Vata

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...
Meditation Practices to Connect to Light During Dark Seasons
The darker seasons of autumn and winter provide a special opportunity for self-inquiry as we head into a partial hibernation. We snuggle in at night to keep warm, we feel tired earlier because the sun has set, and we can lower the lights in the home to stay attuned to the season.When the world outside is blanketed in darkness, it...
Meditations for Vatas: 5 Healing Techniques for the Wandering Mind
Some people naturally have trouble concentrating, but Vatas especially tend to have a difficult time. With a predominance of air and space, Vatas usually have more trouble grounding themselves than other doshas. Vatas are known to be creative, communicative, changeable, quick, and spontaneous, none of which are particularly helpful when it comes to centering.Meditation yields so many benefits once you...
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...
A Guide to Vata Season
Stay healthy and balanced during the cooler months with this guide to Vata Season.
Routines and Rituals to Balance Vata
How to round your energy and keep Vata at bay this season.
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,...
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...
Five Practices to Amplify the Benefits of Autumn
During this time of year, the effects of fewer hours of sunlight begin to affect our mind and body. This can be a positive experience. The darker months create conditions for much-needed restorative time, and our circadian rhythm adapts to prepare us for winding down earlier in the evening. When we align our lifestyle with the pace of the world...
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...
Stay Balanced This Fall with Ayurveda
Your personal body is inextricably connected to the environment around you. When you explore the ancient holistic lifestyle medicine of Ayurveda, you remember and rediscover this core teaching and deep truth.We can think of the environment as your extended body. The air outside becomes your breath as the temperature and moisture outside affects the internal body. The prominent qualities that...
The Best Sleep: Ayurveda’s Answer
Unseen by you, thousands of processes take place in your body every minute, and all are timed and balanced by biological clocks. Medicine is far from knowing how these biorhythms stay perfectly in sync, but it is known for certain that the master biorhythm is sleep. Missing even one night’s good sleep affects hormonal balance, digestion, stress response, and mood.It...
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.
Vibrant Vata! Why It’s Great to Be a Vata
If you have a predominance of the Vata dosha in your mind-body constitution, you have many wonderful qualities that flow from the combination of the space and air elements that make up Vata. While Vata types are sometimes teased for being “spacy” or overly sensitive, when they are in balance, Vatas are extraordinarily creative and open to the gifts of...
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...
Understanding Vata: Minimize Stress and Feed Your Creativity
Learn the physical and emotional characteristics of Vata and how to keep it in balance, along with the importance of vata in Ayurveda.
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 Ayurvedic Spa Treatments to Balance Your Vata Dosha
In Ayurveda, Vata is the force that governs all movement in the body. When in balance, Vata can make you enthusiastic for life, clear thinking, intuitive, expressive, playful, and creative. In excess, though, it can manifest as pain, lack of appetite, tremors, coldness, constipation, anxiety, arthritis, racing thoughts, insomnia, and more.Even if it’s not your primary dosha, everyone has some...
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...
Keep Calm and Centered: A Daily Balancing Routine for Vata
Routines can help keep your body and mind in a balanced and peaceful state Vata types are vulnerable to imbalances and illness in the absence of consistency.
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...
Calming Herbs to Balance Your Vata Dosha
Herbs can help enhance the integration of the mind, body and spirit. Learn about these great herbs that will balance your Vatas.
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...
How to Balance Your Vata With Aromatherapy
Vatas are full of energy and creativity when their dosha is in balance. When unbalanced, however, Vatas have a hard time focusing that energy and they can become anxious and restless. That's where aromatherapy comes in. Not a Vata? Aromatherapy for PittaAromatherapy for KaphaTake the Dosha Quiz The energy and information you take in through your senses influence the quality...
Create Sustainable Energy: Exercise Tips for Vata
Looking for the best way to exercise as a Vata? Let the experts at Chopra help with our Vata guide online today.
Vata Self-Care: Find Your Rhythm
One of the important goals of Ayurveda is being able to tune into yourself and recognize the signs of imbalance. As a Vata type, you feel energetic and creative when balanced but become restless and unfocused when out of balance. When you’re able to recognize the difference you can make shifts to restore your natural equilibrium. Not a Vata? Pitta...
Natural Ways to Boost Immunity, Balance Vata, and Lean into the Joys of Autumn
Welcome autumn when school begins, the number of evening hours increase, and vata dosha characterizes the new season. September marks the perfect time to reinstate routine into our lives, as we walk in autumn air that cools our cheeks. For some, the idea of routine might sound restrictive. In reality, routines help balance vata dosha, leading to a sense of...
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...
Coping with Weight Means Coping with Life
Eating is a natural part of digestive rhythms set in your genes, largely controlled by two hormones, leptin and ghrelin. When these hormones are in balance, the alternation between being hungry and being satisfied is also in balance. But these simple facts about the physiology are beside the point when weight becomes a problem.A Whole-System Approach to Weight ControlThe real...
Vata Balancing Recipes
Enjoy these simple recipes to warm and balance your system.
Quiet Mornings and a Warm Oatmeal Breakfast
How do you begin your day? Yoga and meditation? A jog? Quiet? Stillness? Writing or journaling? Or none of the above?An ever-evolving practice is to be present. Starting the morning with a quiet reflective time is very important. Waking up early may encourage one to write and inspire intentional energy for nurturing ideas, plans, and goals. The house is calm...
Warm Up with Sweet Potato Black Bean Soup
Cozy up with this soup as the days get a little shorter and evenings get cooler. This sweet potato and black bean soup is not only delicious, but provides healing Ayurvedic properties and boosts immunity with the combination of ginger, garlic & onion. It also includes a cashew cream sauce, which can be grounding and satisfying as we enter the...
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...
Get Grounded with Sweet Potato Chai Pancakes
In the Northern Hemisphere, we’re in the midst of Vata season, with cold, windy days that increase the Vata dosha in the body, mind, and emotions. If you accumulate too much Vata, you’re likely to feel nervous, spacy, or overstimulated. To keep your Vata in balance, start your day with a grounding breakfast routine to feel rooted, warm, and nourished.Discover...
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...
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’? Vata-Friendly Pumpkin Soup Recipe
Keeping tabs on what you eat is a great way to keep your dosha in balance. Vatas are more susceptible to digestive disorders than the other doshas so what you eat plays a big role in keeping your Vata dosha in balance.This simple pumpkin soup recipe is made for Vatas. Since Vata is drying, cooling, and light, you should favor...
Yogic Practices to Feel Balanced Heading Into Autumn
Vata season is associated with autumn. Just as we see the wind blowing the colored leaves down to earth, the qualities of air and ether become dominant in our constitution. Leading up to the vata season, now is a perfect time to start changing routines and modifying yoga sequences.Days are getting shorter, sometimes we feel a crispness in the air,...
Grounding Yoga Practices for Vata Season
As the brisk air of autumn arrives, we are reminded that vata season is approaching. The cycles of nature move in different forms and at different times depending on where you are located. Vata season is present during the time of year that most embodies the qualities of the vata dosha: dry, airy, light, cold, changeable, and mobile.When these qualities...
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...