3 Simple Shifts to Reduce Stress & Stay Healthy through the Holidays

by Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac.

The busy holiday season comes upon us during the most Yin time of year when what the body needs most is to slow down and rest. Nonetheless, there are things you can do to offset the Yang energy of this often stressful time of year by simplifying your habits and self-care to keep yourself from getting rundown.

Below are three simple changes you can make to keep your energy and immunity strong — without adding to your shopping or to-do lists.

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3 Shifts to Optimize Your Health During the Holidays

  1. Eat warm, cooked foods

    By this I mean try to eat only warm, cooked foods.

    Avoid salads, smoothies and too much fruit, all of which can create Cold and even Dampness in your Stomach and create a fungal terrain that can compromise your gut health, which is foundation for your immune system.

    According to Chinese Medicine, the nature of foods is essential to how each food is assimilated in the body, and this has seasonal implications. For example, cucumbers and watermelon are considered more cooling, which is why they’re more readily available during the summertime, while meats such as lamb are more warming and therefore more common in colder climates. So meat stew would be an appropriate wintertime stew and watermelon juice is more appropriate during the hot Summer.

    Spices are also considered more warming according to Chinese Medicine, so adding more spices such as cinnamon, ginger, cumin, and cardamom to your diet during the colder months will not only keep your body warmer, but it’ll also support your gut health and optimize your immune function.


  2. Do less by saying no more

    The more Yin seasons of Fall and Winter are great for laying down the foundation for harvesting your goals and dreams, but the very Yin nature of these times of the year make it essential to take more time to rest. It’s no wonder many animals go into hibernation during the wintertime.

    Sometimes more rest starts simply with doing less by saying no — in saying no to others, you say yes to more of your own personal needs, which in and of itself initiates the process of slowing down.

    You don’t have to go to every holiday party or get your workout in every day.

    According to Chinese Medicine, boundaries fall in the domain of the Earth element, which must be upheld during all seasonal transitions and throughout the year to keep your immune function strong. That’s because the Earth element is comprised of your Spleen and Stomach, the main organ systems in charge of digestion and gut health. Healthy boundaries come out of having a healthy Earth energy and having the ability to say no. (You can read more about why boundaries are essential to your health in this article.)

    The Yin months of the year are a time to slow down and build your energy, not expend it.

    To prevent yourself from overdoing it, it’s essential to listen to your body and say no when you can.


  3. Go to bed earlier

    The more rest you get during the Yin months, the more energy you’re conserving and consolidating so you can brings your dreams to fruition during the more Yang months. The less rest, and especially sleep you get during the Fall and Winter, the more you’re going to tax your Lungs (Fall) and Kidneys (Winter), which will leave you feeling exhausted as the Yang energy starts to rise during the warmer seasons.

    Lack of rest also compromises your immune function making you more prone to colds and allergies during the Spring and Summer months.

    Since the rest you get at night helps you consolidate more of your Yin resources, over time when you go to bed earlier you’ll find yourself more focused and energized during the day.

    According to Chinese Medicine, the most essential time to be asleep is from 11pm to 1am during which the Liver and Gallbladder start to build blood and regulate Qi to support emotional processing, hormone balancing and detoxification.

    You can definitely rest and sleep more during the day (and if you can, you should!) but it’s difficult to generate the blood that gets lost by staying up late at night and this is especially true for women because of monthly menstruation.

    If it’s hard for you to think about getting more sleep or getting to bed before 11pm, start with going to bed 5 minutes earlier than you normally do every night for one week — at the end of the week you’ll have gained over 30 minutes of extra nightly sleep (or at least rest).

    It’s also important to do something relaxing and turn off cell phones, tablets and TVs at least one to two hours before bedtime to calm your nervous system and allow your melatonin levels to rise so you can sleep more restfully. (You can read more about the importance of sleep and how it affects your health in this article).


Remember that small, incremental shifts lead to big transformations. But these transformations take time. It’s important that you nourish and be gentle with yourself, focusing on what you have to enjoy during this beautifull holiday season.

