Late Summer – Coming Home to Our Center
Summer is lush and abundant just before it ends. Chinese Medicine has Five Seasons, and considers late summer a season of its own, distinctly different, sandwiched between summer and fall, from mid-August to early October. And it really is a special time: The arc of the sun is lower and bathes earth in a warm, golden glow. Gardens are ripe and abundant with the harvest. The extreme heat gives way to more temperate warmth. And lazy summer vacation days turn into busy days of harvesting and canning, back-to-school shopping, and returning to a more structured schedule in preparation for fall. We savor this short season fully, soaking in the last lingering warmth of the summer sun.
Late Summer is about nourishment, coming home, grounding, centering, returning to the Earth Element. In the circle of the four directions Earth is in the center, the middle. The organs associated with the earth element are the digestive organs located in the center of our body and central to our nourishment and well-being: Stomach and Spleen. What Chinese medicine calls the “spleen” encompasses much more than its physiological function in Western medicine: the “spleen” includes functions of the pancreas like secretion of digestive enzymes and regulation of blood sugar levels, the duodenum and the small intestine. In Chinese medicine, spleen is the organ that transforms “food energy” into “life energy”. It is central to the generation and re-generation of qi (“chee”), vital energy.
The Middle Burner and the Hundred Degree Soup
Chinese physiology calls the digestive organs the “middle burner”, the central energetic hearth of our body. Chinese nutrition theory holds that the digestive fire in this burner needs to burn smoothly like a fire for optimal absorption of nutrients and healthy digestion. It is considered healthiest to eat warm, well cooked foods and stay away from cold, raw foods. This idea is contrary to the raw-foods diet touted healthy in the West, because raw foods contain the most nutrients. What matters in this view is how well our bodies can extract and absorb these nutrients. Cooking breaks down food and “predigests” it and warming food to “100 degrees” – the temperature of the stomach – takes the burden off the digestive process and assures optimal absorption.
Traditional Chinese diet (not necessarily what we get on the menu of Chinese restaurants) is simple, fresh, natural, primarily plant-based, dairy free, with whole grains, and with meats used in moderation for flavoring – a stir fry rather than a big steak or burger. A well balanced meal should contain all five flavors: sweet, sour, salty, spicy and bitter. The flavor that nourishes the spleen is the sweet flavor – as in full natural sweetness: complex carbohydrates, especially the sweet yellow-orange vegetables that dominate late summer: carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, squashes and sweet corn.
Spleen Dampness, Obesity and Disordered Eating
“Spleen deficiency” is the most predominant Chinese medical diagnosis in modern times: general fatigue, exhaustion and lack of energy, mostly caused by the standard American diet of food too sweet, too rich, too fat, too cold, eaten too fast. The climate associated with late summer is dampness. In the change of seasons from summer to fall, there is a fine line between sweet, rich, abundant harvest and wilting and rotting. A weak “spleen”, i.e. slowed-down metabolism, will lead to accumulation of “dampness” in the body: water retention, fatty tissue, weight gain, puffiness, sinus congestion, joint swelling, as well as brain fog and mental-emotional imbalance – which Chinese medicine calls “phlegm misting the heart”. The body feels like a swamp that literally bogs us down.
Out of this lack of energy, the body craves a quick energy fix: sweet cravings for refined carbohydrates lead to disordered eating and perpetuate the vicious cycle of weight gain, obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes.
The Earth Spirit: Consideration and Empathy
The spiritual aspect of the Earth element is “Yi” (pronounce “yee”). Yi refers to intelligence, the ability to think, as well as empathy, the ability to put oneself into another’s shoes. Yi is the mental-emotional-spiritual side of nourishment. With eating we take in a part of the outside world, another life form, and transform it into something that becomes part of us. With thinking we likewise take in the world and “digest” it mentally. When we empathize, we connect and resonate with one another. The Eastern paradigm is that we and the universe are one; the idea of separation – so basic in Western thinking – is an illusion. The intelligence that Yi refers to is not just in the brain, but in the gut-brain. We know in our gut feeling if what we absorb is nourishing us or hard to digest.
Emotional imbalances of the earth element can manifest as over-concern, worry, obsessive thinking, mulling over things, and as over-empathizing and co-dependency. The emotional counterpart of dampness is unfinished business.
The earth element asks us to stay centered in ourselves and keep our feet on the ground. Meditation, a walk in nature, time for ourselves, attention to our inner world, slowing down can help us to come home to ourselves.
Self-Care in Late Summer:
What can you do for your own self-care in late summer?
- Slow down
- Center yourself – with whatever practice helps you: meditation, yoga, nature walks…
- Tone your muscles – weights, resistance bands, yoga, hiking, bicycling…
- Clean up your diet, detox
- Eat mindfully: eat when hungry, stop when you are three-quarters full
- Savor the harvest – eat a variety of nourishing, fresh, locally grown produce
- Eat yellow-orange vegetables: squashes, pumpkins, carrots, beets, sweet corn
- Avoid raw, cold, refined, sweet foods, reduce dairy and gluten, cut out sugar
- Go to bed earlier, rest up
- Spend time outside, soak in the remaining summer warmth
- Clear out the closets, de-clutter
- Use your mind, learn a new skill, take a class
- Avoid over-thinking
- Be home in your body, love yourself
- Sing
- Practice mindfulness: pay attention to what feeds you
- Practice compassion: pay attention to those around you
- Trust your gut-brain
Meret Bainbridge, L.Ac. has been a licensed acupuncturist in Maine since 1997, offering acupuncture, Jin Shin Do® Bodymind Acupressure®, and Chinese herbal medicine. She utilizes her background in clinical psychology in combining traditional Chinese medicine with body-mind awareness and counseling, focusing on mental-emotional wellbeing, women’s health, pain and stress reduction.
Meret Bainbridge practices at Acupuncture by Meret, 222 St. John St., Suite 137, Portland, ME. www.AcupunctureByMeret.com, phone 207.878.3300, e-mail: [email protected].
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