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Sometimes I think about moving to a place where it’s always warm, like southern California or Hawaii, but it seems that every time I mention it, there’s someone around who insists that it would be boring without having four distinct seasons. And as I imagine myself being bored while swimming in the ocean in December, and being bored while picking oranges off my trees in January, and being just so incredibly bored as I go on a hike in flip flops and shorts in February, I shudder and get back to shoveling my driveway.
I’m still undecided about a future in a warm place, but I am very glad to have gotten the experience of four very distinct seasons. Growing up in New England each season was so unique. If I were magically transported to a random time of year in Massachusetts, I would have no trouble determining in an instant which season it was. That might be trickier in, say, the Pacific Northwest, and even harder in San Diego.
Part of why I appreciate my exposure to the seasons is that the world displays so clearly the prevailing dynamics of the Earth and Sun. Daoist sages developed a language around these expressions, and applied this language to everything – including human lives, politics, and relationships. Knowing some of this language encourages us to tune in to what’s happening around us and to apply our observations of Nature to our inner and interpersonal processes.
Winter is the season of dormancy. Plants die or go to sleep. Most of their energy is down in their roots or stored in seeds. So, it’s a time of emphasis on potential energy. For humans, it’s a good season for taking inventory. In wintery places, we’re often confined indoors and there are no food sources available except what we’ve put in our cupboards. The season is ruled by Water, and often there’s a lot of it, in the form of rain or snow, falling from the sky and blanketing the ground. The healthy emotion associated with Winter and Water is awe, and when out of balance, it becomes fear. Our core fear is the fear of death, and in many ways Winter is kind of like death – cold, quiet, and dark.
Spring comes next, and it’s a season of new growth, awakening, and planning. In the Pagan traditions, Spring is marked by fertility festivals, with symbols such as bunnies and eggs. In Christianity, Spring brings Easter, the holiday of rebirth. And in Judaism, there is Passover, which is full of references to fresh Spring greens, eggs, and new hope after a time of despair. The season is ruled by Wood, which is represented by plant growth – especially eager buds exploding on trees and pushing through the crust of the earth, and vines growing rapidly as if on a mission.
The healthy emotion associated with Spring and Wood is vigor – like the vigor plants employ to break out of Winter’s dormancy in Spring. In imbalance, this becomes anger, which is a feeling that is likely to come up when our plan encounters an obstacle or when we’re thrown off our trajectory. Plants encounter obstacles all the time, and they usually display some of the virtuous characteristics of healthy Wood – flexibility, and the ability to stay on their purpose instead of getting indignant.
Summer is the greatest expansion of the growth that started in Spring. In the plant world, it’s a time of flowering, and therefore, communion and sexuality. Flowers are not just sexual organs but a plant’s time to express its beauty, radiance, and glory. Summer is ruled by Fire, which has a similarly expansive and radiant nature to a flowering plant. Fire is also the element that presides over sexuality and connection. It’s a transformative, exciting force. It illuminates darkness and obscurity. The healthy emotion associated with Summer and Fire is joy. When out of balance, we feel hysteria, anxiety, or jitteriness.
Late Summer is a season unique to Chinese philosophy. It’s the latter portion of summer, when nights tend to get colder and flowering gives way to fruiting. It’s the season of ripening and the harvest of crops. Late Summer is ruled by Earth, the element that presides over nourishment. In the human body, the primary digestive organs also correspond to Earth. The healthy emotion associated with Late Summer and Earth is contemplation. It also relates to our capacity to focus and analyze. When out of balance, it becomes worry.
Finally, Fall is the season of decline. It’s the season when activity diminishes and outward growth stops; we begin to focus inward and reflect. Fall as associated with Metal or Air, both of which are good reminders of a lesson in real value. Metals, like gold and silver and the other “shiny stuff” in life, is often valued above all else, yet it is almost worthless when it comes to sustaining life. In contrast, Air is invisible and insubstantial. It’s so easy to miss and take for granted, yet we’d die in minutes without it. Hence, a main challenge of this element, whether we call it Metal or Air, is to remember that it’s the intangible things that are of greatest worth in life. The healthy emotion associated with Fall and Metal is reflection – the capacity to reflect on what has passed and gain value from it. When out of balance, it becomes grief.
