Household

9 Simple (and Free) Ways to Celebrate the First Day of Fall

The first day of fall, or the autumnal equinox, is September 23 in the Northern Hemisphere. On this day, the sun hovers above the equator, and most of the world enjoys nearly equal amounts of light and darkness.

In traditional agricultural societies, the harvest season was drawing to a close, and people were working overtime to prepare stores for the winter months. The equinox was a time to relax, celebrate, and enjoy the bounty of the harvest, while people anticipated more scarcity or monotony in their winter diet. In modern times, autumn is a time for new beginnings – a new school year, new clothes, new friends, or a new outlook.

Cultures around the world celebrate the first day of fall.

Asian Moon Festivals

Asians have been celebrating the equinox with Moon Festivals, or Mid-Autumn Festivals, for 3000 years. In China, families and friends gather to admire the mid-autumn harvest moon, light lanterns, burn incense, and plant trees. They prepare mooncakes – noodle-like dough filled with bean or lotus seed paste and duck egg yolks or other fillings, which are steamed, baked, or fried.

Japanese Autumnal Equinox Day

In Japan, the fall equinox is a national holiday. The seven days starting three days before the equinox until three days after is called Higan. During Higan, families hold reunions and visit graves, offering flowers, cleaning tombstones, burning incense, and praying. Ohagi, sticky rice covered with adzuki-bean paste or soybean flour, is a popular offering to the deceased.

Jewish New Year – Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah is a two-day holiday that falls on the first and second day of the month of Tishri on the Jewish calendar – usually between September 5 and October 5 on our calendar. Rosh Hashanah is the “day of judgment” in the Torah. Observers abstain from work and spend the day in the synagogue. A shofar (ram’s horn) is blown many times to awaken listeners to the coming judgment. People reflect on mistakes made in the last year and plan changes for the new year. Many observers also practice Tashlikh, or “casting off” on the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashanah. They fill their pockets with pieces of bread, walk to a natural body of water, and empty the bread into the water, symbolically casting off the previous year’s sins. Apples or bread dipped in honey is common Rosh Hashanah fare.

Native American Harvest Ceremonies

Many tribes once celebrated the end of the harvest with equinox ceremonies. The Cherokee gave thanks to all living things at a Nuwati Egwa festival and the Chumash of southern California held a sun ceremony at the end of September. The Miwok of Northern California still celebrate the acorn harvest with a Big Time Festival on the last weekend of September. Traditionally, the Miwok relied on the acorn for food. In the fall, they harvested the fruits, cracked them, ground the meat into meal, rinsed the meal to remove its bitter tannins, and made acorn mush, bread, or soap. At modern Big Time festivals, Miwok and other California tribes perform traditional dances, play hand games, and tell stories.

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Create some autumn traditions

Seasonal celebrations can be fun and simple. Why not pick some activities you enjoy to celebrate the first day of fall? Here are a few ideas:

Make a seasonal display

Include leaves, ornamental corn, gourds, jack-o-lanterns, acorns, pine cones, or whatever symbolizes fall in your family.

Read books about fall

Gather books about the season at the library. Fall picture-books include: Leaves by David Ezra Stein; Fall Leaves Fall by Zoe Hall; Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson; Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White; Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert; Fall is Not Easy by Marty Kelly; and It’s Fall! by Linda Glaser. The Autumn Equinox by Ellen Jackson is a fun book to read aloud this time of year. Adults can celebrate fall’s cooler weather by grabbing an anticipated fall release.

Make Chinese lanterns

Hang them in the house or on the porch. Click here for a how-to.

Visit a local orchard

Pick apples, and make apple cider, sauce, or pie.

Prepare a harvest feast

Invite friends over and make foods from your garden or the farmer’s market. Traditional autumn foods include: pears, squash, pumpkin, apples, stews, and mulled ciders. Pumpkin bread is a delicious fall treat, and if you use this real-food recipe, it’s healthy too.

Tell stories

Bring a pile of blankets out to the porch, yard, or park and share stories about your best or worst back-to-school memories.

Go on a nature hike

What better way to enjoy the crisp air and colorful leaves?

