BALANCE YOUR FIRE ELEMENT THIS SUMMER

Summer is nature’s season of growth and maturation. Flowers and fruits are growing tall. We are equally growing and maturing, and this is the high point of outdoor exercise, sports, water recreation, and hikes in nature. The sun is considered yang as it gives energy, causes action and outward movement, and creates the hot and dry climate.

According to Chinese medicine and the theory of the Five Elements, we must learn to flow as nature does, through the seasons. Tension happens when we resist this flow, and illness can occur when we resist our changes. Illness is usually a process, which makes us more receptive and more open to change. Energy must stay in motion within us and in our life to continually nourish us and create harmony within.

The Fire Element: Heart and Small Intestine

The element Fire, characterizes summer and is seen as providing the energy governing the heart and small intestine. Fire is light and warmth, and its function in the body is to maintain heat, but also to give warmth to others. The Fire element gives enthusiasm, vitality, and energy. Fire is also the energy of creativity, intuition, and motion. It also relates to the color red. This element is associated with mental activity, memory, thought processes, emotional well-being such as emotions of joy. The flavor associated with this element is bitter. Bitter foods and herbs are seen as strengthening to the heart and small intestine. But an excess of bitter foods can also injure them. Moderation is the key to balance in Chinese medicine.

The Heart

The heart, one of the organs most active in the summer season, is the regulator of blood circulation. This hard working ruler of the body serves each cell’s needs by pumping some 3,000 gallons of blood per day to the neighboring lungs, through which all blood must pass to obtain oxygen. Then the blood is returned to the heart, which pumps it out to the body, so all parts can receive this nourishing breath of life.

The Small Intestine

The small intestine is a 23-foot length organ that connects the stomach to the large intestine. The proper functioning of this organ is the key to our nourishment because the only nutrients we can actually use are those we digest and assimilate through it. Excess waste is carried on to the large intestine. To ensure proper digestion and assimilation, one must avoid a diet high in mucus-forming foods such as excessive meats, dairy products, breads, and sugar products.

When the Fire element is in balance, the heart is strong and healthy, the mind is calm, sleep is sound, and digestion is functioning at its best to provide the nutrients our bodies need to function optimally.

The Summer Diet

Summer is usually hot and we are more active. We need a diet that keeps us cool and light during this season. A diet of fresh fruits and vegetables and organically grown is ideal. Foods have yin and yang qualities. Fruits are the most yin (wet, cooling) followed by vegetables, whereas the yang foods are the more concentrated, heating ones, primarily proteins (flesh, nuts, seeds, beans), fat (dairy products, eggs), and complex carbohydrates (whole grains). So during this season, eat lots of fresh fruits, multicolored salads and vegetables, some seeds, nuts, and grains, and fewer dairy products and meats.

Here are some foods to keep you cool and balanced this summer:

• Watermelon
• Apricot
• Cantaloupe
• Lemon
• Peach
• Orange
• Asparagus
• Sprouts
• Bok choy
• Broccoli
• Chinese cabbage
• Corn
• Cucumber
• White mushroom
• Snow peas
• Spinach
• Summer squash
• Watercress
• Seaweed
• Mung means
• Cilantro
• Mint

One of the Chinese guides to illness suggests that if an organ is unbalanced or overstressed in its season, the difficulty may be expressed in the following season. Summer is not the proper time to overburden your liver, the main detoxifier for the body. Be careful with fried foods, processed and chemical foods, and drugs of all kinds, especially alcohol, or too much caffeine, as all these can be pollutants with which the liver must deal.

The Liver Flush

If you over do it, or have a little too much party drink, the next morning you can start your day with this helpful drink:

• 1-2 lemons
• 1 tablespoon cold-pressed olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 4 ounces of spring water (warm)

Squeeze the juice of one or two lemons (use some seeds and white pulp from the lemon as well) and add the rest of the ingredients to the juice. Blend 30 seconds and drink first thing in the morning. This is a great tonic and cleanser for the liver.

Summer is a time to recharge those internal batteries with solar power. Keep the Fire balanced with Water inside and out, and keep the body loose, getting good exercise. It is a time for growth and coming forth.