Tips for Balancing Vata
- Eat three warm, nourishing meals each day.
- Favor foods that are warm, heavy, oily, sweet, sour and salty.
- Minimize foods that are spicy, bitter or astringent.
- Minimize foods that are cold, dry and light.
- Pay attention to fluids: avoid cold or iced drinks, sip warm water at regular intervals, avoid alcoholic beverages, coffee and black tea.
- Ayurveda discusses three doshas or mind/body operators to keep ion balance for optimum health. Vata is the lead dosha and governs all movement in the body.
- Experience the benefits of a warm sesame oil massage before your morning shower or bath.
- Keep warm: avoid cold, windy or chilly environments; take long warm baths and showers.
- Try to keep your environment humid.
- Favor calm, quiet environments. Avoid mental strain, overstimulation, loud music, and long hours of TV in the evening.
- Develop regular habits such as eating and going to sleep at the same times each day.
- Enjoy light, humorous entertainment.
- Make your surroundings light and bright.
- Regular daily elimination is important.
Tips for Balancing Pitta
- Favor foods that are bitter, sweet, astringent, cool, heavy and liquid.
- Reduce foods that are excessively spicy, salty, sour, hot, or deep-fried.
- Try to avoid skipping meals.
- The key to remember when balancing Pitta is moderation.
- Avoid hot baths and overexposure to the sun.
- Pay attention to leisure and rest: do not overwork.
- Keep inside temperatures on the cool side.
- Avoid or minimize stressful deadline-oriented activities.
- Seek out pleasing natural environments (sunsets, lakes) and the tonic of laughter.
- Late evening strolls, when the air is relatively cool, and swimming can help soothe a Pitta-aggravated mind and emotions.
- Decrease stimulants: avoid alcohol, coffee and tea.
- Avoid watching violent, shocking or controversial entertainment.
- Cool milk, blended with a couple of dates, before bedtime can help balance Pitta.
- Maintain regular mealtimes; try and eat lunch close to noon.
- Use cooling oil for massage, such as coconut.
Tips for Balancing Kapha
- Favor foods that are light, dry, warm, pungent, astringent and bitter.
- Reduce foods that are sweet, sour, salty, heavy, cold and oily.
- Do not overeat but do not skip meals either.
- Kapha types are steady and slow, so the key to balance is activity and variety.
- Exercise regularly preferably every day
- Avoid excessive rest and oversleeping.
- Enjoy the benefits of a dry massage with a loofah sponge or raw silk gloves to stimulate the circulation.
- Enjoy variety in life, and seek the stimulation of new sights, sounds, and people.
- Stimulate the digestion by eating a little fresh ginger before meals.
- Stay warm in cold, damp weather.
- Early to bed and early to rise can help balance rest and activity.
- Raw honey is the one sweetener that is beneficial for Kaphas, but in moderation not more than two tablespoon per day.
Tips for Quality Digestion
- Savor your meals don’t work, drive, read or watch televisions while you’re eating.
- Eat in a settled atmosphere. A calm environment and focusing on the food aid the body in absorbing nutrients.
- Eat your main meal at midday, and eat lighter at night. Your digestive fire is strongest at midday.
- Always sit down to eat eating on the go can hamper digestion.
- Avoid ice-cold drinks or foods. They decrease the digestive fire.
- Eat at approximately the same times each day.
- Don’t eat too quickly, take the time to enjoy each mouthful of food.
- Eat to about three-quarters of your capacity.
- Take a few minutes to sit quietly after eating.
- Don’t drink a lot of fluids with a meal. It’s fine to sip water or juice.
- Favor fresh foods and avoid left-overs which can disrupt digestion.
- Avoid taking a meal until the previous meal has been digested. Allow approximately three to six hours between meals.
- A bit of fresh ginger before a full meal will help stimulate the digestive fire.
- Milk should not be taken with full meals, especially with salty or sour tastes.
- Avoid yogurt, cheese, cultured buttermilk and cottage cheese at night.
- Eat only when you are hungry when the stomach is empty.
- Do not eat when you are stressed digestion and assimilation are negatively impacted by stress.
- Maintain regular meal times.
- A happy, positive frame of mind at meal times will help you get the maximum benefit from your food.
- Chewing fennel seeds after a meal helps digestion and freshens the breath.
- Do not interrupt your meals for phone-calls or other work-related activities.
