The Wellness Sense

by Om Swami

  Kaphas have decent appetites. They are not driven by their appetites, though; they are driven by their routines. They are steady eaters. They eat slowly and they digest slowly. They can easily skip meals or fast without the slightest discomfort. They can be bulimic. Due to slow digestion and metabolism, their bodies learn to utilize internal energy stores. As a result, dietary irregularities can make them more prone to diabetes.

  Sleep Pattern

  Vatas are light sleepers; they can wake at the slightest of noises. They must have their required sleep. If it gets disrupted, or if they sleep less than they should in a night, they need to make up for the lost sleep within the next day or they become fidgety and irritated. They find it hard to change their sleep patterns. It takes them the longest of the doshas to get over jet lag, for example.

  Pittas are moderate sleepers. They sleep lightly but soundly. Of the three doshas, pittas require the least amount of sleep to feel refreshed and recharged. They like to get out of bed as soon as they wake up and get on with their daily routine. They sometimes wake up in the middle of their sleep to drink water. They enjoy drinking water immediately after getting up. It soothes their body.

  Kaphas are sound sleepers, and they can sleep for very long periods. They can easily sleep for eight to ten hours and then go back to sleep just a few hours later. They are in no rush when the morning comes. They like to lie in their beds and relax for a while before getting up to the day.

  Sex Drive

  Vatas have a good sexual appetite and do a lot of cerebral sex. They can do the full act in their brain. They are aroused very quickly, they become passionate just as rapidly, they get to the climax even quicker and feel exhausted afterwards. Vatas like to nap after the act. They remain sexually active till late in their lives. Their reproductive fluids are somewhat thin and flow easily.

  Pittas are easily aroused and very passionate. They are more romantic than vatas but less enduring than kaphas. Pittas are average performers. They feel hungry after the act. Their body temperature rises quickly and they sweat more than vatas and kaphas during intercourse. Unlike vatas, who have no time for foreplay, pittas care about their partners. It is not just sex but an act of love for a pitta.

  Kaphas take their time to be aroused and are the most enduring of the three. Unlike vatas and pittas, for them the quality matters more than the frequency. Their virility (or fertility) is excellent. Just like with their meals, they can skip intercourse without distress, but ultimately they must have it – they can fast but cannot abstain. Kaphas may feel the urge to eat something sweet after the act.

  Seasonal Allergies

  When allergens are running riot during the change of seasons, vatas tend to get dry eyes. Their noses remain mostly blocked during the allergy season. There is very little discharge of mucus. They may experience chest congestion, but they get well soon enough.

  If struck with hay fever, pittas get red eyes. While a vata’s nose is blocked, a pitta gets a runny nose. Pittas can suffer from chest congestion, but their coughs are mostly dry. They may also experience some difficulty in breathing. It has often been observed that pittas tend to fall sick twice during the same season.

  Kaphas get watery eyes when suffering from hay fever. Their noses are blocked with thick mucus and they experience the worst congestion of the chest among people of the three dosha types. Phlegm formation is the greatest in kaphas during the change of seasons.

  Menstruation

  Ayurveda regards menstruation as a cleansing and recharging process. The ancient texts state that the menstrual cycle is a vital indicator of a woman’s health. Ideally, a woman should rest during her period, because her body is undergoing a change at this time and is under strain. Every month, nature prepares a woman for conception. It readies the womb for childbearing. During the proliferative phase, kapha, with its lubricating and stabilizing properties, prepares the uterine lining (endometrium) to grow. It nurtures and nourishes it. This is the period between cessation of flow and ovulation. If there is no union of an egg and a sperm during this period, pitta comes into play. This is the secretory phase, starting from ovulation till the period. Pitta being the dominant dosha during this phase, the basal temperature of a woman’s body tends to rise. After pitta, vata dominates, and with descending energy rids the body of menstrual blood.

  Vatas experience anxiety, mood swings, sleep disruption and other symptoms, such as pain in the lower back and cramps in the lower abdomen, before menstruation. Their periods are somewhat irregular and scanty; their menstrual blood is dark in colour and can be clotted. Constipation is common at this time for vatas.

  Premenstrual symptoms for pittas include tenderness in the breasts, hot flushes and irritability; skin rashes and headaches are also common. Their menstrual blood is bright red and warm. Periods for pittas tend to last longer than vatas. They can experience cramps too, but not as severe as those suffered by vatas. Some pittas experience a burning sensation while urinating at this time.

  Kaphas may experience bloating, water retention, and swollen and tender breasts. Their periods are not painful like those of the vatas and pittas. They may still have heavy periods though, and the blood often contains a white discharge. Kaphas experience lethargy and torpor during their periods; their metabolic processes slow down and they feel a general heaviness.

  MENTAL ATTRIBUTES

  Vatas are lively and bubbly people. They are enthusiastic and are keen to try new things. And they don’t mind changing their opinions as they gain new information or insight. Vatas are usually extroverts. Just like the wind that’s never stable, their beliefs change quickly. It doesn’t take them long to form new radical beliefs. Vatas get worried and anxious quickly. But they get over their worries just as swiftly. They are quick to grasp new concepts, but their memory retention is not as good as pittas or kaphas. Vatas are quite adventurous in nature and love to spend time outdoors. They are quick-acting, accommodating and adaptable by nature. They dream a lot during their sleep but often forget their dreams.

