A conversation between Orion Nevel (Orion Herbs) and Jeffrey Prol, AP Miami Beach acupuncture physician
If you live in Miami Beach, you already know: this isn't just warm weather, it's a season-long negotiation with heat. On the intense heat days, the "feels like" temperature can run well over 100°F even when the thermometer says something milder, and the city regularly logs over a hundred days a year above 90°F.
For most people, that just means sweat, sunscreen, and staying near the AC. But for Jeffrey Prol, a Miami Beach acupuncture physician with more than two decades of clinical experience in Chinese medicine, heat isn't just a discomfort. It's a clinical pattern he's been reading in patients' bodies, minds, and skin for over 20 years.
I sat down with Jeff to talk about what heat actually does to us, physically, mentally, and over the long arc of aging, and to pull together his best lifestyle, herbal, and acupuncture strategies for staying balanced through a South Florida summer.
Orion: You've been practicing acupuncture in Miami Beach for over 20 years. What has that much time in one of the hottest, most humid cities in the country taught you about how heat affects the body?
Jeff: Honestly, it's taught me that heat is rarely "just" heat. In Chinese medicine, we talk about heat as a pattern that can show up almost anywhere, in the skin as breakouts or rashes, in the mind as irritability or racing thoughts, in sleep as night waking, in the cycle as heavier or more painful periods. Miami Beach is a great place to observe this because the external climate is constantly pushing on people's internal balance. Patients who run "hot" to begin with tend to decompensate faster here than they would in a milder climate. Over 20 years you start to see the same handful of patterns walk through the door every June: depleted energy, disrupted sleep, short tempers, flushed skin, and a kind of mental fog that people often don't connect to the weather at all.
Orion: Let's start with the big picture, how does Chinese medicine actually think about heat in the body?
Jeff: Chinese medicine has always treated climate as something that gets absorbed into the body, not just experienced around it. Heat is one of what we call the external influences, alongside things like cold, dampness, and wind. When heat builds up, whether from the environment, from diet, from stress, or from the body's own constitution, it tends to rise. That's why so many heat symptoms show up "high" in the body: flushed face, headaches, red eyes, insomnia, anxiety, a racing or agitated feeling. Heat also has a way of drying things out and using up fluids, which is why prolonged heat exposure leaves people not just tired, but depleted, thirsty, dry-skinned, and running on empty even after they rest.
Orion: You mentioned longevity and beauty are part of this conversation too. How so?
Jeff: They're actually central to it, not an afterthought. In Chinese medicine, the fluids and the Yin energy of the body are what keep tissue moist, skin plump, joints lubricated, and the mind calm. Chronic, low-grade heat exposure, the kind you get living somewhere like Miami Beach for years, slowly taxes those fluids. That's part of why we see accelerated dryness and dullness in the skin, and it's connected to how the body ages over time. From a longevity standpoint, learning to manage heat isn't a summer inconvenience, it's a long-term investment in how your body holds up over decades. Patients who take heat seriously as part of their wellness routine tend to have more resilient energy, calmer minds, and better skin quality as they age. That's not a coincidence.
Orion: So let's get practical. If a patient came to you today and said, "Jeff, help me manage this Miami heat," what would you tell them?
Jeff: I'd break it into three buckets, lifestyle, herbs, and acupuncture. Because they reinforce each other.
Lifestyle strategies
-
Respect the clock, not just the thermostat. In Miami Beach, the hours roughly between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. are when heat and UV stress peak. I tell patients to shift outdoor activity, errands, and exercise to early morning or evening whenever they can, rather than relying on air conditioning to undo midday exposure.
-
Move, but don't overheat. Gentle, sustained movement, walking, swimming, easy cycling, supports circulation without adding fuel to the fire. Save the high-intensity training for the cooler parts of the day.
-
Protect your sleep environment. Excess heat disrupts the depth of sleep long before it disrupts comfort. A cool, dark bedroom is one of the most underrated heat-management tools I recommend.
-
Don't fight your cravings for lighter food. The body naturally wants lighter, more water-rich meals in hot weather. Leaning into that, rather than defaulting to heavy, greasy, or very spicy food, genuinely helps regulate internal heat.
-
Watch alcohol and caffeine. Both tend to add heat and dehydrate at the same time, which is exactly the combination the body is trying to avoid in summer.
-
Manage emotional heat, too. This one surprises people, but frustration, anger, and chronic stress are considered heat-generating in Chinese medicine. A regular calming practice, breathwork, meditation, even a short walk to decompress, is part of a real heat-management plan.
Herbal approaches
-
Add naturally cooling herbs to a salad or meal. Ingredients like mint and dandelion greens are traditionally used to clear heat, and tossing them into a salad or bowl alongside cucumber and leafy greens is an easy way to work heat-clearing herbs into a meal you're already eating.
-
Cooling herbal teas. Mint and chrysanthemum are two classic, gentle options many patients use as an easy daily ritual to take the edge off internal heat.
-
Personalized herbal formulas. Beyond the general food-as-medicine approach, Chinese herbal medicine has formulas specifically designed to clear heat and protect fluids. The right formula depends on a person's individual pattern, which is why I always recommend working with a trained practitioner rather than self-prescribing, heat can look similar on the surface but have very different roots from patient to patient.
-
Lean into naturally cooling foods. Foods like watermelon, cucumber, mung beans, and leafy greens are traditionally used to clear heat and replenish fluids in the hot months.
Acupuncture strategies
-
Targeted point work. There are acupuncture points classically used to help clear heat, calm the mind, and support fluid balance. This is very individualized, but the goal across the board is the same: help the body's own regulatory systems do their job more efficiently, rather than forcing a change from the outside.
-
Seasonal tune-ups. I recommend patients, especially anyone who runs hot, deals with seasonal skin flares, or struggles with summer sleep, come in for a treatment or two as we move into peak heat season, not just after they've already crashed.
-
Recovery support. For patients who've had a rough stretch of heat exposure, a beach day that went too long, a string of bad sleep, a physically demanding week outdoors, acupuncture can help the body recover its balance faster than rest alone.
Orion: Any final thought for someone reading this in the middle of a Miami Beach summer?
Jeff: Don't wait until you feel wiped out to take heat seriously. The patients who do best are the ones who treat summer as a season that requires a little extra support, for the body, the mind, and the skin, rather than something to just push through. Twenty years of practicing here has shown me that heat management isn't a one-time fix. It's a rhythm you build into your year, and the payoff shows up not just in how you feel this August, but in how you're aging five and ten summers from now.
BOOK NOW
Jeffrey Prol, AP, is a Miami Beach acupuncture physician with more than 20 years of clinical experience in acupuncture, cupping, Tui Na, moxibustion, and Chinese herbal medicine. This interview is for general wellness information and isn't a substitute for individualized care, if you're dealing with heat exhaustion, dehydration, or other concerning symptoms, seek medical attention.
