Welcome Summer!
A new season is upon us with new energy, new temperatures, and new practices that can help us stay aligned with the Earth. Rustic and Earth-based living are at the heart of what I teach at Ground & Root Cancer Nutrition. It is one of the pillars of optimal health that will help you stay healthy and cancer-free.
When we follow the cues from nature and the changing seasons and adapt our practices accordingly, we promote better balance (physically, mentally, emotionally, & spiritually) and can more easily optimize our health.
Let’s dive a bit deeper into what I mean…
Energetically, Summer is fueled by light, heat, and intensity. For some of us this will bring renewed energy, a sense of lightness, and expansiveness. While for others the summer heat may make you feel more irritable and angry. That’s because we all have different constitutions and the seasons will impact us differently. When we have this deeper level of awareness, then we can make adjustments that will help us stay in balance.
Summer is dominated by the Fire element…and to some degree Air. As we move into Summer this can cause us to feel hot & dry if it’s not balanced with Earth & Water. The Fire element is known as Pitta in Ayurveda and in excess it can result in inflammation, irritability, & overwhelm. It can also flare up allergies, rashes, headaches, & GI issues– like heartburn or loose stools.
When you know how to adjust your diet, lifestyle, & self-care routines to adapt to these changing elements you can remain in balance and thrive during the Summer months.
Top 4 Wellness Tips for Summer
Here are my top 4 tips to help you stay cool, balanced, and aligned this Summer.
Tip #1: Transition Your Diet to Summer Foods
When pretty much any food we desire is at our fingertips all year long it’s easy to forget which foods are actually in season and at their peak ripeness and highest nutrient content. Depending on where you live this will vary a bit but for many of us the summer months bring foods like berries, tomatoes, cucumbers, fresh herbs, melons, apricots, stone fruits, asparagus, arugula, peas, zucchini & other summer squash. Shopping at your local Farmers’ Market or farmstand will help you stay in tune with what’s growing where you live. You can read more about what foods are coming into season in the Summer HERE: https://groundandroot.com/blog/eating-in-season-summer/
We can also take this concept even deeper by being mindful of how to balance the hot (pitta) & dry (vata) elements of Summer with our food choices. Foods that are naturally cool and sweet or even oily will be more appropriate during the summer months. This includes fresh salads, fruits, juices, and healthy fats. It can also be a good time to indulge in sweet dairy foods (if you tolerate them)…things like homemade yogurt, raw milk, ghee, butter, cottage cheese, or even ice cream on occasion. Cooling herbal teas like peppermint, fennel, and rose are all great options during the summer months. While caffeine, alcohol, spicy or fried foods, & red meat will increase heat & stimulation and could throw you off balance during summer.
To dive much deeper into the best foods (& lifestyle practices) for Summer, I invite you to join us inside our Summer Wellness Workshop.
Tip #2: Cool Summer Heat
In addition to your food choices, there are other practices you can bring in that will help you cool down from the summer heat. This is the perfect time of year for more swimming, restorative yoga, long walks in the shady forest, or even adding in some cold showers or plunges.
Staying hydrated, of course, is also a very important practice, and you can elevate your hydration by incorporating cooling fruits, herbs, & fresh juices. This blog post will give you a lot more ideas for tasty, summertime drinks. Plus you can scroll further down for a cooling summer juice recipe.
Tip #3: Ground Your Energy
Grounding your energy with earthing is good every season. But in the summertime, there is literally every opportunity to get outside and connect to the earth’s energy. You can accomplish this with direct contact of the skin on the hands or bare feet to the surface of the earth or your entire body in natural waterways (like rivers, lakes, or the ocean). When you do this you connect electrically to the energy of the earth and within only 10 minutes this can calm & re-balance your nervous & immune systems.
Earthing has also been shown to reduce inflammation, improve sleep, reset your circadian rhythm, decrease the stress response, rebalance cortisol, improve heart health, decrease pain, & restore your natural defenses. I mean who doesn’t want all of that, right?!
It’s quite simple to do and like I said above, only requires a minimum of 10 minutes. Here are just a few of the ways you could add this to your daily routine:
- Walking barefoot on the earth
- Laying on the grass or sand
- Submerging in water
- Gardening– getting your hands in the soil
- Morning Meditation in the sun & on the grass (this is my favorite way!)
Tip #4: Get Morning Sun & Protect Your Skin
The final tip has to do with summertime sun. There is frankly a lot of misinformation and confusion out there about the safety of the sun…especially when it comes to skin cancer. Skin cancer rates are rising despite people spending much less time in the sun and when they do, they’re slathering on sunscreen. Plus there’s research, like this one from a 2004 study in the Lancet that showed “outdoor workers have a decreased risk of melanoma compared with indoor workers, suggesting that chronic sunlight exposure can have a protective effect”.
So how do we explain this? Well the short answer is you need optimal levels of Vitamin D for cancer protection…including skin cancer. And the sun is the best source of Vitamin D. We are also using sunscreens (& even clothing and cosmetics for that matter) that contain carcinogenic compounds. Everything we put on our skin gets absorbed in our body…even the chemicals on your clothes.
