May in Your Body
into the thick of it- may routine and diet
Now that April showers are behind us, May is a month of beauty and bloom. Here in the middle of spring, we’ve begun to clear out the stagnation of winter and thaw the cold, hard blockages. It’s a great time to set yourself up for success for the daylight and warmth of summer, so let’s get after it…
Lifestyle & Routine
The sun is rising earlier (and so are the birds)— here on the sunnier side of the year is a wonderful opportunity to get started with your day sooner and really seize that jawn. The first few moments after wake-up are prime time to set an intention and start on the right foot (even before you put your feet on the floor). Before you grab for your phone, try asking yourself this: “how do I want to feel about myself when I get into bed tonight?”
Because springtime is a time to thaw, clear, and cleanse from the dark, cold winter, little habits like oil puling or tongue scraping take very little commitment and aid in clearing the wastes that accumulate from your body’s nightly cleaning. If you’re really looking to dive in to a new habit, try neti pot (which helps with clearing allergens from the sinuses).
Good routine in the season of sun, growth, and light sets the stage for ample success in your days. not every moment (nor every day) will be high, positive, and progress— but finding 5 minutes in your morning to set the stage will support with stress response and resilience in the immediate moment, and health and flow in the long run.
Diet Staples
Temperatures are still volatile (especially in early may) and clearing and cleansing is still priority. but with summer right around the corner, some staple food stuffs for the month include those with dilating, cooling, and hydrating properties. What goes on inside of us reflects what’s going on around us and, while the body is adaptive, modifying your diet for the season supports your systems so your energy can be directed towards more prudent tasks.
Light and bitter greens like asparagus, brussel sprouts, or arugula are chok full of vitamins and minerals and offer a bitter taste to body tonify your insides skins and stimulate the peristalsis that keeps your wastes moving through your channels of elimination.
As the weather gets warmer, cooling foods like lime, cucumber, avocado will provide the nutrients our bodies need while keeping the system from over heating. In a nutshell, your liver processes all of the byproducts of digestion, filtering out waste before sending the good stuff into the blood stream. Because blood is “hot” (from an eastern perspective), late spring diet into summer should consist of cooler foods to keep your liver function more stable/less over-taxed.
Finally, as the heat kicks up, your body begins sweating and flushing that heat through your skin organ (like how that sounds? skin organ). We need electrolytes quite literally to exist properly, so berries, melons, pineapples (tropical fruits) are robust sources for hydrating sweetness.
What’s Next
The soon-to-arrive summer is the season for being social, being in the sun, and making plans. May is a fabulous month to not only plan vacations, but also to plan for rest and recovery. Sleep/rest/recovery time is important always but falls to the wayside when the outside is nice and it’s fun to go play. Chill, vibe, and live wholly my friends.
March in Your Body
March is the real turn-of-the-leaf away from the dark time and into the light time. Once daylight savings Springs forward, the days get longer, the earth begins to thaw, and we’re drawn outward. You may notice that you crave less of the heavy sweetness that the Winter called for; you may even notice your appetite diminish just a bit. Embrace that. Just like the cold, hard, and heavy winter gives way for the light, energetic, clearness of Spring, this time of year the body readies itself to shed an refresh.
Key Take-Aways
Take advantage of the earlier sunrises and cooler air for immune and circadian regularity.
Increase circulation to improve blood health and lymphatic drainage after a winter of “hibernation”.
Movement is king. Dry brush, tongue scrape, irrigate your sinuses- encourage system-wide movement to increase conditions for regeneration.
Qualities of the Season
Spring is sprung at the heart of Kapha Season. It’s a biannual intersection between the dark time and light time. While the body reheats and re-energizes, it’s helpful to support the transition with easy to digest, light, simple foods. Wake with the sun and get outside. The blue light of the sunrise is a perfect way to get your systems energized in a nourishing way. Prioritize warm, light, dry, mobile, sharp, penetrating qualities and embrace bitter, stringent, and pungent tastes.
Daily/Practices
Like other animals, we too shed our winter layers in preparation for the upcoming warm season. In our case, it involves losing the insulating layers of fat beneath the skin, a natural process that differs from the modern concept of striving for a "summer body." Instead, this process aligns with the natural order, a delicate orchestra that changes seasonally to set us up for success.
