Attuning to the Seasons with Traditional Chinese Medicine
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is a healing modality that includes acupuncture, herbal medicine, manual therapies like cupping and tui na, qi gong, as well as lifestyle and nutritional attunement. It finds its origins thousands of years ago during a time in China, when people were mostly agrarian. Living close to the land, the ancient Chinese understood the human body to be part of nature and thus possessing the same elements and patterns as the land, plants, animals, and seasons that shaped their daily life. To understand their bodies and relative health they studied nature and learned what brought wellness and illness, balance, and imbalance. As a land-based medicine, the systems and language that make up Chinese medical theory and its approach to treatment relate to the land and seasonality. Often poetic, the ideas used to describe the body would have been relevant and accessible to farmers. For example, qi and blood flow through channels like water does for irrigation, animating organs just as a farmer might bring a rice patty to life with the right amount of water at the right time of year.
The following are some of the frameworks and systems that exemplify this relationship of the body to the land and help guide us as we work with the seasons to find better health.
Qi and blood
Qi is the animating force that inhabits all things, it flows through our bodies to bring life and movement to our organs and limbs; it is also the wind blowing through the trees. The Chinese character for qi is steam rising from rice. This indicates both its material and immaterial nature. Blood, as we understand it in both Chinese and Western medicine, carries nutrients and oxygen to our tissues and organs and thus is associated with nourishment. In TCM It is denser than qi but inextricably linked to it - without qi, blood would be inanimate.
Yin/Yang
At the base of Chinese medicine, there is the concept of Yin and Yang. These two balancing elements exist in all things, and their balance or lack of balance affects the health of our bodies as well as the ecosystems in which we live. Yin includes darkness, rest, wetness, blood, cold, night, and stillness. Light, movement, heat, daytime, action, and qi are all yang. Many of us are familiar with the yin/yang symbol and may note that on the white or yang side, there is a small dot of black. On the dark/yin side, a dot of white. This is a way of visually representing the concept that there is always a little bit of yang within yin and a little bit of yin within yang.
Using the seasons to illustrate this, we see that during winter (an innately yin time of year), the plants and trees are asleep, they have lost their leaves and sent their energy down into their roots, there is more precipitation in most places in the northern hemisphere, the days are shorter and darker, and we may feel slower, more introspective, and do less. But within all this yin, there is the potential for spring or yang - the seeds lie waiting, full of all the inherent energy they need to sprout when things warm up. Winter is also a time that we tend yang in our lives - the fires in our hearths or heaters, the warming soups on our stoves, the winter holidays of connection, all this yang being cultivated yet dormant, waiting for the season to shift. Without that dormant yang, there would be no spring or summer. In summer, (the yang time of year) there is always a little yin, the summer rains that we hope for, giving a boost to the aquifers and cooling down the rivers for the salmon, naps in the hammock on warm sunny days, cooling drinks and hydrating watermelon. We eat well in the summertime and fill our larders, building up our blood and qi, in preparation for leaner times. This yang energy prepares us for the inevitable shift into yin. I’m sure we have all experienced what happens when these elements are out of balance both environmentally and physically - a summer with no rain, a winter with no potlucks, these imbalances have consequences.
5 Elements
Like many traditional cultures, TCM divides aspects of the natural world into elements, each correlating with different qualities, seasons, organs, body tissues, and acupuncture channels. The elements include: wood, fire, metal, water, and earth.
Wood embodies the expanding, changeable, and flexible aspects of spring, it is newness and birth, and involves the tendons, liver, and gallbladder. Fire is growth, action, and heat; it is exemplified by those midsummer days when all the world is bloomed out and setting fruit. It correlates with the blood vessels, the heart, and the small intestine. Metal represents the contraction of fall; it is malleable, yet hard, and involves the closing up of the summer and the distillation of resources before winter. Water is the most yin and encompasses the downward movement of winter, our kidney and bladder, organs, and bones; it is moistening and cooling and involves deep nourishment and stillness. Earth is the source of all nourishment; like a fertile, freshly tilled garden bed, it is moist and full of all the nutrients needed to create food. It is related to the transition between each season.
