Revitalize and Harness The Expanding YangQi Energy in Spring Time!
Time flies and spring has already arrived. While some may think of it as simply the time between winter and summer, it is much more than a transition. Spring is a time of awakening, of renewal, and of abundance. Do you feel the difference? There is an energetic buzz in the air as new faces appear, flowers sprout and creatures move. Everything that has been dormant during the winter months is in the process of being awakened. The potential for change becomes palpable… Active energy, Yang Qi, is stirring and rising up.
As the old Chinese saying goes, “A year’s plan begins in spring,” a spring year’s health plan plays an important role throughout the year. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) healthcare, spring is the best time to revitalize and harness the expanding Yang energy.With the right wellness tips, better results can be achieved with half the hassle. Let’s learn how to revitalize and harness the expanding YangQi energy in spring time!
Promote Raising the Yang Qi in Spring
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), one key to a long life is living in harmony with nature and the four seasons. All living things on earth, including humans, are influenced by environmental and seasonal changes. Each of the four seasons has its own individual characteristics and rhythms that affect not only the external world but our internal world as well. According to the Emperor’s Classic of Medicine, a core text of medicine in China, “Spring gives birth, Summer grows, Autumn harvests, and Winter stores.”
“Spring gives birth, Summer grows, Autumn harvests, and Winter stores.”
Beginning of Spring is the time of year for new beginnings. It is also time to continue revitalizing and growing the ever-expanding Yang in our bodies so as to mimic the expanding Yang in the natural world. TCHE pays attention to the harmony between humans and nature , exercise based on timing, and the selection of different seasonal exercises according to different body constitutions.
“Raise the Yang Qi during spring and summer, and nourish the Yin in fall and winter”
Wang Maohong, Director of Nephrology of Jiangxi Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, said, “Like nature, everything begins to grow, and spring is the time when the human body’s Yang Qi energy begins to expand. By following the growth rituals of nature, proper wellness tips will yield better results with half the effort.
First, Better Sleep Pattern
“Going to bed a little later and getting up a little earlier in spring.” This is the basic rule you should follow for your springtime sleep schedule.
Springtime brings new growth, longer days, shorter nights, and earlier sunrise than winter. Go to bed relatively late and get up early, you can follow the sunrise rhythm in the rich sunshine morning, promote the rise of yang qi in spring and summer, and do not avoid the sun, that is, get more than 30 minutes of sunshine in spring and summer. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) therapy believes that Yang Qi is the essence of life, is the material metabolism of the body and the physiological function of the driving force, determines growth, development, aging, death. People with abundant Yang Qi is strong and healthy.
Here you should note: a little later to sleep is about 10 o’clock sleep, more than 11 o’clock to sleep on the injury to the gallbladder, serious cases will suffer from gallstones, depression. Awake early, is the dawn that is up, probably more than 5 o’clock in the morning.
2. Appropriate Sports & Exercises
The spring season is the time of rising subterranean yang qi in a little cold air, so exercise should follow and mimic the state of spring. Therefore, sports and exercise should take into account the characteristics of “winter”, not strenuous exercise, light sports such as walking, yoga, eight brocade and other stretching movements can increase blood circulation, stimulate the lymphatic system, improve mood and increase YangQi of your body.
The best exercises that you can do in the spring time
- T’ai Chi
- Walking
- Jogging
- Outdoor Cycling
- Kite Flying
- Mountain climbing
4. Brush Your Hair Regularly
Frequently combing your hair (or head, if you have no hair) is one of the basic health exercise recommendations for revitalizing Yang energy in the spring. In China, this is called “combing therapy,” which has been around since at least the Sui Dynasty and is found in both Yang Sheng texts and Tuina manuals.
Health Benefits of Daily Head Brushing
There are several benefits to brushing your hair as part of your daily routine. By stimulating the top of the head, we are stimulating the top of the body, which is the most Yang area of the body. Since spring is a time of growing and expanding Yang, it is appropriate to stimulate the Yang area of the body.
