Cindy, as you recall, was a fifty-year-old woman who had spent a lifetime struggling with both weight and depression. She had benefited from a number of the diet, exercise, and lifestyle changes that I’ve described in Step One. But it was the Ayurvedic Mind-Body approach that really inspired her.
According to Ayurveda, Cindy was a classic Earth type, a true kapha—heavy, sturdy, and stable, whose chief strength and most frustrating weakness was the difficulty of getting her to move. When Cindy was at her best, her kapha energies made her loving, nurturing, strong, and reliable—a true earth mother. When she struggled with kapha imbalances, however, she was depressed, weighed down with extra flesh, sluggish, and slow-moving, as though she were slogging through mud or carrying the world on her shoulders.
Cindy liked the earth-inspired images of Ayurveda more than the medical terminology or the psychological language that she’d encountered from her previous physicians and psychiatrists. “I feel that we’re talking about all of me,” she told me once. “I’m not just this problem or that problem—I’m a whole package.”
In Western terms, kapha imbalance bears a remarkable resemblance to depression caused by a norepinephrine/dopamine deficiency. Both have similar symptoms: depressed mood, low energy, a tendency to sleep more, weight gain, withdrawal, a kind of passivity, decreased sex drive, impotence or frigidity, slowed thoughts, poor memory, and sometimes even suicidal feelings. As we saw in Chapter 2, there are clear biochemical causes for these symptoms. But I like the Ayurvedic explanation as well.
According to Ayurveda, kapha people become imbalanced when they have too little energy to keep moving. When out of balance, they tend to feel sluggish and lethargic. They sleep too much and have difficulty waking. They often gain weight and may even become obese. And on a psychological level, they can become stubborn, set in their ways, dependent, and clingy.
When a kapha imbalance continues too long, it becomes depression, a condition marked by a lack of energy and motivation, the tendency to withdraw and to lose interest in the world, difficulty concentrating, and trouble remaining focused and alert. I sometimes think of depressed kapha types as literally sinking into the earth, with too little energy or motivation to pull themselves out of the damp ground in which they are mired. In fact, kapha energies—whether healthy or depressed—are marked by moisture, coolness, and heaviness, and they are almost always slow to move. So when kapha goes out of balance, we seek treatments to add dryness, warmth, lightness, and stimulating energy.
Symptoms of Kapha Imbalance
• feeling sluggish and listless
• fatigue
• feeling unmotivated and pessimistic, a kind of “what’s the use?” attitude
• slow-moving or unfocused behavior
• difficulty concentrating
• memory problems
• a compulsive tendency to stick to routine and be unable to imagine a way out
• dependency on familiar people, places, and situations
• excessive sleeping and/or trouble waking up in the mornings
• weight gain and tendency toward obesity
• passivity
• decreased sex drive and/or impotence/frigidity
Kapha is the most stable of the three types. But when kapha types do lose their equilibrium, they have the most difficulty regaining it. As Cindy and I agreed, her greatest strengths were also her greatest weaknesses. The very stability and solidity that made her such a nurturing parent and reliable worker were now making it difficult for her to lose weight, regain her energy, and make the needed changes in her life that would free her from her depression.
Because kapha imbalances take so long to develop, it can be difficult to see them clearly. Here are some of the factors that often create kapha imbalance:
Factors That Lead to Kapha Imbalance
• prolonged or severe stress; Earth types can withstand more stress than their Fire or Air counterparts, but if stress lasts long enough or is intense enough, they’ll eventually lose their balance.
• prolonged lack of pressure, or understimulation, as in a dull job or a lifeless marriage
• relationships marked by excessive dependency or clinging
• withdrawing, not wanting to call people or to leave home, having too little contact with others
• taking sedating or depressant chemicals, such as alcohol, sleeping pills, and even many antidepressants, especially at higher doses
• lack of movement, too little exercise
• excess sleep, especially sleeping in late in the morning
• eating too much and becoming overweight
• eating too many sweet, salty, or fatty foods, or indulging in excess dairy products
• cold and damp weather, as in winter and spring; SAD is often a kapha imbalance
I always suggest to my patients that they begin with the simplest solutions. So if you’re a kapha type or a kapha combination and you’re feeling stuck, start by getting rid of anything that might tend to sedate you: alcohol, marijuana, antihistamines and similar over-the-counter medications, St. John’s wort, kava and other herbs, and even some of the antidepressant medications. Of course you must never—I repeat, never—stop taking prescription antidepressants or even reduce your dosage without first consulting your doctor. But if you are taking anti-depressants and your depression seems to be getting worse, ask your doctor about whether your dosage can be reduced, particularly if you’re feeling slow, listless, or sedated.