Tips for better Sleep
- Place thin packets of aromatic, relaxing herb / flower potpourri in your pillows.
- Do not bring work-related material into the bedroom.
- Wear comfortable clothing to bed cotton is recommended.
- The bedroom should ideally be dark or very dimly lit.
- Keep your bedroom clean and orderly to limit disorderly thought.
- Calming or settling activities as bedtime draws near help prepare the mind and body for rest.
- Drink a cup of warm milk before bed.
- Use calming aroma therapy oils to help you feel more settled.
- Go to bed before 10 p.m. during the drowsy Kapha time of night.
- Listen to soothing music before bed such as Maharishi Gandharva-Veda melodies.
- Poppy Seed Chutney is a natural sleep aid.
- Avoid arguments or intense entertainment right before bed.
- Have your last meal about three hours before you go to bed.
- Eat light at dinner and minimize hot spicy foods.
- Wash your face, hands and feet just before bed.
- A warm 20-minute bath an hour before bed can help you relax. Infuse bath water with relaxing aroma oils for added benefit.
Tips for Stress Management
- Practicing Transcendental Meditation is an effective way to manage stress.
- Walnuts, almonds, coconut, and sweet juicy, seasonal fruit such as pears, apples (cooked if possible), milk, lassi, Ghee, and fresh cheeses such as panir or ricotta are natural stress-busters.
- Practice pranayam-breathing exercises to help balance the mind, body and emotions.
Mental Stress
- Manage mental activity try not to overuse or misuse the mind.
- Favor Vata-balancing foods, such as sweet, sour, and salty tastes and warm, unctuous and heavy foods.
- Favor warm milk, Ghee and other light dairy products.
- Diffusing a relaxing aroma oil can help calm you before bed.
- Perform a full-body warm oil massage everyday.
Physical Stress
- Follow a Vata-Kapha pacifying diet.
- Perform the full-body warm oil self-massage everyday.
- Exercise regularly in moderation.
Tips for Immunity
- Avoid extreme temperatures, hot or cold.
- Eat a balanced, nutritious diet with lots of fresh vegetables and fruits.
- Cook with moderate amounts of spices like turmeric, ginger, black pepper, cumin and coriander.
- Avoid ice-cold foods and beverages.
- Eat three regular meals everyday.
Enhanced Brain Power
- Eat foods as close to their natural state as possible processed, canned and refined foods are low on chetana natural intelligence.
- Include healthy proteins in your diet legumes, lentils, beans and grains.
- Include several helpings of fresh fruit and vegetables in your diet.
- Don’t cut fat entirely out of your diet, fat performs essential functions in the body.
- The brain is especially susceptible to damage by free radicals, so harness the power of antioxidants.
- Try diffusing the essential oil of rosemary, peppermint and lemon to help enhance mental clarity and alertness.
- The essential oils of basil helps dispel mental fatigue and aids focus.
- Stress impacts mental performance practice relaxation techniques to manage stress levels.
- An adequate among of good quality sleep is essential for peak mental performance.
- Keep your brain constantly challenged to keep it working well.
- The daily warm oil self-massage helps enhance mental alertness.
- Cracked black pepper in your diet can help the free flow of oxygen to the brain and help you stay focused yet calm.
- Balance periods of intense mental activity with short periods of rest.
Tips for Balancing Stomach Acid
- Reduce your intake of dry, spicy and salty foods.
- Drink a little cool milk, but not with meals. Eat sweet, juicy fruits, such as plums and pears.
- Get proper rest. Try to go to bed before 10 p.m. when digestion becomes active again.
- Eat promptly when you’re hungry.
- Don’t skip meals.
Tips for Healthier Joints
- Cook with moderate amounts of ginger, turmeric and black pepper.
- Cut down on raw foods such as salads.
- Regular daily elimination is important.
- Avoid or reduce bananas, yogurt, eggplant and bell peppers.
- Avoid or minimize intake of cold, heavy foods that are hard to digest.
- Do regular exercise in moderation-overdoing exercise can strain joints.
- Perform the warm oil full-body self-massage everyday to improve circulation.
- Pay special attention to the joints during the massage.
Tips for Detoxification
- Get extra rest during detoxification
- Go to bed before 10 p.m. to aid the body in purification.
- Eat wholesome, nutritious, easily digestible foods such as vegetable soups and well-cooked mung dahl.
