Pitta

Meditation and Your Dosha
Use silent meditation to balance the doshas and bring yourself back into a calm and centered state.
Meditation to Create Balance for the Doshas
Familiarizing ourselves with the dominant doshas of the season and acknowledging what feels in (and out) of balance in our own constitution allows us to choose activities, foods, and even meditations that can support us through changes in seasons and in our personal lives.For example, in the spring the dominant dosha is Kapha. Because Kapha is associated with the elements...
Sacred Space: How to Make an Altar in Your Home
Having a home altar is one way in which you can connect to the sacred and your spirituality on a daily basis. Here are some tips on how to make an altar for your home.
Communicate Consciously with the Doshas
Because the three doshas describe the nature, or Prakriti, of each individual, they help to make your life choices more conscious—this applies very powerfully in making your communication skills better. Many psychologists would affirm that it takes emotional intelligence (EQ) to get a feeling for any situation where two or more people are speaking, yet Ayurveda anticipated this notion by...
Five Qualities that Help Balance Pitta Dosha
To keep Pitta from being aggravated, a few simple key words should be kept in mind. Healing words for Pitta dosha are Cool, Dry, Bitter, Sweet, Moderate.
Pitta Balancing Herbs to Include in Your Summer Rotation
Add these cooling herbs into your diet this summer to keep Pitta at bay all season long. 
Ask Dr. Sheila: Managing Acid Reflux and GERD with Ayurveda
For the Ask Dr. Sheila column, Dr. Sheila Patel, Chopra’s Chief Medical Officer, answers questions from our community. If you have a general question for Sheila around health and wellness, please send an email to askdrsheila@chopra.com, and your question may be the one she answers next.In this article, Dr. Sheila answers a question about how to manage acid reflux and...
15 Ayurvedic Travel Hacks for Balanced Vacationing
Traveling endows us with the clear, light, mobile qualities of Vata, and can provide insights and open our eyes to a perspective we may have been missing. Vacations inspire us with new beauties of the world, cultures, and nature, and remove us from the redundance of our day-to-day energy bubble and life routine.Whether you are embarking on a romantic getaway,...
How to Keep Pitta Balanced This Summer to Enjoy the Season
A guide to keeping cool all summer long.
7 Ways to Boost Your Energy with Ayurveda
In Ayurveda, creating energy in the body is a function of agni, or our digestive fire. This includes the digestion of food into nourishment, as well as the digestion of our daily life experiences into nourishing thoughts and emotions.
Ask Dr. Sheila: Understanding Vikruti, Your Current State of Health or Imbalance
Our prakruti, or nature, doesn’t change. It’s like our unique fingerprint, or DNA. Our individual proportions of the doshas are what makes us unique. However, since we have all three of the doshas within our constitution, any of them can accumulate and get out of balance, which is our vikruti.
Dosha Dreaming: Intention Setting According to Your Dosha
It’s that time again, when we are collectively dreaming about a new year and all the fascinating possibilities it could bring. Intention setting around the start of a year is a powerful tradition that actually dates back to ancient Babylon (~2000 BC). In those days intentions were most likely about pleasing the Gods. Presently, there is still a spiritual thread...
How Ayurveda Helps Relationships
Ayurveda is a complete wellness approach that extends much farther than a healthy body. Once you understand your dosha, or mind-body type, and the constitutions of your loved one, Ayurveda can improve your relationship in unique ways.Compatibility in RelationshipsIn any relationship the first issue that Ayurveda can help with is compatibility. The doshas give you a good idea about the...
Ask Dr. Suhas: How Can Ayurveda Help Beat the Winter Blues?
Every month, Dr. Suhas will answer questions from our followers about men’s health and wellness. If you have general questions for him, please send us an email to askdrsuhas@chopra.com, and your question may be the one he answers next month.This month, Dr. Suhas answers questions around seasonal blues.Question 1: What Is Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)?Dr. Suhas: SAD is a mood...
Ask Dr. Sheila: How Can I Improve My Lung Health?
Every month, Dr, Sheila, Chopra’s Chief Medical Officer will be answering questions from our followers. If you have a general question for her around health and wellness, please send us an email to askdrsheila@chopra.com, and your question may be the one she answers next month.There were several questions that came in this month regarding lung health. Certainly, lung health is...
Ask Dr. Sheila: Do Certain Doshas Do Better with Different Styles of Meditation?
Every month, Dr. Sheila, Chopra’s Chief Medical Officer answers questions from our followers. If you have a general question for her around health and wellness. This month sha answers questions around meditation and preventing boils, abscesses, and cysts.
Positively Pitta! Why It’s Great to Be a Pitta
Pitta is the principle of transformation. It represents energy, heat, or fire—and it gives rise to many powerful qualities in your body and mind. Although Pittas are sometimes teased for being “hot-headed” or domineering, when they are in balance, Pittas are kind-hearted, enterprising souls with the courage to follow through on their dreams.Discover your dosha type here.Today let’s celebrate the...