Now although the sun is not the real enemy here, it is important that we are not burning our skin. Sunburns do increase your risk for skin cancer; plus they cause the skin to age faster. Here’s what I recommend you do instead of avoiding the sun or using chemical sunscreens:
- Get morning or evening sun before 10am or after 5pm to increase Vitamin D with less risk of burning. In most places these are the windows of the day where the UV index is not as high but you can still brown your skin and make Vitamin D. Expose as much of your skin as possible without sunscreen. Start slow, so you don’t burn, and gradually increase exposure time.
- Eat more natural SPF foods– these are foods that can actually improve your skin’s natural SPF protection, from the inside out. These include things like dark leafy greens, carrots, sweet potatoes, apricots, pink grapefruit, watermelon, tomatoes, papaya, bell pepper, pumpkin, green tea, citrus, & astaxanthin (found in wild caught salmon & shrimp).
- Wear wide brimmed hats, sunglasses, & loose, breathable clothes (100% organic cotton or linen are best) the rest of the day to keep you protected. And if you have to be outside during the hottest parts of the day, do your best to stay in the shade.
- In general I suggest you limit your sunscreen use to the least toxic options which are zinc oxide & titanium oxide (but not in spray form as the particles can enter your lungs and cause damage) and only when absolutely necessary.
Inside the Summer Wellness Workshop you’ll receive more tips for summer skin care plus details regarding safe and natural sunscreens & bug sprays plus how to make your own homemade versions of both.
Summer Juicing
Now each season I like to elevate my “Healing Kitchen” by bringing in a seasonally inspired superfood. In the Spring we add fresh sprouts to our plate. And in the Summer we add fresh juice.
Fresh juice is a great way to increase your hydration during the hot summer months as well as give your body a cooling, nutrient-dense boost. Although the insoluble fiber is removed it’s still a great source of water, phytonutrients, and soluble fiber. I like to think of it as a “Hydrating Liquid Supplement”. It’s super easy to digest and absorb plus it’s estimated that 70% of the nutrients are extracted from the produce and into the juice; improving the chances that you actually absorb those nutrients.
The raw nature of fresh juice will be more cooling overall but if you tend to be pitta dominant (like me!) and you overheat easily then be mindful of which fruits, veggies, herbs, & spices you use. The warmer foods like citrus, ginger, if you’d like to keep juicing but might be too heating in the summer.
Some great cooling foods to include instead would be things like cucumber, celery, mint, cilantro, parsley, green apple, berries, leafy greens, fennel, or fresh turmeric. Here’s one way you could bring these together into a tasty summertime drink.
Cooling Summer Juice
- ½ bulb fennel
- ¼ cup fresh mint- tightly packed (leaves & stems)
- 1 large cucumber
- 2 celery stalks
- 2 green apples
- 1 inch fresh ginger (optional)
Run everything through a juicer, one at a time. Even with the ginger it’s still a balanced summer juice but you could remove the ginger if you wanted to avoid the extra heat. This is also a great recipe to soothe the stomach & gut; it can help reduce nausea, reflux, or even bloating.
You can find this recipe plus many more inside The Cancer Diet Cookbook. I also have a few more juice recipes on the blog HERE and HERE.
Summer Rituals
One last thought for you to really root yourself into this new season is to create a “Welcome Summer Ritual”. Something you do, even better with your family or friends, to welcome & celebrate the new season. It would be perfect to do right around the Summer Solstice, which is typically on June 21st.
It can be a whole day (or half-day) filled with cooling & grounding summertime activities. Here are some ideas:
- Start your day outside with a walk in nature followed by some time in the sun with the least amount of clothes possible (as described above).
- You may also enjoy using this time to meditate on the grass where you can connect to the Earth’s energy while you soak up some vitamin D and go inward. Spend at least 10 minutes sitting on the earth with bare skin touching the ground.
- After your meditation, pull out your journal and ask your soul…
- How can I balance doing with rest & play this summer?
- What do I need to know to not overcommit and burn myself out this summer?
- Gather with family or friends to enjoy a Summer-inspired meal outside. A few of my favorites are the Watermelon, Tomato, Feta, & Mint Salad, Turkey Taco Salad, or this Lemon Arugula Salad with Pinenuts. You can grab more summer meal ideas HERE or in the Cookbook. And if grilling is on the menu, which it often is in the summer, keep it healthier by following the tips shared HERE and inside our Summer Wellness Workshop.
- Then end your day with an evening stroll or better yet a dip in a nearby lake or river and watch the sunset thanking the summer for yet another return.
Optimize Your Health This Summer
If you’re ready to elevate your Summertime health & wellness routine then I invite you to join us inside the Summer Wellness Workshop! In this in-depth 2 hour workshop you’ll learn so many different strategies to align your diet, lifestyle, & self-care routine to promote balance and optimal health this Summer.
We dive much deeper into the Ayurvedic principles of balancing pitta as well as vata. The Workshop also includes a 1-hour cooking demo with Natural Foods Chef, Jennifer Caroff from http://www.foodsoulutions.com/ on how to easily & tastily apply everything you learned in the kitchen. She shows you how to make 8 summer-friendly recipes including healthy mocktail & soda recipes.
When you purchase this workshop you will also receive a beautiful downloadable resource & recipe guide with tools to help you take action on what you learned. If you’re ready to enhance your health this Summer, then head here to purchase the Summer Wellness Workshop: https://groundandroot.com/product/summer-wellness-workshop/
