Optimizing Kapha Nutrition to Combat Anxiety | Ep .94

Hello, hello! Welcome back to Holistic Inner Balance. I am Happy Healthy Hadley,

and I'm Dr. Nicole,

and we are here to continue our little mini-series on the doshas and nutrition for the doshas in order to combat the anxiety that kind of pairs with each dosha. So we've talked about vata in the mind, we've talked about pitta in the mind, and now today we are talking about kapha in the mind and how to eat in a way that actually helps us balance all of that kapha that we've got going on.

I love that. And I've actually found a huge amount of benefit with this from the one that pertained to me. So I'm more vata at this time when we're having this conversation. And we did the Vata podcast and you gave some really great suggestions that I've been taking and running with. And in fact, Hadlee, today before we had our conversation, I was like, hey, I want to eat lunch really quickly. And you're like, remember, don't eat too fast. Don't make your cough or your Vata worse.

And I appreciate it. Yes. You were like, oh, can I have 15 minutes? And I'm like, you're going to need more than 15 minutes to eat in a way that doesn't make your— make you get Air inside your digestive tract.

My patients will thank you for that.

Yes.

I love this conversation series. And so if y'all haven't heard the other episodes, definitely go back to check them out. And so today I'm really pumped that we're going to be talking about kapha. And so Hadlee, can you just introduce us in case someone's new to this channel and they're not sure what kapha means? Can you just do like a little A teeny little intro to that?

Totally. Yeah. So kapha is the elements of water and earth. So when we mix water and earth together, what do we get?

Mud.

Mud. Yes. So kapha tends to be more— especially if we're thinking about kapha in the mind, it tends to be more like we're feeling stuck, feeling stagnant. You know, as far as mental health goes, there can be some more like depressive symptoms. There can be more of that Even if we have anxiety, it can feel a little bit more like we're stuck in the anxiety. So even if we're having like anxious thoughts, it's harder to get out of those and kind of like switch to something else, if that makes sense. It's like we just keep going and going. There's— kapha is amazing because it has endurance. And so we can like keep going with focus, or we can keep going with different things. But it also means that we keep going with when we're stuck in like one of those. loops. And so that's where kind of stuckness is really the name of the game here.

Yeah. And so this comes from Ayurveda. And so this is an understanding of the health of a person, and it's originating many thousand years ago in India, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So yeah, Ayurveda is— it actually, the word Ayurveda means the science of life or the science of longevity. And so it's basically how to have a human body, which is why I love it. It's like, it's not a specific diet or like a specific, you know, thing that you have to do, but it's just showing us how to have a, how to have a human body and mind. Like, it's like really how to balance out anything that feels wonky in our bodies and in our minds, because we know that they're so interconnected. And so kapha is just one of the 3 doshas that kind of play into those imbalances that we can have. And kapha is just the one that tends to be more stuck. So when we think of that, we can start to, we can start to balance those things. And if you want to learn more about the pitta and the vata, you can go back and listen to those ones as well. Those episodes.

Such an important conversation to have because I feel like in mental health care, generally speaking, we have these broad categories. It's you're anxious or you're depressed or you're ADHD or whatever label it is. But then if you get 100 people with anxiety or 100 people with depression, each person's experience is going to be slightly different. And so it doesn't make sense that everybody would receive the same treatment. But unfortunately in the conventional medical model, the treatments are quite similar. Maybe you'll see a slight variation in medications or therapy approaches, but what I think is really profoundly important to always circle back to is that your symptoms are your body's messages of what needs healing and how. And Ayurveda is a tool to understand and decode those messages. Yeah. And so I think that's a really important reframe is that this just gives us a little bit of a strategy to do a deeper dive into how you can actually heal as a whole person. so that you feel less stuck or less depressed or less anxious.

And yeah, it's all about tailoring it to your actual individual needs. Like, it's like, there is not— and this, the like modern scientific model, there's so much good that comes from it, you know, like the, um, you know, like the actual like scientific system that we do where it's like, there's like a an N of however many people, like however much population you're kind of testing and all of that kind of thing. But it really, it goes after what's average for people. But Ayurveda actually takes it and is like, okay, just because something is like the average for most people, that doesn't mean that it's going to work for each individual person. So like, you know, on a population level, you know, that might be the case, but for each individual person, we actually need to tailor it to the doshas that are out of balance. So we need to tailor it to whatever their actual symptoms are and experiences are, and then we can kind of tailor it based on those qualities.

