Spring It On

This Ayurvedic prescription for springtime health will help you leap from winter to spring with grace and ease.

By Scott Blossom

Springtime is magical, dynamic, and even sexy. As nature moves out of the cold, wet, dark winter toward spring, the pulse of life quickens, the earth warms, and blossoms unfurl, reaching for the sun. Nature makes it look smooth, but for us humans it's not as easy to transition gracefully from one season to the next—especially from winter to spring. More often we find ourselves feeling heavy and sluggish, like a cranky bear reluctantly coming out of hibernation.

Ayurveda, yoga's sister science and the world's oldest surviving system of healing, shows us that the key to feeling in step with the seasons is to harmonize with nature, to follow her lead and dance to her rhythm. The rishis (the ancient mystical "seers" who founded the yoga tradition) created rituals and festivals to honor each season and to remind us of our connection to the natural world.

The great yoga master T. Krishnamacharya adjusted his approach to practicing and teaching yoga to correspond with the time of year. You may not have a spring festival or an Indian yoga master to guide you, but by weaving some simple Ayurvedic principles into your life, you can weather this seasonal transition smoothly and emerge feeling transformed and ready to get your springtime groove on.

Shed Your Winter Coat

To enjoy a healthy spring, you need to understand the kapha (pronounced CUP-pa) dosha and bring it into balance. Of the three doshas—vata, pitta, and kapha— it's kapha that endows your body with its earthy-watery qualities. It provides lubrication for joints, as well as mucus to protect the sensitive tissues of the sinuses, lungs, and stomach; it also determines the size, strength, and suppleness of your muscles. (For basic information about the doshas, read "Intro to Ayurveda,".)

When kapha is in balance, you feel strong, composed, and stable. When it's out of balance, you might feel sleepy, mentally dull, or depressed. You may also experience excess phlegm in the lungs or sinuses, nausea, unhealthy weight gain, water retention, or heaviness in your limbs.

It's especially important to balance kapha in the spring, because kapha accumulates during winter and can create diseases by the time spring arrives. As the world becomes colder and wetter in winter, your body mirrors these kapha-like changes. You tend to eat, sleep, and stay inside more during winter, which can result in a "winter coat" of insulation. In spring, you need to shed this excess kapha or risk becoming vulnerable to seasonal allergies or head colds. You might also gain or retain weight or succumb to a general lethargy or emotional dullness.

Your Ayurvedic prescription for spring is to develop a rhythm and routine that helps you gradually lighten up physically, mentally, and emotionally without disturbing the stable virtues of kapha.

The best approach is multidimensional and includes eating lighter foods, adding certain herbs to your diet (see "Herb Help,"), and practicing asana, pranayama (breathing techniques), meditation, and some form of devotional rituals.

This may seem to be rather overwhelming at first, but you can begin to integrate change anywhere you're most comfortable—maybe you will choose to begin with your hatha practice or with your diet. Whatever changes you decide to make, even if they're small, commit to sticking with them. Successful transformation rarely happens with a quick fix or a brief burst of dedication, especially when you're dealing with the kapha dosha. Because of its earthy-watery nature, it's very dense and heavy, and it can stick like mud.

Make Space

Ease the transition to spring by creating sukha, which means "good space" or a general state of health and happiness. You can do this by eating wholesome food and practicing asana and pranayama. Creating sukha is especially important when you're trying to wring out excess kapha, because it enables prana (vital energy) to move freely through your body. Like wind moving clouds through the sky, prana propels kapha, so that fluids and phlegm move easily through the body. If you don't create sukha, the flow of prana is restricted and contributes to dukha (bad space), sukha's evil twin. Dukha represents misery of any kind and restricts or confuses the flow of kapha.

To increase sukha and prana in your practice, add squats, which free up "good space" in the densest part of the body: the pelvis and legs. The pelvis and legs represent the earthy-watery part of the body and are prone to retaining fat and water.

Poses like Utkatasana (Chair Pose), Malasana (Garland Pose), and their lesser-known cousins Simhasana (Lion Pose) and Khanjanasana (Tail-Wagging Pose) create heat, improve joint mobility, aid digestion and elimination, and increase circulation. Of course, these poses are also physically challenging. You might feel your legs quiver, as if someone were pouring cement instead of prana into them. During these intense moments, remember to preserve sukha. Don't overcontract your muscles or compromise your breath by transferring tension into your chest, shoulders, or neck—or you'll risk creating even more kapha, which the body produces as an antidote to excessive muscular and nervous tension.

Breathe Easy

Once you've created good space in the lower half of your body, you are ready to increase sukha in the upper half. The stomach, chest, throat, and head are the energetic seat of kapha, because all of these areas produce and tend to accumulate mucus. Practicing deep, rhythmic Ujjayi Pranayama (Victorious Breath) in Virabhadrasana I (Warrior I Pose), Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutation), Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose), and seated twists helps circulate kapha by alternately compressing the abdomen and expanding the chest.

Similarly, inverted forward bends such as Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog Pose), standing forward bends, and Halasana (Plow Pose) all strengthen the diaphragm and encourage excess mucus to be excreted through the mouth and nose. Kapalabhati

While the best way to circulate prana in your legs is by engaging them willfully, the best way to circulate prana in the internal organs is to engage in conscious relaxation. Try to combine the complementary actions of willful effort with relaxation in each breath. As you inhale, guide awareness into your pelvis and legs, refining the qualities of muscle tone, circulation, and stability. As you exhale, hold your lower body steady and imagine a wave of relaxation moving up along your spine. As you do this, pay special attention to your upper back, heart, throat, lungs, and brain.

Turn Up the Heat

According to the principles of Ayurveda, a healthy digestive agni, or "fire," is key for health. Agni gives us the physical power of digestion as well as the energy to digest our sensory impressions, thoughts, and feelings. A strong agni is thought to arm you with the discrimination and courage to separate what is essential from nonessential, healthy from toxic, wise from foolish.

Page 1 2

See All Ayurveda Articles »