  Pittas are generally more ‘head driven’ than vatas. Purposeful, and at times intense, they make great leaders. They are persuasive and good at debating. Pittas can be quite aggressive and get irritated rather easily under stress. They can be irritating too at the same time. They have very good concentration and can be quite engaging. Pittas are okay with the outdoors as long as it doesn’t involve rigorous activities; they enjoy more intellectual adventures. Their memories are sharp and headspaces quite clear. Possessing critical and penetrating minds, pittas are outcome-driven and goal-oriented. They dream often too, but mostly their dreams feature battles and fights or, at least, some form of violence. Pittas are somewhat impulsive; anger is their primary shortcoming. Generally, however, they have a warm nature.

  Kaphas are the most stable of the dosha types. Slow, steady, easy-going and accepting, they are great supporters and loyal followers too. They are mostly introverts and become withdrawn under stress. Kaphas are happy to engage in indoor activities; outdoors and adventures are not their thing. They are slow to learn but have elephant- like memories. Their actions are thought out and rarely impulsive; they have strong preferences and don’t make visceral decisions. Kaphas take their time in forming opinions but stick to them for the rest of their lives. They are generally calm and stable and can be quite lazy too. Kaphas don’t dream very often but when they do, their dreams are mostly romantic.

  DUAL CONSTITUTION

  As I said before, it is rare for a person to be an absolute vata, pitta or kapha. Usually, people have a mixture of the doshas. If you assess yourself deeply, however, one dosha should be more dominant than the other two. The better you analyse yourself, the quicker and better you can heal yourself, because the success of all remedies, herbs and treatments in Ayurveda is dependent on how accurately your constitution is determined.

  Your dosha and your prakriti represent how your genetic make-up affects
your physical and mental well-being. This is only one side of the coin. Just like the three physical humours, there are also three mental humours.

  When stressed, why do some people eat a lot, while many others lose their appetite altogether? Why do some get irritated easily, while many remain unaffected under the most annoying circumstances? Why do some people suffer from addictions while many don’t? Why do some gain, and others lose, weight during depression? What determines these traits? What affects our mental state and why are we the way we are? Yogic texts state that just as doshas set our physical traits, our mental humours create a genetic mental disposition.

  5

  Your Mental Constitution

  Omar, in his late forties, was a senior executive in a multi- billion-dollar telecommunications company. He had been happily married for twenty-one years and had a son and a daughter, both in their teens. He worked out at the gym and ate organic foods. He was in control of his professional life. The whole world, including his wife, saw Omar as a successful and happy man. He brought presents for his wife, he took his family out to dinner, they would vacation in a new country for two weeks every year. He managed his personal and professional relationships well. All in all, you couldn’t possibly think that he had any problem.

  Omar was healthy until recently when, out of the blue, he had three severe episodes of anxiety attacks with heart palpitations, within two weeks. He confided in me, saying that he was torn from the inside and lived in a constant state of fear and helplessness. He thought God was punishing him, because he had been sleeping with other women for years. He had started it in the fourth year of his marriage, when his wife was pregnant with their first child, seventeen years ago, he said.

  Omar told me: ‘I love my wife to bits. She’s the perfect wife. I can’t imagine living without her and I love my children. I don’t want to wreck my family and my life, but I’m addicted, Swami. I’m addicted to sex. A million times I’ve promised myself that I will not do this to my wife, but a million times I’ve broken my own promise. I live with this constant guilt. I don’t want to do this but I can’t help it. I have tried curbing it, I’ve tried distracting myself, but nothing works. I know my wife will leave me if she ever finds out.

  ‘When I look at her, I feel terrible for being disloyal to her for so long. I buy her gifts, I take her on vacations, I donate to charities, I pray, I do everything to somehow make me light, but it all fails. My past haunts me and the present tortures me. Sometimes in the middle of a meeting, and sometimes while on the treadmill, sometimes in bed, other times while reading, sometimes while watching a movie, I get these thoughts that really worry me. Even if I stop now, what will happen if something from the past springs up? I want to change, Swami. I’m tired of being like this. Please tell me why I am like this. What do I do? How do I fix myself? I think very soon I’m going to die of a heart attack. I can’t take it any more.’

  Omar broke down. I could see his helplessness.

  ‘Omar,’ I said, ‘I’ll ask you just two questions. If the answer is yes to both of them, I know I’ll be able to help you. If not, you’ll have to see a therapist.’

  ‘Anything, Swami.’

  ‘Was your father an aggressive man? And did your mother put up with his aggression?’

  ‘Yes, Swami. Sometimes she answered back, but it was always a mistake because first my father would shout at her and then withdraw for days and weeks at a stretch to punish her. The atmosphere at home would be extremely tense and unbearable.’