So if you wanna learn more about what dosha might be predominating for you, Hadlee and I actually have a brilliant quiz that Hadlee put together, and you can find it in the link in the bio of the show notes here. You can also find it on our social media. I'm Dr. Nicole Cain, and Hadlee's handle is Happy Healthy Hadlee. H-A-D-L-E-E. And so you can find the quiz in either of those places. And so I recommend bookmarking this podcast, going and taking the quiz, and then making sure that you zero in on the episode that really resonates most with your experience so that, as Hadlee said, you can tailor it. So that's a pitch for the quiz. It's free. Go check it out.

Yes, totally. And what I will say too is even if you don't get— even if you're listening to this episode and you don't get kapha as your most predominant one, you might find that you experience kapha symptoms in your mind sometimes, like springtime, late winter and early spring are more of that like kapha season. And so you might just experience more of that. Most people are just experiencing more of those kinds of things this time of year. You might feel more emotional, you might feel more just like— You might feel like you like are crying more, you might feel like you just have more emotions. And that just relates to feeling, feeling like stuck in those emotions. It's like the water and earth elements of just especially the water element of just like weepiness, you know, that kind of thing. And so if that's the case for you, then like in the springtime or in the late winter, then just know that's totally normal. It's kapha season and you can do what we're going to talk about today to kind of help balance some of those things out.

I think that's brilliant. And this episode is being recorded right here. We're entering spring. So this is like a perfect time for us be having this conversation. So exactly, Hadlee, tell us about how we can combat anxiety and get healthier with respect to understanding kapha.

Yes. So, so it's interesting because a lot of times if you were to look up like on the internet, if you were to type in like Ayurveda anxiety, you would find probably that it's like Oh, anxiety is vata like that. It's all— it's, you know, you would get the impression that it's always vata, like vata, vata, vata. And there is some element of vata in all types of anxiety. But when we're thinking— when our anxiety tends to lean a little bit more into that kapha, it has more of that stuckness, that stuck quality. And then it can also have some of the depressive qualities as well. So we can have like depressive anxiety, that kind of thing, that that's Tends to be more kapha, and so what we want to do when we get into those like more stuck feelings, more it just feels like the energy is low, if that makes sense. That then what we want to do in Ayurveda, it's all about what's the opposite quality? How do we energize that? How do we bring the energy up? How do we invigorate? How do we actually Get unstuck, right? And so, um, so we're going to talk today about the kinds of foods that we can do to get unstuck. Now, what I do want to say for this is that a lot of times, because there is still a vata component, we don't want to go so overboard with kapha that we are like not eating enough, or, um, because we want to lighten things up with kapha, but we want to make sure that we're still like eating enough, we're still sleeping enough, we're still doing the things that are going to also balance vata, or we want to do nervous system regulation, all of that kind of thing too, at the same time as we do all the things that we're going to talk about today. Does that make sense?

That totally makes sense. As you're talking, I'm, I like, I'm getting this image in my head of The NeverEnding Story. And do you remember that scene where the horse gets stuck in the swamp mud?

Oh my gosh, I love it. I don't know, I haven't seen The NeverEnding Story.

It never ends. Like, that never ends. It goes on and on forever. And so I'm imagining I'm imagining like the ultimate Kafka scene.

Yes.

Where this like horse is in a— it's like in a swamp and it's in quicksand and it's not that deep at first, but then like the scene is like 30 minutes long. I exaggerate, but it's the longest scene and the rider of the horse, the protagonist of the story, is like crying and weeping and it's just like you're stuck in the scene. The horse stuck in the mud. And the whole time you're like, can we just make this horse just take a step and move?

Right.

Why doesn't he even try pulling on the harness? What's going on? The horse is just stuck there and just gets more and more stuck and sinks over the next 6 days of you watching the scene. And so I feel like that's a perfect picture of kapha. You have this— it's long, it's swampy, it's stuck. And so You're creating this counter image. It's like the opposite of like, I'm imagining like the claw coming in and it's like grabs the horse, like, you know, in that like thing, it's like,

yeah,

plucks them out. So tell us about some claws that can pluck that horse out of the mud, create this like opposite, more invigorating experience. What can we do?

