Life is more fun and meaningful when you align your rhythms with nature.  Plus, the seasons can teach you so much about how to approach healthy living!  I’ve gathered some ideas for celebrating the Autumn Equinox that will help you connect to yourself, to your family, and to nature during this very special time time of the year.

What’s So Special About the Autumn Equinox?

The first day of Autumn is more than just a change in weather and pretty seasonal colors. The Autumn Equinox represents the balance of light and dark and a preparation for great change.

We can perceive the dark as being the absence of the sun since we’re continuing to have shorter days and longer nights until Winter. Symbolically, Autumn is a gradual letting go – a movement toward stillness, emptiness, and even death.

This balance of appreciating what you have (light) and letting go of what you no longer need (dark) is modeled for us in nature during this time as well. Deciduous trees undergo huge transformations by shedding their leaves. They trust that this needs to happen in order for renewal and more growth. Animals pare down their activity and focus on storing food and energy. Letting go is necessary and important in order to sustain life.

There can be a sense of loss during this season too, so it’s important for families to spend more time with each other and develop closer, stronger, more loving and supportive bonds.

Here’s some ways to celebrate Autumn by yourself or with your family and friends to honor the change in season.

9 Special Ways to Celebrate The Autumn Equinox

1. Go On A Nature Walk

Let’s start with the easiest way to appreciate nature: just walk among it. There is so much to notice, especially in Fall with the change in colors and falling leaves.

But what else might you notice when you walk? What’s the difference in smell? How are the animals behaving? Talk about this with your family and friends. Or if you’re doing this alone, maybe you can sit down and journal about what you’re noticing.

2. Make An Autumn Wreath

From your nature walk pick up what nature as discarded and add them to a wreath to adorn your home. Acorns, multi-colored leaves, dried berries and corn, grain grasses, vines, and dried end-of-summer flowers, can all be woven or glued onto a circular wreath and hung on your front door.

Each time you enter your home you’ll be reminded of the change we all need to embrace during this time.

3. Celebrate With An Autumn Equinox Feast

You don’t need to wait until Thanksgiving for a special feast! And all of Autumn can be a time for you to express gratitude for what is bountiful in your life.

Make a special meal with seasonal fruits, vegetables, and spices. These may be different than what’s around in November with Thanksgiving. Right now in California we have lots of figs, grapes, corn, and late summer squashes. The different food makes it more unique! You can talk about what Autumn means to you as your family gathers.

You might want to try cooking a dish with acorns which are known to symbolize strength, potential, fertility, and new beginnings. They are also a traditional food in many places in the world, so a good food for you to become reacquainted with!

Acorns can be fermented, ground, and made into a flour to use in many yummy recipes. Here’s an excellent article that will teach you just about everything you need to know about acorns.

Enjoy!

4. Do A Special Yoga And Meditation Practice

I love to do Sun Salutations to honor the Equinoxes and the Solstices alike. Surya Namaskara is traditionally done as a prayer, a prostration to the Sun, so fitting to celebrate the change in season and the meaning behind it.

I used to do 108 Sun Salutations in my younger years since it’s an auspicious number. Now that I’m 47 and a little slower-moving, I realize how ridiculous that is. Intention is most important, not how much you do!

Just do as many Sun Salutations of versions A, B, or C that you feel comfortable with, bringing your intention into each breath and movement.

Or if Sun Salutations are not your thing, you can choose to do this Autumn Yin Yoga practice that targets the Lung and Large intestine meridians that are associated with this season.

You can simply do a Gratitude Meditation instead.

Or, do all three recommendations! That’s what I like to do!

5. Candle Ceremony

Light a candle in the dark to represent the balance of energy at the Equinox. You can write down all the things you’d like to clear from your life. Tear them up or carefully burn them in the candle. Then you can write down all the things you now want to bring into your life.

6. Have A Harvest Party With Friends

If you have a garden, is there any better way to enjoy your bounty than to share with others? You can get some friends and neighbors together who also have gardens. Each person can bring fruit, vegetables, flowers, grains – whatever they have plenty of. You can trade items and talk about what to do with them in Autumn while enjoying some seasonal teas and treats.

