Giving My Back to the Sun
A TikTok video of a girl sunning her back went viral. This is exactly what my mom forced me to do every summer — and I finally understand why.
I was scrolling through TikTok when I saw a girl lying face-down on a yoga mat, her back turned to the sun. The caption read: "Chinese sun therapy."
The comments exploded. Someone asked if this was dark magic. Someone else thought she was practicing a secret martial art. And a few people genuinely wanted to know: does this actually work?
I laughed. This is exactly what my mom used to force me to do every summer.
When I was a kid, during the hottest weeks of July, my mom would move the flower pots off the balcony, lay down a bamboo mat, and tell me: "Lie down. Don't move. Twenty minutes."
I never wanted to do it. Lying in the blazing sun when there were perfectly good air-conditioned rooms nearby — why?
My mom said: "You don't understand. The sun during the Three Fu days is different from regular sunlight. It recharges your yang energy."
I didn't know what yang energy meant back then. I only knew that my back felt warm, and the heat traveled from my skin all the way into my stomach. It was different from the coolness of air conditioning. Air conditioning cooled the surface. This heat went deep inside.
Growing up, I left home, moved to the city, and lived in air-conditioned rooms. No more sun-basking in summer. AC from morning to night, ice water from morning to night. This was modern life, I thought. This was progress.
But my body started to fall apart.
Cold hands and feet, even in midsummer. My stomach was always bloated. I couldn't digest anything properly. I went to the hospital and had every test done. Nothing was wrong. "You're sub-healthy," the doctor said. "Exercise more, sleep earlier."
I went home more anxious than before. "Sub-healthy" is basically saying nothing at all.
One summer I visited home. My mom looked at my pale face and froze.
"You... you don't sweat much, do you?"
I thought about it. She was right. Air conditioning at the office, on the subway, at home. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd broken a sweat.
My mom didn't say anything else. The next morning, she had the bamboo mat laid out on the balcony again.
"Lie down," she said, in the exact same tone as twenty years ago.
I lay down.
It was the first day of the Fu period — the hottest stretch of summer. The July sun was already sharp at nine in the morning. I lay face-down, my back to the sun, and at first it was just hot. I felt irritated. Then, after about five minutes, the heat started to sink in. From the skin of my back, into the muscle, deeper still. I could feel a line running from my neck down to my lower back — it was warming up, like a slow current moving through me.
In Chinese medicine, the back is home to the Du Mai — the "Governing Vessel" — also called the Sea of Yang Meridians. My mom didn't know these terms. But she knew: the back is where the body's yang energy is strongest, and the Three Fu sun is at its peak. Lying in that sun lets the energy of heaven and earth pour directly into your body.
Later, I looked it up. This practice has a name: "Shai Bei" — sunning your back.
Its history goes back centuries. But what convinced me wasn't history. It was how I felt afterward.
That day, after about twenty minutes, I sat up covered in a fine layer of sweat. Not the drenching sweat of exercise — a thin, even perspiration, as if something that had been trapped inside my body for a long time was finally released.
When I stood up, I felt — how do I describe it — lighter. Not lighter in weight. Lighter inside, like something that had been stuck was starting to loosen.
That night, I slept deeply for the first time in a long while.
I kept it up through the entire Fu period — about forty days.
I couldn't do it every day. Sometimes it was cloudy. Sometimes I had to work. But whenever I could, I found a patch of sunlight, lay down, and soaked it in for fifteen to twenty minutes.
Not always on the balcony. Sometimes on a bench in my apartment complex. Sometimes on the grass in a park. Once, on a business trip, I sunned my back on the hotel rooftop. The foreigners nearby looked at me the same way the TikTok commenters did.
After a month, I noticed my hands and feet weren't as cold. My stomach stopped bloating. Most noticeably, I started sweating again — normally, naturally. Before, I'd walk outside on a hot day while everyone else was sweating and I wasn't. Now I was finally sweating a little, and it felt like my body's cooling system had been rebooted.
There's a concept in Chinese medicine called "treating winter illnesses in summer." The idea is that certain conditions that flare up in winter — asthma, joint pain, sinus issues, cold extremities — are best treated not in winter but during the hottest days of summer. Because that's when the body's pores are open and yang energy is rising. Using the heat of nature to push out accumulated cold works better than any medicine.
Sunning your back is the simplest form of this.
No money needed. No tools. No wellness clinic required. Just lie down and let the sun hit your back.
