Wood Element in East Asian Medicine

The Winter season is considered Ultimate Yin. From the deep and dark Yin, Yang is born into the Spring season. Spring is connected to the Wood Element, one of the Five Elements in East Asian Medicine. Wood is related to the Liver and Gallbladder organs. Other parts of the body that are related to the Wood element are the eyes, ligaments, and tendons. 

As we come out of deep rest, our eyes take in the wonders of new life and stretch out and up. It’s important to support flexibility during this transition. Tending to our bodies and massaging our joints are helpful. Sometimes the growth of Yang energy can move too fast and feel a bit unsteady. Irritability and anger are common emotions that can come up when things feel a bit out of our control. We can help ourselves in the steady and slow growth of Yang by rooting into Yin. We can remember that Spring is an entire season and that changes happen over months and that we don’t need to get everything done in one day. 

The color green is associated with the Wood element. You can help celebrate by wearing green, eating fresh seasonal greens and sprouts, and taking in all of nature’s wonders with your eyes. The flavor of this season is Sour. Sour helps to ease and drain an overactive liver. Sour and sweet combined help your body to generate fluids. 

Free Flow, Qi & Emotions

In East Asian Medicine, the Liver stores our blood and ensures the free flow of blood, qi, and our emotions. Stress directly affects our liver energy.  It’s not possible to avoid all stress. What we can do is help ourselves adapt to stress a bit better. 

What stress management tools work for you? 

I have what’s called non-negotiables. Sleep, regular meal times, and slow mornings are certain rhythms that I’ve found over the years that really help me to manage my stress levels. Your body loves rhythms. We are all bound by them because we are nature. 

Emotions are a very human experience and to feel them in their full range is healthy. When we are able to flow in and out of them, we are not tensing, resisting, or suppressing but rather metabolizing them. Sometimes, emotions are not transient and feel like they are dominating our experiences. This can lead to a common pattern in our culture called Liver Qi stagnation. It’s when our liver organ cannot course the emotion, our qi, and blood so things get stuck. Our emotions cannot move, our energy doesn’t flow and our blood flow slows down and starts to coagulate. 

For those of us that menstruate, there are particular times when our bodies are even more sensitive to stress. It’s during our premenstrual phase and our perimenopausal years. It’s a good idea to have your stress management tools in place and in a good rhythm so that these events feel more easeful. 

“Our emotional health is intimately linked to our physical health”

Emotional Alchemy is the art of transforming our emotions into nourishing experiences and wisdom that we can take moving forward in our lives. Emotions have the power to give us so much knowledge about ourselves and our relationships. Strong and difficult emotions usually have the most powerful lessons to teach us. 

Most of us grew up in a society where our full range of emotions is not really accepted. Expressing them is seen as a weakness. Learning how to move through them is a skill and an art. The art of recognizing instead of reacting and allowing things to fully ground before moving to the next step. Emotions that are well metabolized can actually give us vitality and energy. Emotional alchemy is restoring the intimate relationship we have with our emotions as tender and real human beings. Relating to our emotions can be the sacred gateway to meaning, connection, and purpose. 

The Liver and The Menstrual Cycle

As mentioned before, the Liver is responsible for storing and ensuring the free flow of our blood. The liver sends nourishing blood to the uterus. If we are experiencing strong emotions, our liver qi is directly impacted, which means that the energy needed to move blood becomes stagnant. Stagnant qi and blood can show up as painful periods, cramps, cycle irregularities, premenstrual symptoms such as bloating, digestive woes, tender breasts, and headaches. Our blood can coagulate and show up as blood clots in our period. With everything being so tensed up, the muscles of our uterus are not nourished and supple which leads to cramping and pain.

The liver channel starts on our big toe and moves along the inner part of our legs all the way up to our pelvic bowl. It is essential for our Liver qi to move freely and free from obstruction.

Did you know that you have inner seasons just as the earth experiences seasons? Your menstrual cycle flows along the same cosmological sequence of the Five Elements. Your Inner Spring season tied to the Wood Element is your pre ovulation phase. You can learn more about that in this blog post.

Ways to Support Liver Health & The Wood Element

Movement

East Asian Medicine believes that movement is necessary to maintain our health and prevent physical imbalances. Springtime is a great season to start massaging our joints to increase mobility after the deep rest of the winter season. Movement can also support our gut health by encouraging a sluggish metabolism and increasing the production of qi and blood. 

What are your favorite ways to move your body? 

Stretching helps ease out tight, tense muscles and allows the free flow of qi throughout the whole body. Syncing up your breath to your movement exercise also helps channel the energy of emotions, allowing them to metabolize more easily. Side stretching helps our Wood Element since the Gallbladder channel runs along the outer sides of the body.

Seasonal Eating

We can take care of the Wood element within ourselves by consuming mostly plant-based and seasonal meals with some lean proteins and eggs in the Springtime. The color of the Wood element is green, so eating lightly cooked greens and sprouts is a great way to support the growing Yang of Spring.

Springtime represents birth and childhood, so one way to soothe out any tension built up in our livers is to do things that we loved as a child. Our livers are also all about planning.

What plans are you making?

Nourishing Blood

A happy Liver is a nourished one. The liver can function and do all its tasks when it’s fully nourished with blood. It’s especially important to replenish blood during our period and the week after our bleed. Consume iron-rich foods and if you tend towards anemia, it might be a good idea to temporarily supplement with a blood-building formula or tonic.

You can visit our Flourish Dispensary to purchase your supplements. 

Herbs

Herbs that are great for the liver are chrysanthemum, cassia seeds, goji berries, rosebuds, mulberries, and purslane. The liver and gallbladder organs need nourishment and flexibility with the rising temperatures of the yang seasons. You can make a simple goji-chrysanthemum tea or add mulberries to your morning oatmeal. 

Nourishing our Wood Element with movement, seasonal foods, and emotional alchemy can help us live in harmony with our inner and outer cycles. Since our Liver and Menstrual Cycle are so closely interconnected we can learn to harmonize our cycles, improve the quality of our blood, and have a healthy flow.

You can learn more about the best practices for all your menstrual cycle phases in our course: Embodied Menstruation

~ Written by The Way of Yin Team