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- • Embracing the Season with Tips for a Healthy Fall •
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Wellness
How to End Seasonal Affective Disorder and Start Loving Winter
Many people feel down as winter approaches. It’s dark. It’s cold. The holidays can be stressful.
But for some people every winter is unbearable. They’re tired and depressed. They don’t want to get out of bed. They snap at their families and binge on junk food.
These people have seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
Our moods and energy levels fluctuate with the seasons. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) understands these cycles but modern life does not. These days, you are expected to be active, productive and creative at all times of the year. There is no accommodation for a slow, quiet winter. According to TCM, this conflict causes stress, which can result in SAD.
Chinese lunar New Year: A do-over for your New Year’s resolutions
It’s about almost month into the New Year. Do you already wish you had a do-over for your New Year’s Resolutions?
If so, you’re in luck. You do.
February 10th is the Chinese lunar New Year. The celebration of the New Year, the Spring Festival, is China’s longest and most important holiday. Because it is based on a different calendar, it falls on a different date between January 21 and February 20 every year. You can think of Spring Festival as Christmas and New Year all rolled into one. Just like our holiday season, it’s a time of celebration, visiting family and friends, giving gifts and preparing for the next year.
Chinese Lunar New Year: Spring Festival
In China, there are many New Year’s traditions during the 15-day Spring Festival. Many people clean their homes to sweep away the past year and usher in the next. Oftentimes family members travel home for a visit. Children receive red envelopes, called hóngbāo in Mandarin, filled with money from their relatives. People hang red lanterns outside their homes to bring happiness and good luck. On Chinese New Year’s Eve families gather for a huge meal and enjoy “lucky” foods together. And, of course, there are fireworks.
The Chinese zodiac has 12 years in its cycle, each one represented by an animal; 2013 is the Year of the Snake. Astrologers say that people born in the Year of the Snake are wise but enigmatic. They are very intuitive and size up situations well, but say little. Snakes are refined; they like to dress well and are usually financially secure. They are intense and passionate in relationships, but can become jealous and suspicious. Snakes prefer a calm, stress-free environment.
Recommit to Your New Year’s Resolutions
The Chinese do not traditionally make New Year’s Resolutions like we do in the West, however this is a good time to reflect on the goals you set a month ago. Are you keeping your New Year’s resolutions?
If you’re having trouble, maybe it’s time to take a lesson from the Snakes. Take a quiet moment and reflect on what is stopping you. Do you need to get serious? Do you need additional support? Are your goals genuine—do you want to do them or do you think you should do them? Why haven’t you kept your New Year’s Resolutions?
If your resolutions include improving your health in 2013, I can help you with that. Give me a call and we can arrange an appointment for anything from a tune-up to weight control to mood balancing.
If you need to make a deeper commitment to your resolutions, take a moment and think about what you need to do to keep them. Write down 3 easy action steps.
…and do them. Now.
Use the Chinese lunar New Year as a do-over. Commit to your New Year’s resolutions.
Gōng Xǐ Fā Cái. Happy New Year.
Photo credit: Gayle Nicholson / Foter / CC BY-SA
9 Healthy Holiday Eating Strategies
Pie. Cookies. Chocolate. Eggnog. Champagne.
The holiday season is filled with good foods. You eat and drink with your friends and loved ones to celebrate how much you care about them.
But we all know that too much of a good thing is no longer good. Too many rich foods can lead to extra pounds, digestion upsets, mood swings and a generally “yucky” feeling.
It’s all about balance.
Good, healthy holiday eating can make the difference between an enjoyable holiday season and a miserable one. The trick is to enjoy treats without overdoing them. Make a healthy holiday eating strategy and plan to enjoy the holiday celebrations without feeling bad the next day.
The Key to Staying Healthy
Your car came with a maintenance schedule that is designed to optimize the life of the car. If you care about your car, it means that you take all of the necessary steps to protect your investment by following the maintenance schedule and taking care of other needed repairs as they come up.
You, on the other hand, did not come with a maintenance schedule. The sad truth is that many people take better care of their cars than they do themselves because they do not prize their own health and wellbeing as much as they feel they need their transportation. Sometimes, the car’s main function seems to be just getting you to all of those doctors’ appointments.
Depending upon your current health status, you may visit your doctor/s often or hardly at all. Either way, a good question to ask yourself is “What am I doing to stay as healthy as I can for as long as I can?” You can do more than just taking pills with their potential side effects.
The reality is that most of the top killers today are lifestyle related, regardless of your family history. In other words, it’s about the lifestyle choices that you make. Just because you inherit certain genes doesn’t mean that you have to continue with a lifestyle that is detrimental to your health.
Cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, depression, autoimmune disorders…all of these conditions are greatly impacted by stress, diet, lifestyle habits, depressed nervous systems, our home environments, etc. Until we change our focus from the curing of disease and the alleviation of styptoms to the propagation of optimal health, we will continue to fall short of our potential wellbeing.
In most cases, your body has the capacity to heal itself as long as there is the proper balance and flow of energy (life force). According to acupuncture and Chinese medicine, your body has a meridian system (invisible pathways in the body) that delivers energy to every body part right down to the cellular components. When this meridian system is properly functioning, it reduces inflammation, relieves pain and promotes good health. With the focus of this article on your health, you should know that true health is much more than the mere absence of illness or symptoms. It is also not limited to your body. In addition to a healthy body, it includes mental and emotional fitness.
True health includes a general optimism along with good physical fitness and a well-balanced energy system. So, the key to staying healthy is not to depend on pharmaceutical solutions from the outside, but rather to stimulate your innermost healing layer (your meridian system) first and then optimize it with layer upon layer of healthy, productive lifestyle habits that honor your body and mind and their capacity for optimal health.
Rmember, your car can be replaced if it stops working. What about you? If your body is like a broken down old jalopy and you’d rather be more like a well maintained and smooth running car, then consider taking some extra steps in your life to create better health for yourself and your loved ones. Everyone will be happier for it.