Autumn is upon us and with it cooler, damper weather and strong winds that can leave you feeling cold and unbalanced. According to Ayurveda, Autumn is the season of Vata, which has the properties of being cold, light, rough, mobile and unstable. It's important during this season to counteract the effects of this dosha, and to remain healthy, grounded and connected. In this post, we wanted to offer some advice to help you feel warm, grounded and happy during this Autumn season, and to help you transition into the winter months with vitality and joy.
Food & Diet
We'll begin with food, as it has such an effect on the body. It is really helpful during the Autumn season to eat warming, grounding foods. Warming and hearty soups, squash or pumpkin curries, and a focus on spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves, can really help you to feel warm and stable. Make sure foods are well cooked, and generally avoid cold, dry, and uncooked foods. It's certainly not the season for salads and raw food.
We recommend drinking Golden Milk, which is turmeric and a little pepper in hot milk. Turmeric milk has many benefits, including being warming, healing and grounding. Also drink warming herbal teas - ginger tea is a good choice as it warms the body and stimulates digestion.
if you’d like to learn an Ayurvedic pumpkin curry recipe, we can offer a cooking workshop for this recipe. Please contact us if you are interested.
Your Body
Keep your feet warm. This sounds like a simple thing, but keeping the feet warm has an amazing effect on the whole body. This also includes the ankles, by the way, which should be kept covered. Wear multiple pairs of socks if necessary and some warm slippers while in the house. Warm feet really enables energy to circulate up through the body, and helps you to stay warm and snug. Warm feet are also essential for the winter season, so really keep those feet super toasty. Also, wear soft warming fabrics, and, once again, multiple layers are very helpful here. When outside wear a light scarf, as the neck area is very sensitive to vata.
Hot baths can help you to cleanse and detox the body, as well as helping you feel grounded and relaxed.
Abhyanga self-massage is also incredibly useful during this season; use warming oils such as raw sesame or almond to nurture the body and pacify vata. You can join us for our self-massage class on Fridays to help you learn how to ground and nurture your body using your own hands.
We also recommend energy work to improve both circulation and alignment. We have upcoming workshops which you can find on our Events Page, or you can book a private session to really improve your practice.
Meditation
We always recommend meditation and self inquiry at Pingala, as this is essential to calm the mind and nourish the spirit, allowing you to connect with your true nature, and not get swept along by the noisy mind.
A simple meditation technique we recommend, is just to take a few minutes whenever you can. Take this time to focus on your breathing. Just let go of any ideas or concepts about yourself or the world. Let go of all thoughts about the past and future, and just remain empty. Settle deeply into the present moment. At first you might notice that the mind is jumping around trying to get your attention. Let it do so, and just stay as the observer. Notice the thoughts, but bring your attention back into your heart centre. Focus on the feeling of being here, now. This is where your true self resides - not in your mind. As you take time, everyday, it will become easier not to identify with the mind, and instead reside in your own heart, which is your true home. Over time, this practice will help you to feel more peace, security and love, and will give you access to great wisdom. It is the simplest, truest form of self-enquiry, and I recommend you practice whenever you can.
Yoga
Yoga postures can also be very helpful for grounding during the Autumn season. Some useful postures at this time involve stretching the calves and opening the hips.
We have an Autumn Youtube class below which can help you to feel grounded, and more calm. We hope you enjoy it.
Of course we would love you to Join us for an online Yoga class. Please make a booking through the booking page. Our classes are fully focused on helping you to feel connected, energised and grounded at this time.
We really hope there’s some good advice here that you can use to help you transition through this season. Please stay warm, grounded and happy, and feel free to contact us anytime. We look forward to seeing you in class.
Namaste