- An appropriate way to stimulate the Yang area of the body.
- Stimulate the movement of Wei Qi in the head.
- Stimulation of blood circulation in the scalp.
- Strengthen the channels on the scalp to mobilize the qi and blood in the whole body.
- Stimulates and distributes the natural oils, and exfoliates the scalp.
- Reduce the risk of hair breakage.
- Brushing hair can also relieve stress.
How to comb hair properly?
To perform combing therapy, the hair (or scalp) should be combed every day, 100 times per session. This can be done either in the morning upon awakening or in the evening before bedtime, and the traditional recommendation is to use a bone or wood comb. However, a simple finger comb is even more effective because the fingers are alive and have qi, which bone and wood do not have. This is such a simple exercise that anyone can learn it.
When you are combing your hair, you can bend forward or backward a little bit to promote blood circulation.
When brushing the hair, first brush the hair from the hairline on the forehead back to the root of the hair at the back of the neck, and then brush the hair in opposite directions from the top of the left and right ears. Apply uniform force and slow speed to comb. Make 50 to 100 strokes at one time. The scalp should be a little bit warm.
4. Eat Spring Season Food
Spring is the time that is associated with the Wood Phase and the Liver, and the Liver is a Yang organ (with the Heart being the other Yang organ). Therefore, foods that support and nourish the liver are recommended at the beginning of Spring.
Nourishing the liver, at the beginning of spring, means following the celestial timing, driving out and freeing oneself from disease, and protecting one’s health.
Basically, this is the time to choose foods that can soften and nourish the liver, calm the liver, and regulate the yang energy of the liver. For example, eating more scallions, ginger, leeks, and onions will help the body’s Yang energy grow in the Spring.
Reduce your intake of spicy, cold and sour foods like tomatoes, oranges, lemons, plums, etc. Because of the sour taste in the liver, with astringent nature, is not conducive to the birth of Yang Qi and the excretion of liver Qi.
5. Cold Protection & Heat Retention
In the spring season, the human body is under the influence of the nature. The Yang energy of the body is born, and the blood gradually tends to the skin and the pores open, so the blood is slightly reduced, and the body’s surface to resist external evil is weakened. Meanwhile, the spring weather is unstable, cold and hot switch much, then it is easy to external cold and wet, showing cold and cough symptoms.
Protecting against cold and keeping warm in spring is important. The warmth of the neck, waist, feet, which are located in the main channel of the body of Yang Qi transportation, should pay special attention to.
6. Incorporate iReviKit Infrared Mat for Deep Detoxification
Spring is the perfect time of year to do a “soft” or “spring” clean of your body and mind. This may look like a complete cleaning and decluttering of the house, which can be refreshing, cleansing and revitalizing.
Embracing and moving with seasonal cycles can be really good for our mental health and more in tune with our nature than trying to keep pace year-round.
If you’ve been in more of an introspective, hibernating mode these past few months and are ready to jump into the new energy of the season, why not give it the rejuvenation your body and mind deserve?
With iReviKit, sweat it out. Incorporate our Amethyst and Tourmaline Infrared Mat into your daily routine. These products use infrared technology to enhance detoxification, increase relaxation, improve circulation and stimulate the production of heat shock proteins for deep detoxification.
7. Be Positive & Manage Anger
For our mental health, we should also adhere to the characteristics of developing YangQi energy, properly manage our anger and depression, try to maintain a sunny, positive attitude, mental and physical harmony, full of energy.
In TCM, spring is the time of liver. This organ is responsible for the emotion of anger, which can be expressed loudly and explosively, or disturbed by the thoughtful, passive-aggressive or repressed emotions one hides for fear of expressing anger. It is important to practice breath work to calm the liver during the spring months. We should try to maintain a cheerful, positive attitude, to ensure our own mental and spiritual compatibility with nature, and to try to keep the body and mind in a harmonious, energetic state.
References
- Yan Jiang, College of Sport Science: Analysis of the TCM theory of traditional Chinese health exercise