Totally. So I want to start instead of like starting with just here are the specific foods and just like listing foods, um, because, you know, you can go online and look at foods that I don't find it that helpful just because it's not very intuitive. It's not like if you were just to go and like memorize a list of foods, it's just not as helpful. So let's talk a little bit about like how to eat in a way that actually balances kapha rather than what specific foods to eat. We can go into that a little bit, but the how is just as important as the what. And so the first thing that I will say For kapha is we want to be eating. So this is so weird. Like, this might not— this is not going to be the first thing that comes to anyone's mind, but it's super helpful. So eating our biggest meal at the middle of the day rather than as our dinner is like one of the most important things that we can do for For all of the doshas, but especially for kapha. Because what happens is when we eat our big meal in the evening, or, you know, some people are like, oh, I eat a smaller meal earlier, but then they're like eating, you know, like desserts and stuff late into the evening. So like, you know, not eating late in the evening, all of that, all of that kind of thing, and eating our biggest meal in the middle of the day when our digestive fire is actually the highest. That is going to be huge for kapha because if we're eating right before bed, what happens is that food, well, it impacts our quality of sleep because our, our body is trying to like clean house. Our body is trying to kind of like detoxify all of our organs and our brain tissue and all of the things while we're sleeping. And it can't really do that if it's also trying to digest food. So it's just going to impact our sleep. But it's also going to, because it isn't going to be able to digest the food as well because it's also trying to do all the other things while we sleep. It's that food's just going to sit there. It's just going to sit in our digestive tract. And that's going to make us feel more stuck, especially when we wake up in the morning, we're going to feel foggy, we're going to feel more lethargic, all of those kinds of things. And then that's going to make it so that we— the stuckness kind of is proliferated throughout the day. So if you've ever been like, okay, I'm gonna like get my shit together tomorrow. Like, I'm going to, like, finally make things happen. I'm going to finally do it tomorrow. But then you're just like, and so I'm going to eat whatever, eat like late into the evening tonight because I'm going to start tomorrow. And then you wake up the next day and you're like, oh my gosh, I feel like crap. Like, I don't want to, you know, maybe I'll start tomorrow. You know, like whatever it might be. That's, that's classic kapha tendency. And so it's really, really helpful to eat that bigger, bigger meal in the middle of the day rather than at the end of the day. So that's like the number one thing.

And some people, if they're in that kapha pattern, I imagine that they may wake up and they may not have much digestive fire or much of an appetite.

Right, exactly. Yeah.

I'm curious what your hacks are for that. With my patients, I like to have them do like warm lemon water, maybe with some ginger and some Like maybe a little bit of honey for taste if you need to, but to like stimulate maybe some apple cider vinegar to stimulate digestion so that you can start training your body to be hungrier earlier in the day. What is your hack?

Yeah, no, that's exactly it. It's lemon water. All of the things that you mentioned are awesome for kapha unless you have a lot of pitta as well. If you've got like any burning in digestion or anything like that, I would say steer clear, especially from the apple cider vinegar. You could maybe Maybe do the lemon water, but I wouldn't do it, you know, if you have a lot of Pitta, I wouldn't do it every single day. You could also do lime water if you have a lot of Pitta, but you also have a lot of Kapha because lime is a little bit more cooling than lemon. So I'll say that. But all of those things are awesome for Kapha. If you've got like that slower, sluggish digestion and you wake up and you don't feel, you know, like you're hungry or like you're ready to go for the day, that's an awesome way to To get things moving.

Brilliant. So to summarize what you've said so far is if we find that we're in that kapha state, how we eat is just as important as what we eat. And so the first recommendation is to try to get your largest meal in earlier in the day, like lunch as opposed to dinner. And if you find that you don't have that digestive fire and you're not really hungry, you can start retraining that. And it will depend on your secondary and tertiary dosha. But if it isn't pitta-y, so if you don't have the fire, then igniting that fire with, like, as we said, like lemon water, apple cider vinegar, maybe a little bit of ginger. But if you are fiery, there are alternatives.

