Simple and practical introduction to Ayurveda - an ancient, holistic health system which originates from India. You will learn about the concept of 3 Ayurvedic energies (Doshas), which is a helpful tool on the way towards balanced live. P.S. The audio is a recording of live talk.
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Transcript
Hi, My name is Evelina. Today I will introduce you to Ayurveda. I will talk about the concept of 3 doshas which are 3 Ayurvedic energies. Ayurveda is an over 5000 years old health system which originates from India. It looks holistically at the individual and all the interactions between the individual and the environment around. I see it more as a way of living rather than a way of healing a disease. Preventing a disease by proper lifestyle instead of curing it. Living in balance with nature and present with the self. Instead of having a different pill for a different disease, Ayurveda helps to understand what actually is the root cause of the problem. The root cause might be physical, Emotional, Spiritual. That's why in order to gain understanding we need to look at the whole picture instead of focusing only on the small part. And when we are searching for healing, The foundation is removal of the root cause. We can remove the root cause by changing our lifestyle, Changing our diet, Changing our emotions which we experience on a daily basis. And that's why we need to understand ourselves in the best possible way. Ayurveda has a different approach to health than our nowadays common medicine system which I personally grew up with not knowing about other ways of healing. This totally different approach made me really intrigued and inspired to search for more understanding of what actually Ayurveda is. According to Ayurveda, Everything in our world including ourselves and everything around us is based on five different elements. We have a space which is either as well, Air, Fire, Water and earth. And all of those are coming into different dosas. So vata, It would be a mix of air and either. And you can think of it as wind. This is really easy to remember and easy to also connect in our mind with basically different qualities of vata dosa. Then we have pita which is fire and water but let's remember it as fire. There is a bit of water also but fire is like a most important here for us to focus. And then we have kapha which is mix of water and earth. So basically it's an earth energy. As I mentioned all of them constantly keep changing and we all have three of them in our bodies. So now when we will be going through them you can notice that oh maybe I'm really a lot of vata right now or a lot of pita or kapha. You can think of your friends, Of your family members and you can notice that each of us has them in different levels in different times of our life. Each of us would have different amount of different elements in our bodies and as well these elements constantly keep changing. So whatever happens in our life, Around us, Everything influences the level of each of the elements. Different factors such as weather conditions, The food which we eat, The emotions which we experience, The job which we occupy ourselves with or our activities in our daily life. All of it will influence different elements what will cause increase or decrease of one of the doshas. So that's why the doshas they never stay the same, They constantly keep changing. And what we want to do in Ayurveda, We want to understand when one of elements goes a little out of balance and that's when we want to react by balancing this element with the other ones so it can stay in balance. Because if one element will pop up very highly, Will increase to really high level, That's when we will start to have stronger and stronger signals out of our body that we are basically getting out of health. And when we are born we have our constitutions, So certain level of different elements and this is called prakriti. When I am born I am mostly vata, Then I have a little less pita and very very less kafa, Let's say as an example. But when I keep going throughout my life, I keep eating certain kind of food, Living in the certain climate, Being with certain kind of people around me as well and experiencing certain kind of emotions can influence the doshas so they will change. So maybe I will not be when I'm 20 years old anymore so much vata but I will have a lot of kafa at this time or a lot of pita. And it all depends on what we do, What we eat and how we go through our life. So prakriti was the first thing which I mentioned, Our constitution when we are born. And then vikriti, It would be state of our imbalance, Let's say, Once we are older, So once we keep going through life. It would be this change of the doshas which is being influenced by all the kind of conditions, All the kind of factors. Now let's explore the three doshas. Let's have a look first into vata dosha, Which is this wind energy. First just think of how is the wind, How are the qualities of the wind, What first comes to your mind. Wind is dry, Cool, Light, Mobile, Movable, It's constantly changing direction, It's kind of