The Antidote is a newsletter and meditation community featuring essential healing modalities for the modern woman. Our mission is to inspire women to realize their fullest potential through educational content, guided meditation, and self-reflection tools.
Are you having trouble getting out of bed these days? I’ve been slow to wake up. I reach for coffee when I rise. I’m snacking for emotional comfort. Can you relate? According to Ayurveda, it’s Kapha season.
What is Ayurveda?
Ayurveda is one of the world's oldest holistic healing systems. On my healing journey, I fell in love with this 5,000-year-old science because it reconnected me to the rhythms of nature, the practice of ritual, and the preciousness of life. Ayurveda showed me a feminine-based way to heal my body, use food as medicine, and remember my true nature.
The Elements and Your Dosha Type
Ayurveda teaches the universe is created from 5 distinct elements:
Ether, Air, Fire, Water, Earth
These elements make up the Universe around us just as they create our flesh and blood, drive the processes in our body, and determine the qualities in our minds.
As these elements combine they form the 3 major doshas, also known as types: Kapha (water and earth), Pitta (fire) and Vata (air+ether). If you don’t know your dosha type, you can take THIS QUIZ to determine your innate strengths and weaknesses, both physiological and emotional, and how they influence your health and current state of balance.
The seasons are also governed by doshas. Being aligned with nature’s cycles creates harmony in our mind-body-spirit.
Spring is primarily governed by Kapha, Summer by Pitta, Autumn by Vata and Winter is a combination of both Vata and Kapha.
Recognizing Kapha in your Body and Nature
Kapha is related to stillness and grounding, but also inertia.
As the elements of Kapha (water and earth) increase in nature, so do they in our bodies. When Kapha is out of balance we feel dull, and lazy, or heavy; we may notice our menstrual blood is lighter in color with mucus and some clots; we may experience fatigue, bloating, weight gain, and cravings; we want to withdraw from social connection; we become susceptible to depression. In winter, it’s natural to want to turn inwards and be sedentary. Though if you notice yourself sleeping a lot, gaining weight and becoming stubborn, you may want to take these steps to balance Kapha.
My recommendations:
Eat balanced meals and stick to regular meal times. To counter fluid retention and congestion in Kapha, reduce foods that are heavy (like red meat), excessively oily/fatty (fried foods), or cold (raw vegetables) and favor foods that are light, dry or warm. Here is an in-depth guide for Kapha pacifying foods.
Spice up your life. Use a moderate amount of pungent spices to give Kapha a little push. Consider adding spices like cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, cumin, turmeric, fresh ginger, black pepper, mustard seeds, fenugreek, etc.
Indulge in self-massage with warming oils, everyday! Why not? Abhyanga is my favorite Ayurvedic practice. It keeps Kapha moving and feels oh so good! Organic cold-pressed sesame oil is ideal for most body types. But if you know you are a Kapha person, mustard seed oil is nice. If you tend to still feel warm during winter, use cold-pressed sunflower oil. Use a few drops of Rosemary essential oil to make your practice extra invigorating.
Move your body. Get outside. Bask in the winter sun on a brisk morning walk. Walking outside is one of the easiest ways to shift energy. Whenever I’m feeling low, I go for a walk and focus on long deep breathing.
Set aside time every day to relax and simply be. Make space for emotional healing. Listen to healing music (this is what I’m listening to), meditate, journal, and engage in activities that make you feel grounded and calm. Two ideas, 1) turn off your phone for the evening and take a magnesium flake bath with lavender essential oil, and 2) join our women’s circle!
This season is a natural time to restore and revive. Give yourself the care you need during these last few weeks of Winter.
With so much love,
Christina
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