Sleep can seem very attractive to Earth people, but too much sleep is a common cause of imbalance. People with excess kapha are often amazed to find out how much more alert and energetic they can feel just by cutting back on sleep for a few days. See the suggestions I made for hypersomnia in Chapter 6, or try some of these recommendations:
Steps to Reduce Excessive Sleep
1. Make sure to get up at the same time every day, preferably between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. If you let yourself sleep later, you’ll get out of alignment with the earth’s rhythm and feel more sluggish. This can occur even with one day of “sleeping in,” so try to avoid that even on weekends.
2. Set your alarm fifteen minutes earlier each day until you get to your chosen wake-up time. If an alarm doesn’t wake you, set another across the room so that you have to get up to shut it off.
3. If you still have trouble waking, try a dawn simulator at your bedside. The gradually brightening light sends a strong signal to the brain to awaken. It is also very helpful to use bright light (a SAD light) for twenty to thirty minutes just after arising.
4. Once you can get up at a consistent hour, you will likely be sleeping between seven to nine hours each night. But if you’re still getting more than nine hours of sleep because you fall asleep too early, try to stay awake fifteen minutes later each night. It may help to use bright light exposure late in the day, between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., to push back the time that you fall asleep.
5. Avoid naps until your nighttime sleep is regulated at a consistent seven to nine hours per night. If you must nap, limit your siestas to thirty minutes or less, or you will again notice that you feel more sluggish.
Meanwhile, take a long, hard look at your daily routine. Have you fallen into a rut? Do something different: Eat lunch in a new restaurant, walk to work instead of taking the bus, go off on a Saturday afternoon to someplace you’ve never been before. Or if you need to make bigger changes, talk to your boss, your spouse, your family to shift a pattern that’s no longer working for you.
Be sure, too, that you’re not clinging to relationships that aren’t serving you well, or becoming overly dependent on the people you love. Kapha types are talented at relationships, establishing long-lasting ties with loved ones, family members, and friends. But sometimes Earth types must learn to let go, or to demand significant changes within a relationship.
Cindy realized that she had gotten into a rut with her husband. Although early in their marriage they’d both enjoyed a certain amount of separate socializing, Cindy discovered that somehow, she almost never saw her husband. An active Fire type, he always seemed to be busy with work, church activities, or a project with one of the kids. But she had grown so used to the situation that she barely was aware that it bothered her. Only later, after engaging in the mindfulness work I describe in Step Three, did Cindy begin to understand how angry, sad, and frustrated she was by many aspects of her marriage. She had told herself that “it didn’t matter”—and her kapha imbalance was the result.
I introduced Cindy to the Ayurvedic theory of the six types of flavor— sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, and astringent. I encouraged her to favor kapha-pacifying foods, those with bitter, pungent, and astringent flavors. I explained that she would find it stimulating to pique her taste buds with bitter leafy greens—kale, arugula, escarole, and the like; the pungent flavors of onion, ginger, garlic, and cayenne; and the astringent vegetables broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and brussels sprouts.
Cindy found that her altered diet did seem to wake up her taste buds while restoring some of her vigor. She realized that the sweet, salty foods she cherished were indeed soothing—but now she needed less to be calmed and comforted than to be inspired and energized. She also found that just the effort involved in making these dietary changes “woke her up”—that creating new habits of shopping, cooking, and eating were helping her get out of her rut.
Your Brain-Healthy Kapha Diet: How Earth Types Need to Eat
• Eat less. If you’re an Earth type, you tend to put on weight, and both your body and your energies are weighed down accordingly. Think about taking in fewer calories and switching from heavier to lighter foods, particularly when you are feeling depressed, sluggish, or out of tune with the world around you.
• Reduce or avoid sweets. Many of my kapha patients have told me that they seem to gain weight easily even when they don’t eat much. They may be getting too many sweets and starchy foods, consuming processed sugar and refined carbohydrates. Earth types seem poorly equipped to handle these substances, which their body easily stores as fat.
• Generally, you should consume more protein and less carbohydrates than the other two types. Check out Chapter 4 and follow the diet for norepi/dopa deficiency.
