Tips for balancing the Pitta

I hope I cleared some things up for some of you last week. Now, lets get back to balancing the doshas. We have already talked about balancing the Vata. These are not rigid rules to be agonized over. Don’t drive yourself crazy trying to stay balanced, the doshas shift by the hour, by the day, by the minute. Like I said before, listen to your body, it already has the instincts to help you stay balanced.

            Balancing your Pitta: Meditate twice a day to soothe the mind and relax the body. Meditation is very important for regaining inner calm. It reminds you to take time to wind down. Alternating rest and activity is the basic rhythm of life. Pittas have so much capacity for activity, they tend to ignore the rest aspect.       

Eat a Pitta-pacifying diet. Dairy can be helpful in balancing the heat of Pitta, take milk, butter and ghee. Sour, fermented products such as yogurt, sour cream and cheese should be used sparingly as sour tastes aggravate Pitta.

The sweeter fruits such as grapes, melons, cherries, coconuts, avocados, mangoes, pomegranates, fully ripe pineapples, oranges, and plums are recommended. Reduce sour fruits such as grapefruits, apricots, and berries.

The vegetables to favor are asparagus, cucumbers, potatoes, sweet potatoes, green leafy vegetables, pumpkins, broccoli, cauliflower, celery okra, lettuce, green beans, and zucchini. Reduce tomatoes, hot peppers, carrots, beets, eggplant, onions, garlic, radishes, and spinach.

            Exercise Pittas have more drive than endurance. They love an challenge, but they hate to lose; this motivates them more than the satisfaction of winning. If you chew yourself or anyone else out in any sport, walk away from it. Walking for a half hour a day will take the feistiness out of your system better than a competitive sport. Pittas who drive themselves at work all day find that a plunge in the pool after work cools them off and dissolves the day’s tensions. Pittas gain a large benefit from a leisurely stroll in the woods; it provides a change from their usual determined pace. The beauty of nature will sink deep into them.

            Perform a daily oil massage using cooler oils such as coconut or olive. It seems little, but it really is very big.

As you can see, the four basics apply to all doshas, in order of importance: meditation, diet, exercise, oil massage. This does not mean you can pick one or two of the most important and leave the others alone, all four work together hand in hand. Because Ayurveda works at such a subtle level of our bodies, symptoms can be relieved that are often quite mysterious by western standards, including unexplainable pain, anxiety, depression, fatigue, and so on. Western medicine tends to say that these are psychosomatic problems, that is, that they originate in the patient’s head. In reality, they originate at the early stages of dosha imbalance.

                                       Nancy, Certified Thai Yoga Therapist

A little Reveiw

         Last week I talked about meditation, one of the four things we need to do to balance the doshas. We all need to know how to take refuge. No matter how much you love your life, no matter how strong or motivated you are, you will be overwhelmed at times. If you don’t have a habit of taking refuge, life begins to feel like an endless treadmill, like a circle game. The week before that, I gave you tips for a Vata balancing diet.  Remember the Vata is the king dosha. If you balance the Vata the others will follow. Make sure when you do your daily oil massage you cover the whole body from head to toe with a light film of oil, massaging as you go. Then take your shower. Do not soap it off keeping a thin, almost undetectable film of oil on the body is considered very beneficial for toning the skin, balancing Vata, and keeping the muscles warm during the day. Vata types do best with sesame or almond oil; Pittas respond to olive or coconut and Kaphas benefit from light oils like sunflower or sesame.The week before that, I talked about the six stages of disease. I want to talk a little more about this. I told you that disease is easy to manage while in stages 1, 2, or 3. How do you know when stage 4—the first onset of symptoms—is about to commence? Bodies subjected to dietary, behavioral, and emotional imbalance over the years will always collect ama (toxic residue). Let me illustrate these steps, if excess Pitta has accumulated, maybe because you are a Pitta type who finds himself under heavy stress or suffering through the heat of a very hot summer. Once there is enough excess Pitta accumulated, it starts to move around the body, leaving the places where it is supposed to remain. It finds a place where ama is Present and gets stuck to the ama. There is no cause for panic. What your body is telling you at stage four is not that you are in serious danger but that you need to purify you tissues of excess doshas (Thai Yoga Therapy is very important for purifying the tissues). Once you do, Vata, Pitta, and Kapha will regain their natural balance. The basic approach of “talking” to the doshas through simple changes in diet and daily routine of the things we have talked about can bring dramatic results, even in cases of serious illness.
       Next time, dosha balancing diet for Pitta and Kapha. If you have questions, you can email me at the address on my blog.
                                   Nancy Adams Certified Thai Yoga Therapist
      

Lets Meditate

People who are new to meditating often think the goal is to free their minds of all thoughts. To remove thoughts is to tighten muscles, and this makes sitting very uncomfortable. Holding on to thoughts like “I am not going to move,” will also tighten muscles. And keep you busy doing this the whole time. Meditation is not forcing your mind to be quiet; it’s finding the quiet that is already there. If you are serious about releasing and calming the body and mind, you are going to have thoughts. That’s what the brain does, it thinks. The trick is not to mind.