Totally. Yeah. And, and like eating, like not eating when you're not hungry. So only eating when you are hungry is like the name of the game for kapha. Because when we eat when we're not hungry, then that proliferates that like stuck pattern. And, you know, it feels— the digestive tract just feels sticky and stuck. However, it's a lot of times it's really hard for kaphas to not eat when they're not hungry because we have this pattern of just, you know, of usually it's using food as comfort. And so that's where a lot of times, especially if we're experiencing anxiety, We might experience anxiety and then use food to go like over top of that anxiety and kind of quell that anxiety, ground the anxiety, numb it essentially. And it's pretty effective in the moment of numbing anxiety. So a lot of times people who have a lot of kapha don't even know that they have anxiety or they don't even know that they're emotional. Like, I didn't know that I was emotional eating. I never resonated with that term. I was like, I just need more willpower. But no, It was that I was— I had all of these emotions. I didn't think I was very sensitive. I didn't think I was a sensitive person or that I had a lot of like emotional things, which is hilarious now. Like, I like watching movies or TV shows. I'm like immediate cry, like anytime there's anything sad, or even if someone's telling me like something sad about their life, like I'll just like immediately tear up. So I was, I was Suppressing all of that stuff with food. And so that's where it is hard with kapha, with anxiety, because a lot of times we won't even resonate with, oh, like having anxiety because we're, we're covering it up with so much food. So like really working on digesting not just our food but digesting our emotions is so massive for kapha.

I think that's a really good point that you bring up. And when I work with clients, I often— when someone's coming to me and they have an emotional concern like anxiety or depression, I lean into the way the body is expressing that. Because sometimes, like you're saying, is that we're using coping skills, whether it's a supplement or the way that we eat or a medication, that in some ways can make it harder to access those emotions. But the body will often find other creative ways to tell us. So it's like that game of whack-a-mole. Like maybe you have anxiety and then we whack it and it suppresses that anxiety. You take an antidepressant or 5-HTP or St. John's wort or whatever it is, you suppress it. But if that underlying cause of anxiety isn't there, that underlying cause is going to express it in other ways. And so you're describing like trying to look at the whole person because maybe you don't know you're anxious. And so looking at your habits and how you feel in your body might be better data.

Yes, totally. Yeah. And I think, yeah, it's, it's especially tricky with kapha because it is so like, like in Ayurveda a lot of times, especially if you're like a beginner to Ayurveda, it's like, oh, well, if I have kapha, then I just need to lighten up my foods. I just need to eat like, like lots of spices and like all of these things, which we'll talk about that in a minute too. But, but it really is so important to do regular emotional housekeeping, whether that's, well, getting— seeking professional help if you need to. And also just like journaling each day just to get stuff out, just to get stuff moving, is so, so important. And like Ayurveda is all about digestion, but it isn't just digestion of food, it's digestion of everything we're taking in through all 5 senses, which I think is also really cool about Ayurveda and really important to be thinking about too. It's like, are we constantly in this loop of feeding an emotion that we don't actually need to be feeding all of the time? And then, and then we take in food to kind of try to numb that emotion. And then it's a vicious cycle.

I think that's exciting. That's such good data. I love that. I love that parallel between the mind and the body and the feeding.

Maybe we should do an emotional eating episode because I have a whole like model of emotional eating and how we actually break the cycle. There are like different stages that we can break the cycle. So

yeah, if y'all are interested in that, let us know. We'll definitely put that forward on the docket.

Yes, perfect. So let's talk a little bit more about like how else we can balance kapha in the ways that we're eating. So we want to So when we're thinking about like the qualities of earth and water, and especially put together, it's mud, it's— there's a lot of stickiness, stagnancy. It's also like cold and wet. So we wanted— we want to bring in the opposite qualities, which are, you know, we want to bring in more of the like drying qualities. We want to bring in more mobile qualities, spicing things up, lightening things up, right? Because When we feel stuck, we want to bring in more lightness. And so what kinds of— well, what kinds of foods do you think might be balancing for that, Dr. Cain?

So I'm thinking of— so you said drying, moving, lightness. I'm also thinking warming. Yes. And so I'm thinking about spices, as you said, something that's heating, like cinnamon or ginger or I know turmeric can be tridoshic, so it can be helpful. Drying. So we want astringing things. And so astringing is like if your mouth is really juicy, but then you put cinnamon in your mouth, your mouth suddenly feels dry. Sour things can do that. So we were talking about citrus, lemon and limes. I want to be mindful when saying that though, because a lot of people, also have an overlapping histamine imbalance too. And citrus can promote histamine. So just kind of keep that in mind because there are other non-citrus options. And then the lightness is interesting to me because I'm like, ooh, is this an excuse to eat popcorn? Because like,

I mean,

popcorn literally flies through the air as you're popping it. So is that— can I have popcorn if I'm in a kapha state or is that going to make it worse?

