hello everyone welcome to episode eight of the introduction to ayurveda series so in this episode we're going to be looking at how to balance out kafa dasha so in the last episode we discussed what can cause kaffir to move out of balance how this happens and what kinds of symptoms and presentations that looks like in terms of physical and emotional symptoms and presentations and it's as we discussed for vata and pitta before it's really this is some of the most important information you can know about yourself particularly if you recognize a lot of kapha and you see a lot of kaffir in you based upon completing the questionnaire and based upon the information we covered in the last episode because if you can recognize when kapha is moving out of balance and if you can recognize that early then it allows us to implement herbal medicines and dietary approaches and lifestyle approaches that allow us to prevent that kaffir building up anymore thereby stopping or preventing a fully fledged health crisis so it's such a powerful form of of preventative medicine and to my mind one of the most effective forms of preventative medicine um because it's always one step ahead of the game you're able to identify aggravation you're able to identify imbalance before it actually manifests as a cold or an allergy or weight gain or high cholesterol or high blood pressure or whatever it may be um and that that that age old adage of an ounce of prevention being better than a pound of cure is never truer than is in this context because it's such a great way of just making sure we can identify imbalances in us before it actually develops into a problem um so the aim of this episode is just to review um some of the key approaches to the simple approaches that we can implement have a very powerful impact upon balancing out kapha and as we said for vata and pitta all of the information we talk about in this episode and a lot more is covered in the top tips for balancing kafir pdf that accompanies this series um which talks in in it elaborates in more detail and more depth what we're going to cover uh in this episode so be sure to to check that out so firstly self massage so for vata and for pitta and for kaffir we're going to speak about self-massage because it's a mainstay of self-care the big difference for kafa is that if if necessary we can do away with the need to use oil the reason for that is because if you remember the qualities of kaffir they're headed they're heavy they're oily they're inert so using lots of of heavy oil can actually aggravate kaffir it can make kaffir heavier it can make kaffa more oily and more static so if you are using oil as part of a self massage for kapha it needs to be a light oil something like sesame oil and you also don't want to use much of it is you want a little bit of friction so you can still use oil by all accounts because it's good for the skin it's lubricating uh it's beneficial but you definitely don't want to use that much you want it to be a sense of friction when you're performing the self massage the other thing you want to do if you're performing yourself massage with kaffir is you want to make the strokes and the massage as a whole you want to make it more and more more faster more energizing more stimulating because remember kapha is slow heavy inert so the way of antidoting those qualities is to use approaches that are energizing stimulating um and and you can perform that you can you can benefit from those traits by self master by making the strokes quicker making the strokes faster making them quicker making more energizing covering bigger areas of the body in a faster pace so by all means use oils and by all means perform a self-massage just making sure you're modifying in in those ways but arguably a more effective approach is dry brushing so you can buy skin brushes very very easily from online wholesalers or from the body shop or things like that but in acute cafe aggravations things like weight gain water retention um respiratory infections sluggishness inertia a lack of motivation local low mood low grade depression those kinds of things dry brushing is excellent because it doesn't use oil and remember because kapha is oily and wet anything that's dry is gonna is gonna balance out kapha and by using a dry brush it creates friction it creates heat it's energizing and stimulating so we really advocate using dry brushing instead of an oil based self massage for kaffirs because you get all the benefits of self massage because remember all of the benefits we've spoken about with regards to self massage come about through stimulation of the skin dry brushing achieves that dry brushing stimulates the skin so you get all those benefits but by using it dry by creating more friction you have a significantly greater impact upon balancing out kapha particularly when there's problems like water retention weight gain cellulite those kinds of things so really really big one that i would definitely advocate and really recommend you try if you notice a lot of kafir in you um get a good uh body brush and just perform that for four five six minutes every morning um or even twice daily just to bring kapha into balance so really really great practice um arguably the most important one alongside dietary change which we'll cover shortly is is is exercise but specifically stimulating exercise and it's hard to emphasize enough how important that is um on every facet of kapha because kafirs naturally have a