Each element and thus season and organ are associated with a different emotion, and by balancing these elements, one can bring balance to one’s emotional health. Wood is associated with anger and frustration, fire with joy and mania, earth with worry and anxiety, metal with sadness and grief and water with fear. We might notice that specific emotions surface during their associated season, and so we can use the seasons to work through psycho-emotional states cyclically. Fall can be a time to process grief and loss, spring a time to get in touch with our anger, and so on.
Working with Seasonal Qi
What does this look like in practice? How can we align our bodies with the seasons to optimize our health? The answer to this involves an acknowledgement of the current systems that most of us live in that have become a bit removed from the cycles of nature.
Many of us are expected to perform at full “yang” capacity, year-round, and regardless of the season. Our culture expects us to look just as trim and fit as we did in the summer and many grocery stores carry tomatoes and bananas in the winter, making it possible to maintain a summertime diet long after the growing season has come to an end in the northern hemisphere. I believe that all efforts towards health are most successful when attempted with adaptability and personalization. The key is using nature and our bodies as the guide. How are we feeling the shift of the season in our bodies? Where in our life can we match and accommodate these shifts? Finding accessible ways to align our bodies qi, with that of the season, will help us better manage chronic illness, prevent seasonal colds and flus as well as support our mental health and promote resilience.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, we are experiencing the full swing into spring. The cottonwoods and maples are budding out and filling the air with sweet aromas, days are getting longer and warmer, and knowing what to wear has become a constant gamble. Frosts, sunshine, and hailstorms may playfully inhabit a single day. This is wood energy - birth, changeability, and emergent yang qi are shaping the natural world.
There is nothing like the euphoria of a beautiful sunny day after the deep yin of winter, and I can feel my body responding. I have a little more energy - finding myself puttering around in the garden late into the day, feeling the hunger for long bike rides, and being outside. I can also feel the precarity of my immune system as the rapid temperature shifts and seasonal allergens bombard my system. Right now, supporting our liver and wood energy is important as our qi starts to move again after the long winter. Tonifying our lungs will support our immune systems as plants awaken and more allergens take up air space. Tonifying yang and gently engaging in more movement and activity will set us up for a successful summer. We can support our bodies in many ways, but here I will break it down into three…
Diet
Luckily the foods that are most supportive for our bodies are usually available during the season when we need them most. During the spring, eating bitter greens like dandelion, arugula, mustard, and kale is supportive for our liver, helping it to produce more bile and wake up our digestive systems. Chives and radishes can support our yang and lung qi as well as garlic and scallions which also boost our immune systems. As spring qi begins to flow, drinking teas that gently encourage the movement of our qi in our bodies -- like rose, tangerine peel and chrysanthemum -- will help prevent stagnation that can cause pain and stiffness as well as frustration and irritability. It is also helpful to drink less alcohol during this time, as the liver is a little more vulnerable.
Lifestyle
As yang qi is starting to flow, we may start to feel the capacity and interest in more movement, however, it is important to ease back into exercise routines, so as not to deplete ourselves before summer. Short bike rides, walks, hikes, or other forms of light movement in the fresh spring air will help wake up our tendons and muscles. While out and about, it is important to continue to protect ourselves from the cool wind that may still be present, so wearing adequate clothing is paramount. Wearing a scarf is a quintessential TCM preventative measure, as it is believed that when our neck is exposed to cold wind, we may be more vulnerable to seasonal colds.
Acupuncture and Herbs
Working with an acupuncturist can be another way to aid our bodies as they adjust to the changing seasons, especially if seasonal allergies, immune system vulnerability, or aches and pains crop up for us this time of year. Like the diet and lifestyle adjustments mentioned above, treatments are geared toward supporting the liver, lungs, and immune system and moving any blockages that may have stagnated during the winter. Chinese herbal formulas that align qi movement with the qi of the season and tonify any deficiencies, can further support this transition time. Medical qi gong, a movement-based meditation practice, can tonify specific organs and gently wake up our bodies for the activities of the coming seasons.
In nature, balance is always struck by a symphony of factors coming together at the right time and pace. So too in our bodies do we find balance through a combination of factors - a healthcare team, lifestyle and nutritional attunement, and connection with loved ones all support us to live optimally. Aligning ourselves and our healthcare with the seasons acknowledges the fact that we are part of the natural world, and our bodies live in conversation with it.
Dr. Elspeth Tozier is a visiting practitioner with Northwest Life Medicine Clinic with appointments available to schedule online here.