Ayurveda - Part 1
Dosha - Your Unique Constitution
Ayurvedic medicine is all about prevention. How to keep your body in balance to prevent disease and problems in the future. It can also help you with current conditions, like inflammation…but its real power is in the prevention of disease.
It’s not a substitute for Western medicine, but it can be used in conjunction. It marries well with most conventional and traditional treatments :). Ayurveda is the most helpful before a disease process has begun…the time when you know something is off but all of the tests from your doctor come back just fine. It’s also helpful when you’re recovering from an illness, surgery, or disease. It can help your body get stronger and heal.
When you dig into Ayurveda, you’ll see quickly that it’s way more than just about food. It touches on lifestyle, seasons, herbs, emotions, the thoughts running through your head, and even your daily habits.
But you don’t need to embrace every principle to feel the benefit of Ayurvedic medicine. I recommend starting by playing with the food principles. Which food balances your unique constitution and which foods aggravate it. I find it makes eating a lot more fun :).
The website Ayurveda.com describes this much better than I can:
Just as everyone has a unique fingerprint, each person has a particular pattern of energy—an individual combination of physical, mental and emotional characteristics—which comprises their own constitution. This constitution is determined at conception by a number of factors and remains the same throughout one’s life.
A core belief of Ayurveda is that balance is our natural state, and our body is always trying to achieve balance. But many things can throw us off balance, including food, emotions, weather, relationships, and any interactions we have throughout the day.
It can feel daunting to attempt to balance everything, but by using even a few Ayurvedic principles you may find that your body’s reaction to these outside inputs is less dramatic. You might find a hot day more tolerable or a frustrating interaction less frustrating. This has been my experience with Ayurveda and that’s why I love it so much.
The Doshas
What I really love about Ayurveda is its simplicity. Ayurveda takes something very complex, the uniqueness of every human, and has created a system that makes this complex system very simple.
To do this, Ayurveda uses three doshas – Vata, Pitta, and Kapha.
Each dosha represents certain aspects of the body, our personality, and of nature. We are all a unique balance of these three doshas and all imbalances can be explained by discovering which dosha is out of balance.
Let me attempt to explain this as simply as I can (and please send me questions if you’re still confused).
I think the easiest way to dive in is to understand each dosha a bit better, and then to see how they combine inside each one of us. I’ll be diving into more about each dosha later in this masterclass.
Vata (air/ether)
Vata is the energy of movement. The wind is moved by vata energy and in our body vata causes our heart to beat, our eye to blink, and our cell membranes to move nutrients in and out. Everything that moves in our body uses vata energy.
Personality-wise, someone who has a lot of vata energy coursing through them tends to move quickly, think quickly…and can be a bit of a hurricane at times. In balance, a vata dominant person is very creative, spiritually connected, flexible, and happy. Out of balance, vata energy can trigger fear, nervousness, anxiety, tremors, and spasms.
Pitta (fire)
Pitta energy governs biological changes in the body and the environment. Summertime, with all of its growth and production, uses a lot of pitta energy. In the body, it governs digestion, absorption, assimilation, and body temperature. Pitta energy helps us digest food, traumas, and day-to-day experiences.
In balance, a pitta dominant person is intelligent, very understanding, and has a lot of drive and passion. Out of balance, pitta can create fiery emotions like anger and hatred.
Kapha (water/earth)
Kapha energy creates the structure around us. It’s the earth and it’s our bones, tissues, and blood. In balance, a kapha dominant person is filled with love, calmness, and forgiveness. A real grounded earth-mother type. Out of balance, kapha can trigger greed, envy, and attachment. Many kapha dominant people struggle with feeling sedentary and struggle with movement. They get a tad too grounded :).
The doshas also reflected in the seasons and times of day.
Seasons:
Kapha – calm, quiet months (winter to early spring)
Pitta – hot months (late spring to early fall)
Vata – windy months (fall to early winter)
Time of the day:
6am – 10am – Kapha
10am – 2pm – Pitta
2pm – 6pm – Vata
6pm – 10pm – Kapha
10pm – 2am – Pitta
2am – 6am – Vata
How the doshas combine inside us
Everyone is a unique balance of all three of these doshas, but one is usually primary. Some people have 2 dominant doshas and very few have all three in a perfectly balanced triangle.
According to Ayurveda, there are seven main body types:
Vata
Pitta
Kapha
Vata-Pitta
Pitta-Kapha
Kapha-Vata
Vata-Pitta-Kapha
Ayurvedic practitioners believe that true health is found when our doshas are balanced as they were when we were born. For example – if a pitta dominant person is feeling symptoms of a vata imbalance, the goal isn’t to balance all three doshas perfectly, but to get back into their pitta-dominant state.
I feel this is what makes us all beautifully unique. We’re not trying to be like everyone else, but instead to be exactly as we are. This is our unique constitutional fingerprint.
This means that some of us bring lots of vata energy into the world, like creativity and a deep spiritual connection. Others bring pitta and drive our community forward as entrepreneurs and leaders. And our beautiful kaphas keep us grounded and bring calmness and clarity to our communities.
You might be wondering how to figure out your own doshas. The easiest way is to take a dosha quiz. This will give you a general idea, but the most accurate way is to have an Ayurvedic practitioner assess you.
Once you know your dosha(s), hop over to the corresponding part and learn how to use food to help you find balance ❤️
Here are two choices for a dosha quiz:
This is a good quiz and I feel it shows your balance right now…and you don’t need to enter an email address to get your results:
https://kripalu.org/content/whats-your-dosha
I liked this quiz a little bit better and I feel it does a better job at finding your innate dosha (not just what’s out of balance right now)…but you need to enter an email address to get your results:
https://www.oneworldayurveda.com/free-dosha-quiz/
Ideally, it’s best to do both quizzes and if they differ then it shows what’s out of balance for you right now.
For me, quiz 2 showed me that I’m pitta dominant (which many other quizzes have said), but quiz 1 said that I’m vata dominant. I’ve been dealing with some stress over the last few weeks and I’ve been feeling like a walking hurricane lately so that makes sense.
To me, this means I need to work to get back to my balanced pitta state by working on balancing my vata side. This is a common problem for me, I’m frequently a hurricane when I’m stressed :).
For each dosha I’m going to describe what a dosha-dominant person is like and symptoms of imbalance. At the end of each section, I’ll give you a list of foods that help to bring that dosha into balance.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
These food lists should not be seen as black/white or a good/bad food list. They are something to keep in mind. For example – raw veggies and salads aggravate vata people. That doesn’t mean that vata people can’t ever eat a salad, but it’s wise to eat more cooked veggies if they’re feeling out of balance.
Got any questions or comments? Comment below, jump to our private Facebook Group, or the Ask Lisa page :).