Holistic Health Sisters Podcast

Nourishing Your Body + Emotions Through Traditional Chinese Medicine (Ep.47)

• Hannah Carr

Share episode

Send us a text

Winter brings a natural invitation to slow down but modern life often demands the opposite. In this deeply nurturing episode, Hannah guides you through the ancient wisdom of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and its Five Elements system, with a special focus on the winter element, Water.

You’ll learn why winter is the season for rebuilding your reserves, how your kidneys and bladder influence everything from your energy to your emotions, and practical ways to nourish yourself through food, lifestyle, hydration, mindset, and ritual.

Whether you’re struggling with energy dips, seasonal colds, fear or anxiety, UTIs, low mood, or simply want to live more seasonally this episode gives you a roadmap to feeling calm, grounded, and strong this winter.

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

  • The foundations of Traditional Chinese Medicine + why it's still so relevant today
  • What the Five Elements are and how they influence your organs, emotions, and energy
  • Why winter corresponds with the Water element, rest, wisdom & deep reserves
  • The emotional link between Water and fear, and how to support it
  • How dehydration affects your energy, cognition, immunity & emotional resilience
  • Clear signs of kidney imbalance (including the ones most people overlook!)
  • Gentle winter-friendly movement practices that nourish rather than drain
  • Warm, salty, mineral-rich foods that rebuild your energy stores
  • A powerful story about healing fear through hydration + acupuncture
  • How to support your body before each seasonal shift
  • A glimpse inside Hannah & Sarah’s Winter Cleanse and The Healing Portal membership

Links Mentioned

If you would like our free moon download to get the list of the 12 astrological signs and how they impact your body parts and emotions, grab that here: https://holistichealthc.kartra.com/page/moondownload

If you are looking to balance your hormones naturally, then try our free 5 day hormone balance challenge, back to balance. Register here: https://holistichealthc.kartra.com/page/Backtohormonebalance

We are on socials at:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/holistichealthcollectiveuk

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/holistichealthcacaouk

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/holistichealthcollectiveuk/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/holistichealthcacaouk/


Website:

https://www.holistichealthcollective.co.uk

Where you can find out more about of women's health retreats, our healthy products. our online health membership for peri-menopausal women, online courses and our in person events.

Our Women's health membership when you can jo...

