“], “filter”: { “nextExceptions”: “img, blockquote, div”, “nextContainsExceptions”: “img, blockquote, a.btn, a.o-button”} }”>
Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members!
>”,”name”:”in-content-cta”,”type”:”link”}}”>Download the app.
In case you haven’t noticed, navigating sweltering temperatures for weeks on end tends to coincide with feeling, uh, not quite yourself. If you’ve found that you’re unusually and easily frustrated, annoyed, tired, or less tolerant of others or yourself, there’s a reason for that—and it’s likely something known as a pitta imbalance.
According to the ancient practice and science of Ayurveda, there are three primary energies that comprise each of us. Known as doshas, these include vata (air), pitta (fire), and kapha (earth). We each have a unique balance of doshas, each in varying amounts. One dosha is dominant in our bodies, our personalities, and our moods. This predisposes us to experience the world through a certain lens.
The doshas also preside over different time of year. During the sweltering heat of summer, the reigning element is, unmistakably, pitta. This fiery energy governs our digestion of everything—physical and emotional. When in balance, pitta helps us assimilate nutrients, information, situations, and relationships. It also enables us to learn from our experiences and move forward.
Those born with constitutions that are predominantly pitta tend to run hot in every way. If you shake their hand, their skin is always warm. If you go out to eat, they’re the ones dousing everything in hot sauce. If you disagree with them, they’re likely to engage you in debate. And if you hang out with them in summer, they’re likely to crank the AC low and turn the ceiling fan on high.
But when your internal pitta is compounded by a prolonged number of sweltering days and nights, that element can easily become aggravated and out of balance. And that can create problems, even in those of us with only modest amounts of pitta in our personalities.
Signs of a Pitta Imbalance
There’s nothing subtle about an excess of pitta. Physically, a pitta imbalance tends to show up as feeling overheated and unusually uncomfortable when you’re outdoors during summer. It can also manifest on your skin as redness, acne, rashes, or an allergic reaction. It may be present in your digestive system as acid reflux, stomach upset, and diarrhea. It can even show up as burning or reddening in your eyes.
Excessive fire also tends to express itself in every aspect of life, including excessive fire also comes out sideways via intense and sometimes unexpected emotional reactions. These are commonly expressed as aggression, agitation, impatience, and frustration.
How to Balance Pitta During Summer
According to Ayurveda, even subtle lifestyle adjustments can help correct a pitta imbalance by incorporating more cooling elements in your experience of life. The following tactics are simple yet surprisingly effective at helping you understand how to balance pitta. When you understand how to reduce pitta immediately, you will feel more like yourself, even on the most exasperating of days.
1. Take Your Workouts Down a Notch
Intense exercise to the point of exhaustion builds internal heat and exacerbates the heat already present in pitta. One solution is to shift your outdoor workout to the early morning or evening when it’s cooler or take it inside, especially on the hottest days. If you’re exercising at home, adjust the thermostat so your environment is cooler than usual.
Also, consider swapping out a more intense workout for something more cooling at least once a week. Maybe you replace a run with a swim or incorporate workouts that are more playful and allow for breaks, such as Pickleball. If you practice yoga, take an occasional break from fast-paced vinyasa or hot yoga and instead incorporate less-demanding but still challenging styles that also develop strengthening and flexibility, such as a slow flow or yin yoga. If you practice at home, include more standing and seated forward bends, which are considered cooling in yoga tradition.
If you typically engage in nose breathing during your workout or practice, occasionally exhale through your mouth to release pent-up heat. You can also cool down with certain breathwork, or pranayama, practices, such as Sitali and Nadi Shodhana.
2. Avoid An Excess of Heating Foods
According to Ayurveda, everything has various qualities, including foods. Some ingredients and categories of ingredients are believed to be more “heating” and can aggravate the heat already present within us. Whether something is heating has little to do with the temperature of what is eaten. Instead, it relates to qualities it brings to the body. Heating foods tend to have the following characteristics:
Spicy
Salty
Greasy
Acidic
Fried
Sour
Fermented
Specific foods can be difficult for pitta to digest, especially when it’s hot and humid outside, and should be consumed only in moderation. Items that tend to aggravate a pitta imbalance include excessive amounts of the following:
Coffee
Alcohol
Red meat
Onions
Garlic
Nightshades (including tomatoes, bell peppers, and potatoes)
That’s a long list of what not to overdo. Admittedly, not indulging in your fave things can induce irritability when you focus on what you can’t include, so take a little time to consider the pitta-balancing foods that you actually like. Think cool and watery fruits and veggies, such as watermelon and cucumbers. That describes almost anything that you can find at local farmers’ markets throughout summer. Also leafy greens, bitter and astringent sprouts, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, rice, and quinoa.
It’s not only what you consume but the emotional state you’re in when you consume it. Rushed or distracted eating tends to lead to eating more quickly, which in turn leads to digesting less efficiently. Put away your phone when you eat and pause to take a few long, slow breaths beforehand. Focus on doing nothing but eating.
3. Slow Yourself Down
If your life feels relentlessly intense—you’re constantly on the go, juggling countless responsibilities, and constantly stressed—that fuels the fires of a pitta imbalance. So find some time to slow down.
That looks differently for each of us. Perhaps you take a non-working lunch, leave your earbuds at home when you go for a walk or run, or stop listening to a podcast as you multitask each second of the day. Reassure yourself that you don’t need to say “yes” to every social invitation and work obligation.
That said, pitta in overdrive can easily become so intent on experiencing pleasure that you might end up overwhelming yourself by scheduling that, too. Try to subtract things from your schedule rather than add your need for rest as another checklist item. Run through sprinklers or that fountain at your local park. Sit and linger over popsicles with the kids. Stare into the dark abyss of the night sky and consider it meditation.
In other words, allow yourself to spend time however you want as long as it’s in a “non-productive” way. Or as the late John Lennon shared in a little-known insight, “The time you enjoy wasting, is not wasted time!”
RELATED: What’s Your Dosha? Take This Quiz to Find Out.
This article has been updated. Originally published July 13, 2017.
