Welluvia’s Guide to Spring
We’re finally in spring (down in the southern hemisphere)! I’m sure a lot of us have already started to feel the days warm up, and the sun make more of an appearance from behind dark clouds. Personally, I’ve felt the energy in the air begin to shift in the past few weeks. Flowers and trees start to bloom all around us with vibrant displays of colour that visually show us that we are transitioning into the new season.
As mentioned in Welluvia’ Guide to Winter, winter was our time to relax and recharge. Spending time focusing on harnessing our energy and life force for the rest of the year. Deep cleansing of our body, surroundings, emotions and behaviours that don’t serve us anymore are all key parts of spring as we set up our creative and personal endeavours for the year to come. As Yang (outwards) energy begins to shift forward again, we’re able to move out of our introspective winter states into more expansive and exciting new experiences. It’s no coincidence that people do a considerable clean-out of their homes and spaces during the onset of spring, as according to Traditional Chinese Medicine, spring is our time for cleansing, creating, new movement, growth and renewal.
As spring is the time for cleansing and detoxing, the next few weeks on Welluvia will address more ways to cleanse and detox more in-depth, such as morning detox routines, colonics and enemas, fasting and diets. To start off, today we’re going to look at what Traditional Chinese Medicine believes is the way to healthily and mindfully transition our lifestyles with the season.
Traditional Chinese Medicine & Spring
Within Traditional Chinese Medicine, there are key associations for each season that are important to note.
Yin Organ - Liver
Yang Organ - Gallbladder
Element - Wood
Flavour Profile - Sour
Colour - Green
Sound - Shouting
Emotion - Anger / Frustration
A look at the Yin and Yang Organs of Spring
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, spring’s Yin organ is the liver. The liver is responsible for the flow of Qi (energy) within our body and making sure the process of emotional regulation and blood cleansing is smooth. The liver is easily affected by feelings of anger, stress and frustration, and can significantly be inhibited when these emotions are left unchecked and not appropriately addressed. The sensory organ linked to the liver is the eyes, so people who begin to get hay fever symptoms every spring may have an imbalance in their liver Qi. The liver is also the organ that is most affected by stagnant emotion and stress.
The gallbladder, the yang organ to the liver, is responsible for many processes in the body. It stores and excretes bile while also plays an essential role in decision making, planning, assertiveness and allowing us to dream and draw inspiration.
Collectively, the liver and gall bladder work are associated with the tendons, which calls for us to treat our bodies like a budding tree - allowing our energy to rise and grow as the season progresses.
Food & Diet(s)
As we move out of winter where we were preparing heavier and longer prepared hot meals, spring calls for us to also transition into new ways of eating too. While we shouldn’t be rushing to have a quick salad as we would in summer, preparing lighter meals is essential during spring. As we have an abundance of fresh greens during this season, we should be incorporating them into our diets as we detox and cleanse our bodies. In winter we focused on dark greens, as we transition into spring we should opt for lighter greens. The flavour of spring is sour and is said to be the flavour associated with improving liver qi.
We should limit if not cut out foods that are congesting or allergens to our body, such as dairy, alcohol, processed foods, refined sugars and flours, and foods containing gluten. A great way to do this is with a proper ten-day detox which we’ll be covering at the start of next month so watch out for that. The onset of spring is a great time to adopt an intermittent fasting protocol, to aid the body to detoxify itself. We’ll discuss more on intermittent fasting this Friday. Interested in trying out a raw food diet? Now is the time to increase our intake of raw and sprouted foods. We’ll be covering the benefits of raw food next month.
Foods to promote detoxification of the body and especially maintaining healthy liver energy are:
Vegetables: Dandelion Greens, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Spinach, Kale, Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, Carrots, Celery, Radish Leaf, Shiitake Mushrooms, Lettuce, Spring Onion, Beetroot, Young Beets, Chard, Cucumber and Eggplants.
Beans: Kidney Beans, Adzuki Beans and Yellow Soybeans.
Fruits: Lemon, Grapefruit, Apricots, Figs, Grapes, Pineapples, Plums, Apples, Cherries, Dates and Bananas.
Herbs: Watercress, Fennel, Lavender, Chickweed, Chives, Mint, Lime Tree Flowers and Milk Thistle.
Nuts and Seeds: Sesame seeds and oil including black sesame seed help tonify the liver. Sunflower seeds, almonds, chesnuts, coconuts and walnuts.
Foods particularly useful for the maintaining gall bladder health are artichokes, radishes and hydrangea.
Sleep
As we transition out of winter where we went to bed earlier and awoke later in the morning, now is the time to begin to shift our sleep cycle gradually. As the body needs less sleep than it did in the colder months, we can now go to bed a little later than we did, but still rise with the sun when the morning comes.
An important note is that we should go to bed on an empty stomach, so the body can properly process and eliminate stored toxins, support our immune system and repair tissue. When we go to bed having just eaten, the body then prioritises digesting food rather than these essential processes. It is also important to note that between 11 pm and 3 am is the time when liver and gall bladder energy is strongest, so it is important to be asleep by 11 pm to have our bodies working to their optimum.
Activities and Exercise
Winter is seen as a sort of hibernation in the body. We do a lot less training and participate in less social activities, instead focusing on keeping healthy and maintaining our life source. As a transitionary season, we need to adjust our movement and exercise with the season accordingly. Starting slow but gradually increasing our exercise as yang energy begins to dominate. To start off the season, we should practice slow movements such as yoga and qi gong, and advance to more fast-paced workouts as the season progresses.
Making sure we have proper releases from stored stagnant emotions is essential during spring too. Practices such as meditation, acupuncture, kinesiology and Bowen therapy can assist with this, and we’ll be covering some of these modalities in the coming months more in-depth.
As mentioned earlier, spring is the time for a thorough detox and cleansing of the body. Morning rituals such as coconut pulling and dry brushing can assist with proper detoxification and aid the liver in cleansing the body. We’ll go more in-depth in some of these morning rituals for detoxification in the coming weeks here on the site too!
Things To Consider Moving Into Spring
Both the liver and the gallbladder meridian are closely linked to decision-making and determination. For this reason, spring is a great time to begin new projects and set goals for the rest of the year. As we mentioned in Welluvia’s Guide to Autumn, autumn is the time to finish off any loose-ends of projects or plans we had set, so it’s a great way to think of spring as the beginning of that cycle. As mentioned earlier, the liver is closely linked to the eyes, so it’s a pivotal time to focus on a vision for our goals and begin to put them into practice.
Spring is the start to a new year, and a new you. It’s easy to become quickly overwhelmed or angry during this season if we push ourselves too fast, or don’t resolve emotional stagnation that is stored in our body. I discussed my approach to this in my article about transitioning into spring, available here. I’ve been writing a lot more lately as it’s been a great way to release things that have been bothering me or sitting in the back of my mind. Spring is also a great time to cleanse outside of the body: the home, your workload, your relationships. If something or someone doesn’t serve us anymore, now is the time to let them go.
I hope today’s guide has helped you plan some ways to harness the season change to greatly benefit our health and wellbeing. As mentioned earlier, detox month on Welluvia starts with this article, so look out for more articles talking in-depth about some of the modalities, diets and practices mentioned in this guide later this month.
With wellness,
Aleksandar
