Use Traditional Chinese Medicine to Be Your Healthiest This Winter
Winter is notably a time when people feel at their worst. Less than desirable winter health occurs because motivation dwindles and all those holiday indulgences. Everyone feels exhausted, bloated and just not themselves.
One thing many people do is try to maintain their summer and fall routines and the pace at which they were going at… only to leave them feeling fatigued, burnt-out and frustrated.
As a result, many people dread winter due to how they assume they are going to feel.
Winter does not have to be synonymous with feeling at your lowest point throughout the year (we’ll get into the how and why below). Using principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine is one of the keys to optimizing your health throughout every season, winter included.
Read on to learn about seasonal living, including the element and organs associated with winter, according to TCM. You will also learn how to optimize your health with lots of TCM winter health tips.
How to Incorporate Traditional Chinese Medicine Into Your Life to Stay Healthy This Winter
Perhaps one of the missing pieces in your health and wellness puzzle is a change in seasonal living addressing the way you eat, live and move throughout the year.
Stay healthy this winter by incorporating principles and insight from Traditional Chinese Medicine. It may even be life changing. Because when you feel well, everything is possible. Imagine feeling truly well all year long.
Although you may not believe it yet, it is possible.
As a quick summary of a vast and intricate system of medicine that is over 5,000 years old, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), is a system of medicine that takes an individualized approach to each person to restore balance and homeostasis.
With that said, there are overall principles that anyone can adopt throughout the seasons. It’s important to note that TCM is not a strict protocol or a cookie cutter template of wellness.
Traditional Chinese Medicine is an approach that takes into account your current inner and outer environment and balances yin and yang by making small tweaks in your routine to nourish your body, mind and soul.
One of the key aspects of TCM is that you make gentle adjustments in the way you move, eat and live throughout the year.
Another key component is that TCM places equal weight on physical, mental and emotional health, and how it contributes or detracts from your state of wellness.
Winter is the most yin time of the year. Which means it’s a time to slow down, reflect, introspect and deeply nourish every layer of your being.
Winter, According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, Is the Season of Water
“Water is as subterranean as an underground stream, as dark and fertile as the womb, as enduring as the jade-colored sea.” ~ Between Heaven and Earth
Winter is a time of drawing inwards, resting and restoring for the next season.
Just as many trees lose their leaves, the branches frost over, and the energy moves inward… it’s natural and normal that we do the same. It’s a time to slow down, reflect and adjust the high-speed pace that you may be moving at through your days and weeks.
Winter is the time where life slows down and matter and energy concentrate.
Winter is the most yin time of the year. Slow down, reflect, introspect and deeply nourish your being.
Although winter can seem quiet, still, and even lonely at times… there is a powerful and purposeful regeneration process that is occurring deep within. If you nourish yourself during this season properly, you will emerge in the spring with an energized renewal; a blossoming.