Yes. Welcome to the Holistic Health Sisters podcast of Wellness and Real Life Sisters Hannah Carr and Sarah King from the Holistic Health Collective. In this podcast, we're going to be sharing our passion for, of course, holistic health, but also spirituality, healings, hormone, plant medicine, seasonal living, our love of nature, and our love of community. So we are gonna invite you to take a pause and take a nice deep breath. And join us on a path of healing, of self-discovery and self-love, and of stepping into the brilliance of who you really are. This is a podcast for the seekers out there. Those of you who know there's more to life than just surviving or going through the motions, and you want more, more health, wealth, happiness, love, compassion, connection, trust, surrender. And more faith. And you want that for others too. So we can make this world a better place for us all. So go and grab a cup of ceremonial grade cacao and join us as we explore what moves through us, that which is divinely led, so we can all move from fear to walls. More faith. Thank you so much for being here with us today. Welcome to this week's episode with me, Hannah Carr, and I'm really excited to be diving into a nutrition episode with. you this is my area of specialty. I'm a naturopathic nutritionist and I think it's so important at this time of year, often a time of year as we're sort of in the Altman winter where we might be struggling a little bit more. With colds, flu, viruses, bacterias, and we need a little bit more support, and I really believe that there are many things that affect our health. So for example, our lifestyle, our environment. Our relationships, but we are what we eat. Or nutritionists often quote this one, which is we are what we absorb. So it depends on your gut health. You could eat all the healthy food in the world, but if your gut isn't firing on all cylinders, it's actually what you absorb. That's what is the building blocks for your body and. It makes such a huge impact on our health and you know, I see health practitioners myself, so other holistic health practitioners because I don't believe nutrition is the only way. But I'm always quite surprised by how little questions are asked about. Nutrition because it does make a really big impact. So even if you've got healthy relationships, you're living in a good environment, you love your work. If you're eating rubbish all day long, or you are, you know, maybe you're living on fizzy drinks or coffee, it is gonna have an impact on your body. So when I started Naturopathic nutrition, we learned quite a lot about traditional Chinese medicine. And the five elements and the power of that, how it actually impacts the body. So I want to share a little bit with that with you today with the hope that you can have a much healthier autumn and winter season for you and for your family as well. So traditional Chinese medicine is both ancient but also really relevant to our lives today. So we're gonna explore the foundations of the system. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about the five elements theory, and then we're gonna go right into the winter element, which is called water. We will look at what water represents, how imbalances show up in the body and mind, and also ways that you can restore the balance through winter so you are feeling strong, clear, and calm, all winter season so traditional Chinese medicine is a holistic healing system. It's thousands of years old, and instead of breaking the body into separate parts or isolated systems, traditional Chinese medicine focuses on patterns if you like. So the way that everything in the body, in the mind relates to everything else. Of course it looks at physical health, but also emotional imbalances, energy levels, lifestyle, the environment around you. It takes it all into consideration. And at the heart of TCM as it's often referred to is the idea that the body is always seeking harmony and flow. And they call energy in the body qi, which is spelled QI. And what they say is, when it moves freely, we feel well. But when that flow gets stuck or depleted, then that's when symptoms start to arise. So actually. If you see a naturopath, a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, or actually a lot of other holistic therapists, they're not actually interested in what your diagnosis is or what the name of your diagnosis is. What we are looking at is what is the imbalance in the body and what created that imbalance in the first place. So one of the major frameworks of traditional Chinese medicine, and this is very similar in Ayurvedic, wisdom as well, is the five elements. So in our Aveda, there's three doshas, but in traditional Chinese medicine there's five elements. So let's introduce you to those. We have wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, and each element corresponds to a different. Organ system in the body and also different emotions, a different season, a different color, a different flavor, and even personality tendencies as well. So let's break them down. Let's give you a short overview of the five elements. So the first one is wood, and the wood element is in spring. So this starts on or around, the 21st of March. So it's when we have the spring equinox. And the wood like trees is all about growth. It's related to the liver and the gallbladder, so they're the organs that are governed by the wood element, and the opening of the body is the vision. So what that means is the liver and the gallbladder are actually related to the eyes, and it's very much about movement as well. Then we move on to the element of fire and fire. On the summer solstice, so that's on or around the 21st of June. So that means the wood element lasts three months and then the fire is in the summer. And this is related to joy and of course heat, and it's related to the heart and the small intestines. And after fire, we move into earth. And Earth is known. It's a fifth season actually. So in the Western world, we think of four seasons in traditional Chinese medicine. And then talk about five. Late summer is a really short season. It's from the 1st of August until the autumn equinox. So that's the 1st of August to on or around the 21st of September. So this season is only six weeks long and it's related to the spleen and the stomach, and it's all about nourishment and stability. After that, in autumn, so on or around 21st of September, we move into the metal element, and this is all about letting go. It's related to the lungs and the large intestine, but actually those systems are also related to the mind and the skin as well. And it is also about