Talk about balance

Day and night are equal, so it’s the perfect time to talk, as a family, about the importance of balance and how to create more of it in our lives.

Star gaze

After the sun sets, grab a pair of binoculars, cuddle under blankets, and look for constellations. Taurus, Cassiopeia, Pegasus, and Ursa Minor reappear in the night sky around the equinox.

No matter how you celebrate, I hope you a have a happy first day of fall.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related posts:

(Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a post originally published September 15, 2010)

Are you planning to celebrate the first day of fall this year? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

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20 Ways to Slow Down Your Summer

By Abby Quillen

It’s summer time and the living’s easy.

Or is it?

For many people, summer looks just like the rest of the year. Same schedule. Same commute. Same cubicle. Even for entrepreneurs, summer can bring the same deadlines and to-do lists as any other season.

Remember those impossibly long summers as a child, when making mud pies, reading novels, and riding bikes up and down the street filled every afternoon? Even with a job and mortgage, you can bring a little slow living back into your life. Here’s your ultimate lazy summer living checklist.

Exit the Fast Lane

Pencil in down time this summer for these leisurely activities:

1. Walk barefoot

Wake your feet up this summer by stripping off your shoes and socks and walking barefoot as much as possible. Walking barefoot not only feels great; it improves your balance and posture and may prevent shin splints, plantar fasciitis, stress fractures, and other injuries. Each of your feet contains 20,000 nerve endings, and grass, sand, stones, and water are all sensory delights for your feet. (Learn more about the benefits of going barefoot and discover how to turn your yard into a barefoot garden here.)

2. Go on a picnic

Parenting pro tip: “Let’s go on a picnic!” is sure to garner more excitement from toddlers and preschoolers than “Let’s go for a walk!” That’s how I ended up turning nearly every lunch into a picnic for several years in my quest to get my boys to walk with me. Grab a blanket, pack some sandwiches or Mason-jar meals, and head to a scenic spot or nearby park. Pinterest-worthy picnic food not required.

3. Take a nap

How can you enjoy cool early summer mornings and late evenings, skip the sweltering afternoon heat, and get enough sleep in the process? Meet the summer nap a.k.a siesta. Aim to enjoy at least a few of these summer delights, especially on days you know you’ll be staying up later than usual. A nap can interfere with nighttime sleep if you take it too late in the day. But it can also boost alertness and improve work performance. I say, indulge every once in a while!

4. Sleep with the windows open

If you live in a safe, quiet neighborhood, nothing beats sleeping with a soft breeze and the sound of crickets outside. And as a bonus, you may sleep better.

5. Watch a meteor shower

Mark your calendars, the Perseid meteor shower peaks from August 11 to August 13. Depending on where you live and how dark it is, you’ll see a falling star every minute. Don’t forget to make some wishes!

6. Go camping

Spending time away from man-made lights resets the body’s circadian rhythm and improves quality of sleep, according to recent research. That may partly explain why camping can feel so restorative. Find a beautiful spot and leave the demands of your busy life for a few days.

7. Read a summer novel

If your nightstand’s stacked with business or personal development tomes, put them aside for a few weeks and indulge in some fun summer reading. Yes, reading can be an avenue to learning and growth. And it can also help you bring magic, imagination, and leisure back into your life. Looking for some indulgent summer reads? Check out this list.

8. Play a yard game

Nothing says summer like a rousing game of horseshoes, croquet, bocce ball, ladder toss, cornhole, badminton, or lawn bowling. Frisbee, softball, or kickball are also sure crowd-pleasers.

9. Make iced tea or coffee

Icy beverages are some of the true delights of the hottest months. But when you add ice to a hot beverage, you end up with a watered-down, weak drink. Up your iced tea and coffee game this summer by making cold-water extract. To make cold-water iced tea, add 3 to 4 tea bags per quart of cold water. Leave at room temperature for an hour and then refrigerate overnight. To make cold-water coffee, combine one cup of finely ground coffee beans with 4 cups of water, and refrigerate overnight. Serve over ice and enjoy.

10. Swim in a waterhole

Want to take a dip in a natural paradise? No matter where you live, chances are there’s a beautiful, secluded, natural swimming area nearby. Go to swimminghole.org to find one, and follow the common-sense precautions on the website to stay safe and healthy while you swim.