There are many ways to apply these characteristics of the seasons and their associated elements in order to better understand ourselves and the world, and to more gracefully move through periods of difficulty. I created these diagrams to more clearly depict these phases as part of an ongoing cycle. The first diagram shows how each season leads to the next, and some of the key dynamics of each.
In this next diagram, we see how the characteristics of the seasons could be seen as phases in a life or project. In the Winter/Water phase, for instance, a new project is just an idea or a seed. We might call this the resting phase or the conception phase. Conception perhaps occurs near the frontier between Winter and Spring. In Spring/Wood, the project is launched (the seed germinates). The structure is defined, a plan is created. Growth begins. In the Summer/Fire phase, growth is at its maximum, and the project “blossoms.” In the Late Summer/Earth phase, the project comes to fruition. It yields a desired return on all the energy that was invested in it. We “harvest” the fruits of our labors. In the Fall/Metal phase, we “release” the project, either because it is over or because it moves to a new phase in which we are no longer attached to it. Here we are able to reflect on the value gained from going through the cycle. As we move into the Winter/Water phase again, there is the need for stillness and rest before the cycle begins again.
Every human life follows this cycle, and within every life, there are many smaller cycles, and cycles within cycles. Consider contemplating the cycle of the seasons and applying it to a few of your own endeavors – past and present. What season is trickiest for you? Is there a season you tend to skip over completely? For instance, do you plant seeds, tend to them for a while, but then neglect them and plant new seeds? Do you nourish your projects and invest your energy in them, but don’t let yourself actually celebrate the “harvest”? Do you go from one cycle to the next without ever letting yourself have a fallow period, when you let yourself do nothing and feel okay about it?
I encourage you to invite Nature into your life and see how much more colorful, alive, and right things feel.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
All rights reserved © 2015 Peter Borten
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[post_content] => Every winter people ask me what they should do to get over colds and flus. In the past I’ve written long lists of all sorts of interventions, including numerous herbs and supplements. I still think those things are useful (and I’ll share a revised list later in the article) but 12 years of parenthood has helped to evolve my thinking on the matter. Having daily contact with small humans who think nothing of sneezing directly into my mouth, I know that exposure is inevitable.
If I now had to rank the value of immune-supporting interventions, number one would be REDUCE YOUR ACTIVITY. I know it’s kind of like announcing that tonight’s dessert is prunes.
Most people either don’t want to slow down or don’t feel they have the time to slow down. But I believe that being always engaged takes a big toll on us, both physically and psychologically. And there’s no supplement that comes close to the restorative value of REST.
So learn to recognize your first symptoms of infection. Maybe it’s a certain quality of lethargy – you’re tired in a way that feels different from just a poor night of sleep. Maybe it’s a sore throat or just a tickle. Maybe it’s a headache or a stiff neck. Maybe it’s a runny nose while you still feel otherwise fine. When you notice this, it’s a message – not just that a foreign critter has taken up residence in you, but that you are out of sync with what your being needs. If you honor this message and reduce your activity immediately, you will almost never get sick.
“Reduce your activity” implies a few different things. Most often it means: sleep. If you check in – you can close your eyes and ask internally, “Should I sleep now?” – you’ll be able to feel if the answer is yes. Often, when you perceive your first symptom of infection and you respond by taking a nap, you’ll wake up and that symptom will be gone. Easy.
But if you’ve been feeling like you’re constantly staving off infections or you’re always operating at less than 100%, reducing your activity may mean lessening your overall expenditure of energy. For optimal health it’s good to aim to consume less energy than we generate. That may sound overly simplistic, and it can sometimes be hard to gauge, but it’s basic economics.
If you generate lots of energy through ample deep sleep, high quality food, loving and supportive community, spiritual practice, and other forms of nourishing self-care, you can burn more energy without needing to tap into your reserves. If you don’t sleep much and/or it isn’t restful, if you don’t eat great food (or you have digestive problems that impair your ability to extract the nutrients from it), if you don’t engage with community in a supportive way, etc., you will have less energy available to you, and unless you curb your activity level, your immune system (and other systems) will flag.
Besides reducing your activity, you can support yourself even more by tuning in when you slow down and asking, “What needs my attention?” Our susceptibility to infection is often higher during times of transition – such as transitions between seasons – because there’s a demand for attention and adaptive energy. If we don’t give any direct attention to finding our balance amidst change, we’ll unconsciously expend more adaptive energy to restore balance. Or, said in a more positive way, if we proactively slow down and tune in during challenging times so that we’re able to recognize how to adapt, we save energy in the process and usually avoid getting sick.
