Traditional Chinese Medicine

If you imagine stepping from a freezing December day into a sweltering July day, you can only marvel at the body’s ability to adjust to new seasons. Beneath the surface, your body works hard to transition to new seasonal conditions. More than 5,000 genes change their expression from one season to the next, according to research done at Cambridge University.

The seasonal shift from winter to spring may be especially challenging. You can support your body by gently shifting your diet, rituals, and self-care for the new season. Herbs can also be powerful allies. Keep reading to learn some simple practices to help your body transition to spring and discover four herbs that may help you stay healthy this spring.

The Season of Renewal

During the spring, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners recommend simplifying food preparation. You may not be as hungry as the weather gets warmer. Take heed of nature’s cue and eat less. Steam your vegetables, and move toward eating soups with clearer broths and vegetables.

One season may change to the next in a single day on the calendar, but that’s not how your body experiences the transition. Rise slowly from your winter rest and take measures to stay warm in early spring. Avoid doing extreme spring fasts or cleanses. Instead, replace winter food with spring foods one by one, and gradually increase your physical activity as the days lengthen.

Nature offers an amazing way to know which foods and herbs are helpful when: Eat what’s growing near you when it’s growing near you.

Spring Herbs

Traditional Chinese Medicine emphasizes keeping the liver and gallbladder healthy during the spring months to ward off seasonal allergies and digestive problems. Not coincidentally, these common spring herbs are excellent for the health of your liver and gallbladder.

Two of these herbs are wild and two are domesticated. If you’re not used to eating wild foods, it may feel strange to gather food outside. But people have eaten wild plants for thousands of years, and the human diet was once 100 percent wild. Wild foods are usually far more nutritious than cultivated ones. Just make sure you know how to identify them before picking them yourself. Find out how in this article. You can probably also find these at a health food store, farmers market, or herb supplier.

Stinging Nettle

Nettles grow all over the United States in the springtime next to rivers and streams. They’re high in protein, calcium, iron, and antioxidants. In a double-blind study, freeze-dried nettles were found to relieve seasonal allergy symptoms better than a placebo. I drink a nourishing nettle tonic a few days a week; find out how to make it here.

Dandelion

Don’t poison those sunny, yellow-headed blossoms coming up in your yard! Dandelion greens are some of the most nutritious spring foods you can eat. They’re available in the produce aisle of my local gourmet grocery store for $3.99 for a small bundle. Hopefully that makes you feel better about picking and eating them. For a complete primer on the health benefits of eating dandelion, how to pick them safely, and how to transform them into delicious dishes, check out this article.

Cilantro

You’ve likely eaten this herb in salsa or in Thai food. Some people love it; others hate it. If you love it, spring is a great time to enjoy it. It’s packed with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, and it helps your body excrete toxins, according to a number of studies.

Parsley

Like cilantro, parsley is high in a number of nutrients, especially vitamins A, C, and K, iron, and antioxidants. It’s a perfect aid for sluggish digestion. Chop it to add flavor and color to dishes or infuse it to make a refreshing spring tea.

Lighten Up

Spring is the time to lighten up your meals and increase activity after a long, slumbering winter. Remember, your body’s working hard to adjust to the new season. You may experience annoying symptoms. Headaches, hay fever symptoms, sinus congestion, red eyes, and other ailments are common as the seasons shift. Instead of cursing your body, support it by stepping up your self-care, getting plenty of rest, and eating with the seasons.

Editor’s note: This is a revamped version of an article originally posted on April 17, 2018.

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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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Traditional Chinese Medicine

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