7. Clear and Bless Your Home

Bring balance to your home with an energetic clearing. This can be done many ways, depending on the healing practices you study.

I love to burn a Sage wand and go around to the corner of each room in my house, asking for all negativity to be cleared from our home and our lives.

Then I do the same with Palo Santo which has a more revitalizing energy to it. I go around and ask that we bring in more happiness, health, and prosperity to fill the space.

The same can be done with essential oils, though I do this more regularly and not as a special ritual. This diffuser blend is fabulous at clearing negative energy:

Clear The Space Diffuser Blend

• 2 drops Lemongrass
• 2 drops Clary Sage
• 2 drops Lime

Lemongrass clears stagnant energy and negativity. Clary Sage clears confusion and brings in more clarity and intuitive guidance. Lime cleanses the heart and mind, promoting more gratitude for the gift of life. The combination of these three also smells amazing!

8. Fallen Leaf Ceremony

This is a fun and quick one! If you have enough fallen leaves around your property, rake them all up into a pile. Pick up an armful of leaves and throw them up in the air, mindful of what you’d like to let go of this season to create more harmony in your life.

If you’re doing this in a group, it’s fun for everyone to shout out what their letting go of. Then afterwards you can all talk about what you’re making space for in your life, what you’re now wanting to bring in.

9. Honor A Tree In Your Neighborhood

Spend some time picnicking under a tree’s shade, or hugging a tree, or singing to a tree. You can bury special items like herbs or crystals in the ground near the tree with a blessing.

These suggestions may sound silly to some, but I don’t care. Our disconnection to nature is what’s fueling much of the dissent in our world right now and that needs to change.

One thing we can all agree on is that we have a symbiotic relationship with trees and we need more of them. So you can also use this special time to plant some new ones.

Want To Learn More About Autumn Equinox Celebrations?

You can check out my Pinterest Board here for more ideas and recipes!

Which of these Autumn Equinox Celebration ideas is your favorite? Do you have any other ideas of how you can celebrate Autumn in your home? Let’s hear about them in the comments!

Back to school time can be both exciting and stressful.  But this year we have the added stress of Coronavirus, the policies around it, and shake ups in learning methods.  These can all challenge the whole family’s physical, mental, and emotional health.  The following natural health tips, including essential oils for back to school, can help you manage just about anything that comes up to help your family survive Fall 2020!

Check out Back to School Essential Oils and Health Tips to learn natural health tips for immune support, essential oils for digestion, how to detox naturally, mood lifting techniques, and how to keep your kids focused. I also share bits about my homeschool approach that may help build your confidence in teaching your kids at home.

Before settling in to watch this, you may want to first download my FREE Stress-Relieving Acupressure Guide for Moms which can be a huge support for you in these times! You’ll learn 6 of my favorite acupressure points to relieve physical tension and help you manage your emotions. As a result of this quick self-care routine, you’ll sleep much deeper which is so important for staying happy and healthy!

A healthy lifestyle comes down to eating right, exercising, getting plenty of sleep, managing stress, reducing your toxic load, being able to stay positive & focused, and tending to your body when it’s ill with natural medicine. Essential oils have a place in all of these lifestyle principles.

Best Essential Oils and Natural Products for Back to School

Many of the protocols I mention in this video class are from the doTERRA collection here. I use them often for my family and recommend them for yours too!

This starter kit features the Kid’s Collection which are seven roller bottle blends that are completely safe, super effective, and easy enough for kids to use themselves.

I’d love to hear about the schooling choices that your family has made this year. Are you trying to adjust your lifestyle to make sure your family stays healthy and happy? Please tell me if any of these essential oils for Back to School help you!

Halloween is a favorite holiday for many families. We love the parties, the spooky decorations, and parading around the neighborhood in frightfully delightful costumes. But celebrating with enormous amounts of sugar can make it downright dreadful!  I have some tips for a healthy Halloween that you’ll appreciate!

