Ayurveda's best autumn diet and lifestyle health tips

Autumn foraging finds: elderberries, rosehips, sloes, hawthorns and blackberries

Ayurveda teaches us that like increases like and that imbalance and poor health can often start when the seasons and climate change, such as becoming hotter and drier in summer versus cooler and damper in winter. These times are considered vulnerable times, as we adjust to the next season. Charaka (Ayurvedic sage) states that changing your diet and lifestyle with the seasons will give you physical strength (bala) and digestive power (agni), as well as balance your dosha.  This study of the seasons is called ritucharya and is a major focus in Ayurveda.[1] Modern research supports this view in finding that seasonal changes in day length can suppress or enhance our immune function.[2] It is clear that as the seasons change, our bodies also require a different diet and lifestyle to stay balanced (or dinacharya). Mind-body awareness techniques, such as yoga, help us to naturally want to make such changes.

Autumn a predominantly a cool season when Vata dosha dominates inside and outside our bodies.  This time sees many people succumbing to seasonal coughs, colds and flu.

Vata dosha has cold, light, dry, rough, and moving qualities. It’s main site is the colon, hence bloating, constipation and gas are often early signs of aggravation. Other signs include dry skin, irregular appetite, lack of sleep, stress, anxiety and tiredness.  Waking up between 2am and 6am is also an indicator Vata is out of balance. Its important to balance this dosha all year round, especially if it is your dominant dosha. However, we all need to pay attention to Vata in Autumn by inviting in the balancing factors of warmth, grounding, nourishment and stillness.

Here are some tips to stay balanced during Autumn:

• Reduce raw and cold foods and focus on a warming, nourishing diet, rich in oils and ghee, with spices such as ginger, garlic and cumin. Have a warm breakfast (porridge, eggs, stewed apple, lentil/ quinoa pancakes), followed by soups, stews, risotto, kitchari (one pot rice and dhal meal, mung soup), roasted root veg

• Make your drinks warm too, with lots of warm herbal teas (Tulsi and Ginger are ideal to ward of respiratory infections). 

• Vata is also increased by dry, rough food so avoid excess dry muesli, crisps, crackers, rice cakes, chick peas, split peas, pop corn, caffeine and sandwiches.

• Keep to regular meal times with lunch as your main meal, and a smaller dinner eaten as early as possible.

• Try to get up and go to sleep at regular times as well. Also, this is a good time to introduce regularity at your work place by having regular breaks, sipping herbal teas throughout the day and not working yourself too hard. Routine really helps balance Vata's inherently unstable nature!

• Take extra care of your skin due to Vata’s drying nature. Ground yourself with a self-massage with a warm sesame oil self-massage. Ayurveda recommends this daily, but its hard to manage today so aim for twice weekly to start.  

• Increase stillness in your day and time to connect with yourself.  Vata is aggravated by feelings of fear and insecurity so take time to look after yourself.  It is also aggravated by excess movement. Anything which reduces the amount of rushing, travelling and business that is part of most of our lives is good eg: go for a walk, practice calming yoga or yoga nidra, meditate, write in a journal, cook a slow recipe, curl up with a favourite book…

• Tailor your yoga practice for the seasonal shift to autumn-See here for How can we adapt our yoga practice for autumn?

• End the day with warm milk with ginger, turmeric, nutmeg and a little honey to help you drift off by 10.30pm. Nutmeg is a proven 'temporal sedative' which helps keep you asleep.

References:

[1] Thakkar, J., Chaudhari, S. and Sarkar, P.K., 2011. Ritucharya: Answer to the lifestyle disorders. Ayu, 32(4), p.466. Ritucharya: Answer to the lifestyle disorders (nih.gov)

[2] Nelson, R.J. and Demas, G.E., 1996. Seasonal changes in immune function. The Quarterly review of biology, 71(4), pp.511-548. Seasonal changes in immune function - PubMed (nih.gov)