Hey everybody and welcome to a new episode of the Awaken Together podcast.
I'm Kat.
I'm Jen.
And in today's episode, we're diving into our experience with the Indian holistic healing
modality of Ayurveda.
We will touch on what it is, share about the three doshas, and how knowledge of this ancient
study can help you bring more balance into your life.
Awesome stuff.
So Ayurveda in Sanskrit, it translates to knowledge of life.
So this is an ancient wisdom designed to harmonize our internal and external worlds.
So Ayurveda identifies three basic types of life force energy that is present inside of
all of us.
The three types are vada, pitta, and kapha.
And so the goal of this system is to find balance between all three.
But what we often find is that we are in imbalance.
So you might have one type that's a little higher.
So what we recommend before we dive into all the details that fall under each dosha is
to take a quick quiz.
So this is something you can Google.
You can search dosha quiz, or if you go on our Awaken Together podcast Facebook page
or Instagram, we're going to pop a quiz on there so you can take it before you listen
to this full episode.
It might help it make a little bit more sense.
Definitely highly recommend taking that quiz.
It's a really good one and can bring nothing but awareness to how you show up, how you
present.
So next we'd love to give you a high level overview of each of the doshas.
We'll get into the element that's associated with each, the body type, the characteristics,
signs of balance, signs of imbalance, foods to reduce for each dosha, foods to increase,
and the benefits of doing this.
So I'll start us off with vata.
The element associated with this is air.
If you're a vata body type, the tendency is to be thin, delicate bone structure, low
body fat, hard to gain weight.
All of these, take that with a grain of salt because the body type isn't necessarily going
to be guaranteed for each dosha.
So just take it with a grain of salt.
Characteristics associated with this, sensitive, spiritual, running late, people who can't
sit still, even forgetting to eat, which is kind of a funny thing.
People who are prone to snacking don't necessarily need a full meal.
Getting of the day feels difficult and overwhelming.
A little bit of flightiness, flakiness, some memory problems.
You might be easily confused or experienced some hair thinning or baldness.
Signs of balance for the vata dosha.
You're sharp, quick thinking, creative, fast talking, a little bit abstract, creative,
artistic, you might like to write, be really gifted with the art of poetry and enjoy music.
Signs of imbalance.
You might get gassy or bloated, that air element within the body.
You might feel a little bit unfocused or scatterbrained, spacey.
Your skin might tend to be dry if you're imbalanced.
Same with your hair and your nails.
You might run cold normally or get the chills, get some anxiety, nervousness, have trouble
sleeping and even cavities can be a sign of an imbalanced vata.
So let's talk about foods.
Foods to reduce for the vata dosha.
Low fat foods, things that are raw or cold because that's going to amplify the coldness
that's already in your body if you're feeling imbalanced.
Eating vegetarian or vegan diets can help you stay grounded and focused.
Now foods to increase on the other side, it's kind of the flip.
So you'll want to add more warming foods, foods that are grounding, heavier foods to
kind of calm down and like warm soups that can help to counteract the coldness.
So that's vata.
Moving on to the pitta dosha.
The element associated with this dosha, there's two.
It's fire and water, which is kind of funny because we think of them to be opposites,
but both are associated with this dosha.
Body types.
Medium body frame, well proportioned, so maybe like hourglass kind of figure, prone more
towards muscularity and easily overheated.
So you might run hot.
Types of this dosha, oftentimes you have a type A personality, cough, cough, me.
You might feel compelled to accomplish things, stay focused, organized, and a characteristic
with the pitta dosha is that you never miss meals.
You get cranky if you skip a meal, and this is because you typically have a strong metabolism.
You might be a workaholic and hot, humid climates don't really work so well for you.
You also might be sassy.
And on the other side, a little bit of drama might follow you because the pitta dosha,
some characteristics with it are creating problems that don't really exist when you're
feeling too balanced.
So kind of always chasing the next thing.
You like activity.
Signs of balance.
A really balanced pitta dosha is productive.
