Ayurvedic Summer
The ultimate Summer diet & lifestyle guide
Some love it, some hate it. Summertime may either bring a sense of warmth and joy, or it may cause aggravation. Usually, those with high body temperatures who always complain of discomfort caused by heat would prefer the colder winter, while others, who suffer from intense coldness and achy joints during winter, would be more inclined to like the warmth that summer brings.
Regardless of your natural tendencies and personal preference, it is important to adjust your diet and lifestyle with the cycles of nature, to accommodate every season. Sounds complicated? Not at all. Most of us already have these intuitive shifts embedded in us, we just need to pay close attention to them and to allow our body’s inner intelligence to guide us.
Knowing your Dosha (body type) can help you understand your own nature better, and that will clarify why you tend to prefer one climate over another. Take the Dosha Quiz to find out.
Download the complete Summer Grocery List PDF sheet of all the foods you can enjoy during this season
Pitta Reducing Diet
The main characteristics of Summer are heat, intensity, dryness, and lightness, similar to those of Pitta Dosha, which consists of the fire and water elements. The Ayurvedic principle ‘like increases like, and opposites bring balance’ suggests that we reduce or avoid any food or activity that brings heat, sharpness, and dryness to the body and mind, and to embrace those that induce coolness, softness, heaviness, and moisture during the summer season.
Some of the signs of too much heat in the body include hot flashes, burning sensations, sensitivity to the sun, heartburn, and hyperacidity in the stomach, ulcers, loose stools or diarrhea, excessive sweating, inflammation, acne, rashes, boils, or redness of the skin. Heat can also affect the mind, which will come out as anger, irritability, frustration, envy, impatience, physical and mental violence, and so on. Here are some tips and ways you can balance out excess heat, and enhance your well-being when it is blazing hot outside!.
Rasa (taste)
According to Ayurveda, there are six flavors. Each flavor has the ability to support or to deplete the body, depends on how, when, and in which quantity it is taken. The six tastes also affect the body’s temperature: sweet, bitter, and astringent are more cooling, while salty, sour, and pungent (spicy) are considered heating, therefore, we should minimize their consumption during Summer, and favor the first three.
Sweet – fruits, grains, milk, sweeteners, seafood, zucchini, cucumber, coconut
Bitter – leafy greens, cabbage, neem, olives, sesame seeds, turmeric, cumin
Astringent – pomegranate, apple, green banana, cranberries, most vegetables
What to avoid?
Foods that are overly salty, oily (deep-fried), spicy, too sour, heating, drying, and dehydrating. These aggravate the system and increase heat in the body and mind. These foods may include some of your favorites –
Coffee, chocolate, tomatoes (too acidic), alcohol (dehydrating), red meat, chilies, deep-fried food, chips
Download the complete Summer Grocery List PDF sheet of all the foods you can enjoy during this season
So what should you eat?
Summer is possibly the only time of the year that is suitable for fruits and vegetables in their raw state. Usually, Ayurveda advises cooking vegetables to help break down fiber and make them easier to digest. However, during Summer it is fine to consume them raw because the sun is strong enough to maintain a high digestive fire (Agni), which ensures proper digestion.
Your summer diet should consist of predominantly water-rich fruits and vegetables, either raw or slightly cooked, salads, light grains, fresh dairy products (nothing fermented or aged like sour yogurt or moldy cheeses), ghee is a wonderful cooling form of fat, coconut oil, and coconut products, fresh herbs, spices like fennel, coriander, turmeric, and cardamom, and neutral sources of protein like mung beans, tofu, and small amounts of seafood. Keep it light, simple, hydrate well by drinking lots of water, and use cooking methods such as steaming, sauteing, and boiling, instead of grilling, to maintain moisture.
Pitta Reducing Lifestyle
Just like diet strongly affects us, so does the way we run our life. Ayurveda recommends syncing your schedule with nature, the changing seasons, and planning your days according to The Ayurvedic Clock.
Summer can be depleting; the sun is stronger, the days are longer, we tend to move more, party harder, stay up late, get less sleep, and generally become more active. Being too much in a state of ‘doing’ increases the quality of Rajas, which is stimulating and aggravating for the body and mind. Summer is the time to take things easy, slow down, and embrace the state of ‘being’, which will invite more Sattva into our life.
Both Ayurveda and Yoga are advocates of the concept of Ardha Shakti; giving only half your physical effort or energy, without compromising consistency. For example, if you were to exercise or have an Asana practice (physical yoga), do it with ease, with full awareness, and connectedness to how you’re feeling, don’t push yourself to the point of exhaustion or stretch too deep. Your practice should give you energy, not take away your energy, and you should be able to do it all over again the next day. Applying this principle during summer will help you preserve energy and to maintain balance within yourself. Here are few helpful lifestyle tips: