Nature Versus Imbalance
In This Chapter
- The difference between the Dosha you were born with and the one you have today
- Assessing your Prakriti and Vikruti
- The causes of each Dosha’s imbalance
- Understanding your imbalances
Now that you have an idea of what your Dosha is, I’m going to make things a tad more confusing, but bear with me. The Dosha you have today may be different from the one you were born with. Crazy, I know, but it is actually quite intuitive once you get the hang of it.
You have something called your Prakriti, which is your natural Doshic constitution given at the moment of birth. This includes your skin color, height, hair color, and other predetermined characteristics. Then you have your Vikruti, which is the Doshic constitution you have today. This is who you are due to your diet and lifestyle choices, such as when you gain or lose weight. Your Vikruti is affected by a host of factors, including your environment, age, stress level, and the amount of exercise you get.
In this chapter, I explain the difference between your Prakriti and Vikruti and how you can assess your own.
While reading the descriptions of the Doshas in Chapters 4 and 5, you might have found that you related to all of them at different points in your life. Maybe in your 20s you were totally Pitta, and now you feel completely Kapha. That’s normal. You have all the Doshas within you in varying amounts, and they change throughout your life. But how do you know what you truly are and what’s just temporary? By addressing the difference between your Prakriti and your Vikruti.
Your Prakriti is who you are. Some of us are naturally born lanky, and others of us are bigger boned. These characteristics are in your DNA. You can lose or gain weight, but you cannot change your genetic makeup. I was born as a brown-eyed, round-faced, small-boned brunette of medium height. There is no way I’m going to end up as a blue-eyed, angular-faced, big-boned blonde who is 6 feet tall. It’s just not in the cards for me.
However, I can change some things. Maybe I become a body builder or let myself go and gain 50 pounds. But it isn’t who I am. It’s just my Vikruti, my current Doshic state. Your Vikruti shows you where your imbalances are. The secret to health is coming back to your natural Doshic constitution, your Prakriti.
Definition
The Doshic constitution you were born with is called your Prakriti, and it was decided for you at the moment of conception. The Doshic constitution you have today is your Vikruti and illustrates your imbalances. The key to health is making your Vikruti come back to your Prakriti.
Your Prakriti isn’t just one Dosha but a unique combination of the three. For example, my Prakriti is primarily Kapha, secondarily Vata, and lastly Pitta. However, my Vikruti today is primarily Vata, secondarily Kapha, and lastly Pitta. I am now more Vata than I am Kapha, although I was born with Kapha traits. I have to be careful of my Vata falling off balance because I am not naturally a Vata type. I became this way through diet and exercise. However, whenever I take Dosha quizzes, my results indicate that I am a Vata because that’s what my highest Dosha is today. Let’s discover yours.
The Dosha You Were Born With
At the moment of conception, your entire genetic makeup was formulated. The color of your hair and skin, your height, your personal characteristics, and even the diseases you are prone to were all picked for you. This is your Prakriti. It’s essentially the deck of cards you were handed at birth, as unique as your fingerprint.
No matter what you eat or do, these are things you cannot change, such as your bone structure, the areas you gain fat, or how your skin reacts in the sun. Your Prakriti is what you are in your truest form. You may be able to hide or manipulate it, but it will always remain.
Your Vikruti, on the other hand, is the Doshic constitution you have today. In fact, most likely what you scored on the quiz in Chapter 4 is your Vikruti, not your Prakriti. Your Vikruti describes what your Doshic constitution is like at the present moment. It’s related to your dietary and lifestyle choices, as well as environmental factors.
It’s easy to confuse your Vikruti as your Prakriti, but they are not the same. To determine your Prakriti, you must think about what you were naturally like as a child and what you are like without any manipulation. That shows you how your body was designed and what it’s disposed to. Then you can determine how your current habits and other lifestyle factors play a role in the way your body is today.
Wisdom of the Ages
The secret to health is having your Vikruti match your Prakriti. Your body naturally wants to maintain balance. When you stray from your natural rhythm, that’s when things tend to go off balance.
To show you what these Doshas are like in action, let’s go over three cases so you can see the difference between the Prakriti and Vikruti.
Case 1: Vata
Paul is a Vata Prakriti. He’s always been a thin guy who had a hard time gaining weight. Now in college, he decides he is sick of being the lanky guy and wants to put on muscle and bulk up his physique. He starts lifting weights, eating lots of protein, and upping his calories. Unlike a Pitta Prakriti, he has a tough time gaining weight, let alone muscle, yet with persistence, he eventually succeeds. After a few months, you would never even guess he is a Vata. He’s strong, built, and has the exact body type as a Pitta. He takes the Dosha quiz and assesses that he is a Pitta.
