Dicas refrescantes, para acalmar o Pitta Dosha agora no verão! :)

Dos três doshas, pitta é o que tem de mais comum com o Verão. Imagine uma panela a ferver de sopa quente, amarga e picante— essa é a natureza de pitta. Constituído pelos elementos fogo (maioritariamente) e água (secundariamente), pitta tem como atributos, quente, oleoso, forte, leve, azedo, fluido e pungente sendo também muitas das mesmas qualidades sensoriais que nos rodeiam nesta altura do Verão.

É um princípio básico do Ayurveda que igual aumenta igual. No livro, “Ayurveda: Segredos de Cura”, a autora e professora Maya Tiwari escreve ". Os doshas não são simplesmente a energia dinâmica dentro do corpo, são por sua vez, principalmente influenciados pelas mudanças sazonais" Quando começa a aquecer no Verão, tornamo-nos mais propensos a acumular excesso de pitta. Se nós já possuímos um prakriti (natureza) pitta, corremos um risco ainda maior de ficarmos desequilibrados.

Sinais de um pitta desequilibrado incluem diarreia, sensações de ardor, irritações na pele, suor com odor intenso, febre, inflamações, e um estado mental intenso ou hipercrítico. Pitta rege a digestão e o metabolismo, sendo assim, o fogo pode começar primeiro lugar no intestino delgado e estômago – o local principal de pitta no corpo – com excesso de ácido digestivo e bílis.

O que fazer quando o pitta está a “ferver”? Devemos ter em mente que os desequilíbrios dos doshas podem variar nas suas manifestações e severidade, dependendo de vários factores.

Se tem suspeita de algum problema de saúde, procure um terapeuta qualificado. Mas se se sente simplesmente com excesso de calor, sintonize-se com os seus sentidos e tente aplicar qualidades opostas para se manter saudável no meio desta estação quente.

Sabor: sabores como amargo, doce e adstringente acalmam pitta, então coma mais alimentos como maçãs, uvas, courgette, alface, pepino, coentro e lacticínios biológicos frescos. Eliminar ou reduzir o consumo de álcool, carnes pesadas e fritos, alimentos gordurosos, salgados, picantes e amargos. Em vez de sal, use sementes de funcho, coentro, feno-grego e sumo de lima fresco para temperar.

Toque: Use fibras naturais e que façam com que a pele respire naturalmente e que têm um efeito refrescante, como algodão e linho

Cheiro: Mime-se com um bouquet fresco de tuberosa, gardénia, ou frésia, use óleos essenciais como rosa, jasmim, gerânio, vetiver, ou ylang ylang.

Visão: Dê uma pausa no trabalho que requer intenso foco visual. Olhe para as verdejantes árvores e prados de verão. Rodeie-se de cores e tons refrescantes como branco pérola, azul, verde, prata e cinza.

Som: Ouça música, como flauta e cantos devocionais para acalmar e suavizar o seu coração e espírito.

Pranayama: Experimente técnicas de pranayama que arrefeçam, como Sitali e Sitkari, que são feitas pela inalação através da boca e expirarão pelo nariz.

Para fazer o Sitali, sente-se uma posição confortável, faça uma forma de O com a sua boca, e enrole a língua longitudinalmente. Em seguida, como B.K.S. Iyengar instrui no livro “Luz sobre Pranayama", “sugue” o ar, como se estivesse a beber por uma palha e encha os pulmões completamente." Retire a língua, feche a boca e prenda a respiração por cinco a 10 segundos. Expire pelo nariz. Repita esse ciclo por cinco a 10 minutos e depois descanse em Savasana (postura do cadáver).

Se você não consegue enrolar sua língua, tente Sitkari, que é semelhante ao Sitali excepto que a língua é mantida fixa. Cerre os dentes, deixando os lábios entreabertos e a língua levemente encostada por trás dos dentes incisivos superiores, inspirar pela boca, fazendo o ar passar por entre os dentes e a língua, reter o ar e expirar pelas narinas. Pratique com cuidado e sem intensidade no início ou no final do dia, quando o ar está fresco.

(...:)

Por Niika Quistgard

Tradução livre, Liz :)

http://www.yogajournal.com/health/1302

Ayurvedic Tips for Summer! :)

Ayurvedic Tips for Summer

If summer's heat leaves you hankering for shade, try these pitta-pacifying techniques to keep your cool.

By Niika Quistgard

Of the three doshas, pitta has the most in common with summer. Imagine a bubbling pot of steaming hot, sour, and spicy soup—that's the nature of pitta. Made up of the primal elements fire (mainly) and water (secondarily), pitta has hot, oily, sharp, light, sour, fluid, and pungent attributes—many of the same sensory qualities that summer surrounds us with.

It's a fundamental principle of Ayurveda that like increases like. In Ayurveda: Secrets of Healing, teacher and author Maya Tiwari writes, "The doshas are not simply the dynamic energy within the body; rather, they are influenced primarily by seasonal variations." As summer heats up, we become prone to accumulating excess pitta. If we already possess a pitta prakriti(nature), we're at an even higher risk of becoming out of balance.

Signs of pitta imbalance include diarrhea, burning sensations, skin irritations, odorous sweating, fever, inflammation, and a hypercritical or intense mental outlook. Pitta governs digestion and metabolism, so the fire may flare first in the small intestine and the stomach—pitta's main seats in the body—with excesses of digestive acid and bile.

What to do when pitta's boiling over? Keep in mind that doshic imbalances can vary in manifestation and severity, depending on many factors. If you suspect any health problems, seek a qualified practitioner. But if you're simply a touch overheated, tune in to your senses and try applying opposing qualities to maintain balance in the midst of summer's swelter.

Taste: Bitter, sweet, and astringent tastes calm pitta, so eat more foods like apples, grapes, zucchini, lettuce, cucumbers, cilantro, and fresh organic dairy. Eliminate or reduce your intake of alcohol, heavy meats, and fried, oily, salty, spicy, and sour foods. Instead of salt, use fennel seeds, coriander, fenugreek, and fresh lime juice for seasoning.

Touch: Wear breathable natural fibers that have a cooling effect, such as cotton and linen.

Smell: Treat yourself to a fresh bouquet of tuberose, gardenia, or freesia. Or dab on a diluted essential oil: Try rose, jasmine, geranium, vetiver, or ylang ylang.

Sight: Take a break from work that requires intense visual focus. Gaze at summer's verdant trees and meadows. Surround yourself with cooling hues of pearl white, blue, green, silver, and gray.

Sound: Listen to flute music and devotional songs to calm your heart and soothe your spirit.

Pranayama: Try cooling pranayama techniques, like Sitali and Sitkari, which are done by inhaling through the mouth and exhaling through the nose.

To do Sitali, sit in a comfortable position, make an O shape with