EPISODE 34

Spring

It’s spring! Yay! That means fresh energy, fresh food, and fresh motivation to embrace goal-oriented action and outward exploration. Here we talk about the best ways to adjust your eating, movement, sleep and social patterns to make the most of the season. And for those who are still feeling depleted from winter, we offer some helpful post-hibernation suggestions, too.

This week on The Living Experiment, we’re talking about Spring — the essential nature of the season, and the shifts your body wants to make in keeping with it.

In a continuation of Dallas’s Seasonal Model of Health, and the season-by-season series we started this winter, we talk about the value of adjusting your eating, activity, sleep and social activities in ways befitting spring.

We also explore the energetic and psycho-emotional dynamics you might be noticing this time of year, plus some insights from Chinese Five-Element theory, and the value of integrating rather than fighting your body’s natural rhythms and desires.

Finally, we offer up some experiments that can help you get your own body and mind in sync with the gifts of this spring season.

“Spring” Episode Highlights

  • The true and essential nature of spring, contrasted with its oversimplified “spring forward!” media hype
  • Dallas’s description of the seasonal shift from the quietude and darkness of winter to the increased energy and light of spring
  • A recap of Chinese Five-Element theory that Pilar introduced in our “Winter” episode, with a focus on the movement and decisiveness of spring
  • Why spring — rather than January — is the optimal time to launch into the action phase of resolutions
  • Nutritional elements of the change of seasons: taking advantage of what’s growing locally, and the role of plant-based carbohydrates in a seasonal diet
  • How sleep, social and hormonal patterns naturally shift with the lengthening daylight, and the importance of listening to what your body wants (regardless of what experts say “should” drive you seasonally)

Act on the plans you’ve been ruminating on over the winter. Choose one change you’d like to make and move into action now.

This morning or as soon as possible, step just outside your door and simply take note of the season’s light, smells, sounds, and the feel of the air on your skin. Observe what is new and different with spring’s arrival. If you enjoy this practice, do it every morning.

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Have you told your friends and family about  The Living Experiment? If you dig it, please do! We are admittedly not all that great at promoting ourselves, so every recommendation from you means a lot.

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Resources

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