• Earth types have a generally slower metabolism and can go longer than the other types between meals without feeling imbalanced. This is the only type that can get away with skipping breakfast, though I still don’t recommend it. I do recommend a low-calorie, high-protein breakfast, such as a protein/fruit/juice shake or a couple of hard-boiled eggs and a dish of berries. Generally, choose fruits and juices that aren’t overly sweet, and of course stay well away from sweetened fruit juice, which can set off blood-sugar imbalances and create a craving for sugar.
• Go for lots of variety in your diet. Remember, in pretty much every area of life, Earth types have to be careful about not getting into a rut. Remind yourself that variety is literally the spice of life by including in your diet a wide range of tastes, textures, food groups—and spices.
• Cut back on sweet, salty, and sour foods, including ice cream, most desserts, chips, white breads, pastas, and all dairy products except unsweetened yogurt, kefir (a kind of liquid yogurt), and low-fat cottage cheese. Skim milk in moderation is okay, but you should still aim for less dairy, overall. Instead, favor pungent, bitter, and astringent foods, which still stimulate you and help you regain your lost energy. (See the table below for more detail on how to incorporate these flavors into your diet.)
• Eat slowly and mindfully. Besides helping you digest your food, this will also help you realize when you’ve had enough. You’ll be less likely to overeat—and more likely to increase the pleasure you take in the sensual aspects of food, including taste, texture, and aroma.
• Favor warm drinks and avoid putting ice in your drinks, including water. Ginger tea will stimulate your taste buds while aiding in digestion. Green tea can stimulate your system and provide you with lots of antioxidants. Even black tea can perk you up and keep your energy moving.
Your Brain-Healthy Kapha Detox: How Earth Types Need to Cleanse
Follow the detox suggestions I shared in Chapter 6, with these special suggestions for kapha types:
• Because of their constitution, Earth types may undertake a longer fast than the other types, going without food for up to a week. However, I would recommend undertaking any fast of more than two days under appropriate supervision only. For either shorter or longer juice fasts, apple and cranberry are good choices.
• Dry saunas are particularly useful for Earth types. You can take one any time of year, but you’ll appreciate them most from winter through early spring, when they can help you lose some of the kapha moisture that weighs on your body and spirit. I also recommend saunas during your detox month: at least a few times per week, or up to twenty to thirty minutes once or twice a day if you’ve got easy access to a sauna.
Earth types can be strong and athletic, especially when young. But their tendency to become sedentary and gain weight as adults makes exercise of utmost importance for staying in balance.
Earth types also have the most to gain from regular exercise. For them, exercise should be vigorous, requiring them to push themselves and go a bit beyond their “comfort zone.” Of course they should make sure to take precautions to avoid injury, although they are the most durable of the three types and the least likely to get injured. However, since they’ve often gotten out of shape by avoiding exercise, they must be particularly careful when resuming an exercise routine, and should check with their physicians if there is any concern about the health of their hearts.
As we saw in Chapter 6, exercise was a major key to Cindy’s renewed health and vigor. Engaging in exercise that required Cindy to break a sweat, to push herself, and to move quickly really helped wake up her kapha energies, even as it replenished her depleted stores of norepinephrine and dopamine. Both kapha types and people suffering from unbalanced kapha energies should follow my suggestions in Chapter 6 for the exercise suited to restore norepi/dopa depletion.
Your Brain-Healthy Kapha Exercise Plan: Activities for Earth Types
• Try to move and break a sweat almost every day. If you have the time and are so inclined, you can benefit by spending more time in exercise than the other types—from forty-five to sixty minutes a day.
• Do both aerobic and weight training. Aerobic classes with vigorous movements and stimulating music can work great for Earth types. Weight training can strengthen and tone your muscles, helping you carry any extra weight more easily while trimming and refining your bodies. Weight training will help you both to feel better physically and to feel better about yourself.
• Participating in competitive sports can also be helpful for kapha people. Such activity tends to be more stimulating and gets the energy flowing.
• Exciting outdoor activities, even those with a mild element of risk, can help energize Earth types. Examples might include rock climbing, white-water rafting, sea kayaking, mountain biking. Anyone for parachuting?
Like most kapha types who are struggling with depression, Cindy benefited from establishing a daily routine emphasizing regularity, less sleep, and an earlier rising time. Figuring out how much regularity Cindy needed required a delicate balancing act, to be sure. Earth types run into problems when routine becomes, too, well, routine. When their days are too much the same, one after another, their energy stagnates and life seems dull. They could use a little of the spontaneity of the Air types or the drive of the Fire types. But Earth types can also let lack of structure lead them into lethargy and sluggishness. Too little movement, with or without structure, is the common pitfall of this constitution. Their motto should be “A rolling stone gathers no moss.”
