Seasonal Ayurvedic Autumn Cleanse

After this glorious and hot summer, there is a noticeable shift in the air. Autumn is just around the corner.

When our environment shifts, our inside needs to shift too.

Ayurveda is well known for its cleanses. Their purpose is to help us to transition these shifts with ease. The main transitions are from winter to spring and from summer to autumn.

The winter to spring is of a more reducing nature and lends itself to eliminate toxins and lose some of the weight that we might have accumulated through the nourishing winter months.

The autumn cleanse is different. It needs to be nourishing to provide substance for the winter months ahead.

The autumn cleanse focuses on reducing the heat of the summer months which can create issues during the drying winter months resulting in increasing the dryness in the body even further. The result can show as dry skin or hair, burning eyes, feeling bloated, constipation, a sense of instability, uncertainty, anxiety, joint pains, cold hands and feet.

Lingering excess heat can be stoked by the autumn and winter winds leading to inflammation.

Is the body not regulating itself, you might ask?

Ayurveda teaches us that seasonal transitions naturally weaken our digestive system.

A weak digestive system finds it difficult to digest food properly. This leaves half-digested food moving around in the body. The body doesn’t know what to do with it, as this half-digested food is not seen as food any longer. This transient substance is called Ama; eventually, it settles in our weak spots where it starts to create imbalances, leading when ignored to illnesses.

Ama is created not only by food, all impressions which enter through our senses but our feelings and emotions also need to be digested and processed as well. If this process isn’t completed or we are overloaded and unable to digest all, it leads to mental Ama, brain fog and lack of clarity.

So how can we cleanse and nourish our system?

The first steps could be to:

1. stop snacking.

2. eat warm, seasonal, nourishing food and drink hot water.

The seasons transition slowly from one to the other; the qualities of the outgoing season slowly fade and are replaced by the qualities of the incoming season.

The qualities of the summer are hot, sharp, penetrating, fluid, light, and oily.

The qualities of autumn and winter are cold, dry, light, rough, and mobile.

Imagine you blow into an open flame (representing the hot quality of the summer), and it will rise up, in fact when the fire is not high enough, we use a bellow to light the flames, right?

And vice versa when you look at the flame, it moves the air above the flame. Maybe you have seen the wooden Christmas pyramids where the candles turn a wooden wheel above them.

The same happens on the inside.

The summer is dominated by Pitta and the autumn/winter by Vata. The heat of the summer still lingers in us during the early autumn and increases the winds of the autumn.

And vice versa the winds of the autumn/winter stoke the lingering flames of the summer.

So how to balance this?

Nature is so clever. The seasonal harvests balance the seasonal qualities, which is why seasonal food is the most important aspect of Ayurveda to ensure good health and an easily accessible starting point for introducing Ayurveda into your life.

By eating warm liquid, soupy food, staying away from coffee, tea, and alcohol, by maintaining a daily routine, we support our digestive system helping it to switch from processing the food of the summer, with its light salads, ice creams and BBQs, to digesting one of the autumns with its root vegetables, soups, bakes, more unctuous and nourishing foods and of course leafy greens are great to move things along.

Easy steps for an autumn cleanse at home.

A weekend of autumn home cleanse is a great tool to path the way for a strong digestion in the autumn. One weekend can truly help your body to transition.

Here are some easy tips for you:

• Eat Kitchadi for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
  Kitchadi is rice and mung beans cooked together with warming spices, ghee and seasonal vegetables. Rice and mung beans are tridoshic, balancing the three bio-energies in our body (Vata, Pitta, Kapha).
  
  Click here for a kitchadi recipe.

• Sip hot water throughout the day and calming cumin-coriander-fennel tea.

• Have nourishing oil massages with warm sesame oil.

• Daily oil pulling with warm sesame oil as well.

• Gentle warming Yoga sequence and restorative Yoga, warming breathing techniques.
  
  Surya Namaskar, gentle forward bends, twists, gentle backbends.
  
  Warming breathing techniques
  Alternate nostril breathing is balancing, kapalabhati, and Ujjayi breathing.

• Drink soothing golden milk in the evening.

This will get you started. As soon as you notice any of the above-mentioned changes, dry hair and/or skin, feeling bloated, constipated, body and joint aches and pains, cold hands and feet, start to balance them right away by eating warm, soupy, seasonal food, kitchadi, warm water, cumin-coriander-fennel tea (CCF tea) to avoid getting ill.

Keep your digestive system strong, so your digestion keeps you strong and healthy.

If you would like further guidance with the season change, get your free kitchadi cleanse here.

If you prefer personal guidance, try out Dr Deepa’s Autumn Cleanse. This is where I am going to be 😊this autumn. Click here to get a 10% discount

Whatever you do, stay healthy and strong this autumn and winter.