Dilette-photo / Freepik
Please don’t ask me what my rising or moon sign is because I have no clue. But I am tapped into seasonal motion, determined by the Earth’s relative position to the sun. This can have a significant impact on one’s physical and mental health beyond seasonal affective disorder, a condition that annually triggers depression for many during the cold and gray months of winter in the Midwest.
Is there a way to circumvent these negative effects during the darkest season of the year? A few local wellness experts suggest several ways to kickstart well-being in these dark days.
Kosa Spa owner Shilpa Sankaran provides a fresh perspective. “Traditional Western medicine is typically more focused on treating disease rather than helping individuals make lifestyle modifications to avoid illness altogether,” she says. “Both approaches serve a purpose, but Eastern medicine can be much better equipped at addressing the root causes of the imbalances a lot of people experience during this time of year.”
Ayurvedic practices and therapies in particular can ease the impact seasonal environmental shifts can have on the mind and body. Sankaran periodically expands Kosa’s service offerings to include treatments like the restorative vata pacifying ritual, designed to topically nourish the skin and calm the nervous system. Tanya Anderson, Kosa’s head chef and a certified ayurvedic health counselor, applies the same therapeutic principles to the spa’s food and beverage menu by incorporating the medicinal herb ashwagandha, along with such spices and herbs as cinnamon, cumin and licorice, to soothe the digestive and detoxification systems.
Align Yoga founder and meridian yoga therapy practitioner Victoria Andrews affirms the need to eat foods that support kidney function during this time of year since stress can limit this organ’s ability to eliminate toxins. She recommends spinach, beans, tofu, mushrooms, nuts, seaweed, root vegetables, whole grains and salt as ingredients to use regularly in meal planning until spring returns. In addition to the kidneys, other key meridian points within the body intersect with the heart, lungs, spleen and liver which, according to Andrews, are the yin organs of the body. This makes them “more impressionable and receptive than our outer-focused yang organs,” such as the stomach and gallbladder.
“To restore balance for our body’s yin requires long periods of rest and introspection, the perfect intention to arrive with as we navigate the winter season,” she says. Yin as a practice “involves holding poses for five, up to 10 and even 15 minutes in a posture. Plow pose, in particular, is one of the most regenerative asanas for kidney health. Our kidneys support our body’s stress response through their interconnection with our adrenal glands.”
Andrews also suggests allowing ample time for stillness over the coming weeks, giving the body rest and rejuvenation. “If spring and summer are the beautiful leaves and flower of the body, the autumn and winter are the strong stalk that must be watered and invigorated for the rest of the plant to survive. Humans are like that too. Without proper rest and nourishment, there is no possibility to open, connect and grow.”
For a hands-on approach to aid the body in resetting throughout this transitional phase, she advises acupressure, cupping, meditation and moxibustion. “In a cupping session, we pull our muscle tissue up and away from bone, allowing knots and tension to loosen and eventually dissolve. Through an awareness of our habitual posture patterns that contribute to the storage of stress in certain areas of our body, we can realign our structural integrity and avoid creating muscle tightness and stagnation moving forward, Andrews says. “And the heat of a moxibustion session” — a Chinese medicine practice where leaves are burned close to the body — can “alleviat[e] pain and stagnation due to colder weather. Everything is connected.”
Her encouragement to reflect on how “modern life has become very yang —everything-all-at-once, pushing ourselves to the limit” — was my cue to take a proper mini-break as the days have grown shorter. The closest destination I knew that would allow me to truly disconnect for a full day is Sundara Inn & Spa in Wisconsin Dells.
Healing nourishment is an apt description of the guest experience there whether it is a day trip or an extended overnight stay. Plant-based comfort food, mocktails and cell phone-free policy might have been enough to increase the yin deprivation I was experiencing.
But anxiety and restlessness can manifest as joint pain as well as other physiological discomfort. I definitely experience more muscle tightness and tension in the winter so the arnica massage I had staved off the general malaise that seems to be an innate, involuntary reaction to the shortened minutes of daylight. Arnica is a plant commonly used to alleviate aches, pain and inflammation. My body felt like a warm, freshly stretched noodle afterwards — well worth the short jaunt north on a chilly afternoon.
Although most of us do not have the means to go to a spa weekly, we can make more space to simply breathe and just be…until the sun begins to rise earlier once more.
@somemeans / Freepik
A winter yin practice to release and restore
Victoria Andrews suggests the following yoga practice to pull more energy down to the kidneys, and support bones, nerves, blood and joints.
5 minutes in a seated posture, practicing pranayama (breathing exercise, full yogic breath, focusing on breathing with the diaphragm, strengthening the kidneys)
10 minutes in forward fold, with bolster under the knees
5 minutes in reclined butterfly pose, blocks or bolster under the knees
10 minutes in pigeon pose each side, exploring acupressure on kidney points
10-15 minutes Halasana/Plow, nurturing kidneys
2-3 minutes each side supine twist for spine
Up to 20 minutes savasana