Ayurvedically, this shedding can contribute to our blood and lymphatic systems experiencing congestion or sluggishness. This can lead to feelings of heaviness and lethargy. In addition, this congestion can contribute to mucous build-up, common during this time of year. Dry brushing remains a helpful practice to support the somewhat reluctant lymphatic system.
The idea of scraping, known as lekhana, can be applied in various ways throughout the season to introduce a rough and mobile quality when it's lacking. For example, tongue scraping is beneficial year-round but particularly useful now to clarify and assess the state of the digestive system through the purge.
While the body lightens up, there's an increased risk of irritants causing seasonal allergies due to changes in blood circulation. Regular Neti practice helps cleanse the sinuses, flushing out any trapped irritants and reducing immune responses.
Most importantly, spend time outdoors and stay active. Embracing our connection to nature on nice days allows us to return to its warm embrace, recalibrate our circadian rhythm, and positive impact our mental health. Engaging in activities like preparing spring gardens brings joy in witnessing new life. Our nervous systems greatly benefit from reconnecting with nature, aligning our vibes with the environment around us.
Diet Staples
March signifies the switch to bitter, pungent, and astringent tastes. Foods high in prana, or energy and life, are more easily accessible as farm stand season returns. Gone are the dark, cold months of root veggies and preserves- now is the time for fresh berries, cherries, greens, and grains!
Pungent and warming digestive herbs like ginger, black pepper, and turmeric assist the digestion, or agni, to brighten up and reinvigorate. It’s the perfect season to re-introduce all sorts of grains into the diet. Grains like barkley, buckwheat, and millet are light and mobile enough to give quick bursts of energy that will help keep the system running efficiently with the longer days.
Finally, beans and lean meats - particularly easy to digest beans and fish - nourish the system via their fiber, carb, and protein content. Because the light time encourages getting outside and getting mobile, it’s important to keep protein in a light and easily digestible form in order to ensure the body is supplied properly for regeneration.
What It All Means
The biggest takeaway is this: the sun is back, the body gets to movin in the Spring. Support your body's transition with easily digestible, light, and simple foods. As the body taps into its accumulated reserves for fuel, prioritize warm, light, dry, and mobile qualities, alongside bitter, stringent, and pungent tastes.
In daily practices, shed winter layers with dry brushing, scraping, and especially tongue scraping to assess digestive health. Combat potential seasonal allergies by incorporating regular Neti practice. Embrace outdoor activities for overall well-being, connecting with nature during this time of renewal. Circulation, metabolism, and circadian health are always primary- they are the inner clock and combustion systems that keep us regular!
February in Your Body
I always joke that February, August, Thursday, and 7pm have the same energy. After making it through the seemingly endless month of January, February comes and goes like the blink of an eye. At this point in the year, the season has turned from dry to damp and the darkness is slowly moving towards the light. February is also love month and national heart health month. Let’s dive into some ways that you can put your best foot forward in this season of transition.
Qualities of the season
Late-Winter into Early-Spring is a season of damp, cool, cloudy quality. it environment is ripe for the renewal of life energy for the year. This Late-Winter, Early-Spring is reflected in the beginning stages of life (infancy to adolesence), the middle part of the morning (6am - 10am), and the regenerative nature of the body’s mucus-y allergy season. As the Winter begins to thaw by the increased daylight and slightly warmer temperatures, our internal climate reacts by melting away the insulating layer of fat keyed up during the Winter season. Like increases like and opposites balance, so this time of year can aggravate Kapha dosha and any systems that are affiliated.
We balance the influence of this damp, cool season by incorporating more dry, warm, mobile, clear, and sharp qualities into our diet and routine. so what does this look like?
Daily/Practices
Like others in the animal kingdom, we too shed our winter layers to prepare for the warm season ahead. For us, that looks a lot like the subcutaneous insulating layers of fat being “melted away” as the days get longer and our energy output picks up. This is a far jump from the modern and highly problematic tendency towards a “summer body”, but instead reflects the natural order operating on it’s own accord to set us up for success season by season.
Without this awareness (and supportive protocol), our blood/lymph can get congested or stagnated entirely when this process starts to shake out. We feel a sense of heaviness and lethargy as a result of our circulatory system slowing down and thickening. We can ease and accommodate this process by incorporating dry brush to move the lymph and circulation.
