Chapter 6
The Rules of the Day: Dinacharya and Staying in Balance
In This Chapter
Using your daily routine to maintain balance
Discovering the power of meditation
Learning about what’s best for your senses
Determining suitable aromatherapy oils for your body type
The daily routine is known in Sanskrit as dinacharya, literally ‘to be close to the day’. To be close to the day means you are in touch with the cycles of the earth, moon and sun, as well as other planets on a more subtle level. If all that seems a bit airy-fairy to you, just observe how a full moon affects the tides and how sunspot activity affects electrical systems. An undeniable connection exists between us and the elements of our solar system.
Health maintenance forms one of the backbones of Ayurveda, which emphasises harmonising with natural rhythms and the influence that lifestyle has on the doshas (your constitution; see Chapter 2). The Ayurvedic rishis (the wise ones, who I tell you about in Chapter 1) considered the daily routine to be the most important ingredient of longevity.
Many people are in need of the harmony that the daily routine helps create. For example, the number of new cancer cases now stands at 12 million per year – an increase of 20 per cent in less than a decade. According to the World Cancer Research Fund, a quarter of the cases are preventable, because they’re intimately linked with diet and lifestyle. This particular chapter is really important, as following the daily routine can help allay ill-health and may prevent some of the damage caused by poor diet and lifestyle.
It’s never too late to cultivate good habits. The organs of your body create a wonderful harmony, but when you lose the connection to daily rhythms and seasonal changes, you begin to get that not-quite-right feeling. You lose awareness of what’s good for you – whether that’s food, relationships or exercise. In this chapter I offer advice designed to keep you in harmony.
You may want to implement all of the directives listed, or you can simply determine which are the most suitable for your lifestyle and what feels right for you personally.
To make the most of each stage of your daily routine, please refer to Chapter 4 for more information on your individual constitution.
The Right Side of the Bed: Starting the Day with Energy
Beginning your day correctly is paramount, because it sets the tone for the rest of your day. A few tips make maximising this critical time easier and give you a more productive start.
Of foremost importance is the time when you get out of bed. If you get up right away when you wake up, you’re more likely to feel good, because you’re at your freshest during this time.
If, on the other hand, you go back to sleep, you’ll dream, and this can make you tired because you start to return to the part of the sleep cycle known as REM (rapid eye movement). When you have to wake up again, you feel groggy because you’re leaving your bed just when you’d be returning to deep sleep.
The time at which you get up depends on your constitution (see Chapter 4 to determine your dosha):
Those with a vata constitution should get up at about 6 a.m. You’re easily fatigued and tend to need more sleep to replenish your delicate nervous system.
Pitta people are best suited to 5:30 a.m. You tend to sleep very soundly and wake up refreshed after about 6 hours.
Kapha individuals ought to start stirring at around 4:30 or 5:00 a.m., even though they’re the ones who are most likely to want to stay in bed. This is because you need to stimulate an already slow metabolism and you tend to put on weight easily. Rising early and being more active throughout the day will stimulate your system.
Those on a spiritual path, whatever it is, will find 4 or 4:30 a.m. the best time for prayer or meditation, because sattwa (explained in Chapter 2), with its fine balancing energy, is more prevalent at this time and also at dusk.
Try not to rush headlong into the day, and remember to factor in a gentle start with time for reflection, harmonising your inner flow of energy with that of the earth. The following sections show you how to start your day gently.
Reflecting before you start the day
Moving from sleep to activity takes a little doing. A moment of reflection can help to ease the transition.
When you awake, reflect for a few moments before your feet touch the floor. While still lying down, look at your hands, palms up, for a short while and then pass them gently over your face, chest and waist to cleanse your aura and improve awareness. Then briefly say a positive affirmation or prayer for your intention to have a good day. You don’t have to get fancy; the important thing is that you use this moment to set the tone for the day ahead.
Putting your best foot forward
Every 90 minutes, the flow of breath in the nose switches from the left to right nostril. When it’s on the right side, actions such as eating and urinating should be undertaken; conversely, the left nostril activities are more reflective, such as meditating and studying. This is because the right nostril is heating and connected to solar energies, and the left nostril is cooling and connected to lunar energies.
Establish the dominant nostril by breathing on the back of your hand near the junction of the hand and wrist. When you determine from which side the stronger breath is coming, place your corresponding foot on the ground. With this act (known as swara yoga), you’re literally putting your best foot forward to carry positive energy throughout all your daily activities.