If you’re like me, you’re bracing yourself for the endless negotiations with your kids for treats at parties and on Halloween night. And you’re also wanting to avoid the inner battle of whether you should binge on left over candy.

Over-consumption of sugar right now can lower your immune system response, damage beneficial gut flora, and make you more likely to get sick. And no doubt, if you continue to indulge after the holiday, it can negatively affect your physique.

Is it possible to have a healthy Halloween without taking away all the fun?

Absolutely!

Here are several tips you can try that will get you through this festive time, without any regrets.

5 Tips for A Healthy Halloween

1. Bring healthy Halloween party food

Who said Halloween party food has to be sugary and full of artificial colors and flavors? You can bring healthy items that everyone will enjoy eating. Here are a few ideas you may want to try:

Tangerine Pumpkins and Banana Ghosts by Weelicious

3. Prepare for trick-or-treating with balanced meals

For the days surrounding Halloween, you can help prepare your child’s body for the treats to come by making sure they eat 3 well-balanced meals.

What does this mean? See here for my specific dietary advice for kids.  Basically, I recommend school-age children get approximately:

• 50% of calories from complex carbohydrates (mostly veggies & fruits with twice as many veggies, limit grains to 2-3 servings/day)
• 25-30% protein (free-range organic meat, fish, eggs, whole-fat yogurt, nuts, seeds, quinoa, and beans)
• 20-25% fat (olives, avocado, coconut, macadamia nuts, butter, egg yolk, fatty fish like salmon, flax oil)

Adding good fats to your child’s diet is critical to helping with blood sugar balance. It may also help keep them full longer, so they’re less likely to binge on candy.

You can also help manage blood sugar surges by taking a shot of apple cider vinegar diluted in water prior to each meal. It may be hard for children to accept, but they may try it if you say it’s necessary before eating candy.

4. Limit candy consumption

Last year I tried to be a cool mom by letting my son gorge on as much candy as he wanted when he returned home from trick or treating. And for the first time in his life he passed out during bedtime stories before 9pm. For us, this was a huge deal because my son has never been one to “crash” and has always been a night owl.

He thinks this story is hilarious. I think it’s horrifying. And I’m not going to do it again.

This year, we’re going to have a healthy, fatty snack after trick-or-treating and maybe just a few pieces of candy. And it will be given this way for a few days until we decide what to do with the rest of the candy. Perhaps that will work for your family too.

Now the #5 tip, what do you do with all that candy?

5. Give the candy away

It’s hard to fully embrace a healthy lifestyle if you’re eating handfuls of leftover Halloween candy each day. To resolve this problem, consider…

• Making a deal with your child – I know some parents who trade money for their candy, or toys for candy. There’s also the Switch Witch who leaves a special gift in exchange for piles of candy.

• Donate the candy – Operation Gratitude collects candy through their Halloween Candy Give-back for deployed troops & first responders. You can find a participating company, club, or dentist in your area at this link. Here in Redwood City, CA Roy Dental is one of the donation spots.

• Dump it – my son usually forgets about the candy after a few days, so I just keep a handful and either throw the rest out (because really, candy is not good for anyone), or my husband takes it to work. This year, we’ll try to donate it.

How do you deal with the sugar overload during Halloween? Do you have any rules for your family about candy? We’d love to hear how you manage!  Please let us know your own tips for a healthy Halloween!

When it comes to seasonal foods of Autumn, I think most everyone in the U.S. would agree that pumpkin is at the top!  I have some healthy pumpkin recipes for you in this article that will satisfy your craving for this tasty squash.

I wrote earlier about my love of of Fall and how it’s necessary to change our activity level, diet, and lifestyle in order to stay healthy throughout the season. Incorporating pumpkin into your diet is a great way to adjust and also add some variety and flare to your family kitchen.

Nutritional Benefits of Pumpkin

In addition to being a yummy food, fleshy pumpkin pulp is a valuable remedy in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) dietetics. Pumpkin has a cool and sweet nature according to TCM. Therefore, it can help with many “heat” or inflammatory conditions such as dysentery, diabetes, eczema, and stomachaches.