However, he begins experiencing Vata imbalances. He becomes constipated from eating all this meat his Pitta friends have no problem with due to their increased stomach acid. He often feels light-headed during his workouts and needs to sit down. He notices tremors in his muscles, too. All these are signs of Vata. Although Paul may look and feel like a Pitta, he remains a Vata Prakriti. His natural Vata characteristics came out because that is what he was born with. To remain balanced, he must continue pacifying his Vata.
Kathy is a Pitta Prakriti. She was always an athletic child with a fast metabolism and strong digestion. She remained active throughout her 20s and had a muscular figure. However, now, in her 30s, she is going through a rough patch in her life and lets herself go. She begins emotionally eating and ceases all physical activity. She starts gaining weight, which continues to accumulate over the years. She’s now 50 pounds overweight and huffs and puffs just going up the stairs. She loses interest in any type of movement or group activity and prefers to be on the couch watching television. She takes the Dosha quiz and sees that she is a Kapha—overweight, sedentary, heavy, and depressed.
However, her Prakriti is not a Kapha. She was never overweight growing up and isn’t naturally bigger-boned or reclusive. She is overweight only because of her sugar-laden diet, lack of movement, and situational sadness. Her Vikruti is Kapha, which is why she is experiencing all the side effects, but her Prakriti remains Pitta. If she just removes the heavy, fried, and sugary foods from her diet; adds more spices to her meals; and becomes more active to boost her Pitta, the weight will slip off easily. Unlike someone who was born Kapha and naturally bigger-boned, this weight is not hers to hold. It is caused from an imbalance.
Case 3: Kapha
Lauren is a Kapha Prakriti. She always has been curvy-figured and as long as she can remember, she’s had trouble with her weight. She feels like she was born on a diet, none of which ever work for very long. However, she decides that enough is enough and she will do whatever it takes to lose weight. She goes on a detox diet, eating only raw vegetables, seeds, and a few other safety foods. Even when she is hungry, she denies her body of food to stick to her “diet.” Eventually, she loses all the weight she wanted to lose.
However, it doesn’t really feel like a celebration. She is exhausted and feels cold all the time. After a while, she stops menstruating, her hair begins to shed, and her skin loses the vibrant glow it once had. She doesn’t understand how some people can naturally be so thin while her body is literally shutting down to maintain her “goal weight.”
She takes the Dosha quiz and gets the result for Vata—cold, underweight, thin hair, dry skin. However, she isn’t a Vata Prakriti. She has to starve herself to sustain this figure. She is experiencing Vata imbalances because her Vikruti is Vata but her Prakriti remains Kapha. The healthiest weight for her is different from her goal weight. It’s the weight her body needs to be at to maintain balance. By denying her natural body type, she is only hurting herself.
Assessing Your Natural Tendencies
Now that you see what these cases are like, I want you to think about your own and where you stand. Look back at pictures from your childhood. What did you look like? Were you a scrawny kid? A natural athlete? A chubby little one? How and when did that change? Was it natural or manipulated? Is your body healthy at your current weight?
Your Shifting Vikruti
The Doshas are fluid, dynamic, and ever-moving, like the seasons. Similarly, your Vikruti shifts over the course of the year and throughout your life. In this section, I discuss factors that can affect your Vikruti, including your lifestyle, environment, and diet. That way, you will know what might be causing your current Doshic imbalance. Remember, for your health, you must make an effort to rebalance your Vikruti to match your Prakriti.
Wisdom of the Ages
Your Vikruti, the Doshic constitution you have today, is what causes imbalances. The negative symptoms you experience, from bloating to insomnia, are related to your Vikruti. To regain health, you must rebalance your Vikruti to match your Prakriti.
You can have imbalances of any of the Doshas, even if they are not your predominant one. For example, in cold, dry weather, you are at risk of Vata imbalances. In cold, wet weather, you are more likely to face Kapha imbalances. In hot, humid weather, you are more likely to face Pitta imbalances. Other factors such as your stress levels and daily habits also affect your Vikruti.
Let’s look at some common causes of imbalances related to each Dosha so you can see them in yourself.
Causes of Vata Imbalance
A Vata imbalance can be caused by cold and dry weather, undereating or going long times without food, eating lots of raw or cold foods, excess cardio, travel, or doing too many things at once.
