Springtime Self-Care
Spring is the time of awakenings and re-births.
Especially if you live somewhere with proper 4 seasons, you know how precious it feels when the first rays of sunlight warm your face after months of cold darkness. You also probably know how it can feel quite intense - the sudden increase of daylight can bring up a lot of confusion in the body and mind.
For some self-care inspo, let’s see what happens around us.
If we look at bears or hedgehogs, do they just jump out of their hibernation nest and get busy doing things, hustling and running around? No, they take their time to slowly warm up and re-start their metabolism.
If we look at plants, do trees turn green and flowers bloom over night? No, they take their time to go through their own individual processes, without rushing and certainly without comparing how other plants around them are doing.
This strategy is very close to Ayurveda’s approach to wellbeing during Springtime as well.
Spring is ruled by Earth and Water
The dominant elements in Nature (and within us) during Spring and early Summer are earth and water. They are in constant play and fluctuation all around us all the time, moving through our individual beings and affecting the way we are feeling regardless of what our unique predominant elements are.
The general quality of these elements is very nourishing - water soothes, earth grounds.
On the other hand, when excess, the combination of these two elements can turn kinda… muddy.
This is kapha dosha’s downside - excessive water and earth sometimes makes us feel really heavy, sticky, lazy and unwilling to move.
Remember however that on the other side of the coin lies a sense of deep nourishment and healing!
How to stay balanced during Spring time?
How to balance excess earth and water?
First of all, it’s important to note that it is natural to feel slow after a deep rest-period of winter, and it is natural to feel a little resistant to jump into hustle and bustle.
Keeping this in mind, here comes some practical tips to how to balance kapha dosha:
Lifestyle wise:
Kapha dosha sparks from new things! Introduce new hobbies, new people, new ideas to brighten the way you are feeling. Also avoid oversleeping - rest is important, but especially when feeling slow and sticky, try to get into a rhythm where you go to bed by 10pm and get up before 6am. Best time to work out is 6-10 am and 6-10 pm (kapha hours).
Exercice wise:
All movement, especially aerobic and HIIT is very important and beneficial to
warm up that metabolism after winter’s slow-mo. Get energy moving by sweating and challenge your stamina with running/ biking/ swimming longer distances.
In yoga, this is the best time to explore those more challenging and physically demanding practices like vinyasa or even hot yoga.
Food wise:
Use foods that are spicy and cooked to balance the cold quality of kapha, foods that are nourishing but light to balance the heavy quality of kapha, and foods that are dry/rough to balance the wet/smooth quality of kapha.
Basically, favoring legumes, vegetables and especially leafy greens over heavy meats and dairy products, citrus fruits for extra spark, lighter grains like quinoa over wheat, seeds instead of nuts are some simple moves to make in your springtime kitchen.
The most important thing in ayurvedic cooking is spices and for kapha dosha, all spices are good. Especially the strong ones like ginger, cinnamon, clove, cayenne, mustard, basil, oregano, turmeric, pepper will help stimulate excess kapha.
Also garlic and chili that are usually not recommended in ayurveda, can be beneficial during kapha time or kapha imbalances.
Citrus fruits are ideal to gently spark your cooking in springtime!
Ayurveda, disease and healing the disease
If you notice yourself feeling unwell on the level of the body, mind and/or soul, according to ayurveda you have one or several doshas out of balance and you have possibly collected ama, toxins, in the body.
Signs of toxins in the system are: thick white coating in the tongue, sense of fatigue, dullness and denseness in the body or energetically, brain fog or lack of clarity in thinking, bad breath, foul smelling gas or burps, indigestion, skin issues, unhealthy cravings…
How to get rid of ama, meaning how bring your health back when it’s disturbed?
According to Ayurveda, our health starts and is sustained from the gut. Healthy digestive fire aka agni is the base of a healthy and happy body-mind-spirit. You can easily support your agni by
eliminating cold/ frozen/ raw food and drinks
chewing properly, not drinking whilst eating, and avoiding over-eating
sticking to regular meal times, always eating in a calm environment, and having midday meal be the heaviest because this is when digestion is at its strongest
Another way to clear ama and support agni is through detoxification, which we’ll look at next.
Spring clearance to reset the system
In Ayurveda, we don’t detox to look better, we detox to FEEL better. Looking better will be a nice byproduct of healing, but never the goal.
Detoxification, in its simplest form, looks like eliminating the stuff from your lifestyle that your body doesn’t need.
We can think of detoxing the mind by getting rid of habits that don’t serve your wellbeing (like checking your phone every 5 minutes or watching movies in bed that you know will disturb your sleep (these are mine, you pick yours)), or cutting toxic relationships, and then we can look at detoxing on the level of the physical body.
Ayurveda has a complete healing methodolgy for this purpose, known as panchakarma. You can sign up to a panchakarma clinic for a few days up to a few weeks, and progress through a complete set of practices and techniques curated for your individual needs.
If you’re looking for an easier solution that requires no travel to India (LOL, I think there is some panchaharma clinics in Europe as well), you can try one of the following detox-methods:
1. One night detox: simply skip dinner one night a week, and let your digestive system detox on its own this way.
2. Kitchari fast: for a few days up to a week, try eating only kitchari. Kitchari is a traditional healing food of ayurveda made out of split mung beans, rice, veggies and spices. It is super easy for the tummy to absorb, it is delicious, and it will help cleanse your digestion without you having to starve yourself at all. (Don’t tell anyone but I sometimes cheat on my kitchari cleanses and eat porridge for breakfast, and it still works wonders for me. I’ve never felt as good in my body as during these kitchari fasts!)
3. And finally, something I call Modern Day Human Cleanse: simply cut all the unnecessary and toxic substances out of your lifestyle. Commit to a week or month without alcohol, tobacco products and drugs. Also eliminate sugar, unhealthy fats and processed food out of your diet and favor home-cooked meals because this is the only way to really know what’s in your food. I promise your body will say thank you and you’ll feel better in a week.
That’s it! Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts about this. Also I’m curious to hear how you go if you start one of these detox programs, please report back!
I like to perceive Spring as a time of self-nurturance. This is when we plant the seeds for the upcoming cycle, and take good care of the soil - the body - for those seeds to grow into something beautiful!
Closing up with the beautiful words from Thich Nhat Hanh:
No mud, no lotus.
Take care! xx