Scraping (lekhana) introduces a rough and mobile quality into a time that is lacking in that. For instance, tongue scraping, while extremely valuable all year round, is especially useful to both clarify and assess the nature of the digestive system during this time of purging and clearing.
Finally, and worth an addm is getting outside and moving around. We are nature, so on the sporadic nice days that we do have, we return to her warm and loving embrace. We can prepare our gardens of the spring season, enjoying the art of sprouting new life. We can clean and clear out our homes as we embrace the season of sun. Our nervous systems also greatly benefit from being outside in nature and reattuning our vibes to reflect our environment.
Diet Staples
February is still root veggie and soup season. You cannot go wrong with the liquefying hydration of a brothy soup to keep you warm and nourished. As the weather turns from dry to damp, more clarifying root veggies (such as beets, parsnips, and radishes) can support the cloudy, gunkiness of the winter melt.
Add pungents and heating spices to your meals to start heating the system up from the inside, get circulation moving, and liquefy the mucusyness of the coming allergy season. It’s also a great time to add in dry and drying fruits and veggies (astringents) that can assist in the blood-cleasing process. These include but are not limited to cranberries, dried cherries, apples, pears, and berries. Cabbage-family foods (brussel sprouts, cabbage, broccoli), aspargus, and kale also have rough qualities that can support a balanced system in this time of year.
December in Your Body
The Winter season arrives on the 21st of the month- dark, cold, and hard. There’s a reason why cultural celebrations of light and gathering happen at this time of year. As always, like increases like and opposites balance. In this season, balance is manifest through warming spices, proximity to loved ones, and rituals that shed light where there is dark. The December month’s routine and diet is one that brings the radiant heat inside, to the center of our bodies.
Lifestyle & Routine
When our bodies are warm, our blood vessels dilate in order to help maintain homeostasis by letting off some of that heat. In the Winter, that same dilation causes us let off too much heat too fast. This leaves us cold. We prevent this coldness by bundling up, keeping our head and ears covered, and protecting our extremities.
The Winter solstice is the shortest day of the year with the sun is setting between 4 and 5 pm and rising no earlier than 7 am. In the midday, the sun’s rays cast shadows across the streets making the noon-time feel like twilight. Regardless of the season, our bodies need natural light, our eyes process the light as part of it’s circadian regulation. We leverage this rhythm to keep our sleep/wake cycles “regular” and our digestion operating efficiently. With fewer daylight hours, we are inclined to miss out on the sun and the signals that come from that direct connection. Take 5 minutes a day to go outside, stare at nature, or simply feel the breeze kiss your skin or the subtle warmth of the sun still radiate into you. The light gets scarce, so capitalizing on the resource is a huge step in the right direction.
Additionally, our skulls are this neat instrument, robust with holes and openings covered in skin. Having proper hydration or lubrication in all orifices keeps the mucous layers healthy so that they can perform their duties as if business as usual. We stay moistened through abhyanga (oil massage), nasya (nasal oil), and oil pulling (swishing coconut oil around in your mouth). Our cells membranes thrive on the viscosity and permeability of the oils that we consume and use, so be sure to source from trusted suppliers.
This final month of the year is ripe with season-oriented activities and gatherings. It is important to find your version of balance to avoid running yourself ragged. No day is created equal and, while the Summer season is vibrant and energetic, the Winter time is a time to reflect and turn inward.
Diet Staples
Once Winter turns, our body’s heat finds a cozy seat in the core, leaving the extremities cold and pale. This core-centered heating for the season indicates an uptick in agni (digestive fire), and therefore encourages us to eat robust and hearty meals for nourishment. Our prime focus for this season is building our thermo-regulatory layer of fats and rebuilding the heartiness of our blood tissue (rakta dhatu).
There are six main tastes in Ayurvedic healing (sweet, sour, salty, pungent, astringent, bitter). Like increases like, and opposites balance. In a season of “dry, mobile, cold”, air element, light crisp leaves, and sharp winds, sweet taste and heavy quality keeps us grounded and nourished. Sweet, from the Ayurvedic perspective, is not intended to mean to sugary snacks with long shelf lives. Instead, sweet is in the things that build our muscles and fat tissues to keep us well. butter, oils, cheeses, root vegetables, and meats are a must to keep the body strong as it resets from the year.