I know some people will say this isn't scientific. "It's just sunbathing. The sun isn't medicine."
Well, the sun isn't medicine in the pharmaceutical sense. But it is the energy source for all life on Earth. Think about it — plants grow through photosynthesis, absorbing sunlight. And humans? When our skin receives sunlight, our bodies synthesize vitamin D, which helps with calcium absorption and regulates the immune system. Modern medicine has proven all of this.
Chinese medicine goes further. The back contains two major meridians: the Du Mai (Governing Vessel), which commands the body's yang energy, and the Bladder Meridian, the longest detox pathway in the body. Sunning your back during the Three Fu days simultaneously charges your yang and flushes out toxins.
I'm not a doctor, and I'm not going to claim sun therapy cures everything. I'm just an ordinary person who was forced to do it as a kid, grew up and forgot about it, then came back to it on my own.
All I can tell you is how I felt: better. Warmer. More settled. Whether it's yang energy, vitamin D, or the placebo effect — if it helps me sleep, I'll keep doing it.
A few things I learned the hard way:
First, don't sun during peak hours. Noon to 2 PM has the strongest UV. You'll burn. Best times are 9–10 AM or after 4 PM. The sun is warm enough to work, but won't damage your skin.
Second, keep it short. Fifteen to twenty minutes is plenty. My first time, I got greedy and stayed for forty minutes. My back peeled for days. My mom said, "What do you think you are, a roasted sweet potato?"
Third, don't do it on an empty stomach — or a full one. Fasting can cause low blood sugar. Too full and lying face-down is uncomfortable. Best to wait thirty minutes to an hour after eating.
Fourth, don't rush into air conditioning afterward. This is the most common mistake. Your pores are wide open. The moment you walk into an AC room, cold rushes in — worse than not sunning at all. My mom always made me sit in the shade for ten minutes first, until the sweat subsided.
Fifth, drink warm water. Not ice water! Warm water. My mom's recipe: three slices of fresh ginger, five red dates, boiled for ten minutes. Drink a cup after sunning. Warm from the inside out.
This year's Three Fu days are almost here. I've already got my mat ready.
After a full summer of sunning last year, my hands and feet were noticeably less cold this past winter. I used to need two pairs of socks. This year, one was enough. My chronic sinus issues barely flared up. I can't say it was all because of sunning my back — but it's the one thing I stuck with that gave me clear positive feedback.
Honestly, the biggest problem for modern people isn't a lack of medicine. It's that we've become completely disconnected from nature.
We live in a world of constant temperature control — AC, heating, underfloor warming, smart thermostats. Our bodies can no longer tell the difference between summer and winter. We don't sweat in summer, we don't feel the cold in winter. It seems comfortable, but the body's natural rhythm is completely disrupted.
Chinese medicine talks about "harmony between heaven and human." It means you need to follow the rhythm of the seasons. Summer is supposed to be hot. You're supposed to sweat. Your pores are supposed to open. Winter is supposed to be cold. You're supposed to contract, conserve, store energy. When you constantly break these rules, the body eventually presents the bill.
Sunning your back, at its core, is about rebuilding my relationship with the sun. As a kid, I didn't understand. I thought my mom was backwards. Now I realize — she understood more than I did.
Or more precisely — she hadn't forgotten what I had.
I saw that TikTok video again the other day. By now, the comments section has people teaching each other the proper technique. One person wrote that they learned it from a Chinese medicine doctor, sunned their back for two consecutive summers, and their chronic eczema cleared up.
Someone replied: "Isn't this just sunbathing? What's the big deal?"
It's not the same.
Sunbathing is for a tan. It's about appearance. You sun your front. Sunning your back is about health. One is for how others see you. The other is for how you feel inside.
Of course, you don't need to overthink it. When the Three Fu days arrive, find a patch of sun. Lie down. Close your eyes. Feel the heat sink into your back, slowly, bit by bit.
It's that simple.
The sun is nice today. After I finish writing this, I'm going out to the balcony to lie down for a while.
If you've been sitting in an air-conditioned room for too long, maybe give it a try. No ritual needed. No preparation. Just go outside and let the sun warm your back.
Your body will tell you.
A few questions to sit with:
1. When was the last time you broke a sweat under the sun? 2. At what point did your body start telling you "something isn't right"? 3. If there were a wellness practice that cost nothing, required no effort, and took only fifteen minutes — would you try it once?