Actually, yeah. Finally, someone

could

have popcorn. So the one thing I will caution against is putting a bunch of salt and butter and oil on that popcorn.

All the good stuff. So boring popcorn, plain old popcorn, or like the rice cakes. Like some people really like rice cakes.

Perfect. Yep. That's kapha can have all of that. Those things and like all of the vatas are like jealous, right? Totally.

It's like my vata self is like, gosh, I want popcorn, but Hadlee said I could have it if I like saturated it in like delicious oils.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. So if you have a lot of kapha, like, or if you have a lot of vata, popcorn is like one of the hardest things to digest because it's just basically air. But, you know, in small quantities you can have— like Ayurveda is never like about like deprivation. Oh my gosh, I love it. You've got your popcorn.

Oh, I'm like, pull— you can hear the rustling in the background. I have my Skinny Pop and I have like butter.

I love it. Yeah, add that butter. Add butter to it. Add— I like to do olive oil. I love olive oil on my popcorn. It's so good. Or if you do butter, butter is awesome too. Ghee is awesome too. Um, but yeah, so for, for kapha, we don't want to add too— and like, I'm not saying that you need to just eat Plain. Like, I've eaten plain popcorn before. It sucks.

Yeah.

Like, add a little bit, you know? Like, don't— the thing is, like, don't do this thing where, especially if you have a lot of kapha and maybe if you have secondary pitta or if you have a lot of pitta and then kapha, don't do this thing where you do the deprivation binge dance of like, oh, I'm only going to eat kapha things. Because if you only ate kapha things, Like, you would hate it. I'm very miserable. Yeah. Like, you— like, there's not— there's, you know, like, if you just didn't eat any salt at all, not only would you— would it be super unsatisfying, but actually it's not actually beneficial for anyone to follow a purely kapha diet or purely any of the diets because we have all the doshas. in our bodies. So again, I just want to emphasize that. Yeah. But the cool thing about kapha is basically any spice, any herb that you can think of is awesome for kapha except for salt, which isn't really a spice. But salt is like the one thing because it retains water, it makes us retain water. It's harder for kapha and it can cause more of that hypertension, all of that kind of thing. But don't just take salt completely out. Because I've had clients before where they're like, they took salt completely out of their diet, but then they hate the foods that they're cooking. So then they end up just ordering out, and then the food from the restaurant has way more salt than they would ever put in if they were cooking at home. So eat salt. It's okay. Is I guess what I'm saying.

I love that it's balanced because yeah, there's a big psychology to it too, is like if I'm feeling deprived and upset, it's going to create imbalances in other ways that will have a whole domino effect. It'll affect your gut-brain axis and that'll affect your neurotransmitters and your hormones and your inflammation. It'll circle back.

Totally. Exactly. Yeah. So, and then, you know, we just want to think warm, light, dry foods. So whereas like kapha— or sorry, vata, we're thinking like warm, warm, like unctuous, like oily, watery foods. Kapha, we're still thinking warm, but we're thinking more along the lines of light and drying. So things like the ways that we can cook things even matters. So like baking things, like roasting things in the oven, those things, that's That's going to dry things out rather than boiling things. Boiling things are going to saturate them with water. So if we're boiling potatoes, let's say, it might be better to roast your potatoes so that it's that more drying quality. So we can eat all sorts of different types of foods prepared in different ways, which is kind of cool too, so that we don't have to think like, oh, I'm only supposed to eat So

the way that you cook it, it's maybe not even only about what foods you're eating, but how you're preparing them. And so for kapha, you are emphasizing instead of like boiling a potato and filling it with liquid, because we're already high liquid, right, is oven roasting it, baking it. I was also thinking about the revolution of the air fryer.

I was just gonna say that. Yeah, the air fryer is awesome for kapha. Yes. Put

it in the air fryer.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I'm thinking like to Dehydrated. If you want to make kale chips, putting them on a dehydrator and having a fun time with that. And doing dehydrated fruits is awesome because if you get fruit that's been dehydrated in a store, they often add preservatives that are not so good for our health. But dehydrating things is probably a delicious, fun way to get your kapha balanced.