Never feel overwhelmed by what to eat again.

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Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac. is Co-Owner and Director of A Center for Natural Healing in Santa Clara, California, a health and wellness clinic she runs with her husband, Salvador Cefalu, M.S., L.Ac., that specializes in Classical Chinese Medicine and Traditional Japanese Acupuncture. Dr. Moafi offers clinical services and transformational courses that blend the ancient practices of Classical Chinese Medicine and Yoga. Learn more at www.setarehmoafi.com and www.acenterfornaturalhealing.com.

How to Deal with an Energy (Qi) Sucker

by Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac.

When you drive down a road with a dead end, you get to a point where you have to stop and redirect your route. The signs that are often put at a dead end serve as boundaries to protect you from driving further into an area that shouldn't be entered. 

Similarly, speed limits on the road create boundaries to limit how fast you can drive on a particular road or highway. These and other signs serve to protect you and other drivers.

In the same way, you must set boundaries to protect yourself from situations and people that may be harmful to you on the road of life.

What’s a Qi Sucker?

Some people get energized by spending a lot of time around people while others prefer to spend more time alone. 

Personally, I love being around people and I get a lot of energy from socializing, but I also need time alone to recharge. I’m always looking for the balance between spending time with people I enjoy and allowing myself the time I need to nurture my inner world. 

Over the years, I’ve discovered that to come closer to this balance, I have to set boundaries on both my time with others and the people with whom I spend my time.

This means saying no more often than I might like.

Once a chronic people pleaser, I used to be tormented by how people might react if I say no or do something to disappoint them. Though I still struggle with this at times, I've learned that the stronger and more clear my boundaries, the better I am at spending quality time with others and the more available I can be with my energy for my patients, students, friends, and family members.

Years ago, one of my early mentors taught me the concept of ‘Qi suckers,’ sometimes also referred to as ‘energy vampires.’ In Chinese Medicine, Qi is what’s referred to as energy or life force (like the Sanskrit word prana). We take Qi in through our breath and can feel its presence in everything around and within us when we tune in.  

People who are Qi suckers draw from the life force of others as a result of their own imbalances and neediness. 

You know you’ve encountered a Qi sucker if after spending time with one you walk away feeling depleted and often guilty, even though you really haven’t done anything wrong. 

Qi suckers are master manipulators who are often very charming and attractive. 

It’s easy to be drawn in by their warmth and charm, but once you get too close to a Qi sucker—the more you approach the warmth of their Fire—the more easily you get burned.

An interaction with a Qi sucker may go like this:

Qi sucker: “Hey, what are you doing this afternoon? Wanna go shopping with me?”

You: “No, thanks, I have a lot to do this afternoon.”

Qi sucker: “Really? What do you have to do that’s so important?”

You: “Well, I have to finish a work project and clean the house.”

Qi sucker: “Ok, whatever. You never like to do anything with me. Sometimes I feel like we’re not even really friends anymore. I don’t care. Do what you want. It’s your life.”

This is an extreme example, but being around someone like this can give you the sense of guilt and wrong doing even implicitly — without them having to say much.

It’s important also to remember that Qi suckers can be great people and you can really have a great time with them in short interactions. However, conversations have the potential to escalate quickly into heated disagreements or arguments when they’re triggered, and they are very easy to trigger!

You know you’re with a Qi sucker if you feel like you’re walking on eggshells and have to constantly watch what you’re saying in order to not offend them or hurt their feelings in some way.

The only way to protect yourself from a Qi sucker is to set clear boundaries. 

You can read about clear boundary setting and its impact on your health in this article.

According to Chinese Medicine, boundaries are associated with the Earth element. Earth provides the fertile soil that allows plants to grow and flourish to provide nourishment and sustenance; it gives protection and shelter as well as stability and substance. 

Earth also contains water, creates boundaries to define continents and carries us through space with stability. Earth represents safety, protection and our home base. 