When you reduce your activity at the first sign of a cold, you can avoid getting sick and that’s good. But I’d really like to encourage you to voluntarily slow down even when it’s not motivated by the desire to avoid something unpleasant. This practice actually yields real, tangible, measurable improvements in calmness, happiness, and life satisfaction. So don’t wait for that sore throat.
Now, I said I’d tell you some of the other interventions I recommend for colds and flus. They’re grouped for simplicity.
Dietary:
- Avoid sugar (it suppresses immune function).
- Eat lightly and stick to whole, natural, unprocessed, and easy-to-digest foods (which usually means cooked).
- Drink plenty of room-temperature or warm fluids (water, broth, electrolytes, tea).
- Almost all aromatic herbs (such as thyme, mint, ginger, garlic, oregano, sage, etc.) have immune supportive effects, so use them liberally in your soup and tea.
- Make it easy for your body to get the nutrients it needs with a minimal expenditure of energy.
Lifestyle:
- Don’t touch your face. Just make a rule with yourself that you don’t put your fingers in your ears, eyes, nose, or mouth unless you just washed them.
- Keep the surfaces you touch clean (cell phone, computer, counters, door knobs, sponges, etc.)
- Stay warm. Research shows there isn’t much truth to the longstanding notion that cold weather makes us sick – at least not in a direct way – but it does play a role. If you’re feeling too cold, chances are you’re using adaptive energy to keep yourself warm, and this means less energy that’s available for immune function. Also, cold weather is usually dry too, and dry mucus membranes are less effective at trapping viruses. Finally, viruses are more stable, and therefore survive longer on surfaces, in cold weather than in warm.
- Reduce stress.
- Get enough good-quality sleep.
- Get acupuncture and massage.
- Exercise (not when you’re actively sick though)
Supplements:
- Whatever you do, do it fast. Almost all immune-enhancing supplements have the best chance of success when taken at the absolute first sign of illness.
- Herbs: There are lots of great immune enhancing herbs, and many are specific as to when and how they’re best utilized. It’s beyond the scope of this article to get into those specifics, so I encourage you to consult a trained herbalist or do your own reading on the nuances of these herbs, but here are some of my favorites: lemon balm leaf (gentle anti-viral), echinacea root (I like the tincture form best), umckaloabo root (umcka for short), osha root, olive leaf, fresh ginger, andrographis (exceedingly bitter, so best taken as a pill), elder berry and flower, and the Chinese pill formulas Yin Qiao [Yin Chiao] and Gan Mao Ling.
- Mushrooms. Nearly all edible mushrooms have immune enhancing properties. Some of the most potent include: ganoderma (reishi), maitake, shiitake, coriolus, chaga, agaricus blazeii, turkey tail (trametes), agarikon (fomitopsis), lion’s mane, and mesima. I believe these strengthening fungi are best taken before you get sick, but they can also be taken while you’re sick (especially if it’s a prolonged illness).
- Vitamin D. I generally recommend 35 units per pound of your body weight as a maintenance dose, though for myself, I double or triple this when I’m fighting an infection.
- Vitamin A has anti-viral activity in high doses, though it can be toxic to the liver over time and it isn’t safe for pregnant women. For non-pregnant individuals with healthy livers, you can take 100,000 to 200,000 units of vitamin A for the first several days of an illness. Often a single big dose is enough to stop an early infection.
- Vitamin C is a great, safe immune enhancer. All forms are useful, though I prefer the kind that’s bound in a layer of fat for better absorption. This is sometimes called “lipospheric” or “lypospheric” vitamin C. A similar form is known as ascorbyl palmitate. I recommend about 500 mg of vitamin C per hour when actively fighting an infection (or just below the dose that gives you loose bowels).
- Zinc lozenges, specifically in the form zinc gluconate, has been proven to reduce to the duration of a cold. It’s best to suck on one slowly, repeatedly throughout the day. The downside is that, especially on an empty stomach, zinc can give you a stomach ache.
