Cool Your Fire With Yoga

New website: aikoota.com

In this episode, I speak about balancing out the heat of the summer with cooling yoga and diet. Here in Europe, it’s very hot right now. Of course, our bodies will automatically work to adjust to the weather, but we can also help the transition by practicing certain asanas and eating certain foods. The summer is the season of the fire element or pitta, ayurvedically speaking. What we want to do here is to reap the benefits of this element without getting “burnt out”. This we do by responding to this influence with practices promoting the elements of water and wind, also called kapha and vata. Those whose basic constitution is kapha and pitta may automatically be in harmony with this season. Still, the practices I present here will still be beneficial for them as well.

Before asana practice, I advise doing pranayama. For this summer session we will start with nadi shodhana pranayama, alternating nostril breathing. By closing the right nostril and inhaling with the left one a cooling lunar current is created throughout the body. Then exhale with the left nostril. Repeat from 5 to 20 times. Then do it one time the opposite way, inhale with the left, and exhale with the right.

For asanas we begin with the Chandra namaskar, the moon salutation. Then sun salutation can also be done, but slowly and without skipping sequences as is sometimes done. Then we go on to viparita karani, legs up to the wall, followed by anuvittasana, the standing backbend pose. During backbends it’s important to activate your gluten and abdomen and to not overarch your neck, keeping your ears aligned with your shoulders. Then cat and cow pose, cakravakasana. This asana is appropriate for most of the seasons, but during the summer it’s good to make your exhalations and inhalations a second longer. Then we go on to forward fold pose, uttanasana, one of my favorites, during which it’s important to keep your chest open. Then floor twist, septa matsyendrasana. This one can be done either laying down or sitting.

It’s important to always end your sessions with savasana, the corpse pose. This applies to all seasons, but in the summer, stay a little longer in this position.

Diet is always important, so also during summer. In the same way, as we do cooling pranayama and asanas, there are cooling foods to balance the heat of this season. In the summer, the digestive fire in the body is dispersed to help us keep cool with all the heat in the environment. Here it’s good to eat light foods and small easily digestible meals. I’m sure you can relate to this. During the summer, salads are usually more attractive than something heavy. Sweet, bitter, and astringent tastes are recommended, as well as cool, watery, and slightly oily dishes. Raw vegetables are best absorbed during lunch. Cool water infused with mint is great for cooling the body, but iced drinks disrupts the digestion process and cause toxins to build up in the body. Unrefined sweeteners and can be used in moderation. Hot spices can be used, but during the summers it’s good to not go too extreme with those.

All of this said, trust your instinct, and do what feels right for you. Tuning into each season as it comes will help us tune into the cyclical nature of our being.