lot more strength and stamina and and and physical capacity they do well with exercise they can tolerate exercise but also extra exercise is the perfect antidote to the all of the qualities of kapha because kafir is heavy because it's slow because it's more stagnant because it's more inert um anything that's mobilizing fast energizing is gonna is gonna very quickly pacify kapha and that's western science supports that if you think about the main kafa physical symptoms that we spoke about in the previous episode weight gain cholesterol high cholesterol high blood pressure diabetes metabolic disorders those kinds of things western evidence tells us that stimulating exercise is clinically proven to uh to prevent treat and reverse those kinds of ailments ayurveda would say it does that because it balances out it reduces kapha which is the cause of those ailments so when we're managing people with kaffir aggravations in clinic getting them to comply and engage with stimulating exercise is is uh unlocks the unlocks success it's a it's a predictor of a successful outcome and it also has a big impact upon emotional the emotional and psychological symptoms of a cafe imbalance things like a lack of motivation and lack of get up and go low mood um just a general state of emotional inertia we know exercise increases endorphins and serotonin and dopamine have get up and go energizing feel good hormones so it really is a panacea for all things kapha balancing um and the key thing is it needs to be stimulating in as much as it needs to make you feel a little bit out of breath a little bit sweaty a little bit red-faced something that makes you feel that's making your body work hard it doesn't need to be extreme it depends upon where you're coming from if you're coming from a high level of fitness already then you can take it a lot higher if you're coming from a sedentary place then it just needs to be something like a fast walk because that's going to tick those boxes but the key is that when you finish during the exercise and when you finish the exercise you know that you've exercised because you're hot you're sweaty your red face and you feel that sense of um and that nice sense but that sense of muscle tiredness or being out of breath um i think you'll be amazed at the impact that gives you if you see a lot of kafir or like kaffir symptoms in you if you listen to the last episode or you read you read the workbook from the last episode you looked at the the qualities of kafir you looked at the symptoms of caffeine you think that is me then stimulating exercise i guarantee will induce a quantifiable gain in how you're feeling physically and emotionally really really key it could be faster yoga it could be faster walking it could be running cycling swimming hit training faster pilates circuit training it could be anything um just make sure you enjoy it okay so that's the other so definitely something to prioritize um another great approach is dry heat and this is something that's used in classical ayurvedic medicine um as a key component of calf of balancing um treatment if you went to a an ayurvedic clinic an inpatient clinic in sri lanka or india um or anywhere actually um one of the things you'd probably get rather than lots of hot oil massages you get lots of dry heat so things like saunas are absolute manner from heaven for kaffirs because remember kapha is cold and it's moist and it's oily so because saunas are hot and dry they naturally antidote those qualities of kapha it could be getting you could be sitting in the sun it could be exercising the sun it could be going for a walk in the sun it could be going to a sauna uh it could be anything that creates that dry heat so if you've got access to a gym or a leisure sensor and they've got a sauna going into that sauna once or twice a week is an exceptionally effective way of capping how high kaffir can get particularly if it's a physical presentation and particularly if it's things like again weight gain cellulite cholesterol water retention swelling lymphatic congestion those kinds of things and the western evidence supports that notion as well so really really key approach and what we try and advocate a lot of people do they've got you know very systemic kaffir problems is by joining a gym or a health spa or something like that or a leisure sensor you get a double whammy because one if you go there and do your exercises and do your physical training you get all the benefits which you've spoken about but most of those places also have a sauna so you can finish your exercise go and have a sauna and after you know an hour hour and a half of time a couple of times a week you're getting a profoundly pacifying um lifestyle change that can induce really very significant quantifiable gains so try and seek out dry heat um the next approach those of you who joined us in the are you vedic challenge um at different points in the year you'll know how we spoke about the need to wake up earlier and this is particularly true for kafirs um because western science tells us that about between you know about four in the morning to about seven in the morning our body is secreting very high levels of a hormone called cortisol which most of you will probably know is of a stress hormone but it also is a very important hormone in the morning because it's a catalyst for lots of things that need to happen in the day so it's a get up and go hormone it's an energizing stimulating let's start the day let's