  ‘Okay then, Omar. I know what we need to do. I’m not a psychologist or a therapist. But I will tell you that you have to become a strict vegetarian and you have to practise a certain type of meditation. I promise you’ll see the results within three months.’

  Omar emailed me every two weeks with a progress report. Three months later he saw me again and said he hadn’t ever felt as light, energetic, calm or happy. Meditation and a change in his diet worked for him. It’s been over two years, and his sexual urges no longer drive him insane. He wanted to know how and why it worked, but more than that, he was intrigued. What did his father’s aggression or mother’s suffering have to do with his sexual temperament and conduct? And particularly, how did becoming a vegetarian have an impact on his sexual addiction?

  It was quite simple from my perspective. Just like the three physical humours, there’s a certain genetic mental disposition everyone is born with. This relates to the mental or the psychical humours. They are purity (sattva), passion (rajas) and aggression (tamas). Omar was not conceived in an act of love but lust. His father must have been aggressive at the time. Like an animal, he was simply looking for an outlet to sate his lust. His mother was unhappy in the relationship and felt betrayed, for her husband’s actions had no care, no tenderness and no love. In the mixture of passion and lust, in the combination of confusion and indifference, Omar was conceived. I asked him to become a vegetarian because non-vegetarian food is tamasic in nature. Although I’ve seen many vegetarians with similar issues, I particularly wanted Omar to stay off anything that strengthened his genetic disposition.

  He was born out of passion and aggression and, as a result, for the better part of his grown-up life, Omar experienced uncontrollable sexual urges. Aggression doesn’t always mean that you yell or be feisty. Many people express it by withdrawing from others.Eitherway, it is tamas.Withdrawing to avoid someone is not the same as withdrawing to punish her. Tamas can express itself in the form of extreme negative emotions: anger, hatred or aggression. Omar’s tamas was not in his behaviour towards his wife but in his untamed libido. Our mental humours are the primary driving force behind our habits. Whether they are eating, sleeping, sexual or social habits, behind all our reactive and impulsive actions, the subtle forces of nature are working. These are called the modes of material nature. They have the same name as the mental humours. In fact, the scriptures make no distinction between individual dispositions and the modes of material nature. They are identical because we are nature.

  Ayurveda specifically documents the correlation and interdependence between one’s mental and physical states. Your state of mind affects your physical health and your physical health impacts your mental state. Just as your physical body is governed by the three humours, your mind is governed by the three mental humours. The physical humours are called dosha; literally, fault, principally because they require a most careful balance. An excess in any dosha is never good for the body. Doshas must be balanced and moderated. The mental humours, on the other hand, are not called dosha but guna. Guna means quality.

  Taking a cue from yogic and Vedic texts, Ayurveda recognizes that the humours of the mind cannot be absolutely bad or absolutely good. They are subjective. Aggression of the mind may be detrimental to your digestion, but if you are a soldier out on the battlefield, you need adrenaline pumping through your body: you need that aggression to fight, to survive – to do your job. Hence, the humours of the mind are known as virtues or qualities, because it’s not so much about what we have as much as it is about how we use what we have.

  The health of your nervous system, vitals and digestion – and the strength of your immune system – have a direct and definitive correlation with the three mental humours. Unlike the physical humours, these three humours are not permanent. They are forever fluctuating in every individual. Sometimes rajas will win over tamas, other times tamas will win over rajas, and sometimes sattva will win over both. This constant struggle between the humours is the cause of varying moods and mental states in people. Anyone in a physical body is affected by the mental humours. With mindful and righteous living, it is possible to tame the fluctuations to a great degree, directly improving your physical and mental health. Let me elucidate the three humours for you.

  IGNORANCE

  This is called tamas in Sanskrit. Tamas also means darkness, illusion, error and gloom. It primarily refers to a state of aggression. Nature destroys with tamas.
The functions of deterioration, death, decay, disintegration and complete destruction are governed by the mode of ignorance. Anything comprising the five elements must eventually decay. This is the fate of any material entity. These entities may be living or non-living, moving or still, natural or artificial, organic or inorganic. Upon decomposition, they merge back into the five elements.

  No matter how dearly or intelligently you hold on to whatever matters to you, eventually it will meet destruction; it will separate from you. The fundamental law of nature is that everything must go back to its original state. If you boil water and leave it aside, it will go back to a normal temperature. It can’t remain hot forever. If you freeze it and leave it aside, it’ll go back to being water. This is the law of nature. So, not only is tamas not bad, it is necessary, because it is simply the stage before restoration and rejuvenation. The destruction in tamas is illusory, because nothing is really getting destroyed. Only the forms are changing; it is merely a change of appearance – a sort of transformation.

  Tamas in the human mind is the seed of aggression, negativity, hatred, depression, delusion, fear and anger. In the darkness of tamas, in that illusion, one no longer sees right from wrong. In fact, its rising and gripping ignorance justifies all wrong acts as right. Whether it’s partners lying to each other, people killing each other, governments fooling their people, or countries going on a spree of territorial aggression, tamas makes it all look like a normal part of our contemporary world.