It's your get it done person.
It might be really organized and have the capacity to work until you drop, whether that's
healthy or not.
You have a lot of energy, you're enthusiastic, you're quick, and you're really sharp.
Now signs of imbalance, the other side of this coin, you get easily agitated under stress.
You might be irritable, you might feel overly competitive and other heat associated conditions.
You might get some skin rashes, feel a lot of like heat in your eyes, some allergies,
some burning sensations there.
You might get really hungry and sweat.
All of those things are associated with pitta dosha.
Now let's talk about food because that's really important.
Nourishment.
Foods to reduce, we're already hot as pitas, so excessive spices and red meat you want
to take down a notch.
On the other side, foods to increase, like sweet and bitter foods.
Also cooling and more stringent foods, like a cool cucumber, or sweet tasting spices such
as cardamom and fennel, dill, and you want to increase your protein too.
This is beneficial also to incorporate peppermint teas, fresh lime, lighter proteins like chicken
and fish, dark leafy greens, which are great for everyone, sweet vegetables, and calming
and relaxing physical exercises.
You might feel the inclination to need to push yourself with weightlifting, tons of
running, but what you might actually need a little bit more of is yoga, pilates, and
some more gentleness there.
So we've made it to our third and final dosha, and this is kaffa.
The element associated with the kaffa dosha, there's two.
Again, it's earth and water.
So we have a little bit of similarity between pitta and kaffa in that both have the water
element related.
Body type for the kaffa dosha.
Larger body types are typically the ones associated with this, but not necessarily overweight.
Well, with kaffa dosha, one thing that's associated is that you can gain weight easily.
You can hold onto fat and water and kind of bloat a little bit, but you tend to be strong,
like big boned, powerful athletes when you're in shape.
Some characteristics associated with this dosha are being really grounded, stable, solid,
clear about the ways of the world.
These are sensual people, people with strong sexuality naturally.
A steady appetite, but not overly strong like pitta, like you can miss a meal.
You have a little bit of a slower metabolism and might feel a resistance to exercise because
you generally enjoy moving a bit slower.
I've been told in yoga teacher training, which is the first time where I learned about the
dosha and Ayurveda as a whole, that the kaffas, a balanced kaffa is like what we all strive
to be more like.
These are the maternal figures, the people you go to when you just want to feel nurtured
and loved and just being in their presence feels like a big warm hug.
So that leads me to signs of balance.
These people are reliable, dependable, calm, peacemakers, affectionate, and really even
tempered.
Oh, love all of those qualities.
And then signs of imbalance on the other side.
You might hold on to emotions.
It's kind of like Eeyore.
That's always what I think of for the kaffa dosha.
So you might be a little bit more lethargic, ho hum, sleeping too much.
You might have a tendency to feel a bit more depressed or lack enthusiasm in everyday life,
feeling a bit just dull, sluggish, overweight, and even congestion is associated with this
dosha.
Now foods to reduce, really high fat foods, the heavy, the fatty proteins, and dairy because
this dosha tends to get really mucousy and dairy is associated with making that worth,
kind of like exacerbating that mucous production.
You want to also reduce gluten-based grains, red meats, and starchy vegetables.
Now foods to increase for kaffa, drying and heating foods, pungent spices for their thermogenic
properties, lighter grains, light proteins, and vegetables like kimchi is really good
for kaffa dosha that helps balance your gut, really good with probiotics, and those pungent
spices are really good for inspiration, kind of getting you out of a funk.
Some other beneficial foods are beans, quinoa, spinach, salads, cayenne, and some other things
that you could do in your life to benefit you are body image affirmations, cardiovascular
exercises, and just loving the body that you have, practicing that act of self-acceptance.
So that was a lot.
I know, Jen, I want to turn it over to you.
I want to hear about your dosha and your experience with them.
Yes.
Thank you, Kat, for all of that information.
So I hope you guys can go back and take notes and kind of look at all those awesome facts
on how you can work within your own dosha.