11. Play a board game

When’s the last time you wiled away an afternoon over a game of Scrabble or checkers? If you can’t remember, bring on the lemonade and board games. Our 10-year-old loves board games, so we play a lot of them. Some of our current favorites include the Ticket to Ride games, Battleship, and Clue. If you’re children fight when board games come out, try a cooperative board game, where everyone works together and everyone wins. My kids love Wildcraft: An Herbal Adventure Game, and they’ve learned a lot about plants while playing it. Go here for a list of other cooperative board games.

12. Go to a movie

Whether you’re watching a summer blockbuster or an art film, the movie theater is the perfect place to spend a sweltering summer afternoon.

13. Make a bouquet of summer flowers

Bring the color of summer indoors by gathering sunflowers, daisies, coneflowers, dahlias, zinnias, or whatever blooms are growing near you..

14. Go to a farmer’s market

Stock up on summer’s bounty and support local farmers, then whip together a fresh, flavorful (and preferably simple) summer feast.

15. Lie in a hammock

Forget your to-do list and kick back in your backyard hammock. Want to combine a nap and hammock session? Follow these tips for ultimate comfort: Make sure the hammock isn’t hung too tightly, position yourself diagonally, and arrange a pillow under your head.

16. Go out for ice cream

It’s summer. What better excuse to try one of the season’s new ice cream flavors, such as banana peanut butter chip, blackberry hibiscus, or brown butter bourbon truffle? Or go with classic vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry.

17. Eat watermelon

Watermelon is a summer superstar. It not only tastes delicious. It’s full of antioxidants and other nutrients and it’s one of the most hydrating summer fruits. Plus, you could always hold a seed-spitting competition to wile away some boredom.

18. Pick berries

Whether you find them on the side of a mountain trail or growing in your backyard, enjoy summer’s berries while you can. Come January, you’ll miss nature’s sweet treats … unless you head to a you-pick farm and pick enough to store in your freezer. Find a farm at pickyourown.org.

19. Roast marshmallows

Remember perfectly toasted, caramelized marshmallows from childhood camping trips? Me neither. Mine usually turned out to be deflated, charred, and shriveled messes. But now that we’re adults with real culinary skills, we can almost certainly do better — or at least have fun trying. Don’t forget to pack graham crackers and chocolate bars.

20. Host a barbecue

Fire up the barbecue and move the party outside. Remember, the point here is leisure. You have my permission to skip the Martha Stewart-worthy menu and table decor and aim for a relaxed grill-and-chill.

Mission: Enjoy Summer

You may never experience summer the way you did as a child. Mud pies and lemonade stands probably don’t hold the same appeal these days. But that doesn’t mean summer can’t bring a little magic. Before the season slips away, take back your time for some good old-fashioned summer leisure.

[Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a post originally published on July 30, 2018]

12 Simple (and Free) Ways to Celebrate the First Day of Summer

By Abby Quillen

Summer solstice, or Midsummer’s Day, is June 21. It’s the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere when we enjoy the most sunlight and the shortest night.

The sun rises to its maximum height, bathing the Arctic Circle – including parts of Sweden, Finland, Norway, and all of Iceland – in twenty-four hours of daylight. Ancient monuments – including Stonehenge, England; Callanish, Scotland; Macchu Picchu, Peru; Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico; and Monk’s Mound in southern Illinois – align with the sun. And people around the world celebrate.

How did people historically celebrate the solstice?

Bonfires. In several countries, including Germany, bonfires were offered to the sun to promote fertility and bring bountiful harvests. Men would leap the flames and run across the embers when the fire died down.

Staying awake. People in Japan, Britain, and Norway stayed awake until midnight or throughout the shortest night of the year to welcome the longest day at dawn. According to a British folk tale, spirits of those who would die the next year roamed on this night. Thus, people stayed awake to keep their spirits from wandering.

Sun Dances. The Native American plains tribes, including the Arapahoe, Sioux, Ute, and Blackfoot tribes, threw elaborate religious ceremonies around the time of the solstice. The celebrations lasted from four to eight days. Many honored the buffalo and included singing, drumming, and dancing, and often fasting, prayer, visions, and acts of self-torture.

