We tend to break our day into work time, our time, and sleep time; with work time allotted the most number of hours. Ayurveda (India’s traditional healing system) sees the day differently, breaking it into six four-hour zones—one-day zone and one night zone for each of the three doshas.
According to this symbolic time, the day starts at sunrise, with the cool, heavy, earthy kapha dosha dominating from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. The middle of the day belongs to pitta,
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. And light, dry, airy vata rules the afternoon, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
And then the cycle begins again.
To stay in sync, you should wake up before sunrise, when vata is transcendent. Once the sun is up, we begin to fall under kapha, earth and water spell. Hitting snooze when the alarm goes off at 6 a.m. may feel delicious, but if you don’t get up until 7, the dull heaviness of kapha will have started to weigh you down. So waking at dawn, just before the birds, is ideal. That way you will start off the day in rhythm with nature’s light and will benefit from vata’s mobile, clear, ether like qualities.
Ayurveda encourages us to eat our primary meal in the middle of the day, when the fire of pitta dominates. Pitta supports our ability to digest all things—food, thoughts, and feelings. The digestion does its best work at midday. Eating latter in the day will make it more difficult for your body to process your meal. The same holds true for eating a big meal in the evening. Ayurveda recommends a light supper instead so your body can finish digesting your food long before bedtime.
At about 6 p.m. we move again from vata to kapha dosha. The same kapha energy—dull, slow, stable, heavy—that makes it difficult to wake up with ease after sunrise now supports our move into sleep. If you tune in, you will start to feel the body and mind’s fatigue and recognize your desire for a good night’s sleep.
At about 10 p.m., the pitta takes over from drowsy kapha. The body uses this four-hour period from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. to digest experiences, emotions, and any remaining food form earlier in the day, and to repair and renew itself. Because pitta is fiery and hot, if you fight through the drowsiness of kapha time and stay up too late, you will catch a second wind that will keep you up all hours of the night.
When you finally do doze off, staying asleep can be challenging because, as pitta time gives way to vata time, the doshic qualities become lighter, subtler, and more filled with movement. According to the ayuvedic clock, we start the process of “rising” around 2 a.m. If we continue with restlessness until dawn, we miss the benefits of sleep that support body, mind, and our deep vitality.
Aligning our hectic modern-day lives to the ayurvedic clock can prove challenging, to say the least, but making the effort can lead to a big pay-off. Many of today’s health problems—insomnia, heartburn, anxiety, and depression—are directly linked to the lack of balance in our lives. Staying in tune with our ayuveda clock will help restore balance and our good health.
Nancy Adams Certified Thai Yoga Therapist
And Ayurveda Consultant
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