It's VATA SEASON!! 7 Tips for Staying Healthy this Fall

Welcome to vata season. It's officially fall here in the Northern Hemisphere and we are starting to feel the shift. And according to Ayurveda, this time is governed by vata, which is made up of the elements of air and space. And there are some amazing superpowers that come with vata, but there are also some challenges. So we are going to dive into how to balance vata and mitigate some of those challenges so So you can thrive in mind, body, and spirit throughout this fall season. If you haven't subscribed to my channel yet, hit the subscribe button and the bell to be notified every time I post a new video about creating a happier, healthier mind, body, and life. For the past 4 years, I've been helping people implement the habits of Ayurveda in order to feel amazing in their bodies, confident in themselves, and more joyful in their everyday lives. Living seasonally is a huge part of this, and my clients find that when they shift their habits, their behaviors, their foods, and their schedules throughout the different seasons, their lives start to get a lot better. So let's dive into it. Like I said, fall is vata season. If you're not sure what vata is, or if you're new to Ayurveda, make sure you check out my Ayurveda Explained video, and you can also check out my dosha quiz video as well. But even if you don't know about vata dosha, I invite you to just think of some of the qualities of air and space. They're light, dry, mobile, cold, and if you think about the environment as we come into this season of fall, you can start to see how those qualities come up. So the air obviously starts to get drier and colder, the wind blows much more, which is that mobile quality, the leaves dry out on the trees and become lighter, and then you can also see how this shows up in our bodies as well. You might have started to feel it in your digestion. What happens is your gut starts to dry out, which can result in constipation, especially if we have some of that dryness in the colon specifically. And then we can start to feel like air actually gets trapped in our digestive tract as well, and that results in the gas and the bloating and sometimes also contributes to the constipation as well. And then we might also experience those dry, cold qualities in our skin and our sinuses. So our skin might feel more dry, maybe just a little bit more like gray or a little less dewy than it did in the summer. And we also might just feel colder more often, especially in our hands and feet due to poorer circulation. And then also our sinuses might actually start to feel like they're maybe getting clogged up. So sometimes what happens with our sinuses is that as the air gets more dry and cold or the wind starts blowing, our nose starts to drip and get a little stuffy. This is our body trying to protect us from damage to our mucous membranes by creating extra mucus, right? That cold wind can actually be pretty damaging. And so this is really awesome and it's really adaptive, but we can also support our sinuses so that they don't have to work so hard and so that we can feel a little bit more comfortable and less stuffy. stuffy. And we're going to talk more about how to do that later in this video. Another common thing I see for people this time of year is more in the mind. So this is the anxiety and nervousness, spacey forgetfulness, sort of just like the sense that you're moving a million miles a minute. And this, of course, creates obviously some more stress and overwhelm in the mind, but it also creates some consequences in the body. And one of those consequences is Sleep quality. So many people experience more insomnia this time of year. They either can't fall asleep at night or, you know, even more commonly, they might wake up during the vata time of night, which happens to be between 2 and 6 AM when vata in the nervous system starts to lighten our sleep. And you, you maybe wake up feeling really restless and worrying about how you then can't fall back asleep. So what can we do this time of year to start to balance out these vata symptoms and get to a place where we can harness the superpowers of this time while also mitigating the pitfalls? And there are superpowers this time of year because vata has the qualities of light, dry, mobile, and cold, which we talked about. And because of that, there are some inherently amazing things that we can start to experience this time of year. We might feel Start to feel a little bit lighter, a little bit less stagnant. We might feel more creative. We might feel like we have more space and the ability to feel more deeply when we're listening to music or when we're engaging in some sort of art form. We might feel like it's easier to connect to our spirituality this time of year as well. We might even feel more of a spontaneity and an enthusiasm for life this time of year. And Usually these things are a lot more accessible to us if we have a handle on the other symptoms, right? Because it's really hard to feel expansive and enthusiastic and creative when we're dealing with bloating and constipation, am I right? If you're resonating with these vata symptoms this time of year and you're excited to start balancing them, hit the like button below. So here are my top 7 tips for balancing vata this time of year so that you can harness the superpowers