- Glandular extracts. If you don’t have a problem with animal products, some have potent immune supportive effects. They are mostly derived from otherwise discarded organs from the meat industry (beef, pork, and lamb), except in the case of the company Standard Process which raises them on their own century-old organic farm. The most common glandular extract for immune support is thymus, the gland in your chest that produces T lymphocytes. Some of the products my patients have had the most success with include Pro-Boost, X-Viromin, and Congaplex.
There are two last points I want to make. One: when you start to feel better, keep taking good care of yourself and reducing activity for at least one more day. A major rookie move is to respond to the message from your body, see positive results, and then jump right back in to high activity and crappy diet, just to get hit hard with a relapse you can’t immediately clear.
Two: nothing wastes energy like fighting with reality. I’ve been able to sail through a cold by focusing inward, finding my feelings of resistance to being sick, and letting them go. I believe anyone can do this. Think about your illness and notice the feelings in your body – particularly the lack of ease. Often there will be a feeling of tightness, tension, or bracing somewhere, or some other unpleasant feeling that isn’t due to the virus itself, but to your reaction to it. If you just keep bringing yourself back to your body and letting go of this resistance, your whole experience of being sick can change. Let your cells do the fighting, not your mind.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
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Don't deprive the world of your warmth and light!
How can you share your acceptance and love with those around you? Let us know in the comments below!
[post_title] => Talking Wellness with Peter: The Fire Element
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Sometimes I think about moving to a place where it’s always warm, like southern California or Hawaii, but it seems that every time I mention it, there’s someone around who insists that it would be boring without having four distinct seasons. And as I imagine myself being bored while swimming in the ocean in December, and being bored while picking oranges off my trees in January, and being just so incredibly bored as I go on a hike in flip flops and shorts in February, I shudder and get back to shoveling my driveway.
I’m still undecided about a future in a warm place, but I am very glad to have gotten the experience of four very distinct seasons. Growing up in New England each season was so unique. If I were magically transported to a random time of year in Massachusetts, I would have no trouble determining in an instant which season it was. That might be trickier in, say, the Pacific Northwest, and even harder in San Diego.
Part of why I appreciate my exposure to the seasons is that the world displays so clearly the prevailing dynamics of the Earth and Sun. Daoist sages developed a language around these expressions, and applied this language to everything – including human lives, politics, and relationships. Knowing some of this language encourages us to tune in to what’s happening around us and to apply our observations of Nature to our inner and interpersonal processes.
Winter is the season of dormancy. Plants die or go to sleep. Most of their energy is down in their roots or stored in seeds. So, it’s a time of emphasis on potential energy. For humans, it’s a good season for taking inventory. In wintery places, we’re often confined indoors and there are no food sources available except what we’ve put in our cupboards. The season is ruled by Water, and often there’s a lot of it, in the form of rain or snow, falling from the sky and blanketing the ground. The healthy emotion associated with Winter and Water is awe, and when out of balance, it becomes fear. Our core fear is the fear of death, and in many ways Winter is kind of like death – cold, quiet, and dark.
Spring comes next, and it’s a season of new growth, awakening, and planning. In the Pagan traditions, Spring is marked by fertility festivals, with symbols such as bunnies and eggs. In Christianity, Spring brings Easter, the holiday of rebirth. And in Judaism, there is Passover, which is full of references to fresh Spring greens, eggs, and new hope after a time of despair. The season is ruled by Wood, which is represented by plant growth – especially eager buds exploding on trees and pushing through the crust of the earth, and vines growing rapidly as if on a mission.
The healthy emotion associated with Spring and Wood is vigor – like the vigor plants employ to break out of Winter’s dormancy in Spring. In imbalance, this becomes anger, which is a feeling that is likely to come up when our plan encounters an obstacle or when we’re thrown off our trajectory. Plants encounter obstacles all the time, and they usually display some of the virtuous characteristics of healthy Wood – flexibility, and the ability to stay on their purpose instead of getting indignant.
Summer is the greatest expansion of the growth that started in Spring. In the plant world, it’s a time of flowering, and therefore, communion and sexuality. Flowers are not just sexual organs but a plant’s time to express its beauty, radiance, and glory. Summer is ruled by Fire, which has a similarly expansive and radiant nature to a flowering plant. Fire is also the element that presides over sexuality and connection. It’s a transformative, exciting force. It illuminates darkness and obscurity. The healthy emotion associated with Summer and Fire is joy. When out of balance, we feel hysteria, anxiety, or jitteriness.