Vata is a cold and dry energy, so being in such a climate causes your Vata to fall off balance. This is why you tend to experience many of the Vata side effects in the autumn.
Vata is a naturally light energy that needs to be balanced with grounding. When you undereat or fast, you don’t get the calories you need to function. This makes your body go into stress mode as it tries to find energy to sustain itself. This also causes a Vata imbalance.
Some people, like Vata Prakritis, are thin by nature despite eating abundantly, but others force their bodies into a smaller size by undereating, in part because of the media’s portrayal of thin, Vata bodies as the most desirable. Many women have to restrict their diets to lose weight, but this also cuts in to their nutritional intake, making them malnourished. Hair loss, chills, dry skin, and amenorrhea (the loss of a menstrual cycle for more than 3 months) all have become increasingly common due to this widespread Vata imbalance. Malnourishment puts women at risk for infertility, anemia, osteoporosis, and other Vata-related side effects.
Travel and lack of routine can cause a Vata imbalance. When you fly, your body takes on airy qualities, increasing your Vata energy. Dry skin, lips, and hair; insomnia; and jet-lag are all common with and after travel. This is why it’s important to particularly pacify your Vata while you’re on the go. We spend more and more time every day in transit, putting our bodies in a chronic, subtle state of stress.
With busier, more hectic lives, people have less time to sit down and eat warm, cooked meals. Throughout history around the world, people traditionally ate three home-cooked meals a day. Today, most of us are lucky to get one. We have become a snack culture, eating frequently but never truly enjoying a meal. Most snack foods are cold, dry, and rough—think granola bars, popcorn, or chips—which increase Vata energy. It’s important to incorporate warm, grounding, cooked foods in your diet, whether you’re a Vata type or not, because cooked foods are easiest for your body to digest and absorb.
As we spend more time at desk jobs and sitting in transit, we often look for the most intense exercise as possible to “make up” for those sedentary hours. Fast-paced cardio classes have become increasingly popular to burn the largest amount of calories in the shortest amount of time. From an Ayurvedic perspective, however, this can be extremely harmful.
Excess cardio increases your Vata energy because Vata is related to movement energy. It’s not healthy for your body to go from sitting all day to huffing and out of breath. Instead, it’s much more effective to move and walk regularly throughout the day, without burning yourself out. If you overrun your body, you’ll feel Vata side effects, including restlessness, aching joints, insomnia, muscle tremors, or injury. It’s better to exercise slowly but deliberately to keep your body in check.
What Happens When Your Vata Is Excess?
When your Vata is excess, you start feeling Vata imbalances, including bloating; gas; constipation; cramping; cold body temperature; hair loss; dry eyes, skin, mouth, nose, and hair; irregular or missed periods; back pain; short-term memory loss; forgetfulness; insomnia; restlessness; and/or anxiety.
You might not experience all these imbalances, but the more imbalanced your Vata becomes, the more they will manifest. This is why it’s important to pacify your Vata before the problems pile on.
Causes of Pitta Imbalance
A Pitta imbalance can be caused by hot weather, stress, caffeine, spicy food, excess exercise and especially strength training, and a competitive environment.
Wisdom of the Ages
Have you ever noticed you felt in a bad mood when the air-conditioning wasn’t working? That’s because your Pitta was off balance. Hot weather causes your body to overheat, cranking up your internal fire until you can’t take it. Many people become more irritable in hot weather for this very reason.
It’s especially important for Pitta types to stay out of direct sunlight in the middle of the day, when the sun is highest, and exercise either early in the morning or in the afternoon, when the sun is lower in the sky. Exercising while overheated causes a severe Pitta imbalance because exercise already heats the body.
Stress definitely causes a Pitta imbalance. When you have a million things to do, you become overwhelmed and sometimes snap. This is why it’s important to always take a break, even if you aren’t a Pitta, to cool down stored-up tension. Stress creates heat in the system, which turns into acne, acidity, and a whole host of other Pitta imbalances you don’t want to suffer from.
Caffeine triggers Pitta because it’s a stimulant … and that’s why Pittas love it, even though it’s the last thing they need. Stimulants make your blood pump faster, exciting your inner Pitta to achieve and do more. Caffeine feeds the fire, but eventually that fire goes out, making you feel even worse … and crave more caffeine. People often become addicted to caffeine because of the Pitta rush it provides, especially Pitta types who are addicted to performance. Caffeine is extremely acidic and causes further heartburn, irritation, acne, and ulcers in a Pittas’ already acidic body.