Gathering plants. In Denmark, women gathered herbs on the solstice, including St. John’s Wort, which got its name because it flowers around the time of St. John’s Day (June 24). If St. John’s Wort was picked and dried at Midsummer, it was said to chase away the winter blues when ingested later in the year.

St. John’s Eve festivals. Many countries, including Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Norway, Finland, and Sweden have traditionally celebrated Midsummer two days after the solstice on St. John’s Eve. Near Helsinki, Finland, modern people gather on this day to watch Finnish folk dances, listen to traditional songs, light bonfires, and participate in rowing races.

What are the benefits of celebrating the first day of each season?

Seasonal celebrations give you and your family the opportunity to:

Note the cyclical changes in the soil, sky, trees, plants, and wildlife.
Reflect on the uniqueness of each season.
Reflect on the lessons each season imparts. The bounties of summer are endless – light, warmth, and lush crops. Nature is at her peak, but the solstice also brings the returning darkness.
Read about different celebrations around the world.
Celebrate! Seasonal celebrations are affordable, nature-based, and as easy or elaborate as you want them to be.

Create some summer traditions this year!

The first day of summer is a great time to start some new family traditions. Pick activities that you’ll want to do year after year, and ones that will make the day relaxing and special for you and your family. Here are a few ideas:

1. Establish a table-top, shelf, or mantel to display seasonal items. On the first day of summer, replace the spring decorations with seashells, sand dollars, flowers, a baseball, photographs from summer trips, or whatever symbolizes summer in your family.

2. Collect books about the seasons. Choose a special basket or shelf for them, and change them out on the first day of each season. Some classic picture books about summer include:

- Mama, Is It Summer Yet? by Nikki McClure
- Boris Goes Camping by Carrie Weston
- The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant
- Before the Storm by Jan Yolen
- Summertime Waltz by Nina Payne
- Canoe Days by Gary Paulsen
- Sun Dance Water Dance by Jonathan London
- Summer is Summer by Phillis and David Gershator
- Under Alaska’s Midnight Sun by Deb Venasse.

Adults, check out this list for some of the season’s most anticipated summer reads.

3. Place a bouquet of roses, lilies, or daisies in your family members’ bedrooms while they sleep, so they wake up to fresh summer flowers.

4. Find a special place outside to observe the sunrise and sunset. You can find out what time the sun will rise and set where you live here.

5. Eat breakfast outside after the sun rises.

6. Go on a nature hike. Bring along guidebooks to help you identify birds, butterflies, mushrooms, or wildflowers.

7. Gather plants. Traditionally Europeans harvested Saint John’s Wort on the first day of summer, dried it, and made it into tea on the first day of winter. The tea is a traditional remedy for seasonal depression, and it’s said to bring the summer sunshine into the dark winter days. It’s a weedy plant and you can probably find some growing in a sunny open area near you. Find out more here.

8. Visit a U-pick farm to harvest strawberries, snap peas, or whatever’s in season where you live. Find a nearby “pick your own” farm here.

9. Make a summer feast. Eat exclusively from your garden or the farmer’s market to celebrate the bounties of summer in your area.

10. Host a “locavore” potluck.

11. Turn off all the indoor lights, light candles, and eat dinner outside.

12. Play outside, watercolor, or decorate the sidewalks with chalk until the sun sets.

Or create your own traditions to welcome summer this June 21. Hopefully you’ll be celebrating for years to come.

If you enjoyed this post, you may enjoy these related posts:

Do you celebrate the summer solstice? I’d love to hear how your family celebrates!

[Editor’s note: This is a refreshed and revamped version of a post originally published on June 15, 2009.]

9 Simple (and Free) Ways to Celebrate the First Day of Spring

By Abby Quillen

The spring equinox is March 20 in the northern hemisphere. The sun shines directly on the equator, and day and night are nearly equal. For centuries, people have marked the occasion with celebrations.

How Did Ancient People Celebrate?

Fires

In Iran, people purified their homes and leapt over fires.

