Health Tips for Springtime, Keep Your Liver and Gallbladder Officials Happy

Happy Earth Day friends! May we treasure and care for our beautiful home. 

If you’ve been following my newsletter/blog, you may have been reading my last few editions about springtime in Chinese Medicine. In this edition, I wanted to provide a few seasonal health tips to help you stay happy and healthy in spring.

Lighten Up Your Food Intake. Winter is a natural time to eat more and to eat heavier foods. Spring is a season where too many heavy foods (including meat and lots of dense carbs) will actually weigh your energy down and make the natural movement of spring harder to flow with. Overeating, especially rich and greasy foods, will stagnate the Liver Official and make you feel sludgy.

Spring is an awesome time to eat so many more veggies, and to even add in a few raw veggies. We’re moving towards salad season, but those with weaker digestion might still want to be cautious about salads (which are harder to digest) and especially about smoothies (which are actually fairly heavy/dense and also energetically very cold–the cold especially wreaks havoc on your primary digestive organ in Chinese Medicine–the Spleen). 

If you do overindulge, you can try some pungent (moving) foods to help you release the stagnation. A few pungent foods you might want to include if you find yourself feeling sluggish include:  radishes, cilantro, peppermint, rosemary, fennel or cardamom. 

Get Moving. The spring organs/officials of the Liver and Gallbladder are associated with the tendons and ligaments. Any activities that help you move freely are great for this time of year. This could include dancing, aerobics, swimming, or just walking outside. 

That “runner’s high” so many of us enjoy is actually a burst of Liver Qi swelling freely through your system. But you don’t have to BURST your qi to feel good. You can stay feeling good by moving at semi-regular intervals, or simply avoiding sitting too long. 

If you’re new to a movement routine, try to not overdo it. Start slow and build your stamina and endurance. No need to create a strain, especially if your tendons and ligaments aren’t accustomed to regular input. 

If you’re already in a flow with a movement routine and want to up your game, try adding small controlled movements (like pivots and twists) that require both stability and mobility–basically, movements that require more mastery and awareness in your physical form.  

Be Free. Spring is really a time to let loose. You might be so excited to have come out of winter that you want to run wild outside! And that’s great. 

One of my favorite passages in the Neijing, one of the oldests texts of acupuncture is the description of Spring:

“[In spring] Go to rest late at night and rise early.

Move through the courtyard with long strides.

Dishevel the hair and relax the physical appearance,

thereby causing the mind to orient itself on life.

Give life and do not kill.

Give and do not take.

Reward and do not punish.

This is correspondence with the way of spring and

it is the Way to nourish life.”

~from Neijing Suwen, Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Chinese Medicine, chapter 2 (trans. by Paul Unschuld)

My summary of this passage is this: Let your hair down and enjoy your life. Don’t worry so much about how your look, but go be free! Move like you mean it and radiate from the inside out. Coming out of winter hibernation, we don’t need as much sleep, and can enjoy more hours in the day to plan and to execute our plans. 

If you’re finding that it’s hard to find this freedom within yourself, consider coming in for acupuncture. Acupuncture can help move stagnant energy and help you get unstuck. I often describe acupuncture as a nervous-system reset. It helps you reunite with your deepest reserves.

If you're curious about how I can help you recover your inner connection, please reach out to schedule a free consultation. 

Consultations are about 15 minutes via phone and are absolutely no pressure. In fact, I’m also making sure that the person is a good fit for my practice before I accept them as a new client.

If I speak with someone about what they’re wanting and think I have a colleague who is a better fit, I will absolutely refer them elsewhere. It’s important for my integrity that I’m honest about who I can help and how I can help them. 

If you’re a current client wanting to support my business, I love taking care of connected communities. You can refer a friend by forwarding this newsletter so that your friend can sign-up at the bottom of my website and get to know me, or you can share the “start here” page of my website.

This spring, and this year, may you absolutely mess up your hair and enjoy the wild wonders of the great outdoors. 

May you dream and plan and play this spring.

Monica