get up let's get going hormone because we have more of that hormone secreting into the blood from 4 a.m to 7 a.m if we get up between that time we get up when we've got more get up and go hormones being secreted into the blood so we get up with more energy we get more vitality we get up with less inertia so by by waking up early by waking up between six is optimal between six and six thirty but seven at the latest is optimal that's when our cortisol levels are peaking and if we get up with high cortisol the level of energy and vitality we feel is is is quantifiable um and that pacifies and reduces the inertia the heaviness the sluggishness of kapha and again there's western research to support that people with chronic fatigue based ailments who typically get up late and go to bed late if you help them and move them and encourage them to get up early and go to bed early they'll often notice very significant improvement in energy within about 21 days so if you can particularly if you're noticing fatigue-based traits sluggishness tiredness lethargy a lack of get up and go um general fatigue those kinds of cafe qualities trying to be up uh and going by six or six thirty can induce a very significant benefit and it also means that you're more likely to go to bed in time because you'll be more tired in the evening okay so really really important one to try and try and emphasize okay get up earlier um and the last lifestyle practice that i want to talk about is is some is anything that's stimulating we spoke about stimulating exercise earlier and how important that is and like i said that's probably the most important one alongside dietary change um but our mind also needs stimulating um because as we discussed in the last episode kafirs have an inherent uh aversion of dislike of change and uncertainty they like things to be predictable they like to maintain the status quo they like to be in a in their comfort zone and that's good that's good in a way and to a point but if it becomes too embedded it can lead to inertia it can lead to a lack of enthusiasm it can lead to a fear of challenging ourselves and seeking out new experiences it can become quite um it can make us quite um introverted almost because we're not seeking out new experiences and a great way of antidoting that is to seek out new stimulating situations people opportunities and it can be silly things like if you always read the same newspaper because it agrees it aligns with your political views or agendas because you try to stimulate your mind to shock your mind into a into a different st into a different space into a different viewpoint if you know love going to the same place for coffee every sunday morning could you mix it up and go to and you'll find another beautiful cafe and another beautiful spot and go there new views new menus new situations could you go with new people could you seek out new people could you go to new environments anything that shocks your emotional self out of what it's used to what it what it knows not all the time because it's nice to have that comfort it's nice to have that routine but just you know just making sure every week or a couple of times a month with doing things that make us think well that's odd or that's different or that's new because that stimulating um change has a really powerful effect upon energizing catholics particularly emotionally in terms of that vitality that energy that get up and go but also physically and it's something that we're really really trying to encourage is is that ability to you know seek new things out look at your look at your typical weekly routine you know if you run could you ride a bike if you drive to work could you you know cycle to work um if you always have the same meals on the same evenings could you mix it up yeah whatever whatever it is routine in your life could you look to just vary it change it to stimulate yourself because it can induce a very significant difference okay um so herbal medicines um herbal medicine the herbal medicines for kaffir are brilliant because they're they're typically kitchen herbs or store cupboard herbs um and kafirs respond incredibly quickly to herbal intervention and probably the most important herb to be aware of for kaffirs is ginger ginger is kapha's best friend because it's the complete opposite it contains the complete opposite qualities of kapha kafir is heavy it's sluggish it's slow it's cold um ginger is is heating it's energizing it's stimulating it's mobilizing um and the more ginger cafes can get into their into their body on a daily within reason you know in a daily basis the better they feel physically and emotionally because it's that it's the perfect antidote to the slowness and sluggishness of kapha if you notice kapha based digestive ailments things like sluggishness fatigue after eating um you know slow digestion feeling full or heavy after eating ginger is clinically proven to antidote those qualities it speeds up digestion it speeds up the breakdown of food increases the extraction of nutrients from food it prevents fatigue after eating um it's very common for kapha types to say that after they start using ginger more regularly they notice a general sense of lightness in their body and mind they feel lighter they feel more energized they feel like they've got more get up and go so really really really key um and ginger is also brilliant for the typical kapha based respiratory ailments kaffirs are often prone to congestion