L'autunno puts an end to summer and introduces winter.
The explosive energy of the summer months gradually fades away, often too fast for what we would like, and turns into a more introspective energy belonging to winter.
We go from extreme yang to extreme yin; autumn connects these two opposites, accompanying the body and mind in the folding of yang towards a more intimate and peaceful yin.
Winter is the domain of cold and dark, while summer is the domain of heat and light; the amount of light affects the metabolism and on the 'mood, and temperatures also lead the body to need more warming foods.
According to traditional Chinese medicine and the macrobiotic, health is the result of proper adaptation to the seasonality of the period in which one lives, both from a philosophical point of view and from a food point of view.
The imbalances that are often encountered during autumn are now recognized and attributed to the "change of season". If we consider that winter is the season in which viral influences and colds are most often found, we understand how important it is during the autumn prepare the body to the more or less rigid months that will meet.
Autumn supplements: starting with nutrition
According to macrobiotics l'supply it can do a lot as a natural remedy for various kinds of imbalances, especially environmental ones.
Il food is therefore, according to this philosophy, the first supplement that can allow you to cross the autumn season with serenity and prepare for winter.
The first element to intervene on is the type of cooking: if raw meals based on fruit and vegetables abound in summer, in autumn you can gradually insert the cooking, short, with the addition of a few fatty and warming seasonings.
The seasonality of fruit and vegetables must always be respected: the pumpkins and cabbage, which begin to abound in the markets at the end of September, belong to the sweet taste, indicated in autumn. It is also possible to use heating cereals, such as buckwheat.
It is easy, if you listen to the body, to notice and follow what it communicates to us: you have less desire for ice cream and fruit, because they get cold; sugar, extremely yin and therefore very "cold" should always be avoided, but especially in this period. In addition, sugar predisposes to mood swings, already frequent in this period of the year when the light is gradually decreasing.
We need to be careful about what is "want" and what is "useful need": to be able to distinguish one from the other it would be useful a period, even short, of detoxication: grapes, present in this period of the year, taken for a full day or to replace one meal per day, is a strong one detoxifying.
Healthy autumn with the right foods
Autumn supplements: herbal teas, essential oils and spices
Others supplements for autumn they are used to rebalance the sleep-wake rhythm, often disturbed by the change of summer time, such as herbal teas for insomnia, herbal remedies based on passionflower, which allow to restore a continuous and regular rest.
Against the mild melancholy which often takes at the beginning of the first cold and in correspondence with the shortening of the days and the decrease of the hours of light, it may be useful to equip the house in which you are staying with warm lights and essence burners containing special blends di essential oils for autumn.
If, on the other hand, you want to further prepare your body for winter and support the immunitary defense you can opt for:
- echinacea supplements (there are natural extracts and dosages in pharmacies that act as preventive anti-influenza),
- plug back into the power supply warming spices like ginger, be used as tisane in that kitchen; turmeric remedies such as "golden milk"), pepper, cinnamon, cloves e curry. Even the cardamomadded to vegetable milk, it warms and cuddles in the cool evenings leading up to winter.
Autumn melancholy and herbal remedies