Being centered, calm, and balanced, feeling at home, and having a sense of harmony and peacefulness are the essence of a healthy Earth energy. Creating a comfortable home and cooking are essential factors to nourishing the Earth energy in your life. 

Cultivating a healthy Earth means understanding and prioritizing your needs.

If you pour all of your energy into helping others or work excessively, you'll have nothing left for yourself.

If you don't discipline yourself around your diet and set boundaries around eating generally healthy foods, your health will fail. If you continuously go to bed late because you don't have the discipline to stop working or watching TV at night, you’ll slowly but surely deplete your blood, your Yin, and your essence, and thus accelerate the aging process.

In other words, strong boundaries around how and with whom you spend your time, what you eat and even when you sleep is fundamental to your health.

In the body, these boundaries are established by the Earth element organs that govern digestion, the Stomach and Spleen. These same systems must be strong for you to set healthy boundaries in your life. Digestive health is therefore essential to creating healthy boundaries that prevent Qi suckers from draining your energy. 

Nourishment and the Earth element

Earth energy is about transformation—transformation of food into energy and raw material to rebuild the body, and transformation of our thoughts so we're not stuck obsessing about negative things and can have clarity of mind. 

Earth energy is also associated with your relationship with yourself and others, which begins with your relationship to your family, especially your mother. As the archetype for the Earth type personality, the Mother represents unconditional love and the nourishing qualities that exist within each of us.

The way someone affects you is not determined by their behavior, but by how you respond to that person’s behavior.

When you set strong boundaries, you can protect your Qi and respond rather than react. In this way, you can avoid giving away your energy or joy to others, regardless of how they behave or react towards you.

What You Can Learn from Qi Suckers

The gift of having a Qi sucker in your life is that they’re excellent boundary teachers. 

In fact, while you may feel guilty and cautious about hurting their feelings, what you’ll find most often about a Qi sucker is that you can clearly change your dynamic with him or her simply by setting a strong boundary.

Boundary setting either pushes the person entirely out of your life or forces him or her to grow in a way that allows for a healthy relationship.

Do you have a Qi sucker in your life? How do you deal with him or her? How could you change the way you interact or set boundaries so that he or she doesn’t steal your joy or energy? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac. is Co-Owner and Director of A Center for Natural Healing in Santa Clara, California, a health and wellness clinic that specializes in Classical Chinese Medicine and Traditional Japanese Acupuncture. Setareh offers clinical services and transformational workshops that blend the ancient practices of Classical Chinese Medicine and Yoga. More information at www.setarehmoafi.com and www.acenterfornaturalhealing.com. 

Setting Boundaries is Essential to Your Health

by Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac.

About a year ago, my husband and I adopted a 1 year old Italian Greyhound mix we named Crystal. When we first brought her home from the rescue, she was terrified of everything. In fact, she'd spend most mornings hiding under our China cabinet shivering when we'd take her out of her crate.

She'd obviously been traumatized and likely been abused, so we decided to hire a trainer to help break her out of her fear.

After some trial and error, we hired Mike, an experienced trainer who would gently force her to stay present each time she got fearful and wanted to run away. By essentially forcing her to move into her fear it didn't take long for Crystal to realize she was safe and there was nothing to fear. Through this initially challenging process, Crystal quickly became loving and trusting of our trainer who created a very strong boundary with her.

Crystal loves to feel contained. Boundaries are essential for all beings to feel safe.

Crystal loves to feel contained. Boundaries are essential for all beings to feel safe.

The training worked wonders and though she resisted the process during many of the sessions, Crystal became more relaxed, more trusting and more affectionate after each session. Mike also helped us learn how to assertively yet lovingly hold boundaries to heal her behavior. 

The stronger we set boundaries around her reaction to fear, the more relaxed she became.

As a result, the anxiety and fear that once ruled Crystal settled down, and she continues to feel more safe and be more present than ever.

Humans have similar behavior patterns. Healthy boundaries between children and parents are crucial to cultivating healthy relationships and to prevent enabling unhealthy behavior patterns. Held with love, compassion and respect, boundaries help create a sense of stability and safety.