unpredictable. You never know from which direction towards which direction the wind will blow because it's constantly changing. So the same it would be about our bodies, About our minds. If we have a lot of wind, We can basically feel that our vata energy goes out of balance. So we can experience this dryness, This coolness inside of our body, Inside of our digestive system. For example, We can have a lot of dryness in our hair, On our skin, In our digestive system. It can show up as a lot of wind in the belly, So basically excessive gas or constipation, Difficulties to go to the toilet and as well irregular bowel movements because it's constantly changing. Wind is blowing a lot, This digestive fire is never steady, It's never balanced. It's one time is up, One time is down. So the same here, And that's how it would show up in someone who has a lot of wind. As well dryness in the joints, Cracking in your joints, Feeling different pains, Different issues with the knees, With the shoulders. And that can also show us basically a lot of dryness in your bones, In your joints. So what we want to do here, If we have so much of vata, We want to bring opposite qualities into that. So ayurveda is really logical and simple. And inside, I feel like we all know it because it just makes so much sense. If I have so much of coldness, Coolness in my body, I need to warm up. So the same would be about your digestive system, About your skin, About anything. If I have a lot of dryness, I need to oil it, Add some more oils, Nourish my body. If my mind, As I forgot to mention, If my mind is not grounded, If I keep thinking of all kinds of things, Having 10 different ideas per minute, Starting five different projects and never completing the first one because I already jumped to the next one. That's when we have a lot of wind in our mind. It doesn't allow us to focus in one direction. So that's when we need to get grounded, Get back to the earth, Let's say, Instead of flying somewhere in the clouds with our mind, With our ideas. Because this will basically never allow us to manifest this, What we are working on. But this everything what I'm just mentioning is, Of course, When our Vata energy is out of balance. However, If Vata is balanced, It's also creative. That's what I wanted to mention about the mindset, Creativity, A lot of energy, A lot of flexibility, A lot of new ideas. So this would be Vata energy. However, If it goes out of balance, Then it just everything gets out of balance in here and we're not able to focus and to bring our creativity into our life. How we want to balance Vata in the diet perspective, In the diet way. Just think also of the food, Which is Vata increasing. It would be, Again, The same qualities as wind. So all kinds of foods which are dry, Which are cool, Which are light. This everything would boost your Vata energy even more. So all kinds of raw salads, Raw leaves, Vegetables, Fruits, Dry nuts, Dry snacks, Cookies, Granola, All of that is very dry in its quality, Very light at the same time. So yeah, Very often we think that all this kind of foods, All the raw things are really, Really healthy, Really good to eat. So many of us are overdoing them. And once we overdo them, Our body will get out of balance as well, Because even this what we consider being healthy, If we overdo it and we go into only one direction, It's not working well for us. And that's also what happened to me in my past. I used to eat a lot of raw things, Dry things. And basically I went into very high imbalance of Vata. And actually Ayurveda helped me a lot to understand what I need to do with my diet, What I need to do with my activities in order to get back up to balance. So there are certain things, Certain oils and herbs and foods which we can basically bring more into our diet once we struggle with having too much Vata in our body. And there are certain oils which are actually Tridoshic. So they are good for each of the Doshas and this is Ghee, Which is also called as clarified butter. Ghee is really like according to Ayurveda, A best friend of your gut health. And it's also one of the easiest absorbable fats for us. And then we have also sesame oil, Which is very warming and very nourishing. So if you struggle with the joints, I always mention it's really a great best friend of our joints, Of our teeth as well. If you have problems with the teeth, If you want to strengthen your teeth, Then doing oil pulling with sesame oil is a very, Very beneficial thing. Or in general, If your skin is dry, If your hair are dry, All this kind of Vata symptoms, They can be very beautifully pacified by using sesame oil internally and externally. And then we have almond oil. I just put it in here as an example of some kind of more Western oil because Ayurveda is of course Indian science, Indian knowledge. So we are having here always all the products, All the plants which grow here in India. However, You can also explore whatever is in your part of the world because there would be different oils, Different spices and foods, Of course. And yeah, I think it's really great to explore what kind of qualities