We are victims of our memory. We worry, wish, fantasize, and dream. Behind the screen of our internal dialogue, there is something entirely different: the silence of the mind that is not imprisoned by the past. When you discover the silence in your mind, you no longer have to pay attention to all those random images that trigger worry, anger, and pain.

Sound attracts the mind and leads it, effortlessly and naturally, to more subtle levels of the thinking process.  Mantras are based upon sounds that reflect the energy of our divine nature. The word mantra comes from the combination of two syllables: "man," meaning "to reflect," and "tra," meaning "agent of." Mantra comes and goes in one’s awareness, it begins to seek still subtler levels of thought until eventually all thought is left behind. The mind is no longer caught up in thoughts of any kind; the mind is exposed to its own deepest nature of pure awareness. The silence of pure awareness is very refreshing to the mind, rigid habits of thinking and feeling begin to fall away. When this happens, the mind is actually learning to heal itself. Meditation is taking you deeper and deeper inside yourself, until you reach the area untouched by illness.

Lets Meditate: Find a comfortable posture for meditation. Place your palms facing up forefinger and thumb touching. Bring your attention to the breath. Breathing in and out through the nose, not the mouth. This practice will ensure cleaner air, because the nose functions as an air "conditioner" by humidifying and filtering inhaled air. In contrast, when you breathe through the mouth, the air that enters the body doesn't gain the benefit of this filtration process, so it may be drier and contain more pollutants. As yogis say, "The nose is for breathing, the mouth is for eating.” Begin to employ the simple mantra So hum ("I am that"). On the inhale, say So, and on the exhale, say hum. Keep your focus on the sensation of your breath while silently repeating the sacred syllables So hum. the inhale is stimulating, the exhale is relaxing. While the inhale is about bringing energy into the body, the exhale is about releasing stress, toxins, and pain.

Let your mind come to stillness. There is no place to go, nothing to do, So hum, So hum. If a thought arises, come back to the mantra So hum. Practice it for 10 to 20 minutes twice a day.

                                Nancy, Certified Thai Yoga Therapist

Tips for balancing your Vata

There are four  areas for everyday life that can be used to promote balance: Diet--Exercise--Daily routine--Seasonal routine. I will talk about each of these later, right now I want to give you a basic understanding of how you can affect your doshas. Balance is very easy. Nature has endowed your body with the proper instincts for it. Ayurveda doesn't dictate that one food is "right" and another "wrong". You discover right and wrong by listening to your doshas. Every day is a conversation between you and your body. The key to balancing Vata dosha is regularity. These are the four most important things to add to your daily routine, in order of importance.
Diet: It is very important for Vatas to eat regularly, since Vata dosha is aggravated by an empty stomach. Make sure you sit down to three meals a day, have a warm nourishing breakfast of substantial foods, like hot cereal. Favor sweet, heavy fruits such as: bananas, avocados, mangoes, apricots, plums, berries, coconut, figs, grapefruit, orange, lemon, melons, papaya, peaches, pineapples, rhubarb, kiwi, dates, nectarines and dried fruits.   Eat fewer dry or light fruits such as apples, cranberries, pears, and pomegranates. To ease digestion, fruits are best eaten lightly cooked or sautéed or eaten alone. Cooked vegetables are best. Raw vegetables should be minimized. Favor Asparagus, beets, and carrots. Other vegetables may be taken in moderation if cooked in ghee or extra virgin olive oil, including peas, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, and sweet potatoes. Stay away from dry cereal. crackers, and toast because they dry out the body. Meditation: Sit quietly holding your hands in your lap. close your eyes and breathe slow and controled. Let your attention follow your breathing. Set a timer for five or more minutes so you don't have to watch the clock. Do this before breakfast and before bed.
Oil Massage: Massage your body with sesame oil in the morning before you bathe or shower.
Exercise: Yoga is the best exercise for Vatas. If you are out of balance and illness has already began, you will need some personal training and/or Thai Yoga Therapy for at least six weeks before you start a class, so as to not traumatise your nervous system. I know this is a lot to digest, I will spend more time on meditation and massage next time.
                                 Nancy, Thai Partner Yoga Therapist