Hygge has helped us embrace the winter, to find warmth and comfort when it’s cold outside, to gather with friends and welcome the slowness of the season. If you ask the Danes, the creators of hygge, the great majority of them associate hot beverages with their hyggelig lifestyle.
Drinking tea is a perfect hot beverage option. Like hygge, tea encourages you to slow things down, take time to prepare a cup, and enjoy it slowly. The process of brewing tea gives you time to take pleasure and be soothed. Embrace the hygge by upping your tea game, whether for pleasure or purpose.
The Body’s Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang is a fundamental concept in Chinese philosophy, medicine, and culture. It teaches that all things exist as inseparable and contradictory opposites. This concept is followed into Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with the idea that the body must maintain a balance of Yin as cold energy, and Yang as hot energy, to be healthy. If you have more Yin and get cold easily, you may be more prone to colds. If you have more Yang and are hot, you may have dry skin, and are easily irritated. No matter where your Yin and Yang lands, there are teas that can help restore the balance. And elevate your hygge!
If your body has too much Yin, teas that are highly oxidized and chemically changed, or fermented, like black tea or ripe Pu-erh, provide balance by warming the body, increasing blood flow, and helping digestion. If your body has excess Yang, teas like white, green, and light oolong that are not changed much chemically, or oxidized, and are considered cooling, and can help restore balance. These teas are all served hot, but they cool or warm you by bringing your body's energies into balance, reducing inflammation, and helping you to feel refreshed.
Hygge Learning. Tea is just dried herbs or leaves steeped in water—so simple, considering its wealth of uses. While tea is used as medicine, it’s not just the medicinal herbs that provide benefits. The heat from a freshly steeped cup helps other body systems, like your gut, stay in balance. In the Hindu Ayurveda system of medicine, also based on balance in the body like TCM, hot liquids help protect the “digestive fire” of your gut. Similarly to these traditional beliefs of cold water reducing digestive fire, recent studies have shown cold weather outside can negatively alter gut microbiota as well.
In the Midwest, we are no strangers to cold outside temperatures. The harsh winters can leave you shivering, your immune system compromised, and your skin dry. To keep your digestive fire burning and protect your gut health, keep your Yin and Yang in balance, and embrace the hygge, sip on your favorite tea throughout the day. Or maybe you just like the taste. That works too!
Herbal Vocabulary. To understand how tea works in your body, knowing some TCM concepts and herbal terminology is helpful, because the world of herbalism is a vast one. Here’s another opportunity at hygge to learn about a few herbal words.
Adaptogens are compounds that help strengthen the hypothalamus, pituitary, gonadal axis (HPG) so you are more resilient to the negative effects of stress on your body.
Herbal Energetics refers to how an herb acts on the body, the quality of a condition or imbalance, and the energy in your body, or energetics. The quality of the tea may be described as temperature (warm or cool), moisture (dry or moist), and tension (tense or relaxed).
Herbal Actions refer to the effect of the herb on the body. If you ask, for example, what does Valerian do, the herbal action is that it helps calm the nervous system.
Herbal Property describes the herbal action in detail. If you ask, for example, how can I describe what rosemary does, the herbal property is that rosemary is a mild circulatory-stimulating herb—instead of just calling it a stimulant.
Herbal Category is a broader way to describe herbs, such as for culinary, wellness, or aromatic uses.
Taste may be described as sour, bitter, sweet, salty, pungent, spicy, acrid, astringent, bland.
Tea as Medicine and More. Do you turn to certain beverages during parts of the day? In the morning, it may be coffee, the afternoon may be a soda, and at night it may be a glass of wine or a cocktail. The beauty of tea is that it provides a variety of options for throughout your day. Here are some suggestions:
In the afternoon when you’re tired of water but don’t want any caffeine or sugar, a delicious cup of wild sweet orange or passion tea may be just the thing. At night, instead of alcohol which disrupts the quality of your sleep, a warm cup of chamomile or lavender tea helps you feel comfortable and lulls you to sleep. Maybe you’re stuck inside on a snowy day and just want to feel cozy – a cup of tea and a nice book will do just the trick.
Pro tip: Chai tea lattes from coffee shops typically use concentrates loaded with sugar. Make your own chai concentrate at home using your own herbs and spices.
Hygge is about coziness and warmth. It’s about learning how to embrace a season we often dread. We can practice the comfortability of hygge with a warm cup of soothing tea. We can wait more patiently for spring by choosing warming teas to balance our body’s energies to keep from shivering. We can use the comforts and the healing powers of tea to continue to embrace the hygge!
Lila Tully, CHES
Health Education Specialist, ViaroHealth
For questions or comments, contact wellness@viarohealth.com.