boundaries. If we kind of think about the gut health, the gut has this lining in and we don't want the holes in it. We don't want a leaky gut. So that's sort of your internal boundary if you like. But this is about external boundaries as well. And then after the autumn equniox, we have the winter solstice on or around the 21st of December, and that's when we move into the water element in traditional Chinese medicine. So when you think about winter, we are thinking about stillness, about wisdom. And this is related to the kidneys and the bladder, and also about your own deep reserves. So each element influences different parts of the body just like the seasons move into one another. It's the same with the elements and your body parts. So what I've found, learning about this and knowing this means I can start to look after my body throughout a year. So what I may do and eat in the summer is gonna be very different from what I do and eat in the winter. But what I'm doing in the winter is to support specifically the kidneys and the bladder. When I'm moving into the spring, it's gonna be the liver and the gallbladder. They're moving. The heart and then the spin and the stomach, and then the lungs and the large intestine. So what's happened is throughout a year you're looking after all of your different body parts, when those body parts most need it. So it's a very seasonal way of living, and the body goes through. Natural cleanse about a week or two before each seasonal change. So what I've noticed in my practice is, you know, for me and my family and a lot of my clients, they're sort of be having detox symptoms. Maybe a cold, maybe low energy, maybe. Another problem in their body that's sort of flaring up if you like. So an old problem comes back around those seasonal changes. So what we do is we try and get some of this nutrition advice into place just before each seasonal change. Winter and the water element is a really, really big part of that. So let's move into the water element and as we think about moving into sort of the introspection of the energy of winter. Water represents our most profound reserves. So it is the element of rest, rejuvenation, and wisdom. So if I just take a pause there, and like Sarah says on so many of her episodes, I'm gonna invite you to take a breath. As we are moving into winter, we want to start slowing down and at least in the Western world, it can be a really busy time of year with Christmas, with New Year, with, you know, if you've got a family, kids off of school. Trying to fit lots of social engagements in, and we're going outside of ourselves a lot, really at a time when nature is showing us. It's a time to slow down, but it's really hard to make the time for that. Now. The water element is connected to the kidneys and bladder organ system. Okay. And so it might be at this time of year, we're going to the symptoms a little bit more at the moment, but it might be a. A water infection shows up or maybe you're feeling a lot of fear because each element is related to an emotion. And water is related to the element of fear, which in traditional Chinese medicine they teach us, is stored or held in the kidneys. And this impacts other areas of the body. So it's the bones, the ears, and the reproductive system. So the ears is the outside opening, if we like for, this element. So you may notice that you have tinnitus or ear infections, or maybe you're just feeling a little bit more sensitive in that area, and is the ability to store energy and vitality. So in TCM, they call this the Jing essence. So winter is. So, like I said, winter is nature's time to conserve energy, slow down and build in a strength. And in the same way water supports our ability to rest, to recover, to prepare ourselves for the growth of spring. Now, if we just think about being in, a colder country in the winter, we're gonna have things like lots of heating on. And we may be having lots of warm drinks like teas and coffees, so caffeine, and there may be some alcohol at this time of year as well. So all of these are actually quite dehydrating factors for us at a time when it's really important for the body to actually be very, very hydrated. So when your water element is strong, this is how we feel. We feel. Grounded, calm, and we feel capable. But if it's out of balance or too weak, or it can actually be in excess as well. These are the symptoms that we start to see in the body and the mind. These are some of the common ones. Okay. So if you've got a kidney deficiency, it may look like lower back pain or knee weakness, a fatigue, but one that doesn't improve with rest. So it doesn't help getting more sleep. You still feel tired, maybe feeling cold, especially in the hands or feet. So those of you with rays, this may resonate a low libido or reproductive issues. Low libido or maybe reproductive issues, poor memory or difficulty concentrating, hair thinning or premature graying, tinnitus, or a decreased hearing and frequent urination, or perhaps nighttime urination. And if we are looking at the emotions, it might be more anxiety. Or more fear rooted in insecurity. It could be a sense of feeling burned out or do you remember the where I said you're feeling tired? It might feel like your battery just won't recharge. For those with a water excess, it might be symptoms like water retention or feelings of being overwhelmed or even feeling a bit paralyzed by fear or indecision, or a difficulty letting the emotions flow through. So you might be wondering, how do we nourish water, especially in the winter season? So here's some traditional Chinese medicine inspired practices to help restore balance. So the first one is to actually prioritize deep rest. So in our membership recently, we've been talking to our members. We'll just run a session on stress actually, and how to balance stress during this busy season. How to feel calm amongst the chaos. And one of the top priorities was actually to have a look at your diary and see how busy it is, and is that balanced with the amount of energy that you've got at the moment. So winter is not the time to push. It's time to give yourself permission to sleep more, to slow down your schedule and to reduce. Overstimulation. So, you know, in the evenings it might be not scrolling or not watching tv, but it might actually be, lighting a candle, putting some soft music on, maybe reading a book, having a bath, having an early night, and actually scheduling these things into your diary if you need to. If they won't happen without you scheduling them in, like really prioritizing rest as a medicine. The next one is to keep warm. So this one should be fairly