What Happens When Your Pitta Is Excess?
When your Pitta is excess, you’ll start feeling Pitta imbalance symptoms, including hyperacidity, excess sweating, foul-smelling odor, overheating, premature gray hair and balding, oily skin, acne, rosacea, indigestion, impatience, anger, and/or aggression.
You might not experience all these things, but the more imbalanced your Pitta becomes, the more these symptoms will manifest, which is why it’s important to prevent and pacify them.
A Kapha imbalance can be caused by cold, rainy, or snowy weather; overeating; eating too many sweet, rich, or fatty foods; a sedentary lifestyle; under exercising; and depression.
Have you ever felt like staying in bed all day, week, or even month? Have you gone through a period of time when you just feel too exhausted for life? Have you ever dealt with your emotions by stuffing yourself with food? These are times when your Kapha is out of balance.
Kapha is a heavy and dense energy and makes you feel likewise. It can be brought on by cold, wet weather, which is why many of us gain weight during the winter. Leading a sedentary lifestyle and sitting for long periods of time further heightens the imbalance. Additionally, when you stay in your comfort zone, you lose the motivation to try new things, contributing more to the imbalance.
Wisdom of the Ages
The less you move your body, the less it wants to move. You may have noticed how easily you fall off the bandwagon after several weeks without exercise. After a hiatus, every bit of movement becomes incredibly difficult because your Kapha is heightened.
We live in a society in which we’re forced to sit many hours a day for work and school, so it’s important to work to keep your Kapha from creeping up, causing you to become lazy and inactive, even during your off hours. Make a point to move around during the day, even if it’s to go for a brisk walk or do a few jumping jacks every 30 minutes to get your heart rate going and keep you in fat-burning mode. Working at a standing desk can help you remain active while you work.
Eating too many sweet, rich, or fatty foods also increase your Kapha levels. Sweet foods, including breads and pastas, make you feel more lethargic and cause your blood sugar levels to rapidly increase, which means weight gain. Fatty foods are difficult for your body to digest and slow down your metabolic rate. Rich foods are dense in calories and cause heaviness in your body and your mind. It’s crucial for Kaphas to consume a light, portion-controlled diet with bitter and well-spiced foods as well as lead active lifestyles.
What Happens When Your Kapha Is Excess?
When your Kapha is excess, you’ll start feeling Kapha imbalance symptoms, including weight-gain, lethargy, diabetes, water retention, mucus, slow digestion and metabolism, cold body temperature, clammy hands, sadness, emotional eating and/or depression.
You might not experience all these symptoms, but the more imbalanced your Kapha becomes, the more these symptoms will manifest, which is why it’s important to prevent and pacify them.
Knowing Your Imbalances
It’s normal to experience imbalances of all three Doshas. There may have been a time you were overweight, causing a Kapha imbalance. You may have undergone a period of stress, attributing to a Pitta imbalance. Or maybe you got burnt out and became fatigued, leading to a Vata imbalance. The Doshas are ever-flowing energies that cause your Vikruti to change throughout your life.
Learn the difference between your Prakriti and Vikruti so you can properly treat your body. When following Ayurvedic guidelines, always choose the suggestions for the Dosha that’s off balance, your Vikruti. This pacifies the Dosha that’s off balance so you can revert to your Prakriti. For example, if your Kapha is off balance, causing you to become heavy and lethargic, follow a Kapha-pacifying diet. If your Vata is out of balance, causing you to be become malnourished and constipated, follow a Vata-pacifying diet. If your Pitta is not in check, causing you to experience heartburn and loose stools, follow a Pitta-pacifying diet.
You still want to keep your Prakriti in mind, however, and check back in with your body often. Follow the Vikruti-pacifying guidelines until you no longer suffer from that imbalance and then gradually adjust your diet so you can maintain your own unique version of balance.
So many things can attribute to a Dosha imbalance, and knowing them can help you avoid a lifetime of disease. You have a great deal of control over your well-being. All it takes is awareness and responsibility.
The Least You Need to Know
- The Doshic constitution you were born with is called your Prakriti; the one you have today is your Vikruti.
- You are not just one Dosha but a combination of all three, and that combination may change throughout your life.
- Certain dietary and lifestyle decisions, such as eating, exercising, or sleeping too much, cause an imbalance in your Vikruti.
- The secret to health is making your Vikruti match your Prakriti.