Pumpkin seeds are just as valuable as the pulp. They’re high in protein, iron, zinc, magnesium, manganese, copper, vitamin E, and have many other nutritional benefits.

In TCM, pumpkin seed (called Nan gua zi) is an effective herbal remedy for prostate and bladder issues and is strong enough to expel stubborn parasites.

How to Incorporate Pumpkin Into Your Diet

If the thought of working with a whole pumpkin in the kitchen sounds too daunting, no worries. You can buy canned or boxed pumpkin  (BPA-free) instead and pumpkin seeds from most grocery stores. We like eating raw, sprouted seeds in our house, like this Go Raw brand.

The beginning of the school year is a great time to  assess your kid’s health in preparation for the challenges that come in Autumn.  Sadly, I’m not just talking about the common cold, influenza, or temporary childhood diseases.  Asthma attacks have been shown to spike during the Fall, which can be scary for many parents.  I’m sharing with you some hope though, since this information about Chinese Medicine for Pediatric Asthma can dramatically improve your child’s health.

Children often become sick in the Fall because of stressors like:

• Fluctuating hot-cold Fall weather can be difficult for their bodies to adjust to.
• Being packed in small classrooms with infectious kids (there’s always at least one runny nose in the room, right?!)
• Having compromised gut flora and depressed immune systems from a Summer full of sugar, high exposure to chlorine in pools, and a recent round of vaccinations.
• Low vitamin D stores if they were constantly covered-up with sunscreen outside in the summer and were not getting dietary supplements.

The increase in asthma this time of year is usually explained by cold & flu viruses progressing to and irritating the lungs.  However, medical doctors also say that it’s because of colder, lung-constricting weather, and mold allergies.

Asthma Statistics, an Increasing Concern

Asthma is a really, really big deal, as parents who have a child with this condition know. Breath is life and heart breaking to watch your child gasping for it. Here’s some statistics that may interest you:

• Asthma is on the rise and children are effected the most, according to CDC statistics (8.4% of children with asthma vs. 7.6% of adults in 2015).
• It accounted for 1.6 million emergency room visits in 2013 alone.
• Asthma attacks result in thousands of deaths each year.

Parents should be concerned about these statistics because asthma can develop at ANY time during adolescence. Just because your child doesn’t have it today doesn’t mean they won’t have it soon, especially if they already have an inflammatory condition like food/seasonal allergies, eczema, and chronic ear & sinus infections.

Also, the standard medicines used to manage asthma are clearly not enough to bring morbidity down. Though the prescribed medications are very effective for calming attacks, there are serious side effects. Bronchodilators are stimulating like caffeine, so they may cause increased heart rate, insomnia, and hyperactivity. Steroids, on the other hand, can cause immune suppression and growth delays.

There is another hope in managing asthma in children that is complementary to the current Western medical approach – an older system from the East that focuses more on the energetic as well as physiological imbalances that makes certain children more susceptible to asthma: Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

TCM For Childhood Asthma

What makes TCM most attractive as a complementary approach for asthma is that it is individualized for the patient. Their symptoms and presentation are taken into account, along with other Chinese Medicine diagnostic cues.  This input then guides the practitioner to the appropriate treatment.

(It’s often an imbalance involving Lung energy, which is the organ/channel system that relates to Autumn!)

Specific acupoints are stimulated through gently-placed needles or noninvasive methods like laser, shonishin, or Tuina acupressure massage.  This balances the child’s energy, essentially teaching the body how to heal itself. From a biomedical perspective, this stimulation helps to reduce inflammation, reduce bronchospasm in the case of asthma, and bolster the immune system.

Chinese herbal remedies aid in the reduction of inflammation and bronchospasm too. Also, they address the root energetic imbalance that is present. So for pediatric asthma, herbs that tonify the Lungs, Spleen, and Kidney organs are usually prescribed.

Most TCM practitioners advise on whole food nutrition, which sustains the effects of acupuncture and herbs and sets your child up for a lifetime of healthy eating based on their personal constitution.

