The season of spring in Ayurveda is connected to the Kapha Dosha, consisting of the elements of EARTH and WATER. You may notice that soon everything will spring into action, waking up from the long slumber of the winter. The days are getting longer and brighter.
Everything is growing, blossoming. Kapha season is from February through May, when it's wet, humid and cool.
The main attributes of Kapha Dosha are cold, heavy, dense, wet, slow, dull, static, oily, sticky, smooth and moist. The energy of growth and maintenance.
As this heavy and grounding energy can be pulling us down and make as feel lazy or even lethargic, spring is the time to move, activate, shake off!
How can we balance this energy in nature in our lives for optimum health? By focusing on the opposing qualities. Warming up this coolness, directing our energy upwards, creating movement and lightness. In our Yoga practice we create this balance by picking up the pace in our sequences. We turn to standing postures, heart opening sequences, back bends and energizing inversions. We focus on cleansing techniques, activating the digestive system, removing the stagnation from the body. We will continue to incorporate Mantras in our practice as one of the most effective ways to open the heart. In our diet we turn to lighter
foods, like fruit and vegetables and may even add spices to our meals to increase the heat. Sipping warm water throughout the day does wonders for the digestive system. Trying to avoid heavy, oily meals, ready made foods which are dull already - any kind of food that you look at and think it has a dull, dense, heavy quality - is a good idea.
One of the easiest way to bring this movement and activation into the body is by balancing
the elements of EARTH and WATER through the senses. Each of our 5 senses are connected to an element:
Earth = Smell
Water = Taste
Fire = Sight/vision
Air = Touch
Ether = Sound
Balancing the EARTH element through it's corresponding sense of Smell could be using energizing aromatherapy oils like citrus, mint, ylang ylang, eucalyptus and lemon. Try to avoid being around bad smell or too strong fragrances to avoid disturbing the sense of smell.
Balancing the WATER element through it's corresponding sense of Taste could mean making sure that you chew the food thoroughly before swallowing (recommended at least 32 times), eat the right tastes for your Dosha (if you do not know what your Dosha is but interested to find out then come along to my Yoga for your Dosha workshop). Try to avoid over eating and comfort eating as these tendencies are stronger at Kapha season.
Vigorously massaging ourselves with a dry sponge (or going for an Ayurvedic massage if you have the opportunity) can also balance Kapha through the sense of touch.
We will do plenty to balance the Kapha Dosha during the Spring in our classes. I will even introduce a NEW CLASS called HIIT YOGA, a fusion of High Intensity Interval Training and Yoga, read more about it in the blog post on HIIT YOGA.
If you would like to know more about Kapha read a short summary on the website:
or this wonderful article from Yoga International going into detail on the subject:
