Brandy Falcon
Spring Health Tips from Traditional Chinese Medicine
In this video we’re talking about how to lighten up and find wellness with these natural health tips for spring! If you experience lethargy, allergies, frequent colds, or lots of anger and frustration this time of year, you'll want to learn how to balance your energy with a seasonal diet and natural lifestyle changes from Taoist wisdom and Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Read the blog article featuring this video here: https://falconhealingarts.com/spring-health-tips-from-traditional-chinese-medicine/
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hey everyone how's it going brandy here
with falcon healing arts and welcome to thriving thursday today we are going to
talk about how to lighten up and find balance in spring you know that i love
helping families find and maintain wellness and that as a chinese medicine
practitioner and yoga instructor i align my methods with Taoist philosophy and
chinese medicine and ayurveda and these really inform me as to how i help people
find wellness so with each season they each have their own characteristics and
we need to align to those because we are a microcosm of nature and we need to
change ourselves and our approach in order to stay healthy and deal with all
the changes that are happening externally so we're going to dive into
that but before we begin I just wanted to say please say hi if you come on here
let me know if you're watching live or on a replay let me know if you have any
questions as we go on and I'll definitely answer them at the end if not
Deering's so this is based on a blog post I did a few years ago I have
fleshed it out even more and I think I'm going to save sections of it for another
life maybe next week actually so we're going to be working with the levels of
ourselves so body emotions and mind how they all need to adjust with spring and
I thought it would be interesting for you to know what the characteristics of
spring are so in Taoist philosophy spring is associated with the element of
wood the color green the movement of the Chi and vital energy of the body liver
and gallbladder organs and the meridians or channels that traverse them and go
throughout the body the tendons or our connective tissue
spring is associated with the eyes and sight sour taste and when we're in
balance we feel more compassionate and we're really decisive we know how we're
going to approach our tasks and projects that we want to start and when we're out
of balance we tend more toward anger and
frustration and indecisiveness just not being as sure of ourselves and the wind
we know that the wind picks up in the spring and this can actually cause a lot
of problems if we are out of balance so we also work with Ian and Jung in
Chinese medicine with Jung being the energy of the Sun it's of course hot and
light and invigorating other elements of Jung were mobile so move more and we're
balancing this out with what we experienced during Mauryan times so with
it being cold or darker where we're not moving as much and maybe where we're not
as flexible and just appreciate more stillness and going inward so following
the young energy of the Sun that really picks up at the winter solstice so
that's the most Yin time of year and then it starts to become more young as
the days become longer again and so here at the spring equinox it's even and it's
gonna continue to go up and – until the summer solstice and that will be the
most young time and then we feel that at the summer solstice when the energy
starts to go down and we get really tired of the hut in the summer and we
want to be resting more and then that continues into the fall and to the
winter solstice so does that make sense that automatically we align ourselves
with the energy of the Sun and I hope that these characteristics of spring are
interesting to you too so how can you adjust with how can you adjust the body
in spring time here's a few ideas so of course you want to be eating produce
that is in season so less of the root vegetables the more starchy sweet and
more greens more lettuce carrots dandelion is really good this time of
year so in season anything that you find at the farmers market is appropriate to
eat right now but we want to just lighten up our meals anyway so we were
having really hearty soups in winter more meat we want to have less of that
now less with the heavy nourishing foods and just enough to satiate you so
lighter soups now salads are appropriate if you have an easy time digesting them
for some people this is still too cold so we all have unique constitutions for
someone like me who has a more hot Constitution I could eat salad no
problem but someone who is more cold they may have more gas bloating diarrhea
with that and not as a sign that it is not appropriate so so still maybe
cooking your foods but experimenting with different ones that are more in
season so I hope that makes sense also to nourish the liver the liver
loves sour foods so think fermented foods pickles yogurt sauerkraut other
sour sour fruits so again this is to nourish the liver and again for some
people this is not always appropriate so if you have a liver imbalance where
you're experiencing a lot of anger and frustration
that means that more energy is coming up more hot energy and that sour
does not help that it may actually increase it so less with the sour foods
if you're experiencing that but if not then then they might actually nourish
your liver energy this time of year detoxifying our system so I know a lot
of people were raving about detoxing at the first of the year this was part of
many New Year's resolutions and that wasn't the right time to do it Shay I'm
not alive you know he he is sick we'll talk about this in a moment because this
happens this time of year so winter time not a great time to detox your body does
not need to be challenged with that then and it needs to be nourished this time
of year as we're shutting off our winter coat it is appropriate and it will
benefit you greatly so this is the piece I'm going to pull out and we'll talk
about this more next week in a special detox episode but if you have any
questions about that you can ask and I'll try to point you in the right
direction as to systems you can use to detox you'll want to increase probiotics
this will also help with gut flora increasing beneficial bacteria
microorganisms that will help support gut health and immunity because my son's
blowing his nose right now and I'm just on the edge of getting a cold I'm pretty
sure I'm okay because it was worse yesterday and I'm much better today what
was I saying oh so of course our immunity much event