simple, but we can take some extra steps, especially for the lower back and feet. So as I record this, I've got a pair of socks on and a fluffy pair of slippers. So it's really important not to let cold get up through the feet for the kidney system'cause it's very sensitive to cold. So you could have, slippers and socks indoors. But if you are outdoors, you wanna want to avoid sitting on cold surface surfaces, so a nice long coat. And also you can buy extra layers just to put over your kidneys. I've bought one on eBay before. I've bought one on Etsy before. They're called kidney belts, I think. Or at least wearing a long top that you can tuck into your trousers, like a long vest where you're keeping that lower back warm. Obviously warm baths, hot water bottles, wheat packs, all of that kind of thing is wonderful. And what that does is protects your internal reserves. I'd actually add to that, putting a scarf on around your neck and not letting wind get in through the neck or even the ears if you're going outside. The next one did mention food is you want some warm, salty, mineral rich food. So I've mentioned at the beginning that every element has a color. So the color for winter is blue, black and purple. And every element has a flavor. And the flavor for winter is salty. But we want things that are naturally salty. So you could include things like black beans or kidney beans. Seaweeds, bone broths, mushrooms, lots of dark green leafy vegetables. Walnuts are wonderful for this time of year. Really rich in omega threes. Great for the brain health and things like sesame seeds. Meso and tamari will add some. Beautiful sorts in there, and you can add salt to your diet. So use a clean sort, I'd say like a seas salt, a pink Himalayan salt, or a Celtic salt. All these foods will support the kidney system and rebuild your essence. The way that we use salt in our houses, we do add it. We try not to add it too much to cooking, but at the end, so then the salt's not layered too much and then your taste buds will tell you if something's sort of the right level of saltiness for you or not. The body does give feedback, so if you're craving salty things. Do allow yourself to have them, but rather reaching for the ready sorted crisps. You might wanna be adding some of these food to your diet instead. Okay, let's talk about movement. Movement's always important for the body, but instead of high intensity training, you're gonna think more things like tai chi or Qigong or a slow yoga or walking. So I'm going to a beautiful, chaong class on a Saturday morning at my local leisure center at the moment, which is a new practice for me. But inside our membership, we actually have lots of yoga that's created specifically for women that is considering this time of year and also the astrological influence that we're under. So this month we've got a beautiful, yoga session, which is all about the lower half of the body and the legs. So all of this gentle exercise will keep your Q flowing without draining your reserves. We want to be supporting our emotional waters because water element is tied to fear. And I will say that when I started to hydrate my body a lot more on a cellular level, so this is when I studied naturopathic nutrition probably almost 10 years ago now, I. I learned that I was really, really dehydrated and I was fearful of a lot of things. So one of the things that I got fearful of is I've got a little bit of a fear of heights as I've got older, but I even get scared to drive over a bridge. It's not something that I really told people. It was more of an internal fear of just not feeling comfortable when I was driving over a bridge. And as I started to get more and more hydrated. That fear, along with lots of other small fears, just disappeared. I actually had some acupuncture. I'm a very, very big fan of acupuncture and we've had, Ali from heels reflexology into the membership running a session telling us, uh, more deeply about traditional Chinese medicine. Reflexology and acupuncture. But I went to see Ali for recession she'd worked on my kidneys At the time, it was only a few days later I witnessed a really horrible accident, actually a. A car drove into a motorcyclist and this guy was flown up into the air, landed on the street, an older guy, and I just pulled my car over and knew that I needed to be there to help. And I think before I would've questioned that a little bit, thinking, what can I do? You know, I'm not a nurse. I can't give any first aid, but I knew that I could be there as a calming presence. I could bring my energy. I could bring a sense of safety and stability and kindness and love, and I was on the way to my son's sports day, but I just pulled over the car quickly, texted my husband saying I was gonna be late, and went over there just to help and there was a lot of bypassers just standing there looking on. And I took my hat off. I kneeled down by him and I put my hands on him. There was actually an off-duty paramedic who was there as well, so he was there giving him some advice on how to breathe and everything. But I just knew I could help and I can't remember how it happened, but I do know that the police reached out to me to give a statement and the guy reached out. I took some photos of the accident and he wanted the photos. And so I am sharing the story to show you when we work on balancing some of our organs, how it can actually help us show up as in a more powerful way in life, and that can be for you and your life as well. So the practices to balance your emotional waters would be things like your meditation, your breath work, your journaling, your boundary setting, and of course spending quiet time out in nature. All of these rituals strengthen your inner container and then needed more at this time of year, I would say probably than any other, because. This is the time of year when we tend to be more stressed and more busy when nature is kind of telling us to do the opposite. So again, if you need any of these resources, if you would love to have a regular meditation practice or a regular breath work practice, we have all of these. Tools inside our monthly membership. It was called the Holistic Health Circle. You've probably heard us talk about it on previous podcasts, but we're just changing the name actually to the healing portal. And that's simply because when Sarah and I sit down and we are creating resources, we always say, let's pop them in the portal. And so we've decided to actually change the name so you can join the Healing portal as it's now called, and have access to these meditations, the breath work, the journaling practices, the seasonal