Why Your Body Struggles When the Seasons Change — and What TCM Does About It

Every year around March, I start seeing the same pattern in clients. Energy drops. People who felt fine through summer come in saying they feel run down but cannot explain why. Skin gets drier. Old respiratory complaints resurface. Sleep becomes lighter or more disturbed.

Most people attribute this to the weather getting cooler. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the explanation is more specific and it points to a practical response.

Autumn marks a time of change where nature and the body prepare for cooler, drier conditions.

How TCM understands seasonal change

In TCM, each season corresponds to an element, a pair of organs, and a particular quality of energy. Summer belongs to Fire, outward, expansive, warm. Autumn belongs to Metal, contracting, inward, dry.

The transition between them is not just a shift in temperature. It is a shift in the body's dominant energy pattern. The organs most associated with autumn are the Lung and the Large Intestine, responsible respectively for taking in what nourishes us and releasing what no longer serves. When the body struggles to make this transition, these are the systems that show strain first.

In practical terms, this looks like: respiratory sensitivity, dry skin and mucous membranes, constipation or digestive sluggishness, a tendency to hold grief or melancholy that is hard to account for, and a general sense of depletion that rest does not quite resolve.

Why the body struggles with this transition

The shift from summer to autumn asks the body to contract after a period of expansion. For people who have been running on adrenaline through a busy summer, overworking, under-resting, eating irregularly, this contraction can feel abrupt. The body was already depleted; now the season is asking it to turn inward and consolidate resources it does not have.

In TCM terms, this is often a Lung Qi deficiency combined with residual Heat from summer that has not been properly cleared. The body is stuck between two energetic states.

What bodywork does in this context

Shiatsu and acupressure work directly with the meridian system, and the Lung and Large Intestine meridians respond well to seasonal treatment. Working along the Lung meridian which runs from the chest down the inner arm to the thumb helps tonify and consolidate Lung Qi, supporting respiratory function and immune resilience.

Moxibustion is particularly valuable at this time of year. The application of moxa, a dried herb burned near acupoints, warms and tonifies the meridians in a way that needles and hands alone cannot fully replicate. It is gentle, deeply warming, and especially suited to the coldness and depletion that come with the turn of the season in Central Victoria.

I typically recommend a session in late summer or early autumn before symptoms become established as a kind of seasonal tune-up. It is easier to support the body through a transition than to treat what has already taken hold.

Simple things to do at home

Alongside bodywork, TCM recommends a few seasonal adjustments that are straightforward to apply. Eat warm, cooked foods rather than cold or raw, the digestive system contracts in autumn just as everything else does. Include foods that moisten the Lung: pear, white radish, honey in warm water. Dress the neck and shoulders warmly, as these are the points where Wind, a pathogenic factor in TCM, most easily enters. And breathe, consciously and deeply, as often as you remember to.

The Lung in TCM is also the organ associated with grief and letting go. Autumn, with its shedding and contracting, is a natural time for this. If you find yourself feeling more reflective or emotionally tender as the season turns, that is not incidental.

If you are based in Beaufort or the broader Pyrenees region and would like support through the seasonal change, I am taking bookings through to mid June.

— Sabah, Enso Bodywork · Beaufort, VIC