is from these beneficial bacteria in our gut so supplementing with that will help
you with any challenges that come with this spring wind that's why in Chinese
medicine they say the wind is evil because with it we understand now that
there is all these microorganisms there Hollan and other things that can really
challenge us as the wind brings it up so get moving young time of year we want to
mobilize our Chi we want to mobilize the body and our energy so this is not the
time of year to stay in the house all cozy when the sun is shining we need to
get out and we need to move to stay well this will keep mucus from pooling in the
head and this will keep the blood flowing it will also improve immunity as
that is happening as we have good circulation so this is the perfect time
to pick up a new sport or other if you have a weight loss program you want to
try this is the time to do it so if you try it in the winter and field or you
just gave up please do not be hard on yourself this is a better time you will
be more successful with this motivating energy of the spring behind you um also
I mentioned that the eyes are associated with the liver and spring and if you are
on a screen a lot like I am when I'm riding a lot you may have a desktop or
you use the computer a lot it's very important to give your eyes a break they
are extremely sensitive this time of year and a great way to relax them is
not just to look away from this screen and take a break but as you take a break
go outside and you can use your depth perception looking at a tree and looking
at this beautiful pine tree right outside my house and I'm looking at the
depth I'm looking at the needles all the different needles and then further back
the different clusters and that's very nourishing for the eyes to relax them
against a green surface and I mentioned to that wood is the element of spring so
matching it with trees is even more beneficial
just being out in nature looking at nature really improves your mood because
for some of us this transition is hard it's like we're we're grumpy bears
coming out of hibernation and and and yeah it can be a challenge and then
there's others of us and this is how I tend to be is more like an energizer
bunny bunny I just get a little bit of Sun and then I'm who and tend to become
more overwhelmed this time of year so we find balance so that is mostly for the
body I also want to address how to find balance with our emotions and our mind
so this has more to do with how we're perceiving what is happening around us
and inside of us and also our approach to life this time of year so um you'll
want to soak up this end to improve your mood definitely so that our emotions are
high and you could be also using essential oils for that I mentioned this
to last week that peppermint and citrus oils are especially uplifting if we're
feeling like that grumpy bear coming out of the cave if we need a little more
motivation to get out into the Sun and get moving essential oils can really
help with that and I'm actually giving away some samples and I'll talk more
about this at the end I actually have peppermint and wild orange in this
little gift bag that I'm giving away so these can help you adjust you'll also
want to recognize the signs of overwhelm like I said that is possible if you're
more of a high-energy person and you're just taken away with this surge of
energy you want to notice when you're getting agitated when you're getting
angry and frustrated you'll want to notice when you're becoming overheated
so energy moves up and you may experience that as just a hot feeling
separate from hot flashes as if you're experiencing those are maybe that could
actually be two hot flashes but also headaches so
headaches and any any high energy heat is a sign of imbalance so you'll want to
be eating more cooling foods to balance that again peppermint essential oil is
very balancing to cool you down and you could also be drinking peppermint tea
and that's what I have right here to cool me down take a sip to and I have a
little blend here I was using of this has orange and peppermint in it as well
and then of course meditating meditating can definitely calm you down if you need
any help I have a few guided meditations on my website so that's Falcon Healing
Arts calm and there's a whole tab dedicated to my guided meditations and
you could choose any of those and they will help calm you down so you'll also
want to approach spring with a light playful attitude so just looking outside
I have this forest behind me and lots of trees here out front and the birds are
going crazy the squirrels are going crazy there's a lot of high energy we
saw some deer out earlier grazing and there's just a lot more life and
vibrancy so we want to match that mood and be more playful feel more young if
you have her time with this with your meditation you can be imagining your
younger self and how that used to feel before you took life so seriously then
of course we all have obligations but we don't need to be stressed out about them
and many of us create the stress that we experience so you may want to play
around with that just not taking it on and just being just lightening up about
it last thing I want to say
is that we could be more receptive to change this time of year we want to be
like the trees that Bend with the wind that adjust you know if a tree is weak
and also tight it's going to snap in the wind so I carry that image in mind when
I'm having a hard time with inflexibility in the mind or even in the
body to be like a tree to be mobile and and open to change so I hope this helps
you tremendously this time of year it will help you it will help boost your
immunity it will help prevent colds it will help you deal with allergies once
you start to lighten up your diet and improve your circulation and you'll just
feel a lot lighter and more energetic as you do so so please share this video
with your friends if you enjoyed it ask them to like my page here at Falcon
Healing Arts and I wanted to mention again that I have these little gift bags
that I'm giving away and these are to people who are able to commit to coming
to my online class that I'm doing on zoom' next Wednesday the 27th at 6 p.m.
so if you can commit to going to that class I would love to mail these out to
you and I would need to do that really by tomorrow so we have enough time for
transit that is it so let me know if you have any questions please join me again
next week at 5:00 on Thursday and next week we're going to be talking about
detoxing in spring and all the many ways that you can do that I hope you have a
great rest of the day take care
#Spring #Health #Tips #Traditional #Chinese #Medicine
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