Understanding Your Dosha: The Foundation of Personalized Hormone & Nervous System Care

Um, so I'm gonna talk a little bit about the doshas. Uh, the foundation of Ayurveda is that, you know, we are part of nature and that nature is composed of these five elements, and these five elements are grouped into what we call the doshas, which are these forces of nature that carry out the physiological functions of the body. So the elements are air, um, space, air, ether, sometimes space it's called, but space, air, fire, water, and earth. And when they're grouped into the doshas, um, vata is air and either element or air and space element, so we think about the wind, we think about movement and lightness and dryness. Pitta dosh and vata rules movement in general and circulation in the body and mind. Pitta dosha is fire and a little bit of water, so pitta is sharp, it's hot, it's the only one with heat, and it's penetrating. There's an intensity to it. And this relates to our digestion and metabolism. So when we think about a fire burning in our belly, that's pitta dosha. It's the food is coming in, it's being broken down, it's being metabolized and changed into stuff that we can use. So the fire element largely, and pitta dosha largely rules that metabolism. And then kapha dosha is earth and water elements, so we think of solidity, stability, integrity, containment. That's what kapha does for our system. So, um, kapha is muscles, bones, fat. It's related to our immune system. So all three of these work together in yours and my physiology to create the structure of our body and mind. And we haven't gotten into the constitutions, but I'll just let you know that each of you has a unique constitution, which is the balance of these doshas at the moment of your conception. So you could be, like for me, I'm three pitta, two vata, two kapha. Some people can be predominant in certain doshas. Um, usually we have a predominance of one or two. Some people are kind of equal amounts of all three. But we're not, we're not going too much into that today, but it really relates to this idea of when we talk about not enough physical and emotional nourishment, one of the beautiful things about Ayurveda is we can learn, well, how do I need to be uniquely nourished? Why do certain foods and habits and practices work, or supplements, like, work well for me and not for them or vice versa? Why do certain symptoms come up for me and not for them? It's because we're understanding what our unique tendencies and needs are in our physiology, in our personality, in our mind and our emotions.