This Winter Insulate Yourself With Ayurveda

How many of you suffer from stiff joints in the winter season?? Or do you have trouble with the flu during winters?

A snowflake is a winter’s butterfly in the most beautiful way.Winters are the perfect antidotes from the fast pacing summers. It is the time when nature is seen in a slow slumber. It’s that time of the year when you can see granny trees in a thin canny white layer, children playing with drops and sometimes heaps of snow and people huddling around a fireplace. The land is an array of speckled white, while the air smells of thin chocolate.

This particular stillness is characteristic to the winters, and with it comes the indistinct invitation to divert your energies. It is the time to pause, view, hibernate, focus and throw back your outlay focused energies and to avert it inwards, on to developing your inner self.

Every season has the power to either bolster or encumber your wellbeing. As each season escorts within an individual unique qualities that can either escalate or diminish the inner working of your biogenesis. While some people cherish the summer heat, it’s a disaster for others. In the same manner, winter might mean contentment and pleasure for some while others might completely stay away.

At the same time just as winters bring that dormancy in your life, it’s the time when most of us are affected with stiffness in our joints, general lethargy, feeling of heaviness and finally that filled up feeling at the end of winters. It’s ok, it’s totally normal and just physiological.

But should we really bear through this?, isn’t there anything to tackle this situation?

Ayurveda And Shishira Ritu

According to Ayurveda, the winters are divided into two spans based on their intensity of cold. The first half is called Hemanta , with comparatively milder chill while the later half, with a bounty of chill is called Sisira

Doshic Status of The Body

As we all know winters are more or less lethargic in nature. Due to this very feeling, it tends to escalate the dosha in the body that has this same lethargy; the Kapha . Winters are generally believed to be kapha season. When it is stabilized it brings strength to the body, while on its countermand, it causes all the winter blues, in the form of cold, flu, muscle stiffness, etc.

Some authors also have the opinion that Vata dosha is also at the verge of rising, due to increased coldness and dryness in the atmosphere.

Ayurveda manages physiological seasonal hitches with Ritucharya , a set of dietary adaptations and lifestyle modifications needed to be made in each of the seasons to effectively equip the body to overcome these hurdles

Dietary Regulations

Many people have a misconception that winters offer low immunity due to weak digestive fire, while that is totally not the case. During the winters, as the atmospheric temperature drops, the body redirects its entire energy inwards to keep its core warm. In this process the Agni or digestive fire gets a surge. Moreover the body requires more fuel to stay warm in the cold.

It is advised to focus on consuming heavy, warm, well spiced and fat rich diets, which are predominant in sweet, sour and salty flavours. Rich staples like rice, tapioca, wheat and corn meal may be included with hearty heating vegetables like radish and onions, well spiced with heating spices like garlic, pepper, mustard, ginger, etc.

Ayurvedic classics emphasise on the usage of meat soup topped with ghee, beverages made with molasses and rice flour, pastries prepared with wheat and finally milk and milk products for daily intake in the winters. Hot beverages like ginger or cinnamon infused tea may also be used frequently. Snacking on dry nuts like almonds, cashews, walnuts etc., can provide you with the needed essential oils.

It’s best to avoid chilled beverages and cold food as it can have drastic effects on your immunity. It is also important to reduce the intake of commercially processed foods, and even those that are canned, preserved and frozen.

Lifestyle Modifications

You will want to cultivate a light heart and sharp sense of purpose this winter in order to counter this cold, grey weather of loneliness.

For this; To help yourself from not getting hypothermic, it is advised to undergo Abhyanga or oil massage preferably with sesame oil, Murdha taila or the application of oil on head and Vimardhana something as simple as dry body massage with palms; all after attending your primary requisites. All these techniques help to keep the Kapha at check and swerve the body heat inwards.

Always keep yourself warm but avoid judicious sunbathing and sudation. Keep yourself involved by engaging in light winter sports activities. Winters are also the right time to get involved in sexual activities till containment. Regular fumigations of rooms are also advised to get rid of that damp feeling. Practicing Yoga is a great way to calm your mind and tone your body simultaneously, you may focus on heat building postures of the same.

With all the ingoing commotion is also essential to rest. Getting the ample rest that your body needs is equally important to maintain the balance of your doshic status.

Unlike the other seasons, winter months will help you to push that extra mile to reach your goal, but remind yourself to not push beyond your limits.

How To Optimise Vata Alongside

Keeping the vata humour at check is necessary to maintain your immunity in the winters. This can be achieved by consuming warm to hot foods that are spicy. You can include diet friendly fats across multiple preparations, as dressings or toppings or even a dip. Keep yourself well protected from the cold winds. Heed the need to moisturize your skin with daily doses of oil massages. Maintain a strict schedule for timely meals without skipping any. Account for a heavy breakfast and lunch and comparatively lighter dinner plan.

Lets insulate your wellbeing with Ayurveda this winter. Winter is critically a restorative time, so replenish your lost stores of energy and embrace the infinite possibilities that Ayurveda offers. One of the surest ways to keep your mind and body healthy is by sustaining a proper daily routine. The diet and lifestyle modifications may seem different for different individuals, but it’s all about aligning yourself with the energy outside. Adopting a personalised seasonal routine, in the rhymes of this holistic science is the best gift you can give yourself. In this season adopt these ayurvedic adaptations from a qualified ayurvedic physician to fully receive the offspring offered by the winters.