For the past few weeks, the most common chief complaint I have been working on with patients is anxiety. Clients who have effectively managed their emotional ups and downs for years are coming in with seemingly out of the blue panic attacks, waves of dread and sadness and uncertainty about their futures. The first comfort offered before treatment even begins is the explanation Chinese medicine has to offer for this destabilizing fluctuation.

Chinese medicine approaches our emotional state as a combined function of our physical organ system balance, our inherited constitution and the environment around us. Seasonal shifts are, at the best of times, moments when our bodies undergo an internal rewiring to keep up with what our environment necessitates. It is a time when imbalances can makes themselves known in stark and unavoidable ways. For those with trauma (aka all of us these past few years), for whom change becomes an imminent threat to safety, it can be an unbearable time of nervous system upheaval leading to anything from an increase in inflammation and hormonal haywire to a depleted immune system and contraction of illness.

The fall equinox in particular is a time when we are asked to let go of the summer, to mourn the death of the greenery around us and to turn inwards and prepare for winter. It is a big ask of our joy-and-light-loving bodies to accept such a seemingly dark and morbid new direction. However, it is also an opportunity to accustom ourselves with the natural death cycle that gives space for all of the future joys to come. Gaining mastery over our nervous systems at this time can be an incredibly powerful tool to navigate all of life’s binaries.