Strengthening Your Water Elements While On the Bike
A Community Consciousness and Brain Health Essay.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, there are three water elements: the Bladder, Adrenals, and Kidneys. These organs are found in the mid to low back area. The adrenals sit like a little cap on the top of each kidney, the right a little lower than the left. Excess fluid in the body can be removed from circulation by the kidneys, flowing through the ureters (tubes) into the bladder and then out of your body.
If you look around what water elements do you see? Are you near a fountain? Do you have a bottle of water handy as you ride? Can you see a river, a reservoir or lake? Does your ride take you near a body of water or are you watching a virtual bike video with an element of water?
There are several visualizations you can do while riding outdoors or while training indoors on a turbo trainer or stationary bike.
The Flow of Water
Take a drink of water. As you ride focus on the internal sensations of the flow of that water from your mouth down the esophagus into the stomach. At the stomach and then into the small intestine is where the absorption of the water starts. The water flows from your stomach into your blood stream. From there blood goes to the lungs and digestive system to pick up oxygen and nutrients then on to each cells in your body. Waste products and toxins, anything your cells no longer need is picked up by the blood, lymphatic fluid and interstitial (between the cells) fluid and carried eventually to the kidneys to be eliminated.
In alternative medicine thinking, the kidneys are the place where your body decides what to keep, what to let go of. Keeping too much leads to swelling. Letting go of too much leads to dehydration. There is always meant to be just enough and an exchange. Sensational medicine brings to the idea that what you pay attention to matters — what you see, feel, and hear matters. Each of the sensation associated with the elements, like the water elements is a doorway — a way to improve your health.
For example the color blue is associated with the water elements. Color therapy or visualizing blue light, blue energy circulating, wearing blue as you ride is thought to improve the function of the water elements: the kidneys, adrenals and bladder.
Each organ or element also has an emotion associated with them. Fear and wisdom, ease and abundance are associated with the water elements. So, what does this mean to you?
The Value in Wearing Blue
As you ride, are you making wise choices about what to wear, what to eat and drink? Does fear influence what you do? When you drink enough water, does that lessen the fear you experience in your life? Can you imagine the water in your body flowing with ease, the ease of a wide river flowing through colorful fields? Is there enough water stored in your body, supplying each cell, like a mountain lake supplies the surrounding streams and forest.
Is it possible you could attract more abundance into your life by drinking more water, wearing a blue cycling jersey or moderating fear with wisdom?
Balancing Epinephrine with Spinal Mobilization Exercises
There are many hormones and neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) associated with the water elements, including epinephrine (Epi), which initiates short-term responses to cope with stress. Too little makes us feel stress more. Too much epinephrine induced by acute and chronic stress is associated with stress induced, chronic illnesses of the heart and immune system as well as cancer, panic attacks and phobias. The major sources of epinephrine in your body include the adrenal medulla and the brainstem.
There is research to suggest that mobilization of the spine improves the nerve flow to the organs and consequently creates a balancing of brain and organ chemistry. Try this exercise to balance the chemicals associated with the water elements.
As you ride alternately bend and round your back and then arch your back, bring your chest out and shoulder back. Focus on the mobility of each vertebrae. Can each one move independently or are there some areas that don’t move with ease? The segments T5 to T12 provide the nerves to the blood vessels of the liver, pancreas, and the adrenal glands. The ribs come from the spinal vertebra from T1 (base of the neck) to T12 (the last rib attachment, so T5 to T12 is the lower half of the spine to which ribs attach.
Do this mobilization exercise five or six times back and forth then take a big drink of water and repeat. Is it easier the second time? Do your ribs and spinal vertebra move more easily when you are well hydrated?
Getting In Sync
Each element (Water, Wood, Metal, Earth and Fire) in Traditional Chinese Medicine is also associated with a time of day. The water elements are most active and energetic from 3 pm to 5 pm (Bladder) and 5 pm to 7 pm (Kidney and Adrenals).
Consider what time of day usually works best for you to cycle. Is your energy higher if you cycle in the morning, the early afternoon or in the late afternoon or evening? When do you have the most energy?
Does the time of day you bicycle affect your sleep? Do you sleep deeper if you cycle earlier or later in the day?
In Traditional Chinese Medicine acupuncturist will often have a client with bladder or kidney dysfunction come for treatment in the late afternoon, thus supporting these organs when the energetic flow is strongest.
If your energy drops around 3 pm, consider what you are eating and drinking earlier in the day. Is your diet supporting or hindering your kidney and bladder function?
Also consider when feel most or least stressed or fearful? Doing some of these exercises in the late afternoon can make a bigger difference than doing things to support kidney and bladder function at other times.
Putting It All Together
To improve the health of your kidney and bladder and improve the effectiveness of your cycle training program: look for what is blue around you, consciously consider your response to fear, reflect on your relationship to water, make sure you are well hydrated and notice how you spend the hours between 3 pm and 7 pm.