of autoseason while balancing out the parts that maybe don't feel so great. Number 1, sip warm water throughout the day. This seems so basic and you might be like, what? Do you mean tea? Do you mean like hot lemon water? Nope, I'm just talking about warm water. So instead of drinking cold water, it doesn't need to be like tea water hot. It can be more like 130 to 150 degrees Fahrenheit. But sipping warm water throughout the day in the fall helps your digestive system stay lubricated and keep moving, which helps with that dreaded constipation and even also the gas and bloating, which is that air that gets trapped in your gut. So it also helps your body to gently detoxify anything that's kind of gunking up the works and contributing to those symptoms. So you can kind of think of it like a dirty casserole pan that has like dry, crusty food left on it. You're not going to try to start scrubbing That pan without you first soaking it in some water, some warm water. And when you soak it, the gunk kind of comes loose from the sides of the pan. And for the most part, you don't really have to do that much to wipe it off. So this is kind of like that. So the warm water softens the gut's tissues and helps the gunk kind of come off the walls. And of course, the other thing that warm water does is to help keep you warm. So it's helpful for the cold temperatures and also the circulation issues that you might have this time of year. So you can warm up from the inside out. inside as well as the outside. And you want to make sure that you're just drinking that warm water throughout the day in place of drinking like ice water. Number 2, eat warm cooked food. Contrary to popular belief, salads are not actually your healthiest option this time of year. In the fall, it's harder for our bodies to digest raw foods because those raw foods are cold and dry and light, all of the things that we've maybe got a little bit too much going on this time of year anyway. Raw foods might make you feel more bloated, have more gas, get more constipated, even if they made you feel really good during the summer. And I feel that. I love eating raw foods in the summer. So instead, we want to stick with warm, oily, unctuous meals. And if you really love your salads, you can totally get creative here. You can actually make cooked salads where you just lightly steam the veggies in them, and then you add some warm dressing or sauce or something like that. So I'm the kind of person who needs her greens, So I just steam them and then I create whatever bowl or steamed salad sounds really good to me. Number 3, eat at regular mealtimes. So for those of you out there who have a lot of vata in your constitution in general, you might not really like this one. You might be like, I like to be spontaneous and I like to do things whenever I feel like it. And honestly, that's great. Do that if you don't have digestive issues from it. But if you do, it might be because you're eating at random times of the day, popping things in your mouth here and there and never really giving your body time to create the digestive juices that it needs in order to actually digest and assimilate the nutrients from the foods that you're eating. So Ayurveda is very clear that our bodies have a much easier time digesting when it knows what to do, so it knows what time to expect a meal, and then also when we give it the space space to actually digest that food that we put in it before adding more food on top of it, which can actually create digestive funkiness. So this is honestly a life-changing tip. You might have been focusing on what specific foods to be eating when it comes to digestion and the gas and bloating and constipation or reflux that happens when we don't digest well, but you might not be focusing on the when and the how to eat, which Ayurveda says is Equally as important. Number 4 is along those same lines. Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day. Are you starting to see a pattern? Vata is the dosha that needs the most structure in order for us to feel really, really good. So during vata season is the most important time for us to get into a routine with our habits. In the summer, we might have been able to get away with staying up late, eating whenever, You know, sleeping in, maybe going to bed a little earlier some nights, going to parties, having bonfires, whatever. You might not have had many digestive consequences from it during the summer when we have more sunlight, more heat, more leeway. But Ayurveda is all about the circadian rhythm. So as humans, we evolved to be diurnal, meaning that we sleep at night and we are awake during the day. So in ancient times, when the sun was down, there wasn't that much time between sundown and when we went to bed. So the more we can actually come back to that and at least make the time consistent, you know, it might not be a specific time you're going to bed each night, but the more we can keep it consistent, the better. And this is also backed up by sleep science, modern sleep science. We're gonna have a much easier time getting to sleep and staying asleep if we go to sleep at the same time each night. So our bodies just do really well on a rhythm. So this is going to be really helpful if you're starting to experience some of that insomnia this time of year, getting to bed the same time each night. And speaking