So we said before, you're wanting a balance between all three, but it's very common to
have one that overrides.
And a good way to think of it is as well as using the notes that Kat just shared to help
with pacifying or, you know, reducing if you were high on one, it's good to look at it
either as pacifying whatever one is the highest for you or also increasing the two opposite
ones.
So it's really good to get familiar with what qualities fall under each because I often
find that what used to be very true for me also has shifted a lot as I've worked on it.
I took the quiz recently, actually, Kat, because I shared a lot of this at my virtual retreat
and I was so much more balanced than what I remember when I first took the test and
looked into all of this for the first time.
So I was also exposed to it in teacher training and I remember getting a quiz and taking it
and I was super high Vata.
And I think that's kind of obvious when you hang out with me anyway.
I'm like speedy quick.
I'm very quick in my speech and very quick in the way I move.
I do not sit still.
I forget to eat all the time if I am not aware of it.
Yeah, that happens all the time.
I've also blamed my ADHD and my heavy Gemini in my birth chart, but it's all there.
It's all connected.
And yeah, I was very high Vata on my quiz.
So I went home and I started researching more things that Vata's eat.
And she had mentioned there's foods for each of them.
And I read a list of common foods that increase Vata.
So the foods that you would also be eating if you are high Vata.
And I eat the entire checklist.
So I love cold foods.
I love crunchy foods.
And I would literally eat raw peppers like an apple.
People used to comment on that all the time like, Jennifer, what in the hell are you doing?
I'm just eating a pepper because it's quick and it's fast and it's crunchy and it was
so satisfying and it didn't like I didn't have to prep it and which was faster.
And I love that.
And I would eat all my foods cold.
Like if I had leftovers, I'd so much rather than be cold than heated up.
And I just loved all that stuff.
So I said, OK, well, clearly I have an imbalance and I think heavy air probably is a reason
I have so much anxiety and is unsettled.
So I started working really hard on my first step to balance myself was to start eating
warmer foods and more spiced foods.
And I worked really hard for it for about a month.
I also started I love chewing ice and I love really cold drinks.
So I also started warming all my drinks and avoiding ice altogether.
And what I found after a month of doing that was that, first of all, I felt internally
much calmer, but I also had oil in my hair, which my hair had always been so dry and dandruffy.
And I lived in Florida and there's so much humidity.
So it was always really rare.
Like I could not wash my hair for days and you would not be able to see like any any
type of oil from not showering because my hair would just be so dry.
And then when I also moved to Colorado, I remember my hair like the dry of Colorado
on top of Jen's already baseline dry.
I was dying.
So it was amazing, though, because when I when I did focus on this system, I started
becoming very convinced because I noticed a change in even the quality of my hair, which
hair digestion, how your bowels work, all of this falls into our data.
So you can really see a shift in how your gut is digesting stuff, how your skin is presenting,
how your hair is presenting.
So it's a really cool system to look at the physical manifestations of energetic changes
that occur.
So Miss Pitta, you want to tell us how that looks like for you?
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I remember it was just last year in yoga teacher training that I learned about all of the doshas.
And we did this activity where one of my teachers, Katie, she she said, you know, I'm going to
go around the room and see if I can guess your doshas.
And this was after we had already all taken the quizzes ourselves.
So we had a sense of what our bodies at least were.
And she didn't know our personalities.
So she could she could use that to as evidence to try to figure us out.
And she looked at me and she just goes, you're a Pitta, right?
And I was like, yeah, how did you know?
And she and I was sitting at the time, kind of sitting on the ground with my knees hugged
into my chest and I was wrapping my arms around my shins, you know, like holding on to my
opposite elbows with my hands.
And she just looked at my shoulders and she said, have your shoulders are always been
muscular like that?
And I said, well, yeah, I guess so.
I tend to hold my weight in my lower body when I gain it.
And my shoulders and my arms have always been pretty like muscular.
And she goes, that's a very big quality of Pitta's.