In Chinese Medicine, this sense of safety and security is supported by the Earth element as the basis for establishing healthy boundaries. 

The Earth element rules our digestive system and helps us process both food and thoughts. Energetically, Earth relates to all transitions - seasonal and otherwise - and is the ruling element of the late Summer. It's most important to balance and strengthen the Earth element during these times, but since change is a constant in life and we're naturally always going through transitions, cultivating a healthy Earth is essential to all aspects of our health year round.

 

Boundaries and the Earth Element

The Earth Element is the fertile soil that allows plants to grow and flourish to provide nourishment and sustenance; it gives protection and shelter as well as stability and substance. 

Earth contains water, creates boundaries to define continents and carries us through space with stability. Earth represents safety, protection and our home base. 

Being centered, calm, and balanced, feeling at home, and having a sense of harmony and peacefulness are the essence of a healthy Earth energy. Creating a comfortable home and cooking for oneself and one's family are essential factors to nourishing the Earth energy in one's life.

Rice fields from our 2015 trip to China. Earth contains water and provides the fertile soil where nourishment can be cultivated.

Rice fields from our 2015 trip to China. Earth contains water and provides the fertile soil where nourishment can be cultivated.

Cultivating a healthy Earth means understanding and prioritizing our needs. If we pour all of our energy into helping others or work excessively, we'll have nothing left for ourselves. If we don't discipline ourselves around our diet and set boundaries around eating generally healthy foods, our health fails. If we continuously go to bed late because we don't have the discipline to stop working or watching TV at night, we slowly but surely deplete our blood, our Yin, and our essence, which accelerates our aging process.

In other words, strong boundaries around how and with whom we spend our time, what we eat and even when we sleep is fundamental to our health.

In the body, these boundaries are established by the Earth element organs that govern digestion, the Stomach and Spleen.

 

Nourishment and the Earth Element

Earth energy is about transformation; transformation of food into energy and raw material to rebuild the body, and transformation of our thoughts so we're not stuck obsessing about negative things and can have clarity of mind. 

Earth energy is also associated with our relationships with ourselves and others, which begins with our relationship to our family, especially our mothers. As the archetype for the Earth type personality, the Mother represents unconditional love and the nourishing qualities that exist within each of us.

Loving, supportive and nourishing parents help children understand they are accepted for who they are, which gives them a deep sense of security. Starting life with unconditional nourishment both through food and emotional support supports a calm and secure demeanor. It also prevents the development of excessive dependence on others to have one's needs met. 

Our first experience with nourishment comes from suckling at our mother's breast, ingesting the colostrum that activates our Earth energy.

Colostrum is so potent for the digestive system that it's been well established as a supplement to heal digestive disorders. For one thing, colostrum restores leaky gut to normal permeability levels. Serious health syndromes which we can recognize as Earth imbalances are now known to be associated with abnormally increased gut permeability. These include autoimmune diseases such as Crohn’s disease, lupus, multiple sclerosis, scleroderma, and rheumatoid arthritis. Colostrum can also benefit Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, chronic fatigue syndrome, hepatitis, fibromyalgia, asthma, and allergies. 

Colostrum contains growth factors and hormones to help repair damage to the intestinal lining, including damage caused by NSAIDS and other medications, and restore gut integrity. Colostrum is high in immunoglobulins to help control harmful fungi, such as Candida, and harmful bacteria, such as H. Pylori, which is known to cause ulcers. Colostrum has also been shown to increase the surface area of the intestinal lining to improve absorption of nutrients. And there are no known side effects from using colostrum.

Colostrum reduces inflammation, protects against irritation from toxins, prevents infection and promotes epithelial growth and repair. It's also a useful supplement to quickly boost the immune system following a strenuous workout or periods of intense stress. 

In this way, colostrum boosts Spleen Qi, which is fundamental for supporting Earth energy and therefore our ability to establish healthy boundaries.