While like increases like, too much of a good thing can actually aggravate. In a cold season, consider gently warming herbs such as cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and allspice will heat you up with out burning you out. Bear in mind that pungent (or spicy) can heat up and diminish so rapidly that the body ends up feeling colder after.
Soups for the season include all of the roots, veggies, broths, herbs, and meats that you can mix harmoniously to create a unique and fun experience each time.
What’s Next
Continue to give yourself the space to slow down, give yourself permission to say “no” to too much on your social calendar. Allow yourself a chance at truly saying “yes” to yourself. Slowing down and taking rest is not about “doing nothing” but more about letting the body do what it needs to do to support you. If you’re interested in learning more or navigating your specific experience, always keep in mind that you can contact (me) your friendly neighborhood lifestyle expert!
November in Your Body
We enter the season of the hearth and healing as November rolls in. We turn inwards as the days get shorter and the weather gets colder. While nature diminishes, we return to the home and the household to build our strength and energy for the year ahead. Our bodies intuitively begin to pull blood and heat from the extremities to the center to kindle the digestion and metabolism to begin storing our energy for the season.
Lifestyle & Routine
As without, so within on every level. our blood vessels constrict to keep heat in, building heat around our midsection. Our digestion, or internal furnace, heats up while it processes the sweet and heavy foods of this time of year. Like bears hibernating towards the cooler season, we do well to take a load off when we move into November. It gives our systems a chance to fully recovery after the exuberance of the Summer.
Once the clocks fall back, daylight hours become an invaluable resource. Our bodies need natural light, our eyes process the light as part of it’s circadian regulation. We need Circadian Rhythm to keep our sleep/wake cycles “regular” and our digestion operating efficiently. With fewer daylight hours, we are inclined to miss out on the sun and the signals that come from that direct connection. Take 5 minutes a day to go outside, stare at nature, or simply feel the wind on your skin. The light gets scarce, so capitalizing on the resource is a huge step towards success.
Additionally, our skulls are this neat instrument, robust with holes and openings covered in skin. In the cold chill of the impending season, having proper hydration in all orifices keeps the mucous layers healthy so that they can perform their duties as if business as usual. We stay moistened through abhyanga (oil massage), nasya (nasal oil), and oil pulling (swishing coconut oil around in your mouth). Our cell’s membranes thrive on the viscosity and permeability of the oils that we consume and use, so be sure to source from trusted suppliers.
The big takeaways from this time of transition is to dress properly for the weather (keep your head-holes covered), plan for an earlier and longer bedtime (let the day-change support your rhythm), and continue to prioritize your intuitive patterns over your expectations for yourself (the body knows).
Diet Staples
There are six main tastes in ayurvedic healing (sweet, sour, salty, pungent, astringent, bitter). Like increases like, and opposites balance. in a season of mobile climate, air element, light crisp leaves, and sharp winds, sweet taste and heavy quality keeps us grounded and nourished. Sweet, from the Ayurvedic perspective, is not intended to mean to sugary snacks with long shelf lives. Instead, sweet is in the things that build our muscles and fat tissues to keep us well. Butter, oils, cheeses, root vegetables, and meats are a must to keep the body strong as it resets from the year.
While like increases like, too much of a good thing can actually aggravate. In a cold season, consider gently warming herbs such as cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and allspice will heat you up with out burning you out. Bear in mind that pungent (or spicy) can heat up and diminish so rapidly that the body ends up feeling colder after.
November is soup season! Soups are great because they are typically easy to bulk batch, often include the bonus broths to keep us liquid in a parched time, and can be a fun creative outlet when going outside is not on the agenda.
Soups for the season include all of the roots, veggies, broths, herbs, and meats that you can mix harmoniously to create a unique and fun experience each time.
What’s Next
Continue to give yourself the space to slow down, give yourself permission to say “no” to opportunities. Allow yourself a chance at truly saying “yes” to yourself. Slowing down and taking rest, I’ve learned, is not about “doing nothing” but more about letting the body do what it needs to do to support you. If you’re interested in learning more or navigating your specific constitution, always keep in mind that you can contact (me) your friendly neighborhood wellness professional!