Cleansing your body
When you get up, head right to the bathroom to urinate and evacuate your bowels and remove wastes that have accumulated in your system overnight. Try to educate your bowels to release their contents at the same time every day, because imbalance of the doshas can manifest itself here very quickly.
Finish your body-cleansing routine by drinking a glass of room-temperature water with a little lemon juice. Doing so helps to flush the kidneys and keep your gastrointestinal tract clean.
Drinking from a copper cup removes excess kapha or mucus from the body, because copper ions have a slight warming effect on the body.
Meditation: The Way to Nirvana and the Light in the Heart
Ideally, meditation becomes the foundation of your day. Regular meditation can change your life in a very positive way, leading you to experience the world and other people as being part of the same unified whole.
Meditation is central to the practice of Ayurveda. Note that meditation isn’t just about sitting silently with your eyes shut; rather, it’s a state of total awareness giving focused attention, when both mind and body are in complete harmony. This state provides deep rest on all levels.
The action of meditation is thought to unlink the cortical and limbic systems, or, to put it another way, it separates the perceiving system and thinking arena from the emotional and autonomic parts of the mind. The result is that you become more wakeful and alert, while in a deeply relaxed state. You also benefit emotionally from a therapeutic effect that helps you cope more easily with the challenges, or slings and arrows, of the day.
Moving into meditation
For your morning meditation, select a place in your home that’s quiet, preferably facing north-east, a direction which is considered to be more in tune with spiritual energies. Choose a draught-free and well-ventilated room. Try to use the same space for your regular practice. Doing so promotes sattwic energy (a peaceful quality akin to that in sacred spaces; Chapter 2 tells you more about sattwic energy). Also try to keep away from distractions like your phone or computer, or at least turn them off.
Set aside the same time for meditation every day. Doing so strengthens your practice, because once you have a defined time, you can begin to fit your schedule around it. Sunrise and sunset are ideal times for meditation, because more calm is available in the form of sattwic energy.
Follow these steps to experience meditation:
1. Sit on a cushion or rug with your legs crossed. If that’s too difficult, choose a comfortable seat or chair that allows your feet to touch the floor.
2. Now try to still all movement in your body. Sitting up straight and still enables energy to flow unimpeded through your head and down through your spine, creating a sense of equilibrium in the body.
3. Focus on your breath, without changing it in any way. Sense the inhalation and feel the coolness of the air as it passes through your nostrils. Next allow the exhalation of air in its own time and note the warmth of the air as it leaves your nasal cavity.
4. Try to meditate for 20 to 30 minutes twice a day. Work up to that duration, and when you master it you can extend it (and perform meditation more often). But consistency of practice is more important than duration; a little every day is more valuable than meditating for huge chunks of time on an irregular basis. The benefits of meditation far outweigh any perceived problems.
A great step to help you towards deep meditation is to focus on a sound. I’ve included sounds for specific doshas in the next section. The sound ‘so hum’ is useful if you don’t know your constitution or want a general sound to focus on – ‘so’ on the inhalation and ‘hum’ on the exhale. This should be sounded internally in a measured and slow way. This enables you to move into a deeper place and enhance your inner awareness.
After finishing your meditation practice, slowly reengage your senses with the outer world and take a little time to reflect and stretch before moving headlong into your busy life. If possible, try to bring to mind how you felt during meditation; doing so will help you to be calm and centred throughout the day.
Using a mantra
A mantra is simply a sound, word or group of words that you repeat to help you move into a meditative state and focus your mind. A mantra takes your daily operating awareness to subtler and quieter levels and can affect your physiology in a deep and profound way, leading to an increase in introspection and peace.
You can use one of the tried and true mantras that aligns with your constitution (read Chapter 4 to determine your constitution.) None of the mantras has a specific meaning; each is a natural vibration appropriate for calming and balancing the mind. They are as follows:
For vata dosha, use ‘shrim’ to induce good health, prosperity and creativity.
‘Ram’, the mantra of truth, righteousness and virtue is suitable for pitta dosha.
‘Hrim’ helps to purify and cleanse, and it confers joy and energy. It’s particularly appropriate for kapha individuals.
Being patient with difficulties
Meditation requires practice. As you become accustomed to meditation, expect some difficulties such as:
An increase in restlessness. Your mind moves constantly, and you probably don’t realise just how true that is until you stop to observe. Don’t worry; the jumping around of thought that you’re starting to notice is perfectly normal. With practice, you can calm it.
