This post has been sitting in my queue for over a month now. I began to write it when I was in the throes of vata-imbalance. Vata is one of the Doshas (constitutions) of Ayurveda (the ancient science of health). Vata is associated with dryness, airiness, space (& spacey-ness). Autumn is the time of Vata.
And this year, I really felt it. As we transitioned into autumn, I felt chaotic, over-busy and un-grounded, relatively speaking.
Thankfully, I knew what was happening and called upon my sweet ayurvedic resources and brought myself back to Earth in about a week. The basic idea is to softly meet the dry wind of fall with heat and wet-earthiness. I like to get really creative and practical about how to accomplish this.
My recipe for easing Vata-imbalance:
- practicing legs-up-the-wall and completely supported savasana every day
- avoiding extended headstand (see also, this post on inversions) and too much vinyasa
- eating cooked foods, especially grounding foods like eggs, butter, sweet potato and stews
- avoiding caffeine, especially coffee
- meditating more
- sitting in warm baths as often as I could
- drinking ginger teas
- drinking hot smoothies like this one
I also worked with being in the eye of discomfort, remembering its impermanence.
And all of this really helped.
For more on Ayurveda, I recommend:
Yoga for Your Type by David Frawley
LOVE!
Thank you for a beautiful, wise article on important seasonal self care, and thank you for including my blog. You are sunshine itself!
<3 Much love to you Laura. Thank you for reading and for your kind words. Your blog & recipes are so helpful to me.
Jai!