- Increase the amount of fiber and bioflavonoids in your diet eat plenty of cooked, leafy green vegetables and fruits.
Tips for Massage
- Use more massage oil on the soles of your feet and the palms of your hands to enhance circulation to the peripheries.
- A full-body warm oil daily self-massage helps balance the body, mind and emotions.
- A brisk daily dry massage with a raw silk glove can help break down cellulite deposits over time by enhancing circulation.
- Enrich your massage oil with extracts of herbs for added benefit.
- Sweet juicy fruits are excellent for cleansing and repairing the body.
- Drink plenty of plain warm water to help flush toxins from the body.
- Spring is the ideal time for a full-fledged internal cleansing program.
- Regular, daily bowel movements are important. Psyllium seed husk can aid regularity.
- Essential-oil-infused massage oils provide the dual benefit of massage therapy and aroma therapy.
- Wait 5 -10 minutes after you apply the oil and before you shower for better absorption.
- Massaging the lower arms, hands, lower legs and feet with a light massage oil can help relax you before bed.
- A warm oil scalp massage, once or twice a week, stimulates the scalp and helps balance the mind.
Balanced Weight Control
- Reduce cold, heavy, oily, sweet, sour and salty foods.
- Include all six ayurvedic tastes (sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent) in at least one meal each day, to help balance unnatural cravings.
- Avoid heavy meals and leftovers which are hard to digest.
- Exercise daily. Vary the intensity and amount according to your age, weight and overall health.
- Avoid fasting or other sudden changes in your diet.
- Savor your meals. Don’t divide your attention by reading, working or watching TV.
- Avoid cold drinks and food. Cool is okay.
- Favor light, nutritious foods. Fill up on sweet, juicy fruits and vegetables.
- Cook with fennel, cumin and turmeric.
- Don’t fast or skip meals.
- Add barely and mung bean soup to your diet.
- At meals, only eat until you are about ¾ full.
Ayurvedic Hair Care
- Cook with “hair-friendly” spices such as cumin, fenugreek, turmeric and black pepper.
- Stay away from harsh chemical-based topical hair products; they can cause long-term damage to the health and luster of your hair.
- Never attack wet tangled hair with a brush, use a wide-toothed comb instead to gently untangle hair.
- A warm oil massage twice a week will help stimulate the scalp; leave oil on for at least an hour or two, then shampoo it out.
- Use healthy fats to cook with Ghee and olive oil, for example.
- Try and dry your hair naturally as far as possible, then brush into place; excessive blow-drying can cause hair to split and become brittle.
- Botanical-based topical products shampoos, conditioners, and hair-oils can help nourish your hair as well as clean and condition it.
- Add dairy products such as milk fresh yogurt and fresh cheese to your diet.
- Avoid processed, refined or canned foods and foods with artificial preservatives or colors Ayurveda considers such foods stripped of their “ intelligence” and, therefore, not useful.
- Manage day-to-day stress with relaxation techniques; prolonged stress is injurious to hair health and color.
- Include plenty of green leafy vegetables and sweet juicy fruits in your diet.
- Fresh coconut is excellent for hair sprinkle fresh grated coconut over salads, fruit or cooked rice.
Tips for Exercise
- The key is to stay within your comfort zone stop or slow down when you start breathing hard, breathing through your mouth, or you feel you are straining.
- Balance and mind-body coordination are key to experiencing the zone of peak performance.
- Only exercise to 50% of your body’s capacity.
- It is best not to exercise on a completely empty stomach some juice, milk or light fruit will help.
- Ayurveda recommends yogasanas yoga postures and pranayam breathing exercises.
- A brisk walk is beneficial for everyone. It calms nervous Vata energy, relaxes Pitta and stimulates Kapha.
- Give your full attention to the process of exercising. Do not divide your attention by watching TV or listening to music while you are working out.
- If you are a Vata type, light and thin, you need less exercise than Pitta and Kapha types. Low impact sports are best: dance aerobics, gymnastics, yoga and walking.
- If you are a Pitta type with a medium build, a moderate amount of exercise is good. Sports that help you stay cool are best: swimming, surfing, skiing and ice-skating.
- If you are a Kapha type with a large build you need regular, vigorous exercise. Sports that require stamina and physical endurance are best: aerobics, cycling, running, weight-lifting and football.