Impatience at the absence of results. Even though nothing appears to be happening early on, trust that at subtle levels you’re ironing out kinks and making progress.
Intruding thoughts invade the mind during the practice. Don’t try to repress these perfectly normal interruptions, but do go back to focusing on your breath or mantra whenever you realise you’ve lost concentration.
Let patience be your watchword, and treat each meditation period as a special treat.
While the technique of meditation itself is very simple, I strongly recommend the help of a teacher who can help establish the practice and help resolve any problems. Organisations with a proven track record over many years are:
The Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre (www.sivananda.co.uk) is focused in Europe and the United States.
The Maharishi Foundation has a well-established network of meditation teachers worldwide, who specialise in transcendental meditation. See www.t-m.org.uk (Britain) or www.tm.org (United States).
The School of Meditation (www.schoolofmeditation.org) is primarily located in Britain and the United States.
Looking After the Senses
Ayurveda places great importance on the care of the sense organs, because their smooth operation ensures clarity and freshness in your experience of the outer world. Part of staying in balance is keeping your senses clear, because they’re literally the way in which you take in the world.
Refreshing your eyes
Seventy per cent of sensory experience comes through your eyes, and most of our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual insights are intimately linked to the successful functioning of our visual system. Nowadays, sight is seriously challenged by poor lighting, whether it be too bright or too low, as well as by bad posture, staring at computer screens for too long, and reading small print.
Computer vision syndrome is now an established medical phenomenon, in which concentrating on a computer screen leads to headaches, blurred vision, neck pain, fatigue, dry and irritated eyes, difficulty refocusing and double vision. If this sounds familiar, consider including eye yoga in your daily routine. Chapter 7 gives you the details.
Rotate your eyes in either direction to improve visual acuity and remove habitual strain. You may also want to use a diluted triphala eyewash, which is good for all doshas and cleanses the eyes. Here’s how:
1. Mix a 1⁄4 cup of water and a 1⁄4 teaspoon of triphala powder (available from health-food shops; see Appendix C for suppliers).
2. Simmer gently for ten minutes.
3. Cool the mixture.
4. Strain to remove any granules.
5. Rinse eyes with the mixture.
You may want to apply anjanam, an herbal eye ointment, after your eyewash. This herb is said to be a good coolant, it protects the eyes from bright light and enhances the look of the eyes. Eye drops such as organic rosewater are very soothing, and castor oil once a week really makes your eyes sparkle.
Caring for teeth and gums
Ayurvedic texts explain that the teeth don’t exist in isolation, and that they’re part of a living matrix, which in fact is linked subtly to end organs in the rest of the body.
To stimulate the connections between the teeth and the organs, try clenching your teeth together. Doing so also aids the circulation of each tooth and maintains the muscles of the jaw. Thirty clenches per day is optimal.
The following tips help you keep your mouth healthy and thereby maximise the connections between your teeth and gums and your mind and body:
Apply sesame oil to your gums after cleaning your teeth, to maintain tooth health. I have a close friend who’s a dentist and encourages all her patients to do so – with very good results. Decant raw, untoasted sesame oil over your brush (dipping the brush would contaminate the oil) and judiciously coat your teeth to condition the gums and prevent plaque build-up.
Relieve bleeding gums and gingivitis by massaging the teeth and gums with raw sesame oil four times a day for four to five minutes after you clean them.
A lovely formula for daily use on teeth is one teaspoon each of lodhra, kala namak, triphala and neem, mixed together and kept in a container (all are available from online Ayurvedic shops). This concoction helps to contract the small capillaries and introduce Vitamin C, a powerful antioxidant that stimulates healthy gum tissue. Another useful dental formula is a 50–50 mix of triphala powder with finely ground roasted almond shells.
You can use Irimedali Taila, a special oil which is just for the mouth, to massage your gums to prevent gum disease.
Tongue and mouth maintenance
Two very effective strategies for looking after the mouth are sluicing the mouth with herbal preparations or oily substances, which is called gandusha in Sanskrit, and gargling, known as kavalagraha. These practices of irrigating the mouth can be performed all year round by all body types. First thing in the morning is the most favourable time of day. They prevent and treat bad breath, all kapha disorders and dryness.
Gandusha
In this procedure, you completely fill your mouth with fluid so that you can’t gargle. It’s particularly helpful if you’ve started to lose taste.
