Ten Things that Affect your Health

1.    Like increases like.
A dosha is increased by things with qualities similar to it. Vata is light, dry, cold, and mobile. That means that dry foods, dry fruit, cold, windy weather, running, being in a rush, and working out too hard are factors that aggravate Vata. Hot spicy, sour, or fermented food, and hot weather provokes excess Pitta, which is hot, oily, and intense. Kapha is heavy, cold, and oily and can be increased by cold dump weather, dairy products, and a sedentary lifestyle. The key to healing is: “opposite decreases imbalance”. (See Food list for Vata,Pitta,and Kapha)

2.    Food and diet.
Eating the right food for your Prakruti (inborn constitution) will maintain your health, while eating the wrong kinds of food creates imbalance in the doshas, the first step in disease development (See Prakruti; Why we get sick; Six tastes; Ayurvedic food combinations;  Fast food and Ayurveda;Proper digestion through orderly eating; Ritucharya-seasonal routine; and Dinacharya-daily routine).

3.    Seasons.
Each season has its own dosha, which tend to aggravate this dosha in everyone and is most challenging to an individual with the same prakruti (See Prakruti; and Seasons and the doshas).

4.    Exercise.
Exercise can profoundly influence your health for better or worse. Insufficient exercise or overexertion can lead to ill health (See Yoga asanas for your Dosha).

5.    Age.
Our age and stage of life we are at is to be considered in the choices we make to remain healthy (See The four stages of life; The seven charas and seven stages of life).

6.    Mental and emotional factors.
Negative emotions disturb our doshic balance; likewise, when the doshas are already out of balance, they may give rise to these same negative emotions (See Unresolved emotions; Depression; Affirmation).

7.    Stress.
Stress is a major factor in many diseases. A regular daily routine, nourishing diet and meditation are key factors in preventing stress (See Daily routine for your dosha; How to meditate; Benefits of meditation).

8.  Wrong use of the senses.
Our senses of taste, touch, smell, hearing, and sight are biochemical events for our body, which can nourish and heal or create imbalance or damage.
Ayurveda talks about proper use, overuse, underuse, and misuse of senses.
We overuse our senses while repeatedly expose our eyes to bright light, listen to very loud music, or lay in hot sun.
We underuse our senses while not making full use of our great sensory equipment. It could be not getting enough sunlight in winter, that leads to depression or practicing prolonged fasting, when we underuse our sense of taste, which aggravates Vata dosha.
We misuse our senses when using them in wrong way such as trying to read very small letters which stresses our sense of sight or eating a large quantity of cayenne pepper which is misuse of the taste organ.

9.  Disregarding the intelligence of our body.
We are all part of the Cosmic Consciousness which is within us. Not listening to our intuition and following the impulses of the moment we are looking for trouble. If a person whose constitution is mainly Vata exersices 24 hours a day he or she is disregarding his or her inborn intelligence and will have Vata imbalance soon (See: Why is it bad to work at night).

10.  Relationships.
All our relationships must be absolutely clear. When clarity is lacking, feelings are repressed, or communication is absent, stress builds up and throws our Doshas out of balance. Clarity brings understanding and compassion, which is the key to successful relationships (See All you need is love; Lack of touch).

TODAY’S  TIP: Knowing the factors that affect our health gives us a great deal of choice and control over whether they will disturb our balance or not.