5 ways to help your Liver this Spring

Spring has sprung! Little green sprouts that signify new life.
So cute & hopeful! We NEED this now.

Roberto Burle Marx | Brazilian Modern landscape architect, Ecuador 1974

The upward and outward nature of fresh Spring growth correlates to the Wood Element in Five Element theory. If you aren’t familiar, the Five Elements (Wood/Fire/Earth/Metal/Water) are a categorical philosophy that is crucial to traditional Chinese medical theory.

The Wood Element is symbolic of all plant life, all growing things, trees, grasses, etc….And yes it is this fresh, exuberant, expansive nature like the happy man pictured above, most of the time. It equally can be a little bit prickly, but only when it is being constrained — think of tree roots sometimes upending sidewalks.

Aside from the fresh growth I mentioned above, the Wood Element is linked to the organs of the Liver and Gallbladder, the emotion of anger, the sound of shouting, the taste of sour and the color green. Hmm, possibly you see where the prickly bits come in. It also corresponds to the planet Jupiter, the tissue of the sinews, the sense organs of the eyes, the climate of wind and birth as the stage of development.

Each of the Five Elements are paired with a whole list of characteristics; colors, sounds, organs etc…and reading these charts can feel random, but there is cohesion. Let me paint a picture for you.

The Liver is thought of as the army general in traditional Chinese medicine (not the same as the Liver in Western medicine). It is in charge of the storage of blood and the smooth flow of Qi in the body. Free flowing movement is the goal and what makes it, and us, happy. Constraint, deadlines, stress, traffic, feeling hemmed in, quarantine, well, the Liver Qi does not like that. That bottled up, stagnant Qi can cause issues with other systems in the body, for example digestion. In excess, the stagnant Qi can also rise, most often to the head.

To illustrate an extreme example of Liver and Wood energy gone awry is to picture a cartoon character, red faced, with steam emanating from the top of his head & ears, bloodshot eyes, the captions rendered in ALL CAPITALS to convey shouting with anger. It’s possible this cartoon, were it a person, would also be experiencing a headache, tense, tight sinews, possibly twitching (shaking & convulsions are seen as a version of interior wind in TCM), and most certainly PMS if it gets periods. Intense.

In milder versions, what we call Liver Qi stagnation, you are just stressed, frustrated and annoyed.

Not the Spring vibes you are going for? Understood.
See below for 6 ways to help your Liver!

Since the smooth flow of Liver Qi is essential for a balanced emotional state, how do we soothe the Liver?

1 — Move your Qi by moving your body! Stretch, exercise, dance, walk, run, etc…every day. Bonus points if it is outside in nature.

2 — Eat foods that nourish the Liver & blood such as dark leafy greens. A small amount of sour foods (grapefruit) can be beneficial to the liver, but not in excess.

3 — Sleep — ideally before 11pm, the time of the Wood Element according to the meridian clock.

4 — Reduce your alcohol intake. You can’t be surprised by this one.

5 — Herbs — Peppermint & dandelion tea are helpful to sip on at this time. Both are said to enter the Liver meridian and work to relieve Liver Qi stagnation.

And of course we can’t forget, acupuncture! Sometimes it really does take needles to move the Qi to the level you need.