Summertime Ayurvedic Rituals for Health and Happiness [VLOG #127]

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Hey Beauties,

Welcome back for our vlog this week, where our topic is Summertime Ayurvedic Rituals for Health and Happiness. I love Ayurveda personally and incorporate some of it into my philosophy. I’ve been studying it for some years now.

What I love about it is that so much of it is about self-care and seasonality. I think this is really important that just like nature goes through cycles and seasons we also do the same and make adjustments in our self-care routine.

What Ayurveda Can Teach Us

This is so that we really feel our best in our highest energy, we’re supporting our wellbeing and we’re supporting our beauty as the year goes on. In Summertime, Ayurveda says, “This is the season of pitta,” which is the fire and the heat. The sun is burning the brightest. There’s the most heat externally and built up internally inside of our bodies.

Cornerstone #1: FOOD

Taking it from our four cornerstone approach, from a food perspective, Ayurveda will say, “This is very much the season for cooling foods, raw foods, greens, which are very yin, which you may be more drawn to naturally.”

Cucumbers, celery, kale and tender greens. Adding all this into your Glowing Green Smoothie® and having very fresh meals. I love cucumber salad in the Summer. Sometimes just cucumber and avocado is really satisfying.

Herbs and spices also rotate seasonally in Ayurvedic practice. The best cooling spices to use right now are fennel, mint, cilantro, coriander, and cumin. Cumin, in particular, is also great for digestion and helping to abate bloating.

We can feel light and great, especially as we go into Summertime and we tend to be wearing less clothes, and we want to feel like we’re outside more and we have more energy. So I particularly recommend cumin.

Cornerstone #2: BODY

Our second cornerstone is body. Ayurveda will say there is so much heat already that can aggravate us that this is not the season for heated yoga. Whether or not your studio’s open right now, very active practices with a lot of heat already in them is not suggested.

This is a great time to do more yin restorative yoga. It’s also a great time to go on long walks, particularly, Ayurveda will say, after you eat. Even if you go on a 10 or 15 minute walk after you eat, it said to help promote digestion and circulation, which is a wonderful practice.

We also want to focus on Abhyanga, some self massage, which can feel very nourishing, especially as the pitta season means we can more easily get aggravated.

This is the season to use cooling oils on your skin like coconut oil versus sesame oil. This is an oil we would want to use in the Winter because it’s a more warming oil. You can try getting a verbalized oil somewhere online that is said to pacify pitta.

Cornerstone #3: EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING and MENTAL HEALTH

Our third cornerstone is emotional wellbeing. So much aggravation and heat can build in the body, which can affect our mind, which is interconnected.

This is a great time to journal, to slow down, to process, to find a friend or two. In addition, to connect more with your feelings or what you’re going through. Just to have that space to de-stress and to let yourself feel and to let go.

Cornerstone #4: SPIRITUAL GROWTH

Spiritually, is our fourth cornerstone. This is about connecting to our inner essence. It’s a very important season for deep breathing and being more than doing.

Because it’s already hot, the less we run around and the more we just enjoy a space of more meditation, more breathing, being outside perhaps to meditate could feel really nice. Dusk and dawn are times you could sit outside in the grass and earth and ground at the same time.

Yoga is the sister science to Ayurveda. There is some intertwinement about the spiritual part of Ayurveda. It’s  about the self-care of the mind and how it has a profound impact on physical health. This is something that I’ve always really loved and definitely we incorporate here into our cornerstones.

In Closing

I hope that you enjoyed learning about some of these Ayurvedic tips. Please search around, we have a lot more information on Ayurveda as well as podcasts with my Ayurvedic teacher, Dr. Jay.

Thank you so much for tuning in. Sending you a huge, huge virtual hug. Lots of love. And we will see back here next week.