There is provided a wireless communication apparatus and wireless communication method, which can perform information transfer, while suppressing interference to other terminal stations, and preventing a reduction of a transmission opportunity of other terminal stations. By causing the transmission power to be reduced, at the time when a traffic amount to be transmitted and received by itself increases, a terminal station which performs wireless access based on CSMA on a mesh network can suppress interference to other surrounding terminal stations, and can prevent a reduction of a transmission opportunity of other terminal stations. By measuring the number of and sizes of packets to be transmitted and received, it is possible for a terminal station to comprehend the traffic amount to be transmitted and received by itself, and perform a control of the transmission power by this.