Ask Dr. Sheila: Does My Dominant Dosha Change?
Every month, Dr. Sheila, Chopra’s Chief Medical Officer answers questions from our followers. If you have a general question for her around health and wellness, please send us an email to askdrsheila@chopra.com, and your question may be the one she answers next month. You can also submit questions during her Instagram Lives that take place every Wednesday at noon (PST)...
Ayurvedic Approach to Dealing with Depression
An Ayurvedic approach to depression takes into account mental, spiritual, and physical aspects of health and well-being. Ayurveda has three subsets of depression.
Building a Six-Taste Bowl with Sahara Rose
In fact, today it’s more important than ever before to keep our immune systems in balance! This is where my Six Taste Bowl comes in, from my book Eat Feel Fresh: A Contemporary Plant-Based Ayurvedic Cookbook.When you consume a meal that contains the Ayurvedic six tastes, you are nourished from a cellular level. Each taste corresponds with different qualities, as...
The 6 Tastes of Ayurveda
Uncover the 6 tastes: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent. Learn which foods fall into these categories and how they effect your doshas.
5 Spa Treatments for Pacifying Pitta
If you have a predominance of Pitta, you have a fiery nature in mind and body. When it’s in balance, you tend to be joyful, friendly, and energetic. Your digestion is strong, metabolism is efficient, and your mind is clear and focused. But too much Pitta can lead to impatience, irritability, and hostility, along with physical symptoms such as inflammation,...
Understanding Pitta: How to Feed Your Inner Fire
Learn the physical and emotional characteristics of the Pitta dosha and how to balance your diet from the Ayurveda experts at Chopra.
How to Balance Your Dosha in Nature
According to Ayurveda, spending time in nature helps heal the body and mind. The ancient Ayurvedic medical texts provide a long list of outdoor sensory experiences that promote well-being and balance the doshas. Here are a few as they relate to each dosha.Balance Vata: The Earth Beneath Your FeetIf you’re feeling ungrounded and your mind is racing—clear signs of excessive...
Don’t Feel the Burn: Exercise Tips for Pitta
Here are a few Pitta-balancing exercise tips to help you harness the power of physical activity to create radiant health and emotional wellbeing, without burning out.
Keeping Your Children Healthy: Doshas for Kids
Finding balance is one of the greatest challenges in an ever-changing world. And keeping yourself balanced is difficult enough before you add children to the mix. They too have their own doshas and their own daily imbalances, and it can be tricky to figure out what to do to help create harmony for them.The good news is that children tend...
Cooling Herbs to Balance Your Pitta Dosha
Discover the cooling herbal remedies that can help balance and detoxify Pittas. Beginning with what pitta dosha are and extending to which herbs can soothe inflammatory conditions
What Is a Dosha?
Doshas are the three energies that define every person's makeup. Knowing your dosha can help you live a healthier, more balanced life.Discover your dosha type here.In Ayurveda, the five elements that are found in all living things—ether, air, fire, water, and earth—are the building blocks of life. While this foundation unites all humans, the manifestation of those elements through the...
Stay Cool and Collected: A Daily Balancing Routine for Pitta
With Pitta as your predominant dosha, you’re naturally intense, joyous, and focused on fulfilling your dreams and desires. However, if you accumulate an excess of the Pitta elements of fire and water, you can find yourself feeling Pitta-inflamed, with symptoms of irritability, impatience, and rigid or controlling behavior.An accumulation of Pitta can also manifest in a variety of health issues,...
Pitta Self-Care: Take Time to Rest
One of the important goals of Ayurveda is being able to tune into yourself and become aware of the signs that you are getting out of balance so that you can make shifts to restore your natural equilibrium. As a Pitta, you are naturally energetic, but left unbalanced, that energy can lead to burnout. Self-care can help you keep your...
How to Take Care of Your Mental Well-Being During Long Summer Days
In the summer, it is important to balance the fiery pitta energy with ways to cool off, calm down, and restore. If we do not purposefully schedule downtime in summer, tempers can flare, irritability can get the best of us, and we can burn out more easily.This is the season when children are home from school, and we feel the...
How to Enjoy Summer with a Balance of Playfulness and Purposeful Intention
Part of what makes summer unique is the sunlight that shines brightly into the evening. This time of year can remind us that life always is in flux, as the days will start to get shorter after the summer solstice. While we tend to associate summer with longer days, the start of summer marks the slow descent into the darker...
Practices for Releasing Anger
Learn to let go and feel lighter with these clearing practices to clear anger and stuck emotions.
How to Use Music as a Tool to Balance Your Dosha
The foundation of Ayurveda is that you can use your five senses as tools in order to experience healing and return to your most natural state of balance in mind and body. Your daily routine as it relates to the five senses—sound, sight, smell, taste, and touch—can all influence the way you feel and make a notable impact on your...
Why It Is Important to Know Your Child’s Dosha
Your child is unique. Your child is incredibly special in ways no one else but you will ever know. There is, indeed, not one single person in the world like your child! That being said, if you have an interest in learning how to better understand your child, and help nurture their well-being, you may wish to investigate the Ayurvedic...