Like all you have to do is look at a Pitta's shoulder line, their shoulder muscle, and
you can tell like if they have a Pitta body.
So that was really interesting to me.
And later on that day, when we were all going to lunch, we kind of decided, you know, who
wants what and three of us went to get bagel sandwiches.
We were all the Pitta's.
We needed like a heavy meal and all of the vatas, which was everyone else in class.
There were, I think, four vatas.
They all got salads.
Yep, crunch.
So satisfying.
Fresh, light, cold.
And we were like, we need food, sustenance, warmth, carbs.
It's so funny just to think about like what we go to naturally, because I would, you'd
never catch me dead eating a pepper like an apple.
Yeah, I love it.
I love how you said that, Jen.
Go ahead, Kat.
Go ahead.
Okay, so even like when I do eat an apple, which I have to kind of force myself to, I'll
cut it into pieces and put cinnamon on it to like warm it up in any way.
Oh no, not definitely not me.
So funny.
That's so good.
And yeah, it's I think so often as a society, we treat all this stuff differently.
Like if our skin is producing a ton of oil, we go to skin products, or if our guts messed
up, we take different medicines to soothe it.
We don't tend to look at all of these things as being an energetic temperament.
So I think it's a really awesome thing to add into your life because a lot more of this
stuff could be connected than what we think.
And I obviously, I'm super into energy and I just love the concept that we have these
three energies trying to work together within us.
And another thing to point out is the season.
So Vada season is fall to early winter and then Kaffa is late winter to early spring
and then Pitta is in the later spring and through the summer.
And so it's really cool to actually rank like what order you would put the seasons because
for me, I have always had the lowest energy in the summer.
And I have all these people around me going, finally, it's summer.
I can come out of the house and I feel alive.
And I'm like going into my seasonal depression in the summer.
I do not function well in that environment.
And then when fall comes, my Vada season, I feel I've been reborn and I'm alive and
I feel so good through the winter.
And so I find it really fascinating to look at that too.
I asked the girls in my virtual retreat to rank their season preference and see if there
is any correlation.
And it was kind of, it was a little bit more accurate for most people, but a little opposite
for some.
But it's a cool way to look at it too.
When do you receive the most energy?
And that could be really hinting at how you respond to these energetic changes and these
season changes.
So we are in Vada season right now.
And I think a really cool thing to look at is we're getting into cooler air.
We're into that quality that comes with fall.
And nature produces the exact foods we need to pacify the energetic change that comes
with the season.
So to balance high levels of Vada, you want those warmer foods.
So if you look at butternut squash and pumpkin and sweet potatoes that you can deeply cook,
nature harvests and creates all this stuff that we need to pacify it.
And I think that is a really cool way to look at it too, that there's already, nature's
already doing its thing.
We just get really pulled away from this like cyclical nature within ourselves.
So if you have this awareness of these types, you also can prep like, okay, I know what
season we're going into.
Like we have Kaffa coming after this current Vada season.
I know that I'm going to be slowing down because there's going to be more cold days.
I'm probably not going to move as much, which is some of the qualities of Kaffa is moving
slower.
You probably aren't going to need nearly as much sleep going into Kaffa season because
you're not moving nearly as much.
You're not going outside on really long bike rides in the cold.
So you can start to prep and balance for the seasons that are coming up.
And so just to go over a few Kaffa things, you want once again, leafy cooked vegetables,
ginger tea can be really nice.
Looking at different spices and foods like black pepper, cayenne, turmeric, these are
all the things that can help with that balance.
Also Kaffa doesn't need to eat nearly as much.
You want to look and eat when you are more hungry because if you think about it in winter,
we're hanging around a lot more.
So we're not getting as much of that digestion from movement and being as busy.
But here's the interesting part is we've set society up where you eat tons of food in the
holiday months and it's always the exact food that is not on the list.
If you want to live through this kind of Ayurvedic lifestyle, you get all these sweets and cookies
and candy and that is so not the temperament you need for a body that's already going to
be slowing down.
