The 4 Season Solution. Dallas Hartwig

just great to consume because they are nutrient dense—they are also the most satiating of the macronutrients, and as such they suppress our natural hunger signals more effectively than the same number of calories from carbohydrates. Overeating carbohydrate-laden foods, especially carbohydrates from refined, low-nutrient sources, year upon year, leads to the dysregulation of our appetites and metabolism, setting us up for more cravings and overconsumption. Our bodies become chronically inflamed, metabolically deranged, overweight, and chronically diseased as a result. A chronic summer diet causes chronic disease.

      It’s easy to get there because, let’s face it, transitioning from summer to fall is hard. It’s tough to tear ourselves away from the fun and frenzy of the summer’s Las Vegas Strip and settle into autumn’s quiet cabin in the woods. This makes sense intuitively and neurochemically: expansion and excitement is so much more neurochemically motivating and rewarding than contraction and restfulness. In today’s world, summer is the expansive action phase, whereas the contraction phase requires more attentiveness and self-awareness to implement. In the natural world, it simply happens as a part of the whole cycle, but in today’s world, we need to deliberately reintroduce contraction phases, as well as reframe contraction as balancing, stabilizing, and healthy. When’s the last time you heard a positive news headline detailing how excited everyone was about a contracting stock market or smaller company earnings? Expansion is crucial. Think about what would have happened to our hunter-gatherer ancestors if they were not neurochemically motivated to explore, take risks, or seek novelty: they would have stayed in one safe and quiet place, depleted their resources, and probably starved to death. We needed the neurochemical motivation of dopamine and the performance enhancement of adrenaline to act, take risks, learn new things, explore the world… and survive. But problems arise when we don’t confine such action to the appropriate season, or when we don’t stop exploring. Like a seafaring explorer, we need to return home to port periodically, or else we’re simply perpetually lost at sea, running low on supplies and feeling disconnected from our roots.

      Let’s not forget: while dopamine and adrenaline are pleasurable, they also cause us to become shortsighted and self-centered. They give us focus on the challenge or scenario at hand, but they also put blinders on us—blinders to other perspectives, other people, other ways of being. This is partly why drug addicts often lose track of practical aspects of their lives; they get hyperfocused on destructive neurochemical patterns. These neurochemical stimuli might feel amazing in the moment, but they don’t lead us to plan wisely for the future or reflect deeply on the past. They don’t facilitate broad, integrated thinking, or peaceful introspection. I don’t know about you, but being stuck in summer is exhausting too. Don’t you often feel like a lot of parents do at the end of the summer, wondering when the kids will go back to school so you can get a break? We often look forward to the fall for the shorter days, which mean earlier bedtimes. If that sounds familiar, you aren’t alone. Many of us, myself included, have the perpetual sense of being frazzled and run-down, but we tell ourselves that we can’t just stop in the middle of the madness (unless we get an illness, which is often the body’s way of saying, “Hey, I really need some more caring attention over here!”). The feeling of being overextended is one that many of us carry for years and decades. You might not even recognize it anymore because you’ve lived with late summer exhaustion for so long. But if that’s how you’re feeling, take note: that’s not okay. If it feels out of balance, that’s because it is.

      Breaking Free of Summer—and Getting in Tune

      Many of us can at least partially identify with Kim’s life—I know I have at various points in my life. Let’s say that I only had an hour to consult with her. This is how I’d begin our journey together. I’d introduce her to the simple concept of expansion and contraction, of seasonal change, and encourage her to begin to develop a rotating or oscillating mind-set. When it comes to her social interactions, I’d encourage her to think of ways she and her family could slow down and be present with one another at some moments, while still pursuing activity and stimulation at others. Kim needn’t do anything radical. She could start with simply spending more time with her kids, bracketing out some time to talk about everyone’s day, or maybe even suggest meditating as a family. The larger point for her and for all of us is to jump right in and start experimenting—and not just with restoring rhythmicity to our social interactions, but to our eating, movement, and sleep as well. It doesn’t matter where we begin. So long as we begin somewhere, we’ll gradually become more aware of our innate patterns, and how to honor them.

      The summer-to-fall pivot is a confronting, surprising, and even counterintuitive transition. But as I’m going to suggest in this book, although we might like the stimulation and fun of summer, we might also feel a little hollow or empty inside from always being in this mode. As a result, nudging ourselves back little by little to some fall and winter behavior can prove to be healing and deeply satisfying. Kim, for example, probably doesn’t want to go to wine and cheese with the girls every week, because she’s exhausted. She might not want to attend all her children’s classmates’ birthday parties, although she might feel subtle pressure to do so. Sometimes we gravitate to larger social events and welcome the opportunity to attend or host grand occasions. But we can only know if this is what we really want, and not simply ingrained routine or social expectation, when we slow down and check in with our innermost desires. When we give ourselves permission to slow down, contract, and connect more meaningfully, intimately, and vulnerably with a smaller circle of loved ones, we usually experience a degree of relief from the perceived expectations to do everything all the time.

      Our lives and our bodies can be so much healthier and more fulfilled if we slow down, settle in, and fully immerse ourselves in the restorative phase of fall. The summer lights will still be there, beckoning, next year. But for now, take a long-overdue opportunity to rest and recharge. Over the next four chapters, we’ll explore in more detail how we become stuck in summer in the four key domains of sleep, food, movement, and social interaction. We begin with an area that so many of us misunderstand and neglect in our 24/7, always-on, technologically saturated world: the need for an honest night’s rest.

       CHAPTER TWO

       It Starts with Sleep

      It Starts with Food. Or so I thought. I’ve presented over 150 seminars and written two books about food, including one with that very title. But as I relayed in the Introduction, my work on food really grew out of a broader perspective connected to the seasons and the earth, and entailing physiological, psychological, and emotional components. It was meant to provide a framework of scientifically sound principles, within which people could create their own more granular, nuanced versions of health and wellness. Food was an important starting point, but never the sole focus.

      In fact, my approach to health and wellness has always been multifaceted. Early in my career, I practiced physical therapy for almost ten years, gradually expanding into strength and conditioning work, nutrition, and functional medicine. When I first encountered people like Kim, I began experimenting with different starting points to jump-start their lives. I sometimes began with strength training and cardiovascular conditioning, trying to improve overall health through better metabolic rates, muscle mass, and the like. I also tried stress management as a point of entry. But I rapidly figured out that food was the most practical and impactful starting point.

      When we’re “stuck in summer,” our problems become muddled, confused, and sometimes a bit frustrating. Food can be a useful place to intervene because dietary changes can indeed rapidly improve a person’s quality of life. Other lifestyle changes are crucial to optimal wellness, but their effects are more difficult to perceive and oftentimes imperceptible. Looking back, however, I think I might have overemphasized food’s centrality, and underestimated that of sleep. As I coached clients and gave seminars, I saw that when people didn’t prioritize sleep, it didn’t matter how impressive their diets were—their health, overall, was subpar. Sleep certainly works in tandem with nutrition; dietary improvements can lead to significant,