Yes, totally. You just want to make sure you're not overdoing it with the dried fruits just because there's a decent amount of sugar. But dehydrating things can be just a fun thing for sure. And then it's really about if we're thinking about not just fruits and vegetables and things like that, processed foods are going to be the hardest for kapha probably to handle because there's so much fat, sugar, and preservatives and things like that, that are all— those are all going to aggravate kapha. Obviously, processed foods in general for all of the doshas. Foods that are not like that, we can't identify in nature, are just going to be hard for our bodies, right? But, you know, especially for kapha, especially since they're just usually really dense and have the qualities of Like mud, essentially, once they get into our bodies. So we, you know, we want to be eating fresh foods and things like that. And then loads of greens. Like, kapha can eat all sorts of greens. Whereas, you know, it's interesting, like the wellness world really is optimized for balancing kapha. Yeah, it's like all of the quote unquote healthy things that we see, like smoothies and salads and all of that kind of thing. Well, smoothies can actually be a little bit harder for kapha, but salads—

Juice.

Vegetables, that kind of thing that are the quote unquote healthy option or whatever in our wellness world, those are all optimized for kapha. So we can kind of follow that a little bit more. Like for vata, it's really hard to digest raw greens and things like that. And for pitta, it's really hard to deal with all of the lemon, all of the things that are trying to increase our metabolism are a lot of times harder for pittas because it's sort of acidic a lot of times in nature. But kapha can kind of go with the norms of the wellness, wellness culture that we're currently swimming in.

That's perfect.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's not, it's not exactly right. Like I mentioned that smoothies can be a little bit harder. The reason that smoothies are harder to digest for kapha is because they have the cold, wet qualities. So if you want to have smoothies, maybe add some ginger, turmeric, some spices that are cinnamon, things that are going to heat it up a little bit, and then you might be able to handle it a little bit easier.

I have a question for you that I've seen asked around and I've been wanting to get your take on it. And so, y'all, I didn't volley her up for this question, so she hasn't been preparing. But what is your thought on maybe kapha, but maybe In general, the doshas and mushrooms. And so I'm thinking like reishi and cordyceps and lion's mane. How do you see those interacting or playing a part?

So in Ayurveda, it's really interesting. So in Ayurveda, nothing is off limits. Anything can be medicine. In the yoga, like, If you're on like a yogic path in like Vedic philosophy, there's like a term called sattvic foods. And basically that means like they're like kind of like pure. They're going to help you to be able to basically like access higher levels of consciousness and spirituality and things like that. Mushrooms and onions and garlic and those kinds of things are not part of the sattvic diet. But onions and garlic and mushrooms can be really beneficial medicinally. So like, if we have certain conditions and certain things, eating these things are going to be beneficial and helpful, especially if we're not like, you know, going for that like enlightenment path, right? What I will say is, so onions and garlic are usually pretty good for kapha because they're stimulating. They're a little bit more of that like spicy, pungent taste. They're going to invigorate kapha a little bit more. Mushrooms are actually— they can actually dull, dull the senses a little bit more. And so they can be helpful, especially if we have like a, like a hyperactive nervous system, right? If we've got a lot of vata going on or if we have more of that, the hyperactive nervous system. It's like can sedate us essentially, which is why those adaptogenic mushrooms are so popular right now because all of our nervous systems are just like shot, right? And so it can be really helpful. From what I've seen, I think that that's why that it's become so popular. But yeah, in like traditional Ayurveda, it is more of a like a— it creates more of a dullness. So for kapha, it might create more of a dullness. The medicinal mushrooms though, they can all be used for different types of things too. So I'm not, I'm not like an expert in the actual like lion's mane, cordyceps, chaga, reishi, all of those specifics and what they specifically do medicinally. But that's kind of Does that answer your question?

Yeah, that's a great answer. It's a really, I feel like, well-rounded answer. Nuance. The nuance is always the name of the game. Yes. Because I was imagining you get mushrooms at the grocery store, and I feel like one is that they grow in moist areas. And when you touch a mushroom, I mean, depending on the type, but I'm thinking just like the regular ones we get at the grocery store, They have this interesting quality where you rub them and they just kind of crumble apart like they're dry, but when you feel them, they feel kind of moist.

Right? So

they're like dry but moist but crumbly, but they grow in swamps and trees. So I was curious to hear your perspective on it. So I thought that was really interesting.