Skilled practitioners can also teach your child relaxation techniques that will keep the airway relaxed when your child feels an attack coming on. They can have their inhaler handy, but may not need to use it!

Here’s a wonderful article with greater detail: Childhood Asthma – The Traditional Chinese Medicine Approach

Asthma sufferers have reported that TCM treatments result in:

• Symptom relief – deeper breathing, less wheezing, greater physical endurance
• A decrease in asthma attacks
• Less dependence on medications

Next Steps For Healing Your Child’s Asthma Naturally

If your child has asthma or if anyone in the family has respiratory issues, you can get a head start on the healing by doing working with these 10 Acupressure Points for Asthma.  It’s a super easy protocol that will provide great relief with regular sessions!

Of course it’s best if you also seeing a TCM practitioner.  If your child doesn’t have asthma, but is at risk, they can receive wellness treatments that will keep them strong and prevent asthma from happening in the first place. The time to help them is now.

It may also be worthwhile to talk to your child’s teachers and see if they can incorporate mindfulness practices in the classroom (perhaps at the same time also making sure you’re on the same page about discipline and the way your child is treated in class).

Please reach out to me if you have any questions about treating your child’s ADD/ADHD naturally. I offer free consultations where we can discuss more about how TCM, whole food nutrition, and mindfulness can help your family. Well wishes to you…

Can you feel the energetic pull as we descend into Autumn? The yang energy of the sun has been decreasing since the summer solstice in June.  It continues to go down as we traverse Autumn and slide toward the Winter solstice. Yin energy therefore becomes greater and we feel the need to slow down, to stay inside more, to reflect on the past, to appreciate what we have in our life now, and to honor the simple moments that make life so sweet.  In Autumn, self-care should be a priority.

Prevent Imbalances With Autumn Self-Care According to Traditional Chinese Medicine

I LOVE this time of year and all that it usually brings up for me. But for some of us, this transition is not so pleasant. If we refuse to listen to the call of nature to adjust our lifestyle with the season, we are more prone to energetic disharmonies that then manifest as physical illness.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the Lung and Large Intestine organs are associated with Autumn and disharmonies tend to arise in these organs and the channels that flow through them when our Qi (vital energy) is depleted or stuck. This can result in a breakdown of immune function and make us more prone to infection.

A couple of my friends were already sick with pneumonia in September. And I’ve noticed with myself that unchecked stress can lead to a tight neck (around Large Intestine acupoints) and constipation. Lung and large intestine disharmony can also show up on the skin with conditions such as acne, rashes, or dryness.

Tonifying Lung qi and dispersing Large Intestine qi is something that we can all focus on this season.  Here are 5 Autumn self-care rituals that help us address these imbalances.

Autumn Self-Care Rituals

1. Nadi Shodana breathing practice

The Large Intestine meridian runs bilaterally from the radial side of the index finger, along the lateral elbow crease, up to the top of the shoulder, along the side of the neck and crosses the face to end at the opposite nostril. This is one reason why keeping the nose clear is energetically important for staying healthy this season. Also, the lungs are intimately connected with the throat and nostrils since they are the entryway for breath in respiration.

Nadi Shodana is a wonderful way to keep the channel clear while also strengthening the lungs. It’s also a very calming breath practice and one I choose to do when my mind is racing and it’s too difficult to just meditate on the moment. So it’s a great preparation for meditation. Here’s a peaceful video to show you how, or keep reading below for my instructions.

Nadi Shodana is translated as “nadi cleansing”, with nadis being the energetic tributaries (synonymous with the meridians in TCM) that contain and mobilize Prana (vital energy in yoga, synonymous with Qi).

Instructions for Nadi Shodana

To begin, come into a comfortable seated position with your spine erect.

Allow your left hand to rest in your lap. With the right hand, lightly place the thumb on the right nostril and the ring and pinky fingers on the left nostril. The index and middle fingers can rest in between the eyes or you can tuck them into your hand.

Close the right nostril and exhale completely out the left.

