Feeling More Worried, Restless, or Caught in Your Thoughts? Your Earth Energy May Be Asking for Nurturing.
Have you noticed yourself thinking more than usual lately?
Maybe your mind keeps going over the same thoughts. You feel worried without knowing exactly why. You have difficulty settling down at night. Or perhaps you simply feel a little less grounded and centered.
From the perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine, this can be a beautiful reminder to pay attention to your Earth energy.
We often think of nature as having four seasons, but in Traditional Chinese Medicine there is also a Fifth Season: Late Summer.
This is the season of Earth energy, associated with the Spleen and Stomach energy systems. It is a time for nurturing, centering, integrating, and preparing ourselves for the transition into the next season.
And Qigong gives us simple ways to work with this energy.
The Fifth Season: Coming Back to Your Center
Earth energy appears at the transition between the seasons. From ancient times, this period has been recognized as a time of balance—a space between what has been and what is coming next.
Think of the Earth beneath your feet.
It supports you.
It nourishes you.
Seeds are planted within it, and with time, patience, sunlight, and care, those seeds become something new.
Late Summer carries this same message.
Spring was a time to plant your intentions. Summer brought expansion, growth, and strong Yang energy. Now Earth energy invites you to nurture what you have created and trust the harvest.
Rather than always asking, What should I do next? this season invites another question:
What in my life needs to be nurtured right now?
This applies physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
Sometimes nurturing means doing less.
Sometimes it means allowing yourself to receive.
Sometimes it means bringing your attention out of your busy mind and back into your body.
This is the middle way—the place where we can begin to find balance again.
When Earth Energy Becomes Unbalanced
The Spleen and Stomach systems do much more than help us digest food from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective.
You can also think about them as helping us process and transform what we take into ourselves.
That includes our experiences, thoughts, worries, and emotions.
When Earth energy is harmonious, we may feel centered, supported, peaceful, and grounded.
When it becomes overactive or unbalanced, we may find ourselves:
- Overthinking
- Worrying excessively
- Feeling anxious or unsettled
- Replaying situations again and again
- Having difficulty quieting the mind
- Struggling to settle into restful sleep
Qigong teaches us that we do not need to fight these experiences.
Instead, we can give the body and its Qi a new message.
Here are several simple practices you can use during the Fifth Season to help bring greater harmony to your Spleen and Stomach systems.
1. Bring Your Mind Back to Your Lower Dantian
When you are overthinking, worrying, or having difficulty sleeping, you may feel as though all of your attention has gathered in your head.
Instead of trying to force your thoughts to stop, bring your focus somewhere else.
Bring your attention to your Lower Dantian, located deep behind your navel.
Sit or lie comfortably.
Close your eyes and relax.
Bring your awareness down from your head into your Lower Dantian.
You can gently place your hands over your lower abdomen and simply breathe.
Imagine all of the busy energy in your head slowly flowing downward.
You don’t have to make anything happen.
Simply keep bringing your awareness back to your Lower Dantian.
As Master Lin teaches:
Where the mind goes, the Qi follows.
By bringing your focus downward, you give the Qi a new direction and help your mind become quieter and more settled.
Try this for a few minutes before bed or anytime you notice yourself getting caught in overthinking.
2. Sing! The Healing Power of Sound and Earth Energy
There is another wonderfully simple way to support Earth energy:
Sing.
The sound associated with Earth energy is singing.
You don’t need to be a good singer. You don’t need to know a particular song. You don’t even need anyone else to hear you.
Hum.
Sing softly.
Allow a comfortable sound to vibrate through your body.
Sound creates vibration, and vibration can help shift the way Qi is moving.
Try singing or humming when you are preparing food, walking outside, driving, or simply sitting quietly.
Instead of judging the sound, feel it.
Notice the vibration around your lips, mouth, throat, chest, and throughout your body.
Let it become a joyful Qigong practice.
3. Activate the Healing Energy Around Your Lips
Your lips are also connected with Earth energy.
In his book Head to Toe Healing: Your Body’s Repair Manual, Master Chunyi Lin shares a wonderfully simple technique for working with energy points around the lips that are connected with the Pancreas, Stomach, and other systems.
Try this simple practice:
Option 1: Gently bite your lips, or move your lips in and out as though alternating between whistling and smiling. Repeat 36 times.
Option 2: Place your palm over your lips and gently massage in a circle 36 times in one direction and 36 times in the other direction.
Keep everything comfortable and gentle.
This simple movement helps stimulate the energy points around the lips and supports the body’s natural cleansing and balancing processes.
It is something you can practice almost anywhere—and it only takes a minute.
Try This Simple Qigong Technique for Mental Clarity & Better Sleep
If your eyes feel tired, your head feels tense, or your thoughts are still busy at the end of the day, try giving yourself a few quiet minutes of Qigong self-healing.
Place your middle finger between your eyebrows, just above the bridge of your nose, and gently massage the area in slow circles.
In Spring Forest Qigong, this area is connected with the eyes and brain. Gently stimulating it can help release tension, calm busy thoughts, support greater mental clarity, and help you relax as you prepare for sleep.
You can practice this simple technique anytime your mind feels overwhelmed, your eyes feel tired, or you want to create a greater sense of peace before bed.
As you massage, relax your body, breathe gently, and allow your mind to become quiet.
💛 You don’t need to do something complicated to support your healing. Sometimes, a few peaceful minutes of loving attention can make a beautiful difference.
4. Give Yourself the Nurturing You Give Everyone Else
Earth energy is deeply connected with nurturing.
For many of us, nurturing comes naturally when we think about other people.
We care for our families.
We help friends.
We listen.
We give.
We support.
But the Fifth Season asks us to include ourselves in that circle of nurturing.
Ask yourself:
What would feel nourishing to me today?
Perhaps it is practicing Qigong.
Perhaps it is resting.
Perhaps it is preparing nourishing food, spending time outside, meditating, laughing, singing, or simply allowing yourself a few quiet minutes without needing to accomplish anything.
When you nurture yourself, you are not taking something away from the people you love.
You are creating greater balance within yourself—and when you become more balanced, everyone around you benefits.
Trust the Harvest
There is beautiful wisdom in the Fifth Season.
You planted.
You grew.
You experienced the fullness of summer.
Now there is an opportunity to nurture what has been created and trust what is beginning to ripen.
You don’t have to keep digging up the seed to see whether it is growing.
You don’t have to think through every possibility.
You don’t have to know exactly what comes next.
Come back to your center.
Bring your attention to your Lower Dantian.
Sing.
Smile.
Nurture yourself.
And allow the intelligence of your Qi to help guide you back toward balance.
Sometimes healing isn’t about doing more. Sometimes it begins by becoming still enough to receive what has already been growing within you.
🌿 Discover More Simple Qigong Self-Healing Techniques
Your body has an incredible natural ability to return to balance, and sometimes the simplest techniques can help awaken that healing potential.
Discover more of Master Chunyi Lin’s practical Qigong techniques for supporting your body from head to toe in Head to Toe Healing: Your Body’s Repair Manual.