Yeah, yeah. And it's the word that is tamasic, and it just means that it Because it grows in like this, like dark, you know, this dark space. It's, it's a little bit more like occult. Like, it's just like more shadowy. It just, it's not bad or wrong. Nothing is really bad or wrong. It just isn't gonna make us like hype, right? Like, it's just gonna be more sedating.

Yeah. Oh, interesting. So you've been walking us through kapha and you've been walking us through how to eat. And we talked about what to eat a little bit. We talked about how to prepare foods. What else do our listeners need to know about kapha and nutrition?

Yeah, I feel like maybe some things to note that are more kapha aggravating that we want to just kind of be mindful of. And again, we're not like making things bad or wrong, but the classics that are going to make us feel more stuck, more stagnant, more of that— the kapha qualities are things like, well, what do you think? What kinds of— what kind of food is like sticky, heavy, cold? Um, moist, and, um, yeah, those, those qualities. What, what's like the typical food that you would think that would have those qualities to it?

Well, I don't know if this is typical, but I was imagining tapioca and being like, bleh.

Actually, yes, tapioca is kapha aggravating.

Yeah. Making— I was like imagining and I'm feeling ill imagining tapioca.

Oh my gosh, I love it. Yes, yes to tapioca. Also ice cream, which is like—

Probably more common.

Yes, that's more typical, at least in the Western diet.

Do people eat tapioca anymore? The more I say the word tapioca, it feels like not a real thing.

I never really grew up eating it, but I know it's more of like a Midwest thing, right? Like a tapioca dessert.

Yeah, yeah, it's lumpy and it's not okay.

Yeah, well, it's also, um, in bubble tea though, right? Like those— that's what the bubbles are made of in, in bubble tea. Um.

Oh, gross. I just thought it was wax.

Oh yeah, no, those are tapioca and they're, they're very heavy. So like people will drink the— drink bubble tea thinking it's, you know, it's, it's a tea. And actually, like, yeah, it's— those bubbles are like, have like a ton of density to them and they can be kapha aggravating.

I just don't want to be drinking something and then suddenly be like choked by a glob that showed up in the straw.

I feel the same way, but some people love it, like especially living in Seattle, like That was like the thing to do was go to go get bubble tea. And I—

We live on the edge here in Seattle.

Yeah.

We're constantly trying not to choke on our tapioca balls. It's like Orbitz. Are you old enough to have remembered Orbitz?

No.

Who here that's listening to this has ever had Orbitz? Like it came in this glass bottle that was shaped kind of like a decanter. It was like kind of pyramidal shaped in this glass, which nobody uses anymore, right? It's all Plastic now.

Yeah.

And it was a clear liquid and there's like these floating levitating balls that it's like the— it's like tapioca for 1980s, 1990s Midwesterners. And so you drink down these globs that I'm fairly sure were all made of plastic, but I don't

know. That's so wild. Yeah, I love it. So yeah, so that is kapha aggravating actually.

Nicole aggravating.

Yes. Um, and then ice cream, things like ice cream, um, a lot of dairy, a lot of dairy. Yeah, pudding. Um, things, things that are just that, that, um, those, that texture, right? Like of, um, are going to be more kapha aggravating. And then, you know, uh, things with more oils and fats are going to be more kapha aggravating. Um, deep fried, anything deep fried is going to be because we're literally saturating it with oil, right? Like, that's exactly what kapha is, saturated. Yeah. So yeah, so all of those kinds of qualities are the things that we can, you know, dense, heavy, that kind of thing is going to be a little bit more— it's just going to be harder on kapha. Again, We don't have to take every single thing out and never eat any of those things again. Um, but just knowing that can be really, really helpful.

Brilliant. Anything else that we need to know in order to combat anxiety with nutrition?

Oh, oh, I will say, um, and I've experienced this before where I've had Just overeating in general, even if it's not to quell emotions, even if you just like, you know, you accidentally overeat, that can also trigger anxiety, especially in kapha where it's like, oh my gosh, not again. I'm going to be— I'm going to feel so stuck. And then we kind of get into that spiral. And so just, you know, being mindful of, you know, not overdoing something that I used to do. which was like a disordered eating pattern, was like, I was like, I will eat only kapha foods. Or I didn't really know it was kapha at the time. I didn't know about Ayurveda at the time, but I would only eat like, you know, certain like lighter foods or whatever. But I would just eat a ton of it because I was like, oh, this is fine to eat. This is like non-processed foods or whatever. I'm just going to eat as like so much of this. And that is still going to aggravate kapha. Because it's just too much for our bodies to be able to handle. And then our digestive fire is just dampened. So it's like, think of a bonfire and you're just pouring sand and literally earth and water on it over and over and over and over again. It's just going to create less fire. Awesome.