The cycle starts with the next breath, inhaling through the left nostril. Close the left, open the right and exhale. Inhale through the right. Close the right and exhale through the left. That is the end of the cycle.

I try to do at least 10 cycles and then sit for a brief period of meditation.

2. Meditative Yin yoga

Yin Yoga is a fabulous way to indulge in Autumn self-care.  We described the channel flow for the Large Intestine with Nadi Shodana breathing, above. The Lung meridian is the Yin partner to the Yang Large Intestine. The Lung channel runs bilaterally from the lung to the inner side of the upper arm, through the elbow crease, along the radius of the forearm, ending at the outer edge of the thumb nail.

Whenever we mindfully bear weight on the arms or stretch the chest and arms, we are mobilizing Prana/Qi and blood through the Lung & Large Intestine meridians.

Try holding the shapes below for 2-5 minutes with slow, deep breaths. With each inhalation, imagine that you’re dilating the meridians and nourishing each cell in the whole body. With the exhalation we are letting go of tension, stress, old ideas/habits, and anything that does not serve our wellbeing and that of others.

From upper left corner clockwise: Seated Meditation, Quarter Dog, Supine Twist, Twisted Child’s Pose.

3. Eat Autumn fruits and vegetables

Acupuncture and herbs can resolve just about any disharmony, but only in conjunction with a balanced diet. Most of us should be eating larger portions of organic vegetables and some fruits, preferably grown on a local farm.

In TCM, we also consider the character and taste of the food to balance our systems. Dryness in any form (dry skin, a dry cough, dry intestines, etc.) is common in Autumn, and once again related to an imbalance of Lung/Large Intestine energy. The following vegetables and fruits are in season now (or soon) and benefit the lungs and large intestine by adding moisture and clearing heat & dryness (from Maoshing Ni’s The Tao of Nutrition):

• Apple
• Beet
• Bok choy
• Cabbage
• Daikon radish
• Orange
• Pear
• Persimmon
• Pumpkin (all winter squash)
• Spinach

4. Move your bowels every morning

What? Not an easy suggestion for you? TCM has mapped out the hours of the day where Qi moving through the organs and meridians is most plentiful. For the Large Intestine, the hours are 5-7am. If you are hydrated, if you are eating a balanced diet, if you are going to bed before 10pm and rising with the sun, and if you are emotionally and energetically balanced, then you will typically have a bowel movement at this time of the day.

Here are some other suggestions to help regulate your bowels:

• Massage your abdomen in the evening, then again in the morning if your bowel movement is not timely. Massaging the sacrum in a downward movement can also encourage bowel movements.  Try this acupressure sequence to relieve constipation.
• Use essential oils such as tangerine and doTERRA’s DigestZen in a carrier oil for the abdominal and sacral massage. Using castor oil as the carrier has a much stronger action on the bowels (use caution when pregnant).
• Practice forward bends, gentle twists, and stretch/massage to let go of any shoulder and neck tension at night before bed (which will help with your sleep too!)
• Supplement with probiotics and eat fermented foods (yogurt, sauerkraut, pickles, etc.)
• Drink a large glass of water upon waking and meditate, focusing your energy down. (Do not start the morning with reading potentially stressful emails or going onto social media – a habit that I’m trying to break too!)

5. Light outdoor exercise

Of course getting outdoor exercise is a good suggestion for anytime of the year. But it is especially important as the days get shorter to help prevent Seasonal Affective Disorders. If you are prone to seasonal depression, any amount of sunlight can help pull you up and out. And stimulating Lung Qi with brisk walks, cycling, kayaking on a lake or anything where you can exercise and also appreciate nature can help you deal with feelings of grief and regret that often come up this time of year.

I need to emphasize that the exercise should be light. Overdoing it will lead to exhaustion of your Qi & fluids.

Hopefully you can adopt at least a few of these practices to help you with Autumn self-care. If you’d like more advice, here is an article I wrote in my old yogic parenting blog on Communing with Nature that might help you appreciate outside time from a TCM perspective. And while I’m at it, here’s an old piece on Autumn Reflection that can help as well.