Formerly known as: Acupuncture for Equilibrium Wellness Center

Seasonal Acupuncture: How Treatments Vary Throughout the Year

Seasonal Acupuncture: How Treatments Vary Throughout the Year

If you’ve ever received acupuncture therapy, you probably know how wonderful it feels to leave a treatment session feeling a sense of balance in your body. But did you know that the treatments involved in acupuncture therapy change with the seasons? In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), each season is associated with specific energy and requires adjusting the acupuncture treatment to maintain balance with seasonal shifts. Whether you experience spring allergies, summer fatigue, or lethargy in winter, seasonal acupuncture treatments can give your body the extra support it needs to thrive.

Seasonal Acupuncture: How Treatments Vary By Time of the Year

Spring Acupuncture Treatments: A Renewal Season

The spring season represents new beginnings, growth, and renewal. According to traditional Chinese medicine, practitioners associate the liver and gallbladder with spring.

Spring is when your energy, or Qi, starts to wake up after the cold hibernation-like state of winter.

In spring, acupuncture will focus on moving stagnant energy and balancing the liver. Many people suffer from allergies during this time of year. Acupuncture is a natural way to help reduce your allergy symptoms.

You can also expect your practitioner to focus on clearing out blockages, emotional or physical. As a result, you can truly embrace that sense of renewal.

Summer Acupuncture Treatments: Full Yang Season

Summer is maximum Yang and is connected with the heart and small intestine. The season’s energy can be intense and energizing, but it also can burn you if you’re not careful.

Acupuncture in summer is all about keeping your heart’s energy in balance. That means staying cool and not burning out physically or emotionally. Anxiety, restlessness, and feeling overwhelmed are all clues that your heart’s energy is off-kilter. Summer treatments help cool and calm the body while supporting your digestive system so you can take the heat without feeling fatigued.

Fall Acupuncture Treatments: The Season Of Letting Go

The fall is a transitional season: the hot, active summer gives way to the quieter, cooler winter. In TCM, practitioners associate fall with the lungs and large intestine. An imbalance of the large intestine meridians can cause constipation, abdominal pain, depression, and worry.

And just like the trees let go of their leaves, it’s a time of letting go. Fall is a time of cleansing emotions, habits, or random junk in your body and mind. The lungs are also associated with sadness and grief.

Acupuncture sessions in the fall focus on strengthening the immune system for cold and flu season. It supports respiratory health to keep you balanced emotionally.

Winter: A Season for Rest and Contemplation

Winter is a time of rest, reflection, and energy conservation. Winter’s associated organs, the kidneys and bladder, are the organs of the water element. This is the most Yin season of the year; your body, just like nature, needs downtime to revitalize and renew itself.

Winter acupuncture is about nourishing your kidney energy, which is considered energy or essence. If your Kidney energy is weak, you’ll feel:

  • Tired
  • Drained
  • Vulnerable to getting sick

Acupuncture enhances your Qi to support natural restorative processes in the body. It’s all about building resilience for spring when everything starts up again.

Finding Balance All Year Round with Acupuncture Seasonal Treatments

Understanding the benefits of seasonal acupuncture shows how the changing seasons affect acupuncture treatments. This holistic approach to health will help you handle changes throughout the year.

Your body automatically rebalances with every seasonal change. Acupuncture enhances the natural flow of your:

  • Physical
  • Emotional
  • Mental health

Those new to acupuncture should start thinking of it as a tool to tune up the body for every new season that arrives.

Working with the natural energetic shifts throughout the year prevents disease and keeps your body in sync with nature’s natural rhythms and cycles.

Treatments during seasonal changes are a great way to align your health goals with your surroundings.

Acupuncture can support you during every seasonal transition. Whether you’re ready to take on springtime growth, chill out during the summer, let go in the fall or recharge during winter.

If you haven’t tried seasonal acupuncture, now’s the perfect time to start. Your body and your Qi will thank you.

About Farrah Hamraie

Farrah Hamraie, L.Ac, MOM, Dipl.OM (NCCAOM), is licensed and board-certified in Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine in the State of Texas with a Master of Oriental Medicine from the Dallas College of Oriental Medicine.

She is also a Diplomat of NCCAOM (the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine), a Board Certified Acupuncturist, a Chinese Herbalist, and a member of the American Association of Oriental Medicine.