17 Oct How Acupuncture can help you during Autumn
As our Autumn deepens, our mornings get darker and colder.
Our days are getting shorter. That extra blanket goes on the bed. The extra layer goes on underneath our clothes for comfort.
These are all instinctual habits that we sub consciously do, without checking in or asking ourselves why.
Our body knows!
Just like nature reacts, so do we.
There is no difference, we are nature.
So with your hot water bottle at the ready, lets dive in!
With every season we naturally shift, we respond emotionally, as well as physically and mentally.
If we allow balance in all aspects of our lives, we adjust accordingly, we literally go with the flow!
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) we give centre stage to the 5 Elements; Earth, Metal, Water, Wood and Fire. We consider each of these elements with every season, correlating to many emotions, colours, physical ailments and characteristics.
TCM considers Autumn as Metal phase of nature’s elements, allowing us to pay closer attention to the Lungs and Large Intestine Meridian.
During this season it is quite common to see Lung issues such as cough and colds.
Acupuncture helps to assist the body to expel pathogens, strengthening the immune system and helping your body adjust to the season change.
It is also common to see clients where grief and loss (affecting the lungs), has affected the body’s ability to let go, to process, grieve, and breath in life.
This is often evident when seeing clients with ongoing Sinus infection, a chesty cough that isn’t going away, or comes back. This can sometimes manifest coming up to an anniversary, birthday, significant event or trauma concerning a deceased loved one.
Our Lungs also control our Wei Qi, which in TCM correlates to the immune system.
It is the season where Yin is to be nourished, which means a slower pace, allowing the Yang (Large Intestine) to move and let go of old, providing room for new growth in the Spring.
Our beautiful green island, gives us quite damp and heavy colder days, in comparison to dryer climates where the atmosphere in colder weather is quite dry.
Our lifestyle patterns and diet are two aspects of daily living that are important to change as temperatures drop. When considering your diet, increase your intake of warmer foods, soups and stews, avoiding raw/ cold meals.
Warm, wholesome and restorative foods will have a powerful affect on your immune system and energy.
It is well accounted for in the field of research, that stress affects the immune system.
We forget that an essential part of our Lungs and Respiratory System is actually external to our body.
Without oxygen, we can not sustain a healthy body or mind. This fact of life, is extremely grounding.
Are you spending enough quality time outdoors? Are you spending enough time in areas where the air is clean and fresh? Do you spend time frequently in nature?
Ensure to wear adequate clothing around the neck and cover your ears, as according to Traditional Chinese Philosophy, it is through exposure to wind and cold pathogens that illness begins.
A 20 minute walk in nature also reduces blood pressure, rebalances stress hormones, increases happy hormones and moves stagnation from lack of movement.
Stress is defined differently for each of us, as we are all individuals with our own unique perceptions of life. However, if your body is trying to tell you something, the noise will get louder until you are forced to listen.
Our body- mind is filled with memory.
Our nervous system is constantly on call, from the beginning, even while in utero. This is our most useful intelligence, enabling our senses (hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch) to synthesis a physical and emotional response to our daily lives.
When we give ourselves the gift of time for restoration and rest, we allow these nervous system responses to rest.
When we give permission to ourselves to express unprocessed emotions such as grief, anger, sadness; we reprogram how the nervous system is dealing with this unwanted stress in the body.
This has a very important part to play in how our body fights colds and flu, among many other illnesses and dis-ease.
This season, learn how to honour the changing needs of your body.
Establish a new body- mind memory of how it feels, to feel great in Autumn.
Warm Autumnal wishes to you,
Catherine