your oils, Your foods have because there is definitely lots of beauty also. And then we have Vata balancing spices and herbs. Yes, So I mentioned here a couple of different spices which are very beneficial for balancing digestive system. So especially cumin and fennel. Cumin is very good for bloatedness. So if your belly is bloated, If you have a lot of gas, That's when actually having some cumin is very, Very beneficial. And even if you go in India to some restaurants, They would actually have at the exit of the restaurant this little bowl with the different spices where you will always find cumin and fennel seeds because this is a great digestive help. Right after food, They would have maybe one spoon of the seeds. So it really helps to balance your digestive system. And we also can make tea out of this kind of herbs basically by using cumin, Fennel, Ginger, Whatever you have in here, Just putting it into hot water, Soaking for a couple of minutes, It can also serve as a tea. And we have ginger and turmeric. Both of them are actually Tridoshic. However, Ginger is stronger. So for pita, I will mention there, We don't want to use a lot of it, Just a little bit. Cinnamon, Cardamom, Clove, All of them, They are sweet in taste and warming. Balancing taste for Vata, It would be sweet, Sour and salty. So also a lot of these herbs and spices can have this different taste included. All right, Now let's just have a little look at the mindset of someone with Vata. As I mentioned, They can have so many different ideas and things to do and they have difficulty to focus. They can be very anxious. Their mind is constantly running to the future, Worrying what's going to be, What's going to happen. And they just have this anxiety in them. So that's why we really need to bring down to the ground ourselves together with our activities, With the things which we do throughout the day, With the foods which we eat, With the oils, Herbs, Spices, All of that comes together. In Ayurveda, We always look holistically at everything. So we don't want to say that it's only food which can help us to get back to balance, But it's also the things which we do throughout our day, The way how we interact with others, With our bodies. All right, I'm talking quite a lot. Now I'm going to move straight to Pita. So Pita, As I mentioned, Is fire. It's fire and water. However, Let's remember it as fire. And also, I think you can see the difference in the body. So let's just have a look at Vata. You see it's much more thin frame, Long hands, Let's say, Thin bones, We can call it. Then we have Pita, Which is a little bit stronger. I think you can see the difference. So the body is more muscular, More strong. And the same things would come into their digestive system as well. Their digestive system would be much more powerful. Their digestive fire is much more powerful. And now just to compare also to Kapha, You can see it's one step also ahead with their body frame. It's much stronger than Pita. Stronger, It's a little bit maybe more curvy, A little bit more, Let's say here, Like having a little bit more extra meat or fat, However we call it. Yes, So back to Pita, Fire. Just thinking of fire qualities, It would be also light. It would be very hot, Very sharp, Kind of penetrating. So very intense, Very powerful. If you have a lot of fire in our body, In our mind, You feel that the digestive fire is too quick. So maybe you're eating the food and it's just passing through you straight away. Digested is burned out so quickly that you go to the toilet right after your meal, Maybe struggling with diarrhea because this fire has to exit somehow. Then the fire goes up in the physical way, Having heartburn, Feeling hot all the time, Excessive sweating, Redness on the skin, Rashes, Different kinds of inflammations, All of these kind of fiery things, Let's say in our body. It would be showing us that we have too much fire. However, If our Pita is balanced, Then this would be a great example of someone very strong, Very powerful, Very confident with all kinds of qualities of a leader. So basically, So the people who are always very confident of what they want to do and others follow them easily because they trust in their confidence. So if you think of the diet of someone who has a lot of Pita, It would be exactly as we said about the qualities of fire. It would be hot diet, Intense. So someone who's eating a lot of spicy food, A lot of heating foods, A lot of meat as well and alcohol, It comes here into the Pita side. So what we want to do with someone who has so much fire, We need to cool it down. So again, Bringing opposite things, Getting rid of all the heat things and bringing a little bit more cooling. Some examples of cooling things, Whatever comes to your mind straight, I guess, Maybe cucumber, Watermelon, Straight away you think of these fruits, Vegetables that they have kind of cooling qualities, Mint, Anything what comes to your mind, I guess it would be straight away telling you what is cooling. And the same for Vata when we're saying more warming, More grounding, So more spices, More intensity. And at the same