Staying Strong With King Winter

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Winter is a season that most people seem to dislike and complain about; it gets cold! It makes sense - the cold of winter adds the biological stress of maintaining a consistent temperature. This stress makes us more vulnerable to getting colds and flus.

As an immigrant who grew up in Southeast Asia, I did not know how to dress for the cold. It took me 15 years to learn, thanks to a native mid-westerner who loved the outdoors. For me, it's all about the wool - wool socks, wool hat, wool sweaters, wool leggings, wool scarves - and the snow pants that I wear like people wear long underwear, except on the outside :)

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Since then I have been a happy bunny hanging with King Winter, and am I glad! I go outdoors on the most frigid days, when the sky is a vast and pure blue and the crisp white snow is all around everywhere reflecting the glorious light of the sun, making it a day as bright as the sunniest day in Summer.

The environment and our bodies are always interacting, becoming one whole process.

Chinese Medicine also taught me how to keep myself strong during the cold winter months. Chinese Medicine arises from a nature based philosophy of life, and understands that we are not separate from our environment.

When I get a chill, I almost always wake up the next day with the first subtle symptoms of a cold. Chinese Medicine has taught me that cold has entered my body and offers common sense instructions for avoiding the chill in the first place and then pushing it out if need be. It's all about cozy and warm, whether inside or outside.

  • Keep head warm - a warm hat
  • Keep your neck warm - a warm scarf to cover top of the spine and base of skull (where certain energy centers are more susceptible to cold)
  • Keep your feet warm
  • Obviously keep your torso warm
  • Drink ginger tea
  • Take a hot bath when a chill settles in

When there are wide temperature variations, our bodies are even more vulnerable, having to adjust to its environment. If you observe those around you in these times, you'll notice a wave of colds and flus. To avoid this wave, stay warm, even when it gets warmer, continuing to offer your body as much stability as you can.

Environment Matters

Because our bodies and our environment are interacting as one whole, engaged in innumerable, complex processes all the time, our environment matters, a lot. Being inside, being outside, sitting in front of a computer, immersed in EMF, bathing in the environment of Nature, being in an emotionally toxic environment or in a calm and quiet and safe environment - it all matters, including the energetic environment within our bodies, fear, anger, calm, grief, self-criticism, our microbiome, the food we eat.. And then, enter Covid, and we have the situation of Covid interacting with our body which is interacting with our external environment. Knowing this, it is important to tend to our internal environment - warmth, nourishing foods, supplements that meet the needs of our bodies, getting sufficient rest and time to simply be.