Walking into Fred Meyer last weekend I was greeted with school supplies and autumnal decor, while Summer decor lay pitifully shoved into a sad discounted section. And so the shift begins. While it technically feels like summer, the sun is still shining, and the mid-day heat continues to linger even after nightfall, but something has changed.
The long dog days of summer are shrinking by roughly two minutes each day. Veggies I planted in May are on their last growth spurt before harvest. And there is a sense of winding down. Something feels different, like the summer is starting to split into two.
Wait There’s Two Summers?
I’m sure you’re familiar with the idea of the four seasons, Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer…and Late Summer? Wait, that’s five. That’s also two Summers. Why are there two Summers? Let me explain.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine there is a fifth season, Late Summer, running from August to the Autumnal equinox in September. It’s completely separate from Early Summer, which explains the subtle vibe shift.
Briefly explained, it comes from Wu Xing, TCM’s Five Element theory: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, each governing an organ system, an emotion, a taste, and a season.
Earth governs Late Summer, the Spleen/Stomach, and worry/overthinking.
If Early Summer is the peak of Yang energy, then Late Summer is its decline. The slowing qualities of Yin begin to quietly seep through as the dark season creeps into view on the horizon (remember, we’re losing roughly 2 minutes each day). Think of Late Summer as a transitional season, where the fast-paced fiery energy of Summer gives way to something more contemplative, more inward.
Like a new year, a new season brings a fresh start type of energy and with that comes both opportunity and challenges. So let me share how I’m switching things up this bonus season. The three sustainable, simple shifts that leave me feeling good, accomplished, and better than I did before, all yours for the stealing.
Bringing a Little More Yin to the Table
There is this annoying thing that happens. I’ve just eaten a healthy meal: salmon, quinoa, steamed broccoli, but maybe I was in a rush, or I was scrolling my phone while shoveling in forkfulls of caloric sustenance. Time passes and my jeans start feeling two sizes too small. All I want to do is find some big sweat pants. I feel heavy like the salmon has turned to brick, and my stomach begins to swell with gas. And yep, I’ve got yoga in an hour.
Earth’s job is transformation: turning raw material (my salmon) into something usable, most literally, turning the food you eat into Qi and blood. That process runs through two organs working as a team, the Stomach and the Spleen. Think of the Stomach as the first stop: it breaks food down, what TCM calls “rotting and ripening.” Then the Spleen takes over, pulling out the usable nourishment and sending it up and out to fuel the rest of the body.
Sometimes this function isn’t performing properly (eating hurried and distracted) and that’s when we feel heavy, bloated, gassy, and we become anti jeans, pro sweatpants.
Digestion technically starts in your mouth, not your stomach, and it begins with a single chew. Each bite gets physically broken down into smaller pieces, giving your stomach acid and enzymes more surface area to work with later. Saliva gets to work, moistening food for an easier trip down, while an enzyme called salivary amylase starts breaking down starches before they’ve even left your mouth.
Chewing even sends a signal ahead of time, priming your stomach and intestines to ramp up acid and enzyme production before food arrives. Slow down, and you also swallow less air, which means less bloating.
So what’s your reward for all that chew? Thoroughly chewed food gets broken down more efficiently from the start, so your body actually absorbs more of what you’re eating instead of passing it through half-processed.
So, this late summer I’ll be giving my spleen some much needed assistance, bringing some yin to my meal time. I’m banning my phone from the table, eating my food slowly and thoughtfully, putting my fork down between each bite, and chewing thoroughly at least twenty to thirty times before swallowing. I’ll be turning the act of eating into a meditation, treating each bite as worthy of full presence rather than something to get through while thinking about something else.
Eat the Final Rays of Summer
Have you noticed a sticky, clay-like humidity to the air? The kind of damp-heat that makes the back of your knees sweat? Well, in TCM, Late Summer’s primary climatic quality is dampness. Which explains why I just want to languish in front of a fan as I melt through the slowly waning dog days of summer.
In Sweden they have a word for this type of heavy, humid heat that characterizes this season: rötmånaden, which means “rot month.” It’s apt, there’s a strange, sluggish, heavy, decaying feeling to this damp-heat.
Dampness is exactly what the Spleen struggles to process. When dampness accumulates, whether from the damp climate of Late Summer or from eating damp-producing foods (dairy, sugar, greasy or fried foods, raw/cold foods), digestion slows down and gets inefficient.
Meaning all kinds of yuck: sticky, bloaty, heavy, unmotivated, no energy, those dreaded loose stools, and brain fogginess (where did I set my keys). That same damp melt-into-the-couch sluggishness you feel on the outside is happening on the inside too.
TCM treats seasonal eating as directly relevant to how you feel. A good rule of thumb is to align your diet with foods that are spleen supportive, aid digestion, and help eliminate dampness. So start filling your pantry with fibrous roots vegetables, fruits, and herbs that come in vibrant shades of orange, yellow, gold, and red. Think pumpkins, squash, baked sweet potatoes, turmeric, ginger, beets, corn, and rainbow carrots, as well as fruits like golden apples, figs, grapes, and pears.