time, More grounding vegetables like let's say pumpkin or sweet potatoes, That would be really great for Vata. However, For Pita, We want to bring a little bit of taste which you have mentioned in here, Which is sweet, Bitter and astringent. So for example, Bitter gourd, If you know what it is, I'm not sure because it's a very famous vegetable here in India. It's very bitter in taste and that bitterness, It helps to balance, Access fire. However, Any kind of dark green vegetables, Green leaves, Let's say like spinach, Kale, All of these kind of things which could be hard to digest for Vata, Which digest the fire is not so balanced. If Pita will eat them, They would actually help them to bring this fire a little down. So they would be beneficial for Pita. And then we have oils. We have oils which would be ghee. As I mentioned, It's Tridosic. For each of the doshas, It works well. Coconut oil is a beautifully cooling oil and it can be used for cooking and as well for applying on your skin. And any kind of coconut product actually are really very beneficial for Pita. So if you have coconut water or coconut meat, All of that is cooling for Pita dosha. And as well, Coconut oil is very resistant for high temperatures. So it's really good to cook using that oil because it's not going to basically burn. Like let's say olive oil is also very beneficial for Pita. However, It's not resistant for high temperatures. So olive oil we can ideally use for very low temperature cooking or just in the raw form also over your bread, Over your salad. But if we cook it in the high temperature, It's just going to get burned and become actually unhealthy and toxic for us. So as I mentioned, For vata, We would put actually oils in abundance because vata is very dry. So they need like large quantity of oils. However, If we go to Pita, They don't need so much because they are already a little oily. So we start to use a little bit less of oil for them. However, It's also beneficial for them to use. And then we have some spices, Herbs, Which are very good for Pita. Coriander is one of the really most simple things and very, Very cooling for having access fire. So if you have any symptoms of having too much fire, Like let's say redness of your eyes or inflammation of your bladder, Having any inflammation in your belly, So also heartburn, That would be when we can use actually coriander infusion. So I just would put a little bit of coriander seeds and then soak them and drink it basically or use it for cooling your eyes, Washing your eyes. Then we have also fennel, Which is as well another front of our digestive system. We have mint, Rose water is a beautiful thing to cool down, Turmeric as I mentioned, Tridoshic and anti-inflammatory and cardamom also. It's very good. And then we have sweet taste also, Which is balancing for Pita. And when we think of the mind of Pita, As I mentioned, They are always running to the future. They are maybe anxious, Worrying what's going to happen. Pita would be right now, Right here. So very often they are reacting without thinking before they get agitated. They get angry very easily. Something goes out of their idea how the thing is supposed to be. And they just straight away react with lots of anger. Now let's have a look into our last third dosha, Kaffa. So once again, You can see Pita was a little more tiny, However strong, But Kaffa is a little bigger. You can see it's like really strong, Strong, Bigger body frame, Let's say. You know that we have this saying that some people are like thick bones, Have thick bones. I'm not sure if it's in English, But in Polish we have the saying. And that's showing how the Kaffa constitution would be, Having the strong body frame, Thicker bones, Thicker hair, Thicker lips as well. So all of that would show up as we are basically having more Kaffa. So thinking of earth energy, Earth is heavy, It's slow, It's oily at the same time, It's static, Stable. It doesn't move so easily like Vata would be moving all the time left, Right, Up, Down. You never know towards which direction. Kaffa is actually very grounded, Very steady, And because of its heaviness and steadiness is kind of resistant to changes as well. So it's not so easy to move, To change, To adapt into new conditions. If you have too much Kaffa in our body, Then we can experience that heaviness becomes so heavy that you just don't have will even to move. So being very lethargic, Kind of lazy, Not having will to maybe move even out of bed, And not having too much power to do exercises, To do any kind of movements. In our mindset, It can show up as being kind of stuck, Resistant to changes. So maybe thinking all the time of the past, Of whatever happened before, And not letting go of some kind of past traumas, Past pains, And yeah, Not being able to live in right now, In today, But being still stuck in our past. As well, Earth is very giving, Very loving. So if you just think of Earth itself, How it's giving all kind of life, Basically all plants, Everything is growing out of Earth, Right? And the same would be about mother who's loving all her kids, Giving to them, Taking care