Why You Should Overdress a Bit in Spring and Underdress a Bit in Autumn

🔊This unit's lessons on spring and autumn described the two seasons in terms of growth and gathering-in, but didn't address a very concrete, everyday decision shaped by that framework: what to wear as the weather itself is changing. A well-known piece of folk wellness advice addresses exactly that: "overdress a little in spring, underdress a little in autumn," meaning a person should resist shedding warm clothing as quickly as spring's air warms, and resist bundling up as quickly as autumn's air cools.

🔊The reasoning for spring follows from a point made in an earlier unit on yin-yang: the body's own yang, having spent winter stored inward, is traditionally considered still building back up to full strength even after the outdoor temperature has already warmed, making it more vulnerable to a sudden cold snap than the calendar alone would suggest. Shedding warm layers as fast as the weather warms risks exposing a yang that hasn't yet caught up. The reasoning for autumn works in the opposite direction: exposing the body to a bit of the season's early cold, rather than bundling up immediately, is traditionally considered a way of training the body's own cold tolerance gradually, before winter's harsher cold arrives in full.

🔊This piece of advice is a plain, wearable example of a habit this whole unit keeps returning to: treating the transition between seasons, not just the seasons themselves, as something worth paying deliberate attention to. A body that adjusts its clothing at the exact same pace as the thermometer, this advice suggests, is moving a little too fast in spring and a little too slow in autumn — mismatched with the body's own, slower internal adjustment to each new season.