A Wild Woman’s Ayurvedic Daily Routine For Autumn Season

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For me autumn means to step outside with an extra layer on me, wearing cosy knit sweaters and socks, colorful crunchy leaves everywhere, rain coats and wellies find their way out of the wardrobe. But this time of year also brings shorter days, changeable weather, winds, and cool, dry air. Because of this, the air element is dominant during this season which in Ayurveda brings a dominating level of vata.

Ayurveda is an ancient system of medicine, the science of life, developed 3,000 years ago in India, but many of its principles are even more applicable today. Ayurveda thinks of the body and the world more holistically, the practice is attuned to the shifts of the seasons. In Ayurveda there are only three seasons. 

 Ayurveda increases health, vitality, and well-being by means of herbal medicine, detoxication, exercise and proper diet. According to Ayurveda, autumn and winter are characterized by the qualities light, movable, fast, dry and cold. These qualities are called Vata in Ayurvedic terminology. In order to maintain balance during autumn and winter, it is important to counteract Vata by bringing the opposite qualities – heavy, stable, slow, moist and warm into our life through food and activity. The vegetarian recipes on these pages will help you with this.

Our body literally senses the weather pattern that the world around us takes as we orbit the Sun each year, which is why it’s important to adopt a seasonal routine to align ourselves with the dynamic rhythms of the natural world. How you care for yourself during the autumn will determine your body’s ability to maintain your health through the winter.

If the qualities of Vata are also prevalent in your body and mind, it is especially important to pay attention to the pieces of advice on these pages. This is so because too much of one of Vata’s qualities creates discomfort and, at worst, disease.

• Movable: Too much of this quality makes you indecisive and unpredictable. You will lack structure and determination. Stable environment, fixed meal times and enough sleep counteracts the movable quality.
• Dry: Too much dryness can produce lack of enthusiasm, low spirits, and reduced vitality. The skin can become too dry and constipation or pain in the joints can also be the physical outcome. You will need sufficient fluid and fat to prevent drying out.
• Fast: Too much of this quality can cause dissatisfaction, disharmony, wrong decisions and a bad economy. The body has no time to assimilate the food. Peace and rest balance this quality.
• Light: Too much lightness can result in cold hands and feet, underweight and lack of grounding. A sufficient amount of food balances the light quality.
• Cold: Too much of the cold quality can create lack of sympathy, egotism and a weak digestion. All kinds of heat balance Vata, such as hot baths, moderate sunbathing and hot food and drink.

Ayurveda considers a seasonal cleansing routine important for maintaining physical and emotional balance and wellbeing. As we transition from one season to the next, it’s time to clear out ama (toxins) which accumulates in the body tissues and organs. 

Each time we change season I perform my seasonal Kitchari cleanse.
The word “kitchari” means mixture, and the kitchari dish itself is usually a combination of a grain and a legume in a warm thick soup. The dish commonly uses rice and mung beans. It is an Ayurvedic recipe that is said to balance all doshas (in Ayurvedic medicine, the doshas are 3 different energies that are said to govern physiological activity), with some variations in the recipe.

In order to keep Vata in balance, you can eat warm food with a certain heaviness and drink plenty of water. Prefer sweet, sour and salty flavors and reduce bitter, astringent and hot. The following foods are also suitable:

• Cereals: Spelt, emmer, wheat, durum wheat, rice, oats (cooked) and pancakes.
• Milk Products: All, if you’re comfortable with that.
• Sweeteners: All natural sweeteners in small quantities, for example, raw sugar, syrup and honey; and high-quality sweets and cakes except Madeira cake and other dry cakes and cookies. Everything should be taken in small quantity.
• Fruit: Ripe, juicy and sweet. For example banana, orange, pineapple, plum, berries, lemon, fresh dates, grapefruit, strawberries, cherries, mango, melon, papaya, and avocado.
• Vegetables: Root vegetables, like beetroot, carrot, sweet potato and parsnip, and also squash and tomato. All vegetables should be cooked.
• Lentils/beans: Yellow and green mung beans
• Spices: All, but especially the sweet, and mild.
• Other: Oils, butter, ghee (clarified butter).

Reduce intake of these foods as well:

• General: Cold, dry and light food.
• Cereals: Crispbread, crackers, biscuits, millet, buckwheat, barley, rye, corn, cold and dry breakfast cereals such as raw oats, cornflakes and other flakes, puffed wheat, raw muesli, etc.
• Fruit: Unripe fruit and dried fruit in large quantities.
• Vegetables: Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, sprouted beans and lentils, spinach and other green leafy vegetables, artichokes, potatoes, olives, green pepper, parsley, radishes, lettuce, celery, mushrooms, and chard.
• Spices: Large quantities of spicy food.
• Lentils/Beans: All beans, chickpeas, yellow peas, dried peas.
• Other: Raw food, dry cakes, and cookies, chewing gum, throat lozenge, crisps, peanuts and pretzel.

Sleep in!

Yes you read it well – this if your official permission! Start by waking a little later than you did in the summer, by about half an hour. As the mornings are darker in the autumn, we naturally shift into waking between 6.30 and 7.30am whereas in summer naturally we want to be up between 5.30 and 6am. Remember, it’s about imitating nature externally, internally and as much as we can.

Start your day with ginger tea

Fresh ginger root is commonly used to balance out vata, which is a bonus because ginger tea in the mornings is a great way to stimulate and wake up the digestive system. If you don’t have fresh ginger root, opt for an organic ground ginger, let it steep in hot water and cool naturally to drinking temperature.

I love to mix up my morning digestion juice around this time. I usually drink 9.5pH kangen water with some kind of syrup (lately lavander or elderflower), apple cider vinegar, ground cinnamon and ground ginger, and switch to warm kangen water with real ginger pieces added to the mix.

Eat a warming breakfast

It’s time to say goodbye to these delicious, cold morning smoothie bowls for now. (Although, you can still have these around lunch when the Sun is highest in the sky and the stomach’s digestive fire is at its highest). Stick to seasonal foods that are cooked, warm, moist, sweet and soft. Try rolled oats with cinnamon and fresh seasonal fruits like figs! I also love to have a warm toast with peanut butter or vegan butter and veggies and a nice mug of hot cocoa, too! Don’t forget the ultimate Hungarian breakfast, tejberizs!

Keep up with your routines

During autumn, try to schedule your morning, evening routine and your yoga practice at the same time every day and for the same length of time. Vata season can create a lot of feelings of imbalance, so honoring a routine will help you to combat this. Try detoxing twisting poses, side stretches, back bends, and also sun salutations to create heat in the body in the morning.  The best times of day to exercise are in the early morning and evening hours (6–10 a.m. and 6–10 p.m.). Vata is very easily aggravated by fast, mobile activities, so consider slow, gentle, strengthening forms of exercise instead. Walking, hiking, swimming, biking, yoga, and tai chi are good choices, provided they are done at an appropriate level of intensity. Take warm, relaxing showers or steam baths, and massage yourself with sesame oil. If you practice pranayama, Nadi Shodhana is very balancing this time of the year.