all the time. So it's very, Very giving. However, If we overdo it, If we're too much Kaffa, We're over giving, Over giving our love, Over giving our time, And forgetting to take care of ourselves. So that would be another thing which leads to a lot of unexpressed emotions, Which are very often experienced by someone who has too much Kaffa. They seem to be very happy, Very, Very, You know, Like smiley on the outside, But on the inside they can hide a lot of sadness and unexpressed emotions. And once they keep not being able to express them, They keep accumulating them like literally underneath the skin and maybe having difficulty to lose some extra kilograms to speak up as well to say what they truly think. So that would be some of the examples here. And now when we look at the diet of someone who has a lot of Kaffa, It would be again like qualities of Kaffa, Cold and heavy and oily and solid. So what we want to do for someone with having too much Kaffa, We want to get rid of most of this coldness and oils and also salt, Sugar, All of these kinds of things. They are actually boosting Kaffa a lot. So for Kaffa less salt, Less oil, Less sugar and less cold things. So we would like to warm up the body and bring a little bit more lightness. So any kind of spices actually are very beneficial for Kaffa Dosa because they basically, As you remember the digestive fire, Kaffa, It had very, Very tiny, I'm just going to show it again here. So as you can see, Kaffa, It's very small fire comparing to any other. So that's why we really need to boost it. We need to bring it up in order to be able to break down the foods, To absorb anything and to get energy out of the food. So that's why all kind of warming spices are really beneficial. I put here cumin, Ginger, Turmeric, Red pepper. All of the spices are really great and also cinnamon, Cloves, Cardamom. I think you also use it if you are making maybe some kind of a tea in the winter time. This kind of spices would be usually added to winter teas because they are very warming for our bodies and for our digestive systems. Then if we look at oils, For Kaffa, As I mentioned, We want to reduce the oil. So here we want to have them in moderation. Vata had the biggest amount of oils because they are very dry. Pita has just like in the medium proportion and Kaffa, It would have very, Very little. So Kaffa doesn't need much oil and definitely they don't need cooling oils. So we want to use warming oils in moderation. That's why we have ghee, Which as I mentioned, Tridorsic one. Then we have mustard oil. Mustard seeds is actually one of the most heating oils. So they are very, Very beneficial for Kaffa. And then sesame is also warming. I mentioned it also before in the Vata, So I'm not going to talk about it more, But mustard oil is great for any kind of respiratory issues, Asthma, Cough, Even flu, Cold. Basically applying this warm mustard oil over the chest, Over the area of the sinuses as well, Adding it to food which we eat. It will help us to boost our digestive system and our immunity as well and the heat in the body. So as I mentioned already before, All the Doshas keep changing and we just don't want to get into out of balance situation when we are getting into different health issues. Think when Vata has so much of lightness, It can lead to different issues. Maybe anxiety, Maybe a lot of problems with the digestive system, Which is basically never balanced, Pita, Maybe a lot of heat, A lot of inflammation, High blood pressure, And Kaffa, Maybe different issues connected with the area of the throat like asthma, Like flu, Which keeps coming back over and over again. And as well connected to emotional side, Depression, Difficulty to express emotions, Difficulty to open up, To communicate with others. So all of that would somehow come together. Thank you for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed this session. I hope you got interested in Ayurveda. If you would like to learn more, Please do check our Ayurvedic Lifestyle Workshops which we are running regularly here on Insight Timer. You can see when is the upcoming workshop by going into my profile, Into the workshop section and that's where you can sign up for a whole Ayurvedic Experience where we dedicate a whole month into learning and living Ayurveda.
4.8 (184)
Cas
June 18, 2022
Thank you.
Hayley
May 25, 2022
Very interesting, what a lot of information offered, thank you 🙏🏻❤️
Madelyn
May 7, 2022
This was a great explanation. I’ve found doshas a bit confusing in the past. I feel comfortable with the concepts now and walked away with easily applicable knowledge. Thank you!
Amy
April 25, 2022
Amaaaaaazing inspiring informative wise skillful balanced THANK YOU Ewelina
Rosemary
April 2, 2022
🙏🏼
Anna
December 31, 2021
Very Interesting Thank you 🙏💚
Rachel
December 14, 2021
Interesting, thank you
Wendy
December 12, 2021
This was very helpful— explaining things in a way that has me feeling both better informed on this subject and curious to know more. Thank you! I will look for your upcoming workshop.
John
December 8, 2021
Very insightful thank you 🙏
Erin
December 7, 2021
Lovely 🌹