mucus sinus congestions post nasal drip you know lung lung problems congestive problems ginger is a is a respiratory tonic herb it clears congestion it prevents blockages it dries up mucus secretion so ginger tea you're sipping on ginger tea how you know two or three cups of ginger tea spaced over the course of the day is a an all-encompassing panacea for kapha so that's a great that great great top tip um to get a slightly more heavy hitting approach there's something called the ginger digestive stimulus which is where you grate and all these instructions are in the pdf but you grate half to one teaspoon of fresh ginger onto a spoon you put over a small pinch of himalayan pink salt a good drizzle of lemon or lime juice and you swallow that down half an hour before you eat your meals that ramps up digestive function in the stomach it increases hydrochloric acid it increases digestive enzymes so when you then take your food and eat your food half an hour later it's broken down much more quickly and much more efficiently and that prevents the sluggishness it's it prevents weight gain it speeds up metabolism so ginger make sure you're adding fresh ginger to your weekly shop and make sure that you're using it on a daily basis okay on a similar way black pepper okay black pepper again is everything that kapha isn't black pepper is heating it's energizing it's stimulating it it's proven to increase metabolism it speeds up digestion it facilitates um the breakdown of fat cells um only it clears toxins from the gut which is often quite a big problems with kapha it's great for preventing mucus problems respiratory problems coughs colds allergies post nasal drips so it's very similar to ginger um but the beauty of of pepper is it's so easy to integrate you know you don't need to do anything other than season your food with it and that's one of the things that we advocate again a lot in clinics you know you definitely want to be tweaking your meals if you've got a cafe aggravation in like what we'll cover later but equally making sure every you know meal you eat often not breakfast but lunch and dinner you give it a really good season with black pepper get good quality black pepper in a grinder rather than pre-ground so it contains more of its therapeutic properties and just make sure you're putting on a good half a teaspoon quarter to a half a teaspoon of black pepper onto your meals every day day in day out because it has such a big accumulative gain we extract more nutrients the evidence tells us that when we add black pepper to our meals we typically extract 30 percent more nutrients than we would do without the black pepper so really really big gains for hardly any effort so use black pepper abundantly in your cooking and in your seasoning so they're the most important to ginger and black pepper there's another key aluminic herb called tulsi tulsi translates from the sanskrit as the incomparable incomparable one and it's it's come under the scrutiny of western science because it's it's got lots of very important properties and benefits it's got anti-cancer properties um it's a heart tonic tonic it's a lung tonic is anti-diabetic um but within ayurveda it's one of the most important kapha pacifying herbs particularly if there's an emotional involvement because tulsi is proven to elevate mood so it's great for kind of low grade depression low mood sluggish sluggish mood a lack of motivation a lack of get up and go general emotional or psychological inertia and also traits like jealousy envy um hoarding those kinds of those kinds of um possessive type emotions it's brilliant for um it's great for lowering blood pressure and it's great for lowering blood sugar levels so for kind of the you know they're the big the big metabolic risk factors for kaffir aggravations high cholesterol high blood sugar high blood pressure um tulsi helps to antidote all of those and it's just it's just it's a it's a lung tonic herb there's lots of clinical trial data to show that it increases oxygen exchange in the lungs it clears uh it's a it's an expectorant so it clears mucus it clears congestion it treats and prevents colds and coughs and lung infections and things like that and so it's a great it's a great herb for kaffirs to have in it's pretty easy to grow if you check out the tulsi herb profile in the herb profile section of the ayurvedic mentor webpage there's a whole profile devoted up to kafir um to tulsi how to use it how to grow it how to source it what to use it for but one of the simplest ways is just to buy tulsi tea packer do a very good three tulsi tea blend um and just sipping on tulsi tea two or three times a day and it blends incredibly well with ginger and if you had to make a a a long-term tea that you drink you know every day to stop catholic getting to a point where it's going to cause symptoms tulsi and ginger is uh is a marriage made in heaven so it might be that you buy tulsi tea bags and just add a couple of slices of ginger to it you might use fresh tulsi if you're growing it whatever it is but you know if you were to sip on two or three cups of ginger and tulsi tea a day if you've got a lot of catherine you that's gonna move mountains in terms of preventing that kaffir rearing up to cool symptoms really really key herb um and then the last one i want to talk about is dandelion um just because it's brilliant for any metabolic kaffir disorder because it's a liver stimulant um because it's a digestive stimulant it helps to