Support Your Digestion During This Seasonal Shift

As the summer heat flares, and the last wet overwhelm of the late summer season swells, this is an important time of year to support your digestion. Humidity can overwhelm a taxed GI system easily, especially if you’ve been drawn to fruit, salads, sandwiches, iced drinks, dairy, foods that are all classified as “cold” (both literally and energetically) and “damp” (wet and sticky). If you’ve been feeling fatigued or bloated or simply sluggish after eating, or if you’ve had looser stools, those are all signals from your body to focus on warm, wholesome, easily-digestible foods. You can apply this understanding year round, but it’s an especially helpful tip in these humid times. 

When Chinese Medicine says “warm/warming,” it means both the actual temperature and also the energetics. Energetically warming foods include cinnamon, cloves, ginger, garlic, onions, leeks, pumpkin, animal protein, and cooked grains, to name a few. These spices and foods are easier to break down and assimilate. 

An overwhelmed GI system also responds well to one-pot meals like soups or stews where all the flavors are melded together and thus the body doesn’t have to sort out a bunch of separate ingredients. Think chicken soup or rice when you’re not feeling your best. 

If you’ve been feeling muddled or overwhelmed, another way to support digestive health is by streamlining the amount of media and information you need to digest. We aren’t only “digesting” food, we also have to metabolize and process whatever we take in in everyday life, including social media and media in general. 

I recently lightened up my digestive load by unsubscribing from so many newsletters. I realized I was ready to let go of many of them. For the few I felt a small pang about, I created a new folder in my email inbox called “Resources,” and then filed one email from each of the handful of newsletter lists I thought I might later want to jump back onto. That way I won’t need to track/remember what I let go of. If and when I’m ready I can come back and resubscribe to those lists if desired.

I would love to hear from you. Reach out and and tell me:

What are some solutions you can think of that would help you lighten your digestive load? What are you perhaps unnecessarily processing that you could limit or cut out? What’s one little adjustment to your diet that might help you soothe your gut? 

My next post will feature some Ayurvedic (Indian classical medicine) tips to help support your GI system this fall.

May you find the sweet satisfaction of “just enough” this autumn.