You get into bed, and before long your feet are hunting for the cool side of the sheets. One foot ends up outside the covers, then the other. Your palms feel warm and a little dry, even when the room isn't. It sounds like a small thing, but it's hard to fall asleep with, and it can feel a bit silly to bring up. You're not imagining it, and you're not the only one.
You don't have to fix it tonight. One small change, a few numbers in a notebook each evening, and in two weeks you'll be looking at your own notes instead of guessing. This page shows you how.
Chinese medicine talks about two sides of the body. Yang is its warmth. Yin is its cooling, moistening side. When yin runs a little low, you tend to run dry and a little warm.
It also sorts people into nine body types, based on what their body is like day to day. In one of them, yin deficiency, hot palms and soles are one of the main features, written in right next to a dry mouth and throat.
Look closely at what it says, though. It's the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet, not the whole hand or foot. And it doesn't say what time of day.
The three questions China's national standard uses to score this type don't ask about palms and soles at all. They ask whether you feel heat in your body or face, whether your skin or lips are dry, and whether the skin over your cheekbones is flushed. One feature on its own doesn't tell you your type. That's why the assessment asks 26 questions and not one.
The name is an old traditional label, so don't let it put you off.
Your palms and soles feel hot. Your eyes feel dry, your mouth and throat get dry, and your nose can feel a little dry too. You'd rather have something cold to drink, and your stools tend to be dry. You're often on the slim side. You tend to be lively and outgoing, always on the go, and quick to get impatient. Winter suits you; summer is hard, and heat and dry air are the ones that get to you. More about yin deficiency
Pick one of these. Just one. If you change five things at once and sleep cooler, you won't know which one did it, and if nothing changes you won't know what to drop.
How to choose: if you're not sure, start with going to bed earlier. It's the one this type's own page starts with, and you'll know by morning whether you did it. Otherwise take the one that feels easiest. Something you'll actually do beats something better that you'll skip.
Keep a notebook and pen by the bed. It takes about half a minute each evening.
For the first three days, change nothing. Just score these three, each from 1 to 5. Those days are what you'll compare against.
Then start your one thing, and each evening add one more line: Did I do my one thing today? Yes or no. Don't judge by one night. A hot spell makes everyone's feet warmer, so if the weather turns, keep that in mind when you look back. Keep going for two weeks, then look back.
Your numbers look better than in those first three days. Keep it. Then add a second thing from the list. If you started with bedtime, the food is a good next one.
No difference at all. That's an answer too, not a failure. That one just isn't yours. Swap it for another one from the list and give that two weeks.
You kept skipping it. Make it smaller, or easier to remember. If bedtime kept slipping, set an alarm for when to start getting ready for bed, and put your phone away when it goes off.
Your palms and soles are still warm, but your mouth is less dry in the morning. Count that. It's a real change, not a consolation prize.
If you live with a long-term condition such as high blood pressure, diabetes or kidney disease, or you're in the middle of any illness, check with your own doctor before changing your routine.
Things are getting worse, or something new has turned up. Stop experimenting on your own and see a doctor (more on that below).
That's what the assessment is for. It asks 26 questions, including the one about heat in your body or face, takes about three minutes, scores all nine types, and tells you which one stands out, or that none does.
Take the 26-question assessment
Home experiments are for the everyday kind of warmth. If your feet or hands burn, tingle or go numb, see a doctor, especially if you have diabetes. Tingling or burning that starts in the toes and feet can be an early sign of nerve damage, and it's worth catching early.
If you feel too hot much more than the people around you and can't say why, mention it to your doctor too. A blood test can check your thyroid. And a dry mouth that comes with unusual thirst, needing to pee a lot, or losing weight without trying can be a sign of high blood sugar and is worth checking soon.
The nine body types come from Wang Qi, a professor at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. He and his colleagues first sorted people into seven types in the late 1970s, kept refining the idea for more than twenty years, and published the nine-type system in 2005.
It didn't stay an idea on paper. China brought body-type checks into its basic public health service, which offers residents aged 65 and over a check once a year, along with everyday advice for their type. In community clinics the check has been used more than 570 million times, and it's offered in the preventive care departments of over 1,700 Chinese medicine hospitals.
As it spread, clinics weren't all doing it the same way, and the quality varied. So China made it a national standard, giving every clinic one agreed method to follow. It was drawn up by a team of 37 from 20 hospitals, universities and other institutions, with Wang Qi first among them, and came into force in April 2026. The assessment on this site uses that standard's questions and scoring lines, translated into English. The everyday advice for each type comes from a care guideline for adults built on the same nine types.
It's a way of understanding your body's everyday tendencies, not a medical test, and it sits alongside your doctor, not instead of one.
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