Stay Healthy with the Seasons - Summer

By Tian Li, L.Ac

In Chinese Lunar Calendar summer starts around May 5 and runs until around Aug 6 every year. The three months of summer make up a season of prosperity and the fullness and beauty of plants and vegetation. Yin and Yang merge and blooms follow. Go to bed late and rise early to adapt to this environment. As temperatures rise, the crops rapidly grow, the summer weather becomes hotter and hotter, and the forest becomes thick. This period is good for the heart because the heart shows its most vivid power and functionality in this season.

The summer heat is vigorous and the body should sweat a little, so that the Yang can be released to the outside. People should have a strong emotional interest being outside. We should find truth in pursuing things we love. To find such harmony is to capture Summer’s growth spirit. If we do not follow this principle our heart will be depleted, and we will get sick in the fall. 

Parents know that children grow up very fast in the summer. Sufficient Yang energy in summer stimulates various growth functions of the human body. In summer, we bask in the sun, and the vitamin D synthesized by the human body is enough for us to use in winter.

Summer Yang energy not only speeds the growth of children, it speeds up adult metabolism too, and the new cells repair the aging body and functions, we grow sufficiently, then we can effectively delay the aging of the body. So, if you want to stay young, you must be active

in summer.

Summer naps are important. Every day between 11 am and 1 pm, Qi and blood flow through the heart meridian. At this time, letting the heart rest is very nourishing.

Summer is a good time to eat foods with a sour flavor. Sour enters the liver. The liver is wood element and is the mother of fire, so sour can nourish the heart. Add some sour taste in summer’s diet, add vinegar or lemon in salad, eat some fruits with a sour taste like strawberry, plum, blackberry, blueberry, cranberry, lemon, mango, pineapple, etc.

Summer is also a good time to eat pungent or spicy food. Many people will think that because summer is hot it is not a good time to eat spicy food. The opposite is actually the case. Our skin pores are wide open in summer and because we are open it is very easy to catch evil energy like heat, cold, dampness, anything too excessive. Pungent flavors can vent out these energies from the skin and prevent them from accumulating inside of the body. Another reason, the body’s Yang is on the surface, our outside body is warm, but the internal organs are actually cold. The spleen and stomach are relatively cold. It’s like the earth, deep inside is cold in summer, but in winter, deep inside of earth is warm. The same is true with our body. So warm and pungent foods protect our digestion. Pungent food can help our body sweat and dissipate heat and as a result we feel less hot.

There are two kinds of spicy food suitable for summer. These include pungent and warm and pungent and cool. Pungent and warm foods include basil, bay, caraway, cardamon, chive leaf, chive seed, clove, dill seed, fennel seed, hawthorn, juniper, nutmeg, parsley, rosemary, thyme, turmeric, green onion, ginger, garlic, pepper, brussels sprouts.

Pungent and cool foods include asparagus, broccoli, burdock root, daikon, radish, watercress, black cohosh, spearmint, mulberry leaves, mint, chrysanthemum, honeysuckle and so on. They can help us evacuate wind and heat, prevent colds, and relieve heat.

Summer is not a good time to eat too much bitterness.

Bitterness enters the heart meridian, most people will think bitterness will be good for heart fire, but heart fire is very important to our body’s growth, we don’t want to cool the heart fire directly, so we can use more gentle ways to balance heart fire by tonifying heart’s mother, the liver. When the mother is strong, the kid will be healthy. The best way to cool heart fire is indirectly through the use of sour.

Foods that benefit the heart include wheat, oats, ryes, beetroot, endive, winter melon, lotus root, scallion, cherry, crabapple, water- melon, longan, American ginseng, reishi mushroom, aduki bean, chickpea, lentil, lima bean, mung bean, coconut, coconut milk, cuttlefish, shark, swordfish, pheasant, quail, pork heart, chicken egg, duck egg, pigeon egg, egg yolk, cow milk, aniseed, cayenne, chili, cinnamon bark, garlic, brown rice, ginger, hawthorn, oregano, black pepper, rosemary, saffron, sage, thyme, beer, coffee, lime flower, cauliflower, spirits, black tea, green tea, wine and vitamin C.

Common beneficial summer foods include cucumber, celery, zucchini, spinach, mixed greens, lettuce, green bean, pepper, eggplant, zucchini, mushroom, tomatoes, summer squash, tomatillos, fennel, avocado, mint, curd, onion, garlic, coconut water, winter melon, bitter melon, green leafy vegetables, cherries, blueberry, blackberry, strawberry, raspberry, cantaloupe, corn, peach, plum, apricot, lemon, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, limes, shelling beans, etc. 

The principle to stay healthy in the summer is to nourish the heart and lungs.

Summer’s associations in Chinese Medicine:

ELEMENT – Fire

YIN ORGAN – Heart

YANG ORGAN– Small Intestine 

SENSE ORGAN – Tongue 

EMOTION – Joy, Happiness

FLAVOR – Bitter

COLOR – Red