Other foods to incorporate during late summer are whole grains which help soak up the dampness that the spleen dislikes. This is really the season where I’m indulging in quite a few grain bowls using bases like quinoa or millet, pumpkin congee, barley soups, and simple homestyle bowls of oatmeal. Foods that provide the gentle nutritive sweetness the spleen and stomach need to operate not just in Late Summer but all throughout the year are crucial.
Haaldi doodh, or turmeric lattes also sneak their way back onto the menu after a particularly hot early summer. Mine is chock full of all my favorite spices like cinnamon, cardamom, saffron, clove, and a pinch of black pepper to make the curcumin in turmeric that much more bio-available for my body. It’s the perfect transition drink as Summer slowly begins to shift into Fall.
Untying Stomach Knots
Uncertainty is exhausting. We all have to wrangle with it to varying degrees, every single day. There are no breaks for us humans with brains, I guess.
The human brain hates, and I mean HATES ambiguity. Which is a cruel irony as almost 95% of life operates in wavy unsolid places. Meaning our brains are spending a lot of time unhappy, searching for a certainty that does not exist. It’s like a truly messed up koan.
In the framework of Traditional Chinese Medicine, every organ is paired with a specific emotion. The Spleen’s is worry, or sī (思): the mental act of turning something over, trying to process it, trying to make sense of it. In balance, that’s just a healthy reflection. Out of balance, it tips into rumination.
The Spleen craves stability, grounding, and balance, so it makes sense that its emotion is the one most tied to how we process uncertainty. When we worry, we’re asking the Spleen to do the same kind of work with our thoughts that it does with our food: break it down, sort it, turn it into something usable.
Excessive worry, the emotion that disrupts the spleen most, greatly weakens the organ that governs digestion and quite literally turns your stomach into a knot where spleen Qi, the energy needed to properly digest and transmute food into energy, gets stifled. Which means more bloating, more irritability, and yes you guessed it even more worry. It’s no wonder some people experience an uptick in digestive upset as the worry starts to climb.
When the spleen is operating from a strong position we feel emotionally anchored and deeply rooted within ourselves, which allows us to settle into a state of trust also known as Xin (/ 信) the positive virtue we gain from a strong spleen.
Just as the physical Spleen transforms the food we eat into usable energy, or Qi, we can do the same with the mind: digesting uncertainty and worry, and transforming it into trust.
For me, that mental digestion happens in specific places: journaling, regular meditation, and my yoga practice. In yoga, the asanas, the physical postures, prepare the body for the internal exploration of meditation. Making space in the body makes space in the mind, and the reverse is just as true.
We all process uncertainty, anxiety, and worry differently. Some of us are pros when it comes to not knowing something precisely. You thrive in it. Looking at you, bros betting whole paychecks on Kalshi. For the rest of us, we’ve got to find ways to digest and transform that energy into something close to stable-ish, a trust in ourselves that whatever comes we can handle it. Whatever gets you there, be it roller derby or writing haikus, do it often, untie those internal knots, find your Xin (/ 信).
Late Summer’s Sea Legs
The Summer season is still very much with us but it’s changing in shape and feel. Early Summer becomes Late Summer becomes autumn. And with each shift of the seasonal clock the ground loses its stability and it can feel like walking on a ship deck out at sea.
Every season requires getting your sea legs, adapting to the new environment. Late Summer is no different. The foods and routines that served you well in early summer may not now.
A lot of what I practice in my own wellness as an herbalist changes with the season. But the container remains the same. It’s gotta be simple, and it’s gotta use the tools that already reside within me.
We don’t need an overpriced tool, or a course, or a haphazard quick fix that only introduces complexity to our already overburdened lives. All we need are the essentials: warm cooked foods, gentle exercise, and some quiet time with our own thoughts. This is what’s really needed over all the fancy, flashy stuff. And this is exactly what the Spleen prefers anyway: unhurried, unrushed, uncomplicated, but consistent medicine.
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References:
Appleton, Jeremy. 2018. “The Gut-Brain Axis: Influence of Microbiota on Mood and Mental Health.” Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal 17 (4): 28. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6469458/.
Kaptchuk, Ted J. 2008. The Web That Has No Weaver : Understanding Chinese Medicine. Mcgraw-Hill.
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. 2017. “Your Digestive System & How It Works.” In National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-diseases/digestive-system-how-it-works.
Qi, Me. 2026. “Stomach.” Me & Qi. https://www.meandqi.com/knowledge-base/concepts/stomach.
Wu, Xie-Ning. 1998. “Current Concept of Spleen-Stomach Theory and Spleen Deficiency Syndrome in TCM.” World Journal of Gastroenterology 4 (1): 2. https://doi.org/10.3748/wjg.v4.i1.2.