Nourishment begins in the gut first with our mother through breast feeding and evolves into how we nourish ourselves. Thus the connection of the Earth element to our digestive function determines our ability to have healthy, harmonious relationships as well as strong immunity, or Spleen Qi.

 

Earth Element Imbalances

Physiologically, Earth element imbalances most commonly relate to weakness of the Spleen, which manifests as poor digestive function, as well as bruising and hemorrhaging. This is because the Spleen not only transports and transforms food and thoughts, but it is also the organ in Chinese Medicine that's responsible for holding blood in the vessels. A woman who has very heavy flow during her menses for example needs to focus on strengthening her Spleen and blood. Weak Spleen Qi can also cause leakage of Qi, which is a disorder we've discussed in a previous article.

Chronic digestive issues as well as eating disorders are common among people who have imbalances in their Earth element, which may have begun during childhood as a result of lack of nourishment emotionally and physically from one's parents or through excessive consumption of prescription drugs, especially antibiotics, which directly damage the gastrointestinal system.

When there is an Earth imbalance, or weakness in Spleen Qi, dampness or phlegm tends to develop in the body, which leads physiologically to weight gain and psychologically to obsessive thinking. This is why worry and pensiveness are common symptoms of imbalanced Earth energy.

Psychologically, Earth imbalance manifests as neediness, self-absorption, resentment or excessively self-sacrificing and lacking the ability to care for oneself.

A weak Earth also inhibits one's ability to hold strong personal boundaries, making one inclined to meddle in other people’s lives as a distraction from looking at herself or lack the personal boundaries to prevent other people from meddling in her life. 

Earth imbalance often creates a challenging relationship with both food and money, each of which energetically represent a form of nourishment that allows us to feel safe. 

People with an Earth imbalance will not only have digestive issues, but they'll often also have an unhealthy relationship with money management as well as with food, which that may result in eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia or simply addictions to food for comfort.

Balanced Earth means that we know how time, energy, food and money all fit into our lives. It allows us to feel abundant no matter how much we have. Therefore, an imbalanced Earth will cause us to feel lack, especially with our money and our energy.

 

Balancing Earth to Establish Healthy Boundaries

Having a more balanced Earth element helps us feel more calm, secure and nourished. When we feel more peace within, we can make our needs, and therefore our boundaries, more clear. Strong boundaries and a healthier relationship with ourselves allows us to then cultivate healthier relationships with others.

Here are some tips on how to strengthen the Spleen and your Earth element to help you establish stronger boundaries:

  1. Cook - the physical act of preparing a meal nurtures the mind, body and soul.

  2. Eat a healthy, low carbohydrate diet - carbohydrates and sugars increase the damp or fungal terrain in the body so it's important to reduce these foods and increase the consumption of leafy green vegetables, root vegetables and clean meats to clear this dampness, cultivate clarity and optimize your health.

  3. Eat regular meals - Earth thrives on a regular daily rhythm.

  4. Manage your time and money - Earth is about nurturing and abundance. Keeping track of how you spend your time helps you manage your energy. Managing your finances is another way to help consolidate your Earth energy and is an essential aspect to cultivating the feeling of security in your life. Money is energy which when circulated properly helps balance Earth energy.

  5. Journal to replace worry and obsession with contemplation and reflection.

  6.  Get involved in the community - find what organizations, church groups, charities, etc. interest you and see what role you can play to contribute.

Self-care is therefore essential to rebalance the Earth element. When your food, money, time and energy are properly managed, the mind becomes more clear and you're able to naturally set healthier boundaries that allow you to share the best aspects of yourself with others.

Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac. is Co-Owner and Director of A Center for Natural Healing in Santa Clara, California, a health and wellness clinic that specializes in Classical Chinese Medicine and Traditional Japanese Acupuncture. Setareh offers clinical services and transformational workshops that blend the ancient practices of Classical Chinese Medicine and Yoga. More information at www.setarehmoafi.com and www.acenterfornaturalhealing.com.