🍁 The Fall Season in Chinese Medicine

It's officially autumn!

It's time to start drinking pumpkin spice lattes and waking up together with the chickens! 🐓

According to the Nei Jing, the way to maintain health is to "model [your behavior] on yin and yang." And this includes living in harmony with the season.

Here are some things the classics say about the season of autumn:

The Four Seasons

Much of our information about the living with the seasons comes from Chapter 2 of the Su Wen, which is titled, "Comprehensive Discourse on Regulating the Spirit [in accordance with] the Qi of the Four [seasons]"

As an overview, Chapter 2 says:

in spring and summer nourish the yang
and in autumn and winter nourish the yin

Spring is a relatively yang time a year. Spring is associated with the Wood phase, and the direction of Wood is east. That is the direction of the rising sun. So this is a time when light is growing in the sky, the plants and animals are coming to life, and the trees are growing upwards and spreading their branches outwards.

Autumn is a more yin time of year. Autumn is associated with Metal phase, the direction of which is west. This is the direction of the setting sun. So this is a time when light is fading in the sky, the plants are beginning to die, and the animals are preparing for winter.

Commenting on this passage, Ma Shi writes:

The myriad beings come to life in spring, grow in summer, are gathered in autumn and are stored in winter.

So autumn is a time of gathering things in and preparing them for storage in during the winter. Autumn is often the time when crops are harvested and prepared for storage.

Autumn Food 🎃

Regarding what to eat, Wang Bing comments on this passage:

In spring they ate cool [food], in summer they ate cold [food], to provide nourishment in the [period of ] yang. In autumn they ate warm [food], in winter they ate [hot] food, to provide nourishment in the [period of ] yin.

So now is a time to start eating warmer foods like pumpkin pie and pumpkin spice lattes in order to be in balance with the season.

The Season of Autumn

Regarding the autumn season specifically, chapter 2 says:

The three months of autumn,
they denote taking in and balance.
The qi of heaven becomes tense.
The qi of the earth becomes bright. ​

Go to rest early and rise early,
get up together with the chicken.
Let the mind be peaceful and tranquil, so as
to temper the punishment carried out in autumn.
Collect the spirit qi and
cause the autumn qi to be balanced.
Do not direct your mind to the outside and
cause the lung qi to be clear. ​​

This is correspondence with the qi of autumn and
it is the Way to nourish gathering.
Opposing it harms the lung.
In winter this causes outflow of [undigested] food and
there is little to support storage.

So again, we're talking about taking things in and gathering.

In spring and summer, the fruits are growing and changing. But by autumn, they have reached their final form. So this is not a time for great activity or changing, it's time to start slowing down and gathering things in.

It's also interesting that Chapter 2 says, "Let the mind be peaceful and tranquil, so as to temper the punishment carried out in autumn."

What is the punishment of autumn?

On the one hand, violent storms tend to appear in autumn (like hurricane season). But it is also said that in ancient China, executions of criminals were performed in the autumn. So you must keep your mind tranquil to counteract the violence of the times.

Conclusion

So autumn is a yin time of year. It's time to start slowing down and gathering things in to prepare for the winter.

It's also time to start eating warmer foods and to go to bed early.

What things are you doing to live in alignment with the autumn season?