Gathering at Monuments

The Mayans gathered around El Castillo, a ceremonial pyramid. On the day of the equinox, the sun runs down the northern staircase, giving the illusion of a snake descending. Because of this, their celebration has been called “The Return of the Sun Serpent” since ancient times.

Honoring Ancestors

The Japanese spent the day cleaning and bringing flowers to their ancestors’ graves.

Celebrating Mothers

In parts of the Middle East and Africa, people celebrate Mother’s Day on the spring equinox.

Benefits of Modern Seasonal Celebrations

The first day of each season is a great opportunity to pause and connect with nature. Seasonal celebrations are affordable, nature-based, and as easy or elaborate as you want them to be.

It’s nice to take a time-out from the clock’s relentless march forward occasionally to appreciate what’s happening in the natural world: What the sky looks like, what local wildlife are up to, which birds are hanging out at the neighborhood pond, and whether the leaves are budding, falling, or mulching the gardens.

Seasonal celebrations are also a good time to reflect on the lessons the season imparts. Fall teaches us about the inevitability of loss. Winter shows us the importance of dormancy, darkness, and stillness. Spring shows the possibility of rebirth. And the bounties of summer are endless – light, warmth, and lush crops.

Create some spring traditions this year!

What better time than spring to start some new family traditions? Pick activities that you’ll want to do year after year and ones that will make the day relaxing and special for you and your family, but not overwhelming. Here are 9 ways to celebrate:

Decorate

Collect spring flowers, cherry buds, egg shells, a bird’s nest, or whatever symbolizes springtime in your family and display them on a mantle or tabletop. Place bouquets of crocuses, daffodils, tulips, or dandelions around the house. Or surprise your family members by placing bouquets in their bedrooms while they sleep, so they wake up to fresh flowers on the first day of spring.

Observe

The days are getting longer. Go outside on the first day of spring to watch the sun rise and set. Find out what time the sun will rise and set where you live here.

Explore

Go on a walk or hike and identify wildflowers if some are already sprouting in your area. Or visit a local farm and see if you can get a glimpse of calves, lambs, or chicks in the barnyard. What better symbol of spring?

Feast

Make a spring meal with the first crops of the season. Dandelion leaves, steamed nettles, asparagus, new potatoes, dill, mint, and chives may be springing up where you live. Make your dinner more special than usual by adding something new. Eat by candlelight. Eat outside if weather permits. Or have a picnic on a blanket in the living room.

Make

Twist dandelions or clovers into chains, and wear them as spring crowns.

Plan

Gardening season is here! Spend some time planning your springtime garden.

Sow seeds

Have each family member pick a favorite flower or plant to sow in honor of the first day of spring. Designate a special garden, and make a ceremony of it.

Read

These spring picture books are great for little ones:

The Gardener by Sarah Stewart
Grandma Lena’s Big Ol Turnip by Denia Hester
Marty McGuire Digs Worms by Kate Messner
Wanda’s Roses by Pat Brisson
And Then It’s Spring by Julie Fogliano

The Spring Equinox: Celebrating the Greening of the Earth by Ellen Jackson is fun to read aloud as a family on the first day of spring.

And cold days aren’t over yet, so adults may also want to stock up on the season’s most anticipated reads.

Craft

Decorate hard-boiled eggs with natural dyes. Try beets, cranberries, blackberries, or raspberries for red; yellow-onion skins or turmeric for yellow; parsley, spinach, or red-onion skins for green; blueberries for blue; and coffee, pecan hulls, or black-walnut hulls for brown. Or experiment by trying whatever’s coming up in your backyard.

To make a natural dye, combine:

4 cups of chopped or mashed fruits or vegetables or 4 tablespoons of spice
4 cups of water
2 tablespoons of white vinegar.

Bring to a boil, then let simmer for 30 minutes.

If these ideas don’t resonate, create your own traditions to welcome spring this March 20! I hope you’ll celebrate for years to come.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related posts:

[Photo credit: Jeff Kubina, Marco Verch]

Simple (and Free) Ways to Celebrate the First Day of Winter

By Abby Quillen

December 21 is the first day of winter and the shortest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere. Parts of Canada, Alaska, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Greenland, and the northern tip of Iceland will experience 24 hours of total darkness.

