Cooling Yoga Poses and Gemstones for Summer Pitta Balance

• Do some mild yoga exercises and quiet meditation twice a day. Good postures for summer include the Fish, Camel, Boat, Cobra, Cow, and Palm Tree poses. Pitta individuals should not do inverted poses such as Headstand and Shoulder Stand, which can be pitta- provoking. Also, do the Moon Salutation.

(See illustrations in appendix 4.) • Perform shitali pranayama, a cooling breathing exercise described in chapter 6. • Certain jewelry and gems will help cool pitta. These include a necklace of sandalwood beads, a jade or pearl necklace, amethyst crystals, moonstone, malachite crystals, and any silver jewelry. • In the evening, after dinner, go for a walk in the moonlight.

Dress in white clothes, with white flowers in your hair or a garland of white flowers around your neck. • You can go to bed a little later on summer nights, around 11 . or midnight. Rub some P.M coconut oil on your scalp and the soles of your feet for a cooling effect before going to sleep.

Sleep on your right side. • Sandalwood, jasmine, and khus oils are cooling and are good fragrances to wear in the summer. Also, place a few drops of sandalwood oil on your pillow, and you will be sleeping with sandalwood perfume all night. • Sex should be minimized in the summer, as it is heating and will provoke pitta.

If you want to have sex, do it between 9 and 10 ., when it is cooler but not yet pitta time. P.M During the summer, the sun evaporates the moisture of the earth and therefore induces hot, dry and sharp qualities in the atmosphere, resulting in pitta aggravation. In summer sweet, cold, liquid, and fatty food and drinks are beneficial. One should avoid or minimize excessive exercise and sex, alcohol, and diets which are salty, sour, pungent, or hot.