Kapha Personality Traits: Stability, Softness, and Long-Term Memory

Kaphas are stable, solid, and faithful. Their spiritual or religious faith is deep and abiding, and their minds calm and steady. One of the dominant qualities of kapha is softness, which manifests as soft skin, soft hair, soft gentle speech, a soft nature, and a soft, gentle, loving look. A pitta person’s look is sharp and penetrating.

A vata’s look is spacy! But a kapha person looks calm, quiet, grounded, stable. He or she is here, right now! Kaphas can be slow to comprehend, but once they know something, that knowledge is permanently retained.

They have excellent long-term memories. Although a kapha individual is forgiving, if you insult them or hurt their feelings, they will forgive you, but they will never forget! A kapha person will tell you, “On the twenty- fourth of January, 1972, at three-thirty in the afternoon, when we were having tea, you said such and such to me—but I have forgiven you!” Their tendencies toward groundedness and stability help them to earn and hold on to money, and they are good at saving. Their extravagances are minor, mostly in the area of spending a little on cheese, candy, and cakes.

A kapha person has a steady sex drive, and he or she can enjoy sex for hours at a time, without dissipation of energy, without orgasm or ejaculation of semen. It may take them some time to become interested, but once they are stimulated, they tend to stay that way. Kapha dosha is aggravated by kapha-producing food, such as watermelon, sweet fruits, candy, cookies, yogurt, and other dairy products. Cold and frozen food and chilled water, sleeping in the daytime, and sitting and doing nothing all increase kapha.

Sedentary work, especially when combined with steady munching at the desk, produces too much kapha in the body. Excess kapha slows digestion and metabolism and lowers the digestive fire, and the person may become chubby or even obese. The Attributes of Kapha Individuals Following are the main attributes of kapha dosha and how they are expressed in the physical, mental, and behavioral characteristics of a kapha individual. ATTRIBUTES MANIFESTATIONS IN THE BODY Heavy bones, muscles, large body frame; tends to be overweight; Heavy grounded; deep heavy voice Slow Slow walk, talk; slow digestion, metabolism; sluggish gestures Cold clammy skin; steady appetite and thirst with slow metabolism and Cool digestion; repeated cold, congestion and cough; desire for sweets Oily Oily skin, hair and feces; lubricated, unctuous joints and other organs Damp Congestion in the chest, sinuses, throat and head Smooth Smooth skin; gentle calm nature; smoothness of organs Dense Dense pad of fat; thick skin, hair, nail and feces; plump rounded organs Soft Soft pleasing look; love, care, compassion and kindness Static Loves sitting, sleeping and doing nothing Viscous, sticky, cohesive quality causes compactness, firmness of joints Viscous and organs; loves to hug; is deeply attached in love and relationships In early morning mind is cloudy and foggy; often needs coffee as a Cloudy stimulant to start the day The anabolic action of sweet taste stimulates sperm formation, Sweet increasing quantity of semen; strong desire for sex and procreation; abnormal function may cause craving for sweets Helps digestion and growth, gives energy; maintains osmotic condition; Salty abnormal function may create craving for salt, water retention The difficult time of year for kapha individuals is winter and early spring, when the weather is heavy, wet, cloudy, and cold.