Winter could be a long, dark, and difficult time for many of our forebears. The solstice provided an opportunity to celebrate the return of more daylight.

How did ancient people celebrate?

Gift-giving

The ancient Romans exchanged candles and other gifts during Saturnalia, their week-long solstice celebration.

Role-switching

In Persia, the king changed places with one of his subjects on the winter solstice, and the subject was crowned during an elaborate street party.

In Rome, masters and servants switched roles; senators wore simple, rather than elaborate togas; men sometimes dressed as women; fights and grudges were forgotten; and other everyday conventions were put aside.

Candle-lighting

In England and Scandinavia, people lit a Yule log, or oak branch, which was often replaced by a large candle that burned throughout the day.

Bonfires

Japanese Shinto farmers lit fires on the mountainsides to welcome back the sun.

Mistletoe and Evergreen Trees

The British Celts put mistletoe on their altars. And the Germans and Romans decorated their houses with evergreen trees, wreaths, and garlands as a symbol of life and renewed fertility.

Sun Festivals

The Hopi celebrated the return of the sun with ceremonies. Priests dressed in animal skins with feathers in their headdresses to look like the rays of the sun.

Why celebrate the first day of winter?

The holiday season is busy enough for most of us. Why add anything else to the to-do list?

Celebrating the first day of each season offers the perfect opportunity to:

Note the cyclical changes in the soil, sky, trees, plants, and wildlife.
Reflect on the lessons each time of year imparts. Winter reminds us of the importance of quiet, rest, and dormancy.
Learn about different celebrations around the world.
Celebrate! Seasonal celebrations are affordable, nature-based, and as easy or elaborate as you want them to be.
Be grateful for the gifts of food, family, and friendship.

The key to celebrating the first day of winter, when most of us are busy planning other celebrations, is to keep it simple, and choose traditions that give you time to relax and reflect.

Simple (and free) ways to celebrate winter

Observe

Watch the sunrise and sunset. You probably won’t even have to set an alarm. At our house, it will rise at 7:44 and set at 4:37 on Tuesday. (The good news is longer, brighter days are coming.) You can find out what time the sun will rise and set where you live here.

Wander

Take a hike, go cross-country skiing, or go for a walk and look for signs of the season. Listen to winter’s music. Compare winter’s textures: dry bark, soggy leaves, and spongy moss. Notice winter’s distinctive scents.

Give

Find gifts for each other from nature. Exchange small handmade gifts. Make maple caramel corn for friends or neighbors. The key is to keep it simple.

Feast

Serve up your favorite winter crops: beets, winter squash, potatoes, onions, kale, cabbage, or parsnips. We’re fans of stuffed squash and homemade sauerkraut this time of the year. Lighting candles can turn an ordinary meal into a celebration.

Reflect

Spend some time relaxing together in front of the fire. Share one thing you’ve lost and one thing you’ve gained over the past year. Tell stories about your best and worst holiday memories. Make wishes for the coming year. Reflect on the lessons of winter: the importance of rest, dormancy, and stillness.

The key to seasonal celebrations is to make them simple and relaxing. The last thing most of us need is another stressful winter tradition.

What’s your favorite thing about winter? Leave me a comment. I’d love to hear about it!

(Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a post originally published December 14, 2009)

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related posts:

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How to Thrive During the Winter

By Abby Quillen

Chances are, winter’s not your favorite season. Only 11 percent of people prefer winter over other seasons. More than a third (36 percent) of people prefer spring, 27 percent prefer fall, and 25 percent are keen on summer. Today, we’re mostly protected from winter’s harsh elements, and our lives may not look much different in winter than in spring or summer. But the cold, dark, short days are still challenging.

Our distant ancestors’ lives were far more dependent on natural elements. And amazingly, they survived (even thrived) during long, cold winters without modern amenities. Read on to discover three lessons we may want to heed from past generations about thriving during the coldest season.

Pay Attention to Natural Rhythms

The bears, bees, and bats are slumbering. Many plants are dormant. What about us? Humans don’t hibernate, but should we be catching more Zs in the winter? When the sun rises at 7:30 a.m and sets at 4:30 p.m., the nights are long and cold. If I didn’t have Netflix not to mention indoor heat or electric lights, I’m sure I would turn in much earlier.

