Understanding Vata, Pitta and Kapha

How can we better understand how the food we eat interacts with the elements that make up our body? And why would we benefit from that understanding? Ayurveda is a science of life and longevity that uses an understanding of these elements and interactions to create balance and harmony in the system. I’m pretty sure we would all like more balance and harmony.

I’ve been teaching and practicing yoga for more than 20 years. I am also the director of Ancient Roots Yoga School. This is not the typical yoga training and it’s not meant to be. This is a one to one, one year program of personal transformation. I’m not talking about simple change, I’m talking about thorough transformation. Over the years I’ve had students that were only truly interested in teaching physical yoga and while this training prepares you better than many do, it’s much more than that. Meditation is an essential part of yoga, in fact you could say there’s no yoga without meditation. The same goes for pranayama and working with the breath.

Ayurveda categorizes three primary energies in understanding how to create balance and harmony in your system. Let’s talk about these energies known as vata or air, pitta or fire and kapha or water. Our personal constitution is some combination of these three forces. And it is a dynamic , fluctuating combination that is influenced by other external factors including your food and lifestyle choices, the climate where you live, and many other factors. Certain physical characteristics are associated with these forces along with personality traits. It can be a little confusing for beginners and honestly, I learn something every day which is one of the things I like the most about using this system. The basis for it is a very solid relationship with yourself and how your body, mind and emotions respond to what you put into your body and the experiences you choose and create for yourself. This is the perfect tie in to the book I was told to read before my yoga certification titled, To Know Thyself by Swami Satchidananda. Think about that. How well do you know yourself, not just on the surface but on every level of your experience? How easy is it for you to simply sit and be quietly present with yourself, not your thoughts, just you? Another thing that really appeals to me is the individualized approach of ayurveda. It’s not a one size fits all kind of system. It is not based on simply treating your symptoms but on getting to the root cause of what is provoking a particular response. Imagine a system based on keeping you well! Think about how much sense it makes to pay the doctor to keep you well! This is not how our healthcare system is designed at all. It is based on treating symptoms and medication. Who wants to be on medication? I certainly don’t. It is rare that the medication doesn't have side effects that are undesirable. And as a society we are lazy and privileged and don’t want to give up this or that or make the necessary changes to address the imbalance we ourselves have created. You are the one choosing to consume whatever it is you are consuming and I’m not just talking about food but images and experiences. And there are consequences to that choice. This reality of being responsible for what we are choosing and how that is creating our experience is essentially at the core of everything. Our society in particular just wants to take a pill rather than not eating those doughnuts and bagels every morning that are clogging the system and making it sluggish. This Idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day is nonsense unless you understand it much differently than what we have been taught. What is the name of this meal. Breakfast, break fast. Have you ever fasted? There is an essential rule when breaking a fast that you choose something light and easy to digest. Bagels, biscuits, and smoothies that are made with far more than you would ever sit down and eat at one time are not light and easy to digest. You have been sleeping and have not used that many calories and dumping a lot of food into the system between 6-10am can and does create heaviness, lethargy and sluggishness especially if you don't poop first thing. And even if you do, breakfast or breaking a fast is not done with heavy hard to digest foods. If you are already experiencing any of those and you eat a big, heavy breakfast, it is just enhancing that heaviness or lack of motivation. It is also harder to get out of bed once we enter that 6-10am time frame. It is a watery, heavy Kapha time that likes to sleep and be lazy and eat a big meal. So getting up by 6AM is a great habit. It allows you to get the system moving and the earlier we do that, the better. So during this 6-10am or pm, it’s best to keep our food light, easy to digest so if you eat meat it’s best to eat it at lunch so the body has more time to digest it. Minimize heavy, dairy, sweet, sour and salty during those times. 

10am-12pm is a fire or pitta time. This is when digestion is at it’s best so eat your big meal as early as 11am. Digestion uses the lion's share of your energy so if we can maximize that energy maybe we will have a little left over, That would be nice right? It’s good to be aware of using too much oil in general but definitely during this time along with being aware of too much spice, sour or salty. Think of it this way, if you are going to eat heavy or rich foods you want to have plenty of time that you are moving the body to help process that heaviness. I hope that makes sense. It’s not just about cutting back on salt or saturated fats. It’s about the right food, in the right amount at the right time. This time frame is the best for bigger, heavy or rich meals. 10pm-2am hopefully you are mostly resting. The body will go into a natural detox cycle around 1030pm. And the first thing it will go and get If there’s enough energy is excess salt. Salt is often stored as far away from the heart as possible because the body's response to excess salt is fluid and excess fluid around the heart is no good at all. But if you ate a big meal as we often do at night, the energy that could be used for detox will instead be used for digestion. 

The 2-6pm time frame is associated with the air or vata energy. This is not the best energy for digestion as excess air can be created as gas, burping, or too much air in the colon that ends up being drying and potentially contributing to constipation which more women have than you would believe. If you eat everyday, you should poop every day. If you aren’t or if it is loose or dark or smelly or sticky, there are challenges in the digestive system. You don’t have to just accept that that’s the way it is. I know some people are not in the habit of checking out what’s in the toilet but there's important information in there! So get to know your poop!

I realize there are times when you will be eating in this 2-6pm time frame. The best choices  you can make are warm, moist cooked food. This will have a more balancing effect on the air energy. I would also recommend that you don't overeat. This is a biggie during any time period so get out of that habit if you have. The vedic wisdom is one third of the stomach with food, one third with water and one third empty for best digestion. 

Just paying attention to these simple things can make a noticeable difference. I’ll be sharing more ayurveda tips in upcoming shows so please stay tuned.