Yeah, that's really helpful. And I think that's really cool too. And I want to emphasize something that you've talked about in the past is that There's a relationship that can get a little complicated between vata and kapha.

Yeah.

And that's something that I really resonate with personally is I'm primarily vata and then I have an underlying kapha and it makes it a little bit more challenging to eat in a way that's going to make them both balanced and happy. And so as we're finishing up here, do you mind just touching on that a little bit? And then if you're listening and you're like, oh, I want to know more about that, then definitely you should go and listen to the vata episode.

Totally.

Tell us what you think about that.

Yeah. So kapha is— so vata is typically the thing that is going to go out of balance more often than kapha because vata is just— it's more subtle. There's— it's because it's like the elements of air and space that moves faster. And so it can go out of balance faster, whereas kapha has that staying power of like, if we're in balance, we stay in balance for a long time. If we're out of balance, we can stay out of balance a lot longer, unfortunately. But the nice thing about kapha is that if we stay— if we're in balance, we can stay in balance more. But what I want to say about that is if you have a lot of vata in your constitution and then you have that underlying kapha, you just want to be mindful of— like, the number one thing is just being mindful of portion sizes. So eating things that are going to balance your vata, especially if you have more vata than kapha, You just want to be mindful of eating things that are going to be vata pacifying, but just eating a smaller portion of those things is going to be helpful to keep the kapha in check.

That's really important. I think that's huge.

Yeah.

In my family culture, we have a waste-not mentality. And you said something to me like 2 years ago about that. You're like, is it going to rot on the plate or is it going to rot in your body?

Right?

And I was like, oh, burn. Because if something's on my plate, we're like, don't waste that, you better eat it. But that's like overeating, and it's not honoring your body. And so that's really stuck with me, Hadlee, for like years.

And it's actually also wasting it, but even worse, because it is making you less functional. Totally. And so it's wasting it even more than throwing it away.

Totally. Yeah, like you think you're doing the right thing, but if you can not overeat, that could be so much better for your health and longevity. There's a huge link between life expectancy and the quantity of food that we eat, and overeating is a really huge, huge factor.

Totally. Yeah. And if you're like, oh my gosh, I don't want to throw things away, like just— you can also just put it in the fridge, you know, like you Like, I will— my husband makes fun of me all the time because I grew up with that too. Like, it's very like Dutch. I'm from West Michigan. It's like a lot of Dutch people and it's a very Dutch thing to like not waste things. I— and so, you know, I grew up with that as well. And so I will put like just like, like 3 bites left that I just didn't, you know, my body just didn't want those last 3 bites. I will put that in the fridge. Like, I will put it in a Tupperware and put it in the fridge just so that I don't eat it and then I don't feel like weird about, about wasting it or whatever. My husband makes fun of me, but you know.

I love that. And then future Hadlee will be happy to have those 3 bites.

Yeah, honestly, she always is. She's always glad. So yeah.

But this has been really helpful. And so if y'all are giving this a listen and you haven't taken the quiz yet, definitely go and check that out. And one thing I love about the quiz is that it's really focused on forward thinking and drive and excitement and success, which I think is super cool for the kapha, especially because we're talking about getting you unstuck and catalyzing that movement. And so do one thing is create that one movement, like open this podcast up and scroll down, click on the link in the bio, take that quiz. And then I think it's going to be really cool. It's a little bit different than some of the quizzes that you'll find on the other websites, which are a little bit more focused on physical symptoms, this is some other elements that I think you'll really vibe with. So for sure, check that out.

Yeah, super holistic. And we definitely wanted to tailor it to— I mean, it has all of those, those components of like body, mind. And also we included like your passion and your purpose in life and stuff too. So yeah, it's fun.

Hadlee, thanks. This has been great. I so love interviewing you and learning all about the doshas. It's the best.

Oh my gosh, it's so fun. It's my joy. Thanks for chatting. This was great.

Awesome. Well, thanks everyone. We'll see you next time.

Thank you all. Much love. Bye-bye.

Bye.