How to Stay grounded and Beat Stress this Autumn with Ayurveda’s Vata Balancing Tips
Do you love the autumn time?
I do. I love how the leaves turn colourful, and everything in nature slows down; the atmosphere seems quieter. Migratory birds leave for warmer climates, and some animals prepare for hibernation.
Now, if everything around us gets quieter and draws inwards, how come we are getting busier?
Why Autumn Feels So Overwhelming: The Role of Vata Dosha
In one of my emails a couple of weeks back, I mentioned that with the arrival of autumn, we are getting more stressed; what seemed to be no problem in August, now, all of a sudden, it stressed us out. And many of my students said, ‘That’s so true, I thought, I am going mad.’
Let’s have a look at why that might be the case.
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The Elements of Autumn: How Vata (Air and Space) Affects Your Body and Mind
I am sure you know that autumn is governed by Vata dosha.
In Ayurveda, Vata is one of the three doshas, or body types, associated with the air and space elements. These elements strongly influence how we feel during this season.
These qualities are always the first place for us to experience the effects of the elements.
Vata dosha is cold, dry, mobile, and light. But how do these qualities impact our bodies and emotions?
Cold is pretty apparent. The temperatures drop, and we feel the chill, particularly as we are still used to them, or the body still remembers the summer temperatures just a few weeks back. So, the big woollen cardigan and socks come out of the cupboard. And that makes us feel better and warm again.
If Vata dosha dominates your constitution, you feel the cold even more. Hands and feet might be freezing.
Dry is also evident. The sap of the trees moves down to the roots, and as the leaves dry out, they first produce these amazing autumn colours for us before they fall when they completely dry out. The strong autumn winds help this process.
As this process happens in nature, you might feel your skin becomes more dry than usual. Maybe your lips feel dry and tight, perhaps even crack a little. Your arms and legs feel drier as well.
Naturally, as these qualities become stronger in the atmosphere, we also feel them inside our bodies. The macrocosms reflect in our microcosmos.
Mobile is the quality of the air element. The air moves about, totally unpredictable; one moment, the winds blow from the front, the next from the back; we can’t see them, only feel them.
Inside our bodies, a lot of mobile activity is going on.
The breathing comes and goes, the heart (luckily) beats away all the time, the blood moves through the veins, the food moves through the gut and eventually out again, and our thoughts move. They are just like the wind. With lightning speed, they catapult us from one memory and associated feelings to the next one, and in between, back to what we were actually focusing on, and off they go again. Sounds familiar?
And it is this mobile quality that creates a sense of stress, of all tasks coming together at once, thoughts just all over the place, and we can’t seem to get behind it all. Because it is heightened now, we experience this flurry of mental activity during autumn and winter.
Lightness is the quality of both space and air elements because they are without substance. This lightness can leave us feeling less grounded and exposes us more to the mobile quality because only the leaves get whirled up, not the trees.
Balancing Vata Dosha: Simple Ayurvedic Tips for Autumn Grounding
The first command of Ayurveda is:
Always balance with the opposite quality.
And we automatically do this anyway, without even thinking about it. How? Above, I mentioned that you get your big cardigan and woollen socks out, right? That’s how. We feel cold, so we put something on. You would never think, ‘I am so cold, let's put the summer dress on!’ Of course not. You go for the big cardigan; to the right, you want to feel warm.
It's quite easy. And this will help you to understand Ayurveda’s seasonal recommendations.
Stay Warm and Nourished: Ayurveda’s Guide to Autumn Diet
To balance the cold quality:
Eat only warm food and have warm drinks and hot water.
Use warming spices like the much-loved cinnamon, cardamon, cloves, and ginger.
Eat foods of sour (fire and earth elements) and salty (fire and water elements) taste.
Sour foods include lemon, lime, tomatoes, yoghurt, pickles, fermented foods, bread, cheese, and even alcohol. They make the mouth water and whet our appetite. But did you know that sour foods are also good for the heart?
And salty foods apart from salt are seaweed (an excellent salt alternative), cottage cheese and celery. Salty foods remove rigidity and clear obstructions from pathways in the body and help digestion.
Wear appropriate clothes that keep your body warm.
Practice slow-paced dynamic Yoga sequences such as Surya or Chandra Namaskar (Salute to the Sun or Moon), seated twists, backbends and deep belly breathing.
To balance the dry quality:
Stay hydrated and sip hot water throughout the day.
Moisturise your skin with regular warm oil massages. Both are excellent for avoiding dry skin, and the warm oil calms the nervous system.
To balance the mobile quality:
Move and travel as little as possible. Sit down when you eat.
Go to bed early, lie down, rest. Add less to your calendar, and slow down.
Focus on one task at a time.
Practise deep relaxation, alternate nostril breathing (nadi shodhana), meditation and journaling. These practices will help you to reduce the mental chaos and stress that often come with autumn’s increased mobile quality.
To balance the light quality:
Eat food with heavy qualities, like root vegetables and good fats.
Eat foods of sweet (water and earth elements) taste like the above root vegetables, squashes, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, dates, bananas, figs, prunes, rice, corn, wheat, mung beans, red lentils, almonds, cashews, coconut, pumpkin seeds, ghee, milk. Sweet taste brings a sense of comfort, contentment, and strength to the body.
Practise grounding Yoga postures. The most popular is probably the tree pose, but all standing poses have grounding effects. Lying on the floor, both front and back, is very grounding.
When we feel grounded, stress affects us less, and we make better decisions.
Final Thoughts
As autumn brings its unique challenges, the principles of Ayurveda offer simple yet powerful ways to stay balanced.
By understanding how Vata dosha’s qualities—cold, dry, mobile, and light—affect your body and mind, you can take intentional steps to stay grounded and reduce overwhelm.
These Ayurvedic tips provide practical solutions for autumn stress, whether through warming foods, grounding yoga, or mindful relaxation. Remember, with Ayurveda for autumn stress, even small changes can make a big difference in how you feel throughout the season. Embrace these practices to enjoy a more balanced, peaceful autumn.
Now I’d love to hear from you: Have you noticed changes in how you feel during the autumn? Feel free to share your thoughts!
Let’s start a conversation. Leave a message on Instagram, Facebook, or even an old email OR comment below :)
I love hearing from you!
Katja x
P.S. Of course, establishing healthy eating habits is beneficial through all seasons :)
