How Dosha Predominance Shifts Across Childhood, Adulthood, and Old Age

Children’s bodies are growing and building up their structure, so kapha dosha is more predominant. Their bodies are soft and gentle (qualities of kapha), they require more sleep than adults, and they are susceptible to kapha illnesses such as colds and congestion. Adulthood exhibits more characteristics of pitta. Adults are more competitive, aggressive, and ambitious than children; they work hard, they require less sleep, and they fall prey to pitta-type disorders such as gastritis, colitis, and peptic ulcers.

Old age is the age of vata. Elderly people sleep quite a bit less, and their sleep is broken. They tend to get constipation, cracking and popping of joints, degenerative diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and Alzheimer’s disease, and suffer from forgetfulness, all characteristic of vata dosha. This shows that our age and stage of life are factors that have to be considered in the choices we make to keep our doshas in balance and remain healthy.

Elderly people, for example, should not engage in strenuous exercise, and if possible they should minimize travel, among many factors that increase vata. They should favor a vata-balancing diet, with more warm, moist foods, more oil, and less salad and dried fruit. MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL FACTORS Our life is a whole, consisting of body, mind, and pure consciousness. Both health and disease have psychological as well as physical origins.

Illness may begin in the mind and emotions and then affect the body; mental imbalance creates physical imbalance. Equally, physical disorders and imbalances can generate mental disorders. Because of this, mind and body are never considered separately in Ayurveda. Every perception, thought, feeling, and emotion, whether positive or negative, is a biochemical event that influences the doshas and affects the cells, tissues, and organs of the body.

Fear, anger, grief, hatred, envy, possessiveness, and other negative emotions disturb our doshic balance; likewise, when the doshas are already out of balance, they may give rise to these same negative emotions. • Increased vata is associated with anxiety, insecurity, fear, nervousness, restlessness, confusion, grief, and sadness. • Increased pitta is associated with anger, envy, hate, ambition, competitiveness, criticism, judgmental attitude, sharp speech, perfectionism, and the need to be in control. • Increased kapha is associated with greed, attachment, possessiveness, boredom, laziness, and lethargy.