Start by preparing one of the following mixtures:
Untoasted sesame oil or ghee with sweet, sour or salty substances such as liquorice powder or a little black salt (available from your Indian grocery) to remove vata disturbances like wasting of the gums and loose teeth.
Ghee with a small amount of a bitter medicament such as guduchi is useful in pitta problems, and particularly helpful in cases of mouth ulcers and pitta-provoked situations such as bleeding gums.
Ghee with a small amount of a bitter, pungent and astringent substance such as eucalyptus oil or neem powder is known as samshodana gandusha and will help to eradicate kapha problems such as infections, dryness and a white coating in the mouth due to candida.
Sit near a sink in a draught-free environment. The ancient texts suggest concentrating while seated in a darkened room with someone massaging your neck and shoulders. If you can arrange this, you’re very lucky – enjoy it!
Completely fill your mouth with one of the solutions. Doing so may cause your eyes and or nose to run. That’s part of the process of disturbed doshas from your ears, nose, mouth and eyes which are accumulating in your mouth, so that you can expel them.
Kavalagraha
In kavalagraha, you half fill your mouth with a decoction of herbs in either water or oil, so that you have room to gargle.
The mixture you gargle depends on your constitution. Check out Chapter 4 to determine your constitution, and then choose the appropriate recipe:
For vata, combine:
• 1 cup water
• 1⁄2 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 1 drop lavender oil
For a pitta constitution, mix:
• 1 cup water
• 1⁄2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
If you have a kapha constitution, prepare:
• 1 cup water
• 1⁄2 teaspoon honey
• 1⁄4 teaspoon ginger
For whichever recipe you choose, bring the water and herbs to the boil and then simmer for three to five minutes. If you’re using the vata recipe, wait to add the oil until after the mixture has simmered. Cool the vata or kapha mixture until it is warm before using; use the pitta mixture cold.
Then gargle, as follows:
1. Hold the substance in your mouth for one minute and then swoosh around your teeth and eject.
2. Fill your mouth again for two minutes and gargle with the head back.
Spit out the substance. Your mouth should feel really refreshed.
More tips for mouth care
Other tips for the health of the mouth include:
Chew a mixture of equal quantities of fennel and cumin seeds, or a cardamom pod, after eating, to freshen your breath and aid your digestion.
Avoid crunching on ice in drinks, which weakens tooth enamel.
Refrain from drinking very hot drinks, eating acidic foods and smoking – all of which upset the natural flora of the mouth.
Care of the tongue
The tongue is considered a very important organ in Ayurveda and is known as jivha, a word which has the same root as the word ‘life’. Treat this organ of perception with great care.
Use a tongue scraper, which you can find at any chemist, to keep your tongue in its best shape. To use it, gently pass the scraper over the surface of the tongue from back to front.
Don’t be too aggressive with your tongue scraper. The papillae (the bits that stick up) on your tongue are very delicate and easily damaged. Keep your tongue scraper clean and dry between uses or you may spread infection.
Scraping your tongue:
Aids the expulsion of ama (that’s the bad stuff, which I tell you about in detail in Chapter 5).
Stimulates stomach activity, because the stomach is innervated with the same nerves as the tongue is.
Keeps the mouth and breath fresh.
Removes excess kapha.
Improves the taste of food.
Stainless steel tongue scrapers are a good choice. Plastic can be too sharp. Use a silver tongue scraper and you get the extra benefit of silver ions deposited on your tongue; that’s a tonic for pitta types. A copper scraper is good for kapha and vata doshas.
Snehana: Loving the Body with Oil Massage
Massage is central to the therapeutics of Ayurveda, which recommends that you should never be far from a bottle of oil. The early texts compared the human body to a leather bag which gets worn out but lasts much longer if it’s lubricated. Similarly, the axle of a wheel will also fail to operate unless properly greased.
Charaka, one of the most venerated Ayurvedic physicians, described the utility of oil massage by noting that when a pot is coated with an oily substance, the contents come out easily. This is also the case with the body: when appropriately oiled, the aggravated doshas can be expressed without too much trouble; when the aggravated doshas are left in place, they can create disease. In short, if you massage yourself with oil, you help to promote health.
The most gentle of all the therapies in the book, oil massage brings Ayurvedic herbs deep into the skin tissue. That action enhances your sense of touch by opening the channels through which sensation and prana (energy) flow to create a balance between what you experience and how you perceive it.