Late Summer is a season unique to Chinese philosophy. It’s the latter portion of summer, when nights tend to get colder and flowering gives way to fruiting. It’s the season of ripening and the harvest of crops. Late Summer is ruled by Earth, the element that presides over nourishment. In the human body, the primary digestive organs also correspond to Earth. The healthy emotion associated with Late Summer and Earth is contemplation. It also relates to our capacity to focus and analyze. When out of balance, it becomes worry.
Finally, Fall is the season of decline. It’s the season when activity diminishes and outward growth stops; we begin to focus inward and reflect. Fall as associated with Metal or Air, both of which are good reminders of a lesson in real value. Metals, like gold and silver and the other “shiny stuff” in life, is often valued above all else, yet it is almost worthless when it comes to sustaining life. In contrast, Air is invisible and insubstantial. It’s so easy to miss and take for granted, yet we’d die in minutes without it. Hence, a main challenge of this element, whether we call it Metal or Air, is to remember that it’s the intangible things that are of greatest worth in life. The healthy emotion associated with Fall and Metal is reflection – the capacity to reflect on what has passed and gain value from it. When out of balance, it becomes grief.
There are many ways to apply these characteristics of the seasons and their associated elements in order to better understand ourselves and the world, and to more gracefully move through periods of difficulty. I created these diagrams to more clearly depict these phases as part of an ongoing cycle. The first diagram shows how each season leads to the next, and some of the key dynamics of each.
In this next diagram, we see how the characteristics of the seasons could be seen as phases in a life or project. In the Winter/Water phase, for instance, a new project is just an idea or a seed. We might call this the resting phase or the conception phase. Conception perhaps occurs near the frontier between Winter and Spring. In Spring/Wood, the project is launched (the seed germinates). The structure is defined, a plan is created. Growth begins. In the Summer/Fire phase, growth is at its maximum, and the project “blossoms.” In the Late Summer/Earth phase, the project comes to fruition. It yields a desired return on all the energy that was invested in it. We “harvest” the fruits of our labors. In the Fall/Metal phase, we “release” the project, either because it is over or because it moves to a new phase in which we are no longer attached to it. Here we are able to reflect on the value gained from going through the cycle. As we move into the Winter/Water phase again, there is the need for stillness and rest before the cycle begins again.
Every human life follows this cycle, and within every life, there are many smaller cycles, and cycles within cycles. Consider contemplating the cycle of the seasons and applying it to a few of your own endeavors – past and present. What season is trickiest for you? Is there a season you tend to skip over completely? For instance, do you plant seeds, tend to them for a while, but then neglect them and plant new seeds? Do you nourish your projects and invest your energy in them, but don’t let yourself actually celebrate the “harvest”? Do you go from one cycle to the next without ever letting yourself have a fallow period, when you let yourself do nothing and feel okay about it?
I encourage you to invite Nature into your life and see how much more colorful, alive, and right things feel.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
All rights reserved © 2015 Peter Borten
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[menu_order] => 0
[post_type] => post
[post_mime_type] =>
[comment_count] => 0
[filter] => raw
[webinar_id] => 0
)
[comment_count] => 0
[current_comment] => -1
[found_posts] => 20
[max_num_pages] => 1
[max_num_comment_pages] => 0
[is_single] =>
[is_preview] =>
[is_page] =>
[is_archive] => 1
[is_date] =>
[is_year] =>
[is_month] =>
[is_day] =>
[is_time] =>
[is_author] =>
[is_category] => 1
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[is_tax] =>
[is_search] =>
[is_feed] =>
[is_comment_feed] =>
[is_trackback] =>
[is_home] =>
[is_privacy_policy] =>
[is_404] =>
[is_embed] =>
[is_paged] =>
[is_admin] =>
[is_attachment] =>
[is_singular] =>
[is_robots] =>
[is_posts_page] =>
[is_post_type_archive] =>
[query_vars_hash:WP_Query:private] => d41f868f1942e6d493181077ef5b09d7
[query_vars_changed:WP_Query:private] =>
[thumbnails_cached] =>
[stopwords:WP_Query:private] =>
[compat_fields:WP_Query:private] => Array
(
[0] => query_vars_hash
[1] => query_vars_changed
)
[compat_methods:WP_Query:private] => Array
(
[0] => init_query_flags
[1] => parse_tax_query
)
)
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