nutrition talks, the moon ceremonies. It's all inside. And the last one is of course the hydration. And it doesn't necessarily mean just drinking water and specifically cold water can actually weaken the system. So we are aiming for. Warm or room temperature, water, electrolytes more healing drinks for the lymphatic system. Herbal teas like ginger, cinnamon, even roasted barley can be very good at this time of year. But food is a wonderful hydrator. When we focus on fruits and vegetables and whole foods, they have all the minerals in there, the hydration that we need. If you look at some animals that in nature, they hardly drink any water at all, but they get all of their hydration through their food. So it's something that we can't overlook. So Sarah and I will try and do a cleanse before each season, and we actually decided to share our winter cleanse with our audience. So we created this winter cleanse quite a few years ago now, and put all of the foundations in here for gently cleansing the body. Either before we go into the water element. So the water element we go into on the 21st of December. So you could do this cleanse a week or two before or anytime up until spring. So here's what's included in our winter cleanse. First of all, we do of course, talk about hydration. And how to keep the joints lubricated, how to prevent infections, deliver nutrients to your cells, keep your organs functioning properly, but also when you are adequately hydrated on a cellular level, it helps to improve your sleep, your cognition, and your mood. So we look at that as a foundation, and then we go through all of the simple foods, so some of the ones that I've listed already, but we've put them into menu plans, the foods that will support your kidneys and bladder, and are easy to follow right in these menus. They will boost your immunity and your energy in the cold months as well. Then we've got specific breath work and, movement routines, which is yoga that will help you to slow down and cr create this inward energy. So nourishing those organs specifically in just 15 minutes so you can find the time to do the exercise in a way that feels easy to manage at this time of year. So you don't need to go out to classes, you don't need to find parking, you don't need to pay for the parking meter. You can just do it from home. We are sharing naturopathic techniques that support the kidneys and bladder so you can start to clear toxins from your organs. Even if you feel low energy, these will really help you and they help to avoid illness, including things like UTIs. And then we put together, a bonus overcoming winter cold sickness and UTI guide. So it's all of the health info, the foods, the supplements that you need to avoid these or recover from them quickly. And then we've got a couple of rituals in there as well to really tap into the energy of this time of year. So the first one is. A ritual that you can do on the solstice itself, so to align with the seasonal change in a deep and meaningful way. This will help you to spark creativity and find the joy in the season if that's missing at all at the moment. And then we actually added a cacao ceremony in there as well. So we hold space for you to feel into the stillness with your heart, with ceremonial. To feel into the stillness with your heart, with your cup of cacao. If you've never done a cacao ceremony, it's such a beautiful ritual that you can do from home. Where you get to make yourself a cup of the purest form of chocolate that's actually really good for your health, really nourishing for your body at this time of year. Often we add some medicinal mushrooms to a cacao to help boost our immunity a little bit more, and then you get to sit down and do some journaling practices and meditation. So as we embrace the energy of winter, the water element invites us to turn inwards. It. So if you would like the winter cleanse, I will drop the link into our show notes. You can get that for 66 pounds, or you can go to our website www.holistichealthcollective.co uk. We've designed it for you to do over a five day period, so it gives you. A period to focus on and to get some of these changes into place. However, it doesn't have to be done like that. We've put in a recommended schedule, for example, but you could just take it more slowly over the three months, adding some of the hydration tips in, adding some of the naturopathic techniques, adding some of the menu plans in slowly. So it depends how you like to do things. So as we embrace the energy, the winter, the water element invites us to turn inwards. It asks us to honor our limits to rest deeply, and to remember that stillness is still a powerful part of growth. Okay, so just like the seeds beneath the snow, our bodies need this quiet time to gather strength for the seasons ahead. And traditional Chinese medicine gives us a beautiful roadmap for connecting with these natural rhythms. And when we don't just support our physical health, we actually. Nourish our emotions, our energy, our innocent sense of wisdom, and our cognition as well. I hope that you've learned something. I'd love to hear from you. Drop us a message either on Instagram at Holistic Health Collective uk. You could drop us an email, or if you're on any podcast platform, usually you can drop a comment below and we always pick them up and love hearing from you. So if you enjoyed this episode and want to explore more about the elements or. The seasonal live in. Remember, you can get the seasonal cleanse that you can do over five days that's in the show notes, or you can join us inside the Healing Portal where we do all of this and more, including our live moon ceremonies every single month. We've got one coming up later this month on the 19th of December, but until next time, take good care, stay warm, and let your energy flow like water, quiet, deep, and full of potential. Thank you a million times, Ava, for joining us on this podcast episode. You can support the show by giving us a follow on any podcast platform you're listening to this on. If you already follow up, then thank you so much and maybe share this episode. If you think of someone, someone comes to mind where you think they'd really benefit from listening to this. This is one way that we like to spread the love with our friends, is sharing podcasts or playlist. So let them know that we are thinking about them. So just send it on to them with a few words about why they might enjoy it. And if you'd like to check out any of our in-person events or retreats or our online offerings, head over to our website, www.holistichealthcollective.co uk. We'll see you in the next episode.