Ayurveda identifies nine effects of oil massage:
Strength
Invigoration
Fluidity
Peacefulness
Gentleness
Repairing scar tissue and muscular adhesions which create blockages to the flow of prana
Moisturising skin
Sensory stimulation
Accommodation, or your skin’s ability to stretch and prevent the formation of fissures and splits
Oil massage is referred to as snehana, which also means ‘to love’. The ancient texts mention 24 methods of application, covering a wide spectrum of therapies, such as: vaginal/urethral (yes we need moisture inside and out!) douches; gargles; nasal, ear and eye applications; and ingesting oily or sticky substances such as rice and decoctions.
Selecting the best oils for your body type
Both Sushruta and Charaka, the founding fathers of Ayurveda, mention that sesame is a good all-round oil to use because it’s subtle, endows satiety, is bulk promoting, aphrodisiac, enhances retention of memory, and acts as a skin and hair tonic.
Sesame oil is one of the best rejuvenators in Ayurveda, because it works on all tissues, or dhatus, is widely used as a base for herbs, nourishes the skin and bones and calms the mind. It’s said to penetrate all seven layers of the skin. In recent studies, sesame has been shown to have anti-viral properties, especially in the case of the Epstein–Barr virus. Sesame oil keeps for a long time without going rancid and contains a number of essential minerals, including iron, phosphorous, magnesium, copper, silica, trace elements and calcium.
You can buy sesame oil in any supermarket. Just don’t get the toasted variety, or you’ll go around all day smelling like a Chinese restaurant!
Depending on your dosha, choose your oil as follows:
Vata individuals should choose sesame, almond or nirgundi oils. These are light and warming in quality, which balances vata dosha.
Sunflower, coconut and neem oils are recommended for pacifying pitta because they’re cooling in quality without being too heavy.
If you have a kapha constitution, look for mustard or corn oil. However, if you’re overweight, using oil will add more kapha qualities to your already heavy and slow attributes. Therefore use dry powders with silk gloves if you’re very overweight, and apply more stimulation to increase the blood flow to areas like your thighs to stimulate the breakdown of fat tissue.
You can find further instructions for oil application and body massage in Chapter 16.
Oil application to the ears: Karna purna
Applying a drop or two of sesame oil in each ear every day protects and vitalises these sense organs, which become aggravated by vata because you use them constantly. So this simple practice should become a life-long habit for everyone.
Headphones, in particular, are hard on your ears. Using headphones increases air imbalance in the body, because sound is carried in this medium. In turn, this leads to dryness and accumulation of ear wax, which can give rise to tinnitus.
The inability to withstand loud noises is one of the first signs that vata is going out of balance.
Don’t apply oil to your ears if there’s any sign of infection, but see your doctor immediately.
Oil application for the nostrils: Nasya
Applying oil to the nostrils is beneficial to all doshas, but kapha and vata imbalances are particularly helped by it. Applying oil into your nose improves the flow of prana, prevents dryness of your nasal cavity, and is said to increase mental clarity.
Simply apply ghee or sesame oil to your clean little finger and rub gently into each nostril.
Patent nasal oils are readily available; the most common is known as Anu Tailam. Simply tip your head back and introduce three to five drops into each nostril on a daily basis. Doing so gives a sense of calm to the body and relieves dryness of the nostrils, pain in the face, weakness of vision, as well as pain in the neck region.
If you suffer from a blocked nose or sinusitis, then you need a deeper cleansing using a neti pot. See Chapter 14 for details.
Adorning Your Body with Clothes and Perfumes
How you present yourself to the world has a profound effect on how you feel about yourself, so time spent on your appearance is well worth the effort. Here are some simple tips for pampering yourself, using the knowledge of the doshas.
Choosing clothes for comfort
I’m sure you know the lovely feeling that freshly washed and ironed clothes give you. Ayurveda says that such clothing confers ojas, or good energy, on the wearer.
Remember the old saying that you never know how someone feels until you’ve stood in their moccasins? There is literal truth to that. You don’t want to wear anyone else’s clothes or shoes, because they contain the wearer’s energy patterns, and those may be quite negative. This guideline is a hard one for any of us who frequent charity shops, so as a minimum get items dry-cleaned before you put them on.
When you choose clothes, keep the following tips in mind:
Choose natural fibres where possible, because they allow the skin to breathe freely and are less irritating.