break down fat it helps metabolize fat it prevents it prevents um or it slows down reduces the storing of body fat it's great for fatigue it's great for sluggishness it's great for lethargy um if you've noticed kapha based digestive ailments then ginger is a really really great herb to use and it's a herb that's very easy to forage because we get it grows abundantly and we can we can pick them you know from spring all the way through to autumn and we can we can use the leaves fresh we can dry them we can buy dandelion tea you can buy dried dandelion you might add it to your ginger and tulsi tea you might make a three herb kapha pacifying tea that's got dandelion tulsi and ginger um and i guess the indication for doing that would be if there's more digestive problems particularly things like gall stones um you know weight gain high cholesterol things like that really really exceptional if you need to detoxify if you get a sense that you need to detoxify because you've been over indulging over eating or things like that dandelion is brilliant so they're the herbal medicines lastly i just want to talk about dietary approaches because of all of the three doshas modifying our diet has the biggest impact upon balancing out kapha because kapha is naturally aggravated by too much food the western diet too much sugar too much processed food too much meat too much refined carbohydrate they're all heavy they're all inflammatory um they're all hard to digest and that's particularly because cafes enjoy food they love eating they have a predisposition to overeating um and often they crave often they love sweet and salty food which are the ones that lead to the weight gain and the metabolic problems so alongside engaging in more stimulating exercise if you notice a lot of kaffir in your cafe symptoms exercise and dietary modifications are where you're going to get the biggest gains most quickly and there's a few things that are worth emphasizing as we said for vata and pitta it's important that cafes eat at the same time every day but the really big one is to not snack between meals cafes do so well breakfast lunch and dinner and that's it no snacking between meals because that means before you eat your meal you're probably gonna be hungry because you haven't eaten for at least three or four hours so your digestion is is is is working fast particularly drinking the ginger and the tulsi if you're using the black pepper um so your digestion will be working fast which means you're going to break down the food more efficiently which means you're going to circumvent the kaffir problems so try and cut out all snacking as much as you can and the other option is that if there's a very if there's a clear cafe aggravation then intermittent fasting um is is absolute panacea for kafir because by reducing a meal so intermittent fasting is where we cut out one meal a day so you have breakfast you have lunch at about one o'clock in the afternoon and you don't eat anything until breakfast the next day so you get about you know 16 17 hours with no food intake and that's easy because most of that time we're asleep so we're not aware that we're not suffering if we don't like you know fasting and the impact that has on every single kaffir symptom there is whether it's emotional or physical is profound and it's something that we use extensively in clinic intermittent fasting mobilizing something called autophagy which won the nobel prize for medicine a couple of years ago in terms of detoxifying the body cleaning the body reducing disease risk factors um on the ayurvedic mental web page there's a a a a video overview of intermittent fasting which you can check out but it's definitely definitely something to to begin to explore particularly if there's weight gain if you've got if you're carrying too much weight if there's water retention cholesterol diabetes high blood pressure those kinds of things intermittent fasting is clinically proven to impact upon those so we need to do cafe pacifying breakfast cafe pacifying lunch at about one o'clock and don't eat anything until the next morning and do that once or twice a week um and within a couple of weeks you'll notice a profound impact um it's also important to not overeat to make sure that you don't ever feel full or bloated after you eat you want to be you want to feel light after you eat so trying not to to eat too much trying to consume the ginger every day is a great way of antidoting any digestive sluggishness and also removing or avoiding any food that's sweet or heavy or stodgy things like cheese and meat and refined carbohydrates and things like that and instead using lots of pungent and and um bitter foods which are brilliant and there's a full list of those um in the in the in the pdf document um and there will be um yeah there's lots more information in there about that okay so so if you're noticing a cafe-based aggravation focus on adopting a kafir pacifying diet and focus on a stimulating exercise look to add in the ginger and the pepper and the tulsi get those working and one that's going to stop kapha aggravating and stop symptoms in their track and if you already are symptomatic or you've got catholic problems it's gonna it's gonna dial down kapha to hope to reduce and hopefully remove um those kinds of symptoms but as always if you have any questions about anything in this episode then please feel free to contact us on the ayurvedic mentor facebook page or email and we will get back to you