Seasonal Topics

Practically synonymous with “New Year’s” is the term “resolutions.” As health conscious individuals, our resolutions are typically regarding our well-being. Even with the best of intentions, we often do not follow through with our resolutions. This is often because we try and do everything at once. Instead, here is a step by step guide for the new year. 

The new year beckons the new, along with renewal, dreams, transformation, and the accompanying resolutions for the changes we seek. This year let’s avoid reaching for the lose weight, exercise more, wake up earlier, drive ourselves harder tools. Instead, let’s dive deep into our hearts and minds, into our joys and sorrows, and take the time to list our greatest challenges and most pressing goals.

’Tis the season—the season for joy, celebration, family, friends, lights, gifts, and yes—challenges to our health. While the holiday season is rich in activities, the hustle and bustle can leave the immune system compromised. Here are six immune-boosting tips to help you stay happy and healthy this season!

Looking for relaxation gifts? These suggestions are meant to offer support to anyone who is stressed, overworked, or just plain exhausted. 

Ayurvedic gifts that come from the heart can make a big impact on the people you love this holiday season. Whether you’re looking for Hanukah, Solstice, Kwanzaa, or Christmas presents, or gift ideas for another day of joyous celebration, show your loved ones just how much you value their wellness, happiness, and success with Ayurvedic herbal gifts and tools for health.

The change in seasons has an especially strong impact on us, making it easier for imbalance to take root. As fall naturally stirs up vata, it is a perfect time for many of us to do a vata-soothing cleanse.  

Inevitably, the change of season and return to school brings some challenges. The inertia of summer is replaced by a need to shift into a higher gear. Fortunately, Ayurveda gives us a practical framework, and Banyan Botanicals gives us some amazing herbal products to ease us into the schoolyear.

Whether consuming a bitter food, culinary spice, or medicinal herb, one of the primary actions we’re invoking with this taste is detoxification. Bitters are categorically alterative herbs which means they purify and bring chemical balance to the blood. This makes them especially useful for supporting the body’s natural defenses, no matter what the challenge may be. And as our main organ of detoxification is the liver, the bitter taste also encourages its function and an enhanced flow of bile. This helps keep our body’s own method for self-cleaning intact.

According to Ayurveda, the sinus cavity is the gateway to the brain, mind, and consciousness. To address imbalances related to memory, the emotions, thoughts, and imbalances above the clavicle bone, treatments like nasya are often administered. Nasya, the practice of lubricating the nasal cavities and sinuses by gently placing a few drops of herbal and non-herbal oil into each nostril, can be self-administered or given by an Ayurvedic practitioner. It can aid with mental and emotional stress, as well as tension in the head, throat, neck, jaw, and shoulders.

Remaining true to yourself during this time of year doesn’t mean that you have to turn down the invitations and spend the holiday season in the company of your kitchari pot. But spending time with loved ones shouldn’t require you to put your Ayurveda practice on a shelf. 

Everyone’s family is different. Some families go on meditation retreats together, do yoga as a unit, and undertake simultaneous cleanses. But for the rest of us, who discovered Ayurveda long after leaving the nest, an Ayurvedic lifestyle can be tricky to discuss with our Western families who don’t know the difference between kitchari and curry!

We all know that one particular day every year when we step outside in the morning and the air smells different. It's not just a change of smell we notice. It's the feel of the air as it strikes our noses, our faces, and we just know that the seasons are changing.

Ayurveda uses the gunas to help us understand and remember each thing we encounter in the material world. These gunas are qualities and attributes which we perceive through our five senses, including the way we experience nature and our bodies.

As we shift into the autumn season and vata’s hurried tendency starts to creep in, it’s time to intentionally slow things down. By reflecting on the last few months and honoring yourself with some self-care, you will set a positive trajectory for moving into the next season.

The juncture between seasons is a tenuous time for our health. The body struggles with the irregularity and often abrupt changes in the weather and needs some extra TLC. As the heat of pitta's summer season gives way to the cold, dry, windy nature of vata's autumn season, there are a few easy, important things we can do to stay healthy.

Choosing summer foods that are appropriate for your unique physiology is an important part of maintaining your health throughout the summer. In Ayurveda, summer is associated with hot, light, and dry qualities, and there is an obvious influence from pitta dosha. Summer is the time to favor foods that are sweet, cool, fresh, and hydrating.

If there ever is a time during the year when we have a chance to be reborn, kapha season is it. Our body is tuned right into Nature’s renewal. It wants to shed excess fat and mucus. Things start to run (think noses!) just like the thawing snow. Everything seems wet in our internal and external worlds. And it’s not just our body that wants a fresh start. If we pay attention to the subtle shift in spring, we’ll likely recognize a desire to clean house. Figuratively and literally.

According to Ayurveda, the diet should change seasonally first and then be adjusted according to one’s unique body type. A seasonal diet changes the microbiome, which is responsible for gut immunity, balanced blood sugar, and healthy mood and cognitive function.

Ayurveda suggests we do a seasonal cleanse every spring. I call mine, The BIG Spring Cleanse as it is not just to reset my digestion and to clean out the lymph system—springtime cleansing works on all the layers of the body/mind.

Committed to tackling daylight saving time before the clock strikes midnight? Here are seven steps to set your body’s clock forward and get back in rhythm following simple Ayurvedic principles.

In the winter, it is natural to feel the longing to withdraw and retreat, become quiet and still. It’s the perfect time to meditate upon the death of what is no longer serving us on our soul’s journey and to lovingly release it, to make space. Honoring the natural inward rhythm of the season without getting sucked down a black hole of melancholy and despair is the dance. Here are a few ways I’ve discovered to make the dance smoother and more graceful this season.

Are you tired from the frenetic energy that often surrounds us during the holidays? Let the holidays be a joyful time by incorporating daily oleation, touch therapy, meditation, yoga, and deep breathing.  All of these powerful tools will help restore balance.

Long before I knew anything about Ayurveda and vata dosha, I sensed the palpable anxiety that would arise in me towards the end of October/early November, knowing that the holidays were fast approaching. I wish I knew then what I know now. Here’s what I’ve learned.

With fall, the dry, cold, and mobile qualities associated with vata come stumbling forward. Ayurveda is a system that is both preventative as well as curative. By utilizing ancient Ayurvedic principles, we can prepare for an all around healthier season.