Cindy used the Energizing Breath Technique described in Chapter 6 to give herself a boost each morning and early afternoon, right after her session with the light box, which she used to combat SAD. She also relied on this useful technique whenever she felt depressed or sluggish or when she had difficulty concentrating.
In Chapter 8, I described the Ayurvedic understanding of the day’s circadian rhythms. As you can see on pages 142 to 143, the times of greatest stress for Earth types are the hours between six and ten. In the morning, Earth types tend to be sluggish until 10 a.m., with difficulty getting out of bed and beginning their day. In the evening, their energy and mental focus begin to diminish between six and ten as they prepare to sleep. Some people with kapha imbalance become very sleepy in the evening, especially in the winter months. Regardless of season, it is normal for Earth types to get more sleep than the others, averaging perhaps eight to nine hours a day. But if they sleep longer than that, the fog of heaviness quickly drifts in.
Here’s how Earth types might best arrange their days and nights:
Twenty-four-hour Schedule for Kapha People
• Awaken between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. If morning sluggishness is a problem, get up by 6 a.m. so you’re already awake when the kapha period begins.
• Take a warm shower.
• Spend thirty minutes on energizing breathing or meditation, or on some fairly vigorous exercise like yoga or running. In winter, this would be a good time for bright light exposure.
• Eat a light breakfast between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m.
• Take a short walk of about fifteen minutes after each meal.
• Work from 9 a.m. to noon, but include a midmorning break for a walk, stretch, or light snack.
• Eat lunch between noon and one, preferably in a warm and energizing environment. Lunch should be your heaviest meal of the day, so you have many hours to burn off the food before going to sleep. The noon hour might also be a good time for a vigorous walk or another form of exercise.
• Avoid napping. Extra sleep aggravates kapha and may exacerbate fatigue and weight gain.
• Work from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. But break up your afternoon with some tea and perhaps have a high-protein snack at about 4 p.m.
• Take time to wind down from the day before dinner. This is a good time to get some more exercise.
• Eat dinner by 6 p.m. or 7 p.m., preferably with friends or family. Keep this meal light.
• Enjoy a stimulating evening. Join groups, take a class (possibly yoga or aerobics), see a good movie, or go out to hear some music. Try to seek out activities, especially in winter months. Avoid the temptation to sit at home watching TV and snacking. Minimize evening eating.
• Late evening is a good time for a spiritual practice, meditation, or aromatherapy.
• Go to bed by 10 p.m. or 11 p.m.
As Cindy had discovered, kapha is aggravated in winter, when the world seems cold and dark. Early spring—cool and damp—can also aggravate Earth types, as can any cool, damp weather.
Cindy also struggled with SAD, as we have seen, a typical Earth type imbalance to winter’s lack of sunlight. She quickly learned that as soon as she noticed herself slowing down, feeling sluggish, gaining weight, and wanting to sleep too much, it was time to pull out the light box and take the other measures referred to in Chapter 6. Happily, she, like many kapha types, was eventually able to overcome her tendency to SAD through these techniques plus diet, breathing, and the other Earth-balancing suggestions described in this chapter.
Your Brain-Healthy Kapha Routine: Daily Life for Earth Types
• What works best for Earth types is variety within routine. Earth types should also make a point of finding people and activities that interest and stimulate them. Just as the clogged and muddy stream needs fresh water to keep the energy flowing, so do kapha people need friends, teachers, colleagues, and activities to inspire them to keep moving.
• Simple pleasures for Earth types include a brisk walk alone or, better yet, with a walking partner. Get outside and enjoy nature, particularly if you can seek warmth and the sun.
• A new hobby, class, or adventure—any type of new activity—can shake things up for Earth types. Dance and music, with their movement and endless variety, make excellent lifelong pursuits.
• Look for books and movies that are dramatic, thrilling, or action-packed. Especially when you’re depressed, avoid slow-moving, sad, and sentimental stories.
• Taste and smell are the senses that most engage Earth types. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why they find it hard to avoid weight gain— they get trapped into getting most of their stimulation from taste. Instead of quantity, go for more interesting foods. Try a new type of cuisine or order an unfamiliar food, especially something spicy or hot. Try to get more of your stimulation from food’s aroma and focus on mindful eating for enhanced pleasure without all the calories.