of insomnia, another reason you might be experiencing it is because of the light mobile quality of vata going on in the mind. So your mind might be racing a million miles a minute and you might feel like you're completely ungrounded. So tip number 5 is doing some sort of grounding nervous system regulation practices at some point in your day. You know, right before bed would be great, but anytime during your day. So the best way to do this is to use your body. So right now meditation is very popular, but unfortunately the types of meditation that are really popular right now focus on trying to kind of like empty the mind and sort of transcend the mind, right? So transcendental meditation is really, truly amazing. I do love it, but it's not necessarily going to regulate your nervous system. It's actually traditionally a pretty advanced practice in ancient Vedic traditions. So we first need to regulate our nervous systems. Then we start to have the capacity to go up into the ethers and transcend the mind. So if we do that first, we can actually we can actually start to aggravate the vata dosha if we try to like go up into the ethers, which is the vata dosha is made of air and space. So too much space in the mind can actually make us like space cadets, right? So bring your awareness into your body with a body scan or a practice that allows you to orient your body in space. So like I'm here and the wall is here, or, you know, you can even practice where you just lie on the ground and feel all the parts of your body. Touching the ground. This is going to bring you to nervous system regulation a lot faster than trying to empty your mind. So use your body because it's there for you. Number 6 is also incredibly helpful for regulating your nervous system, and this is called Abhyanga or self-oil massage. So Ayurveda is super into this practice and it's because it's so amazing for So many different systems of the body. So it's really great for regulating the nervous system because the feeling of oil on the skin, as well as your hands actually like touching and rubbing your whole body, helps you to feel fully here and fully grounded in your body. So if you've ever had a massage, you know what I'm talking about. And then it's also really helpful for that dryness that happens this time of year. Obviously it moisturizes the skin. skin, if you're putting oil on your skin, but it also lubricates the joints and it also helps to detoxify the lymphatic system. And it can help improve circulation if you're struggling with the cold hands and feet that come up this time of year as well. So different Abhyanga oils are helpful for different people depending on your constitution. You can find some different Abhyanga oils at Banyan Botanicals and you can use my code Hadlee For a discount, that'll be in the description as well. And speaking of moisturization and hydration of the body, let's talk about the drynesses in our sinuses. I don't know about you guys, but my sinuses get so dry this time of year, especially once we turn the heat on, which can dry out the air even more. So tip number seven is sort of a two-in-one tip. The first is to please invest in a good humidifier, and the second is to use nasi oil, which is. Oil for the nose and the sinuses. So it comes in a dropper bottle. And again, that's another one that you can buy from Banyan and you can use my code for a discount. It's just Hadlee. Though you could also make your own if you have just a dropper bottle at home and you can just use untoasted, unrefined sesame oil. And then what you do is you tip your head back and you squeeze the dropper into your nose. So I do about a half dropper full in each nostril and then you sort of snort it. Yes, you actually snort it. It's kind of funny when I go to the bathroom to use my Nausea and come out still like sniffing it up into my nose. My husband kind of always gives me a funny look. So what this does is it lubricates the sinuses. So are you sensing a theme here? Many of these tips are about moisturizing, hydrating, and lubricating the channels of our bodies. Protecting them from the elements this time of year. And also, I want to say that one word of caution when it comes to a humidifier, please make sure that you are actually washing it. You don't want any mold to get in there because that can wreak havoc on the body too. I use the Canopy humidifier and it's really nice because it actually combats mold growth. It's the only one that I've been able to find that does that. There's a link in the description for a discount with that humidifier as well. But you can totally just use a normal humidifier. You just want to make sure that you're cleaning it super regularly so that it doesn't get any mold in it. If this resonated with you and you want to implement the health habits, behaviors, and food choices that make you feel amazing in your body based on your unique needs as well as the needs of the season that you're in, check out my signature Happy Healthy Habits coaching program in the link below. I would love to see you inside. And if you're new to Ayurveda and want to learn more about each of the doshas, including the Vata dosha, check out this video next. And if you want more on creating a happier, healthier you, make sure you subscribe and hit the bell to be notified the next time I post another video. See you in the next one.