Spring Season

This year we seem have undergone an instant transition from Winter to Spring. Particularly when the sun is shining and the skies are blue, you can already feel the dynamic energy of the new season.

In Chinese medicine, Spring is linked to the wood element.
Spring is the season for both the birth of the new and the regeneration of the old. Green shoots and buds burst forth and newborn lambs bound about noisily.

The energy within ourselves responds to the Spring season too. It is a time for planning and making decisions about the future, not just on a day to day level, but for the whole year ahead.
Well made plans and decisions are both exciting and satisfying. Sometimes things go awry and our plans and hopes are thwarted, which may leave us feeing frustrated and irritable, headachey and even depressed.

As warmth is to Summer, wind is to Spring. We can be like a graceful tree that bends in the wind and going with the flow, so to speak, rather than being stubbornly inflexible and snapping.
In Chinese medicine, wind is seen as the spearhead of disease and can carry both the wind itself and often cold too, into the unprotected body. Wind can invade the body, either because the defence system is weak or through prolonged exposure.
It often targets the head, neck and back and can lead to aches and pains which wander around the joints and muscles, as well perhaps as creating symptoms of influenza.
Having diagnosed the cause of distress, the practitioner of Chinese medicine will use acupuncture points to eliminate the wind and cold, remove obstructions from the energy channels and perhaps use moxa, a warming herb, to also counteract the cold.

Remember the old saying of keeping appropriately clothed until May is out (there are arguments as to whether this means May the season, or May blossom!) As long as you take adequate care, you can enjoy the season and keep well, whatever the climate throws at us.