• Massage can be helpful for Earth types, who benefit most from morning rubdowns. They can tolerate a deep, invigorating type of massage, ideally with corn or calamus-root oil, or even a dry massage without oil.
• Aromatherapy can also lift the spirits and boost the energy of kapha people. Oils that improve mood include basil, cinnamon, coriander, patchouli, peppermint, rose, jasmine, neroli, melissa, ylang-ylang, sandalwood, thyme, citrus oils (grapefruit, lime, mandarin, bergamot), geranium, and lavender. Eucalyptus both boosts mood and helps clear sinus congestion, a common complaint of Earth types.
• Mind-body integrative exercises most helpful for Earth types might include yoga, to help generate and move energy, qigong, and such martial arts as karate, tae kwon do, aikido, and kickboxing. Look for more vigorous forms of yoga, such as those done in a heated room (Bikram yoga is one such type). Likewise, qigong helps generate energy and keep it flowing, which may help mobilize an Earth type. Martial arts may suit Earth types because of the physical challenge and stimulating nature of the practice. Earth types are already well grounded, which gives them an immediate martial-arts advantage, and further study can help them learn to mobilize their bodies and use their energy. The competition found in some forms of martial art can also be appropriately energizing for Earth types.
• High-speed activities are also quite stimulating. Consider righting your kapha imbalance with boating, motorcycling, skydiving, bungee jumping, or a ride on a roller coaster.
• Music can stimulate energies as well, especially rock and roll, or passionate classical pieces.
Note: Many depressed people become intolerant of any arousal, even though ultimately, arousal is what they need. In response to their difficulties, however, they isolate themselves and restrict their activities. If you feel anxious or irritable at the very thought of the kinds of stimulating activities I’ve described, start slowly, adding stimulation in small doses. Otherwise, you may feel overloaded and withdraw further.
Issues that tend to be significant for Earth types include struggling to accept what is. Earth types seem unusually prone to getting caught in the darkness of what the Buddhists call delusion—the inability or unwillingness to see things as they really are. This can lead to a “head-in-the-sand” mentality in which a kapha person allows problems to continue, either because they seem to have always been present or because the kapha person is unwilling to accept that they really are problems. The way out is to embrace and cultivate mindfulness, the ability to be fully in each moment with clear seeing and accepting of what is. (You can read more about these issues in Step Three.)
Earth types also have the tendency to accumulate, to store more than is needed. They often hold on to extra weight, discredited ideas, unhealthy relationships, dissatisfying jobs, or problematic personal situations. The way out may be to let go of the unnecessary, to practice detachment, and to unclutter the mind as well as the environment. Meditation, reflection, and letting go can all be enormously helpful for Earth types, who can find it especially useful to return frequently to the basic spiritual question “What is life-giving and what is death-dealing or lifeless at this moment in my life?”
Cindy benefited enormously from the kapha balancing techniques I’ve described. The physical interventions—diet, supplements, exercise, and using the light box—boosted her energy and her mood, opening her to new possibilities in her life and to new approaches to self-care. They were the gateway to the spiritual and emotional balancing she undertook, particularly the mindfulness work I’ll describe in subsequent chapters. With its combination of treatments geared to mind, body, and spirit, the Ayurvedic approach enabled Cindy to address her problems on many fronts—with slow but steady success.
Healing for Earth Type
Foods:
Overview: more protein, fewer carbohydrates, very few sweets or fats
Recommended Foods:
Dairy: skim milk
Meats: low-fat meats
Beans and legumes: all are fine
Nuts and Seeds: sunflower and pumpkin seeds
Grains: barley, buckwheat, corn, millet, rye
Vegetables: all are okay, many may be eaten raw. Eat fewer of those with high glycemic index (e.g., potatoes and sweet potatoes).
Fruits: apples, pears, apricots, cranberries
Spices:
basil
black or cayenne pepper
cardamom
celery seeds
cinnamon
cloves
ginger
lemon
mustard
parsley
peppermint
sage
spearmint
thyme
Activities:
• seek stimulation and variety
• light meals
• regular, vigorous, or competitive exercise
• travel, meeting new people, trying new things
• dry heat (e.g., sauna)
• drink moderate amounts of warm fluids (may use some caffeine)
• outdoor adventures: boating, climbing, rafting, skiing
• action movies, mysteries
• lively music, dancing
• consider a martial art or vigorous form of yoga