Silk is said to best protect you against negative influences.
Underwear made from silk or cotton is breathable and helps prevent fungal infections.
Wearing nylon socks and plastic shoes is like putting your feet in polythene bags. A large number of sweat glands are located in your feet, and the result, especially in the summer, can be athlete’s foot (and smelly feet!).
Co-ordinating colours with the doshas
Colours are associated with different qualities and can be an important means of warding off bad influences. Dark colours, for example, tend to be heavy and cooling in effect, whereas reds and oranges are warm and stimulating.
Depending on your dosha, follow these tips for choosing colours:
Vatas and kaphas are both cool doshas, and therefore favour warm colours such as coral, mauves and pinks.
Kapha types should avoid white in general and stick to enlivening colours, because kapha secretions in the body tend to be white and cool.
If you’re pitta, which means you tend to get hot under the collar and in the body, go for more sombre selections such as greens, browns and blues.
The ubiquitous black that’s favoured today is a shade that attracts denser, more tamasic (undesirable), energies and literally drags you down.
Gold jewellery imparts the warmth of the sun to vata and kapha doshas.
Silver and platinum suggest the characteristics of the moon and are associated with its cooling properties. These are most suitable for pitta dosha.
Putting your best foot forward with comfortable shoes
How you understand the world is determined in part by how you make contact with the ground. According to Polarity Therapy, developed by Randolph Stone in the 1950s and an offshoot of Ayurveda, the body is electric, with the head being the positive pole and the navel being neutral. The feet are the strongest negative pole in your system and contain 84,000 nerve endings that connect to all the reflex zones of the body. According to the Ayurvedic system, 72,000 subtle channels called nadis find their junctions in the feet. So choosing appropriate footwear is paramount to your health.
Indian yogis wear wooden sandals, because the leather of a cow isn’t permitted. For those of us who are not concerned by these issues, shoes that breathe are by far the best choice, so that means canvas, cork or leather.
Feet expand by as much as one size during the day, so buy shoes in the afternoon or early evening to get the right fit. Take your shoes off the minute you enter your home and allow your feet to feel the ground.
Change your shoes regularly, so that you’re not exposed to pressures in the same part of your foot on a daily basis.
A word also about heel height: irreversible damage can be done to the delicate structures of your feet, legs and lower back if you wear high heels all day. Wear them very, very rarely!
Perfumes and oils
Perfumes and oils are said to confer longevity and charm to the wearer. Wearing a scent isn’t only pleasing to the mind, but stimulating to the libido. (So be careful with it, all you would-be Romeos and Juliets!)
Your aromatherapy oils help with stress management, and each dosha has specific characteristics that may be pacified by using a particular oil.
Essential oils work at a primordial level to enhance mood, focus the mind and stimulate the body in a positive way. Introduce your picks from the following list of oils. You can apply them directly to your skin if they’re mixed with a carrier oil such as almond oil. You can also use them in your home or office, using diffusers or room sprays.
Vata dosha
Those of you with a predominant vata dosha can benefit from the use of:
Cedarwood, clary sage, ylang ylang, frankincense and lavender to help dispel the anxiety and fear often associated with this dosha
Chamomile, eucalyptus and angelica to improve groundedness
Rosemary, cypress and basil to fight fatigue and weakness
Neroli, rose, thyme, basil and lavender to remedy sleeplessness
Pitta dosha
The hot tendencies of pitta dosha can benefit from using:
Coriander, musk, borage, sandalwood, frankincense, benzoin, cardamom and rose to address the propensity towards irritability and anger
Brahmi and gold chamomile to reduce frustration
Lavender and peppermint to address stubbornness
Amber and geranium, which come to the rescue when a domineering attitude is at play
Kapha dosha
Allay the heavy and cool qualities of kapha by using:
Bergamot, clary sage, geranium, orange and petitgrain oils, especially if feeling depressed
Cardamom, rosemary and basil oils to address greed and attachment, both common kapha feelings
Jasmine and ylang ylang to address low self-esteem
Time to Step Outside
Eat a light breakfast (Part III gives dietary advice appropriate to your type), and you’re ready to face the world.
The steps in this chapter may seem extensive, but they leave you ready for a full and active day. I allow two hours before I leave the house in the morning for my daily routine: this allows for half an hour of meditation and 90 minutes for completing my ablutions without rushing.
Taking your time with preparations enables you to face the world and all its challenges full of confidence.