So I told my retreat girls that I would really look at the little things you can change.
Of course, that's the way we set up our holidays often is we tend to eat a lot more food, but
think about that quality of warming up your food a little bit more.
Think about having warmer beverages, maybe adding in like a golden tea.
I love golden tea in the winter months.
Yeah, think of at least what you can do.
Maybe you start off with beverages or you notice the way you move.
Maybe in Kaffa season, you realize like I'm going to need to build some internal heat
because my environment around me is not going to be giving me a lot of heat.
So let me find ways that I can move some heat through me, maybe a little bit more of a power
yoga or a yoga that burns a little bit more energy instead of sticking with more of the
lethargic movement as we move into winter.
And one other thing is really fun to look at is we often get really bad allergies and
seasonal issues with our sinuses as we move into fall and winter.
And so a lot of these things are not only to help your digestion and your skin and hair,
but it's looking at your immune system too and how that is functioning.
And one of the things that's highly recommended to bring in as a regimen is the neti pot.
And I think some people are so scared of that neti pot.
Kat said she's a little afraid of it.
A little intimidated.
I promise though, like it's the best thing.
I started doing it and I used to get sinus infections every year.
And when I started the second, I start to get a little bit of a stuffy nose in the fall
months.
I immediately start the neti routine and I do it usually daily, sometimes every other
day and you have to lean over enough that you can breathe through your mouth so you
don't drown yourself.
Got to preface that because a lot of people don't have the lean.
And as I was talking this out, I had a thought one time that I made up a song for it.
So I would tell my husband, I was to watch me whip and watch me neti and I'd whip my
head to the side and then put the neti pot out and then have all the snot coming out
and then keep going with the song.
And he just stared at me like, oh my gosh, I love my wife.
That's what I know you're thinking.
What a, what a lovely wife I have.
I love it so much.
The visual of that.
It needs to be recorded.
And yeah, so you just whip your head to the side.
You bring that neti pot right up and you just let magic happen.
And honestly, it's so, are you Vedic approved?
Yes, it sure is.
I think it actually, the neti pot, it came from ancient India.
So they're wise beyond their years.
So, so true.
And the only other thing I kind of add in and like to preface is dry brushing, which
is just taking a dry brush.
There's tons of videos up on the technique to do it, but it's creating outside stimulation
or outside heat because we're missing a lot of that on the inside.
So that's another awesome practice to add in as we go into the more winter and late
fall months as well.
All about that self care, taking care of yourself and what better time when you can't really
go outside as much anymore because it's cooling down and just focus on that self love and
that body image appreciation, which is so important for Kapha.
And one last thing to keep in mind is, I know we kind of, I explained the doshas as three
separate entities, but we have each of them in us and how important it is to, if you're
feeling like you have an in-bounds pitta, for example, me, when I feel really fiery,
when I feel just like really in my masculine to tie it in to the energetics of that as
well, to amplify either Vata or Kapha, depending on how I'm feeling.
So looking at them holistically, when I feel out of balance, I either feel like very, very
competitive with myself, comparative, or really anxious and flighty and spirally.
So Vata is where I go typically in imbalance.
And when I feel really balanced, I feel even more in the Kapha.
That's where I'm able to show up for others and myself and be my most grounded, nurturing
version of me.
So consider that for yourself.
And we have one more tip for you if you are interested in diving a little bit deeper into
this study of Ayurveda.
And it's a book.
So it's called The Idiot's Guide to Ayurveda, and it's by Sahara Rose.
This is one of her, I think this was actually her first book.
She's a wonderful spiritual teacher, and she uses this practice of Ayurveda to bring balance,
explain the ins and outs of the system so that you can make it really tangible and bring
it into your life.
Good stuff.
Yeah.
So we thank you guys.
Let us know what type you are.
Once again, our pages is Awaken Together podcast, and we will share some resources with you
on there as well.
But Kat, thanks for another great talk.
Oh, thank you, Jen.
Just love you.
I love you.
See you later.
Bye, friends.