Up to 25 percent of people today experience some form of Seasonal Affective Disorder, depression that occurs during one season, typically winter. Moreover, winter is peak season for colds, flu, stomach viruses, ear infections, and cardiovascular disease. Could these maladies be due in part to us ignoring nature’s call to rest during the winter?

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), a 2,000-year old healthcare system, seeks to harmonize the nature inside of us with the external natural world. Practitioners advocate people adjust their sleep patterns to reflect the seasons and advise going to bed early and rising late with the sun during the winter.

A study of 12 Equatorial tribes suggests humans who live closer to nature sleep longer during the winter even near the equator. On average, people in the study slept about an hour more per night during the winter. In some tribes, people slept up to two hours more per night during the winter.

I’ve never heard a Western medical doctor advise people to sleep more in the winter, but that may change because our scientific understanding of the human circadian rhythm is still in its infancy. The three scientists who won the Nobel Prize in 2017 study circadian rhythms (how plants, animals, and humans sync with the movement of the earth.)

Increasingly, health experts understand that staying up late or doing shift work may be harmful to health and contribute to the development of illness. In one study, people who slept fewer than seven hours a night were three times more likely to catch a cold than those who got eight or more hours.

This winter, try to stay in sync with nature’s day-night rhythm and see if you feel better rested. Here’s how:

Go outside early in the day after the sun rises
If you work indoors, sit next to a window and go outside during breaks
Dim indoor lights when it gets dark outdoors
Install a blue light filter on laptops, tablets, and phones
Go to bed eight or more hours before you need to wake up
Sleep in a dark room

Eat for the Season

Nutritionists are beginning to catch on to something traditional cultures understood well. The foods in season where you live are the perfect foods to help you adapt to the season. During the winter, seasonal foods help your body adjust to colder, darker, and drier conditions.

Winter squash and root vegetables are loaded with vitamin A, an essential nutrient for the immune system. Fish, a widely available food in northern regions, is loaded with omega 3s, which help to prevent seasonal depression. Mushrooms, which are available in fall and winter, are some of the only foods that contain vitamin D (as well as many other immune boosting properties).

Trust nature’s wisdom and make a variety of seasonal foods your winter staples.

Winter foods include:

Pumpkins
Squash
Sweet potatoes
Carrots
Kale
Spinach
Squash seeds
Persimmons
Pomegranates
Apples
Mushrooms
Beans
Whole grains
Seaweed
Garlic, onions, and leeks
Fish
Meat
Wild game

If you crave warm foods in winter, there may be a reason for that too. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, warm, cooked foods are easier to digest and obtain energy from. Bring on the soup and stew!

Look for Opportunities

Imagine winter in northern Michigan and Alaska before indoor heat, automobiles, and imported foods. The words bleak, foreboding, and dangerous may come to my mind. That’s why I was surprised to learn that northern Natives may have looked forward to winter.

“Northern peoples have always found an ally in winter,” Steven Gorman, author of the book, “Winter Camping,” told the Northern Express.“The season makes their lives easier, not harder.”

Why? Because dense vegetation makes traveling, hunting, and fishing difficult during spring, summer, and fall. But packed snow during the winter makes overland travel faster and hunting and fishing easier.

European observers were in awe of the northern tribes’ winter hunting. The Chippewa of Northern Michigan trapped animals and traveled to trading forts. Alaska natives crossed the tundra grasslands on dogsleds.

I don’t hunt or fish. But winter brings unique opportunities to my life and probably to yours as well. You may be inspired to take advantage of winter by embarking on any of these wintertime activities:

Bird watching
Whale watching
Hiking
Ice skating
Sledding
Skiing
Snowshoeing
Snowboarding
Sitting next to the fire
Reading novels
Playing cards
Making bread
Making soup, casseroles, and stews

Conclusion

I’m grateful to live in a warm house when the temperatures dip below freezing, but we may have much to learn from our ancestors who thrived during winter without modern amenities.

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(Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article first published December 19, 2017.)

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