s important to encourage children to develop good routines and eating habits from an early age—avoid staying up late, eat less junk food and street snacks, and drink fewer sugary or iced beverages. Staying up late depletes yin fluids, accelerating the burning of the body’s “candle.” The stronger the fire, the faster the “candle wax” (yin fluids) depletes, making yin deficiency with excessive fire more pronounced.

In yin-deficient patients, the depletion of yin fluids leads to relative excess fire, resulting in a series of heat symptoms: feverish sensation in chest, palms and soles; severe peeling of the hands and feet; dry throat and mouth, feeling thirsty despite drinking plenty of water; excessive sweating, especially night sweats.

The first step for yin-deficient patients is to correct their sleep and dietary habits. If symptoms are severe, they should take medication under a physician’s guidance. Liuwei Dihuang Pills is a classic prescription for kidney yin deficiency. It can gently and harmoniously tonify kidney yin.

However, if there is yin deficiency with excessive fire, Zhibai Dihuang Pills should be taken. By adding Cortex Phellodendri Chinensis (Huang Bai) and Rhizoma Anemarrhenae (Zhi Mu) to Liuwei Dihuang Pills, the formula becomes Zhibai Dihuang Pills, which nourishes yin and reducing fire. Treating yin deficiency with effulgent fire, tidal fever, night sweating, dry mouth and pharyngalgia, tinnitus and seminal emission, scanty dark urine.

People and Symptoms Suitable for Zhibai Dihuang Pills:

1. People who frequently stay up late;

2. Those with sore back, dizziness, tinnitus, dry mouth, dry skin, or even peeling palms and soles;

3. Those with afternoon intermittent feverishness with not very high body temperature, night sweats (sweating during sleep but not while awake), and flushed cheeks;

4. Those with a thin build, heat sensations in the palms, soles, and chest, dry throat, or sore throat;

5. Those with excessive dreams, nocturnal emissions, and general weakness;

6. Insomnia caused by yin deficiency with excessive fire.

Having trouble falling asleep in summer? In daily adjustment, eat a light diet, reduce intake of spicy and stimulating foods, and remember to cover yourself with a blanket when the air conditioning is on. Wake up early if you can, but absolutely do not sleep late. Staying up late may feel good for a while, but you absolutely must not do it long-term~