Spring Ayurvedic Diet, Spices, and the Cooked Honey Warning

All legumes, such as yellow split peas, red lentils, and garbanzo and pinto beans, are recommended. Radishes, spinach, okra, onions, and garlic can be used, along with hot spices such as ginger, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and chili pepper. (But don’t overdo these hot spices if your constitution is predominantly vata or especially if it is pitta.) After each meal, drink some tea made from ginger, black pepper, and cinnamon. • Use less ghee and fewer dairy products, and use more honey, which is heating.

A cup of hot water with a teaspoon of honey helps balance kapha during the spring season. (But never cook honey; it clogs the subtle channels and acts as a toxin in the system.) You can end your meal with a cup of freshly made lassi (see this page for recipe). • For those who eat meat, chicken, turkey, rabbit, and venison are permissible; seafood, crab, lobster, and duck are not recommended during spring season. • This is a good season to observe a juice fast of apple, pomegranate, or berry juice.

• Wake up early, and go for a morning walk. Also, do the Sun Salutation and kapha- reducing yoga postures, such as the Fish, Boat, Bow, Locust, Lion, and Camel poses, and the Headstand and/or Shoulder Stand. Bhastrika and Right Nostril breathing are also helpful (see chapter 6). • Sleeping in the daytime aggravates kapha; hence it is not recommended during this season.

As spring advances and the weather heats up, you will want to change from a kapha- pacifying regimen to the pitta-pacifying guidelines suggested for summer. In fact, as the weather alternates between cold and hot, you will need to be alert day-to-day and use your common sense to remain in balance. Chapter 6 Breathing Techniques P rana is the bridge between body, mind, and consciousness. It is the constant movement of awareness.

Prana carries awareness to the object of our perception; that movement of awareness through prana is called attention. The internal movement of prana is the movement of sensation, thought, feeling, and emotion. Thus prana and mind are deeply connected. The physical manifestation of prana is breath.