SVA Summer care tips

Summer is splendid – beautiful long sunny days out at the beach or in the woods as Nature displays its full glory in fruits, flowers, and vegetables. Don’t let the heat take you down. It is easy to keep yourself cool and calm with these simple tips and recommendations from the Carak Samhita Sutrasthana (verses 27-32): add sweet, cool, liquid, and unctuous foods and drinks – steer clear from salty, spicy, dry, and drying foods. Personal care, daily routine, sensory stimulation, exercise, and environment all need to be appropriately adjusted so that the body is given the opportunity to absorb the maximum cooling effect of Soma necessary to balance excess heat. Here are some SVA tips from Vaidya’s summer booklet  to keep your body cool and your mind and heart full of bliss this summer.

  • Eat more sweet juicy fruits. Somagenic fruits and vegetables like summer squashes, louki, cilantro, parsley, mint, greens, apples, pears, plums, peaches, apricots, grapes, blueberries, figs. Juicy fruits will rehydrate and nourish you in the heat.

  • Drink coconut water from a mature coconut, NOT the young green ones that abound in the stores and are popular. The young ones have a lot of Soma and can be clogging and heavy even though they taste good! The mature ones are more balanced in their ratio of Soma and Agni and will rehydrate and cool you without clogging or imbalancing your agni.
  • Wear sunglasses when going out in the sun to protect your eyes and the pitta subdosha that governs the eyes – alochak pitta. When one pitta subdosha goes off, the others will follow suit, so it is best to take measures to keep all cool and balanced.

 

 

 

 

  • Drink cool (not ice cold) spring water with a balanced pH to help replenish the evaporated moisture from the body. You can also add additional coolness by adding a drop or two of SVA Rose Nectar, Jasmine Nectar, or Sandalwood Nectar. If you more rehydration, don’t reach out for the commercial soft drinks, make your own best rehydration drink: squeeze a lime or two, add 1-2 teaspoons of raw sugar, add a pinch of Soma Salt, and 2-3 leaves of fresh mint. Carry with you in a thermos and enjoy throughout the day!

 

 

  • Sleep in air cooled apartment. In ancient days in India, people hung vetiver mats on their windows and plastered their walls with clay. The cooling property of vetiver and clay converts the hot air in the environment into cool air and circulates the cool air inside the apartment. In order to absorb more Soma, sleep outdoors in the moonlight, if possible. Position your head in the direction that receives more breeze.

 

 

  • Pearls carry a lot of lunar vibration and wearing them helps relieve heat from the body.

 

 

  • Use sandalwood and vetiver essential oil aroma. Surround yourself with flowers! Or take a stroll in a flower garden to ward off emotional and mental  heat! Walk in the moonlight, in the woods, or close to large bodies of water.

 

 

  • Apply Aloe-sandalwood lotion, garden of soma massage oil, or coconut oil all over the body. Avoid hot massage and prefer a “cool hand” massage. Bathe in sandalwood water or use Sandalwood or Vetiver soap in the shower.

 

  • During the summer season, do only mild physical exercise and avoid strenuous workouts. Walking next to a body of water or in a park is recommended. Swimming is always a good option. Yoga is good for all seasons – not hot yoga, or intense yoga, gentle, soothing, calming yoga.

 

 

  • Avoid foods rich in sour, salty, and pungent taste, these are heating to the body. Favor unctuous soothing snacks – fruits – over salty snacks. Make sure to have a glass of yoghurt drink (20% yoghurt with 80% water, add a pinch of Mum’s Masala or toasted cumin seeds) with your lunch.

  • Avoid staying up past 10 pm – specially in the summer time, when pitta goes off even more easily. Agni time of the day is from 10am-2pm in the morning and 10pm-2am in the evening. Staying up late into the night increases the  agni quality in the body and should especially be avoided in the summer.Your mornings will be very blissful if you can adopt a 9:30pm to 5:30am sleeping and rising routine.

Disclaimer

The sole purpose of this blog is to provide information about the alternative healing modalities of Shaka Vansiya Ayurveda (SVA) as practiced in Vaidya Mishra's ancestral family tradition. The information contained herein is not intended for use in the diagnosis, prevention or cure of any disease. If you have any serious, acute or chronic health concern, please consult a licensed health professional who can fully assess your needs and address them effectively. Otherwise, for more information, you may call Vaidya Mishra's Prana Center toll free in the USA at 1.888.3CHANDI (888.324.2634). or 1.818.709.1005 globally, or email us at: info@prana-center.com. You may also visit: www.vaidyamishra.com, or www.chandika.com

Comments

  1. betty jamessiame says

    Great information you have posted in you website this Drink cool spring water with a balanced pH it seems cool to try, thank you again.

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