Ayurveda Doshas: The Benefit of Knowing Your Unique Dosha
Have you ever wondered why the latest diets seem to work for everyone but you? Or have you observed two people handle the exact same situation with completely different emotional responses? Viewing the world through an Ayurvedic lens can shed light on why certain diets, experiences, and environments bring health and happiness to one person but do little for another.Discover...
Pitta Balancing Beverages to Help You Feel Cool and Refreshed
Try these simple and delicious pitta balancing beverages to keep your cool all summer long.
Breakfast Rice Cereal 
You can modify this recipe for your dosha by substituting other grains for the rice. See suggestions below. 1 cup basmati rice, (or other grain) uncooked* (sweet) 2 cups water ½ teaspoon salt, if desired (salty) ½ teaspoon nutmeg (pungent, bitter) 1 teaspoon cinnamon (pungent, sweet) ½ teaspoon clove (pungent, bitter) 1 cup vanilla soy milk (can substitute regular milk...
Vegetable Barley Casserole
You can modify this recipe for your dosha by following the suggestions below.Ingredients: 3 cups bite-size vegetables, such as carrots (sweet), zucchini (sweet, astringent), yellow squash (sweet, astringent), potatoes (sweet, astringent), and leeks (pungent, sweet), kale or other dark leafy greens (bitter) 1 tablespoon ghee (sweet) 3 cups cooked barley (sweet) 1 cup fresh or frozen corn (sweet, astringent) 12...
Spinach Greens with Gorgonzola
This is a quick, delicious salad that takes only twenty minutes to prepare. The dressing suggestions and modifications to balance your dosha are below.Discover your dosha type here.Ingredients 2 pounds washed and stemmed spinach (bitter, astringent) ¼ cup sliced radishes (pungent) ½ cup crumbled Gorgonzola cheese (sweet, sour) ½ cup dried cranberries or currants (sweet, sour, astringent) 1 cup honey-glazed...
Stay Balanced with these Kombucha Flavors for Each Dosha
On National Booch Day (also known as National Kombucha Day), stay balanced with these kombucha flavors for each dosha. Discover your dosha type here.Creating a healthy body requires a wide variety of foods. Ayurveda gives us many tips for getting the variety we need. Ayurveda describes the Six Tastes of life-sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent-which all support our...
Celebrate National Hummus Day with These Three Recipes
Although hummus now has a significant place in the western snack and appetizer world, it has been a staple of Middle Eastern cuisine for centuries. Hummus (or hommus) means chickpea in Arabic and can be found in recipes as far back as the 13th century. As meat was often hard to come by, the hearty bean dish has many variations...
3 Reasons to Cook Your Own Meals
As the saying goes, “You are what you eat.” The human body is made of trillions of cells involved in a continuous cycle of cell death and rebirth. Although genetics plays a large role in susceptibility to disease, you have an opportunity each and every day to feed your cells with vital life energy from the food you eat. The...
Exploring the Mindset and Psychology Behind Your Food Choices
As you look into the future of nutrition and weight loss, it is evident that dieters are in need of a new approach. There were an estimated 108 million Americans on a diet in 2012. Surprisingly, there is no single scientific study that proves that dieting even works for long-term weight loss. Even though consumers are spending $66.3 billion on...
The Vedic Chef: 3 Gourmet, Vegan, Ayurvedic Dinner Dishes
Whether you’re cooking for a special friend, entertaining family, or treating that special someone to a romantic meal, these dishes are guaranteed to make an impression. Hint: Serve them with fresh organic salad or start with a light soup.Amaranth Crepes With Saffron SaucePitta and Kaphasaffron-amamrnth-asparagus.jpgCrepes are thin pancakes from France. Made with amaranth, a tiny seed related to spinach, these...
What’s Cookin’? Pitta-Friendly Tabouli Recipe
One of the best ways to balance your dosha is with your diet. Pitta types have the propensity to get irritable and overeat if they let themselves get too hungry, so foods that provide a steady flow of energy—like vegetables, grains, and beans—are best. Try this tasty tabouli salad recipe to sustain your healthy Pitta appetite for the long run....
Designing a Yoga Routine for Your Dosha
Yoga is an extraordinary practice for entering the state of body-centered restful awareness. It awakens grace and restores your sense of balance and wholeness. To reap the greatest benefits, it’s important to personalize your practice for your unique mind-body constitution, or dosha.In Ayurveda, the building blocks of life are comprised of five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and ether. The...
Elevate Your Communication According to Your Dosha
Our dosha expresses itself in how we think, speak, and write. With compassionate attention, we can elevate into inspiring communication that brightens moods and enhances connections.
Balancing Your Dosha During COVID-19
You’ve probably noticed that during the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, people have been responding differently to their abrupt life changes. Since we all are very unique in our mind-body types, we will absolutely have varying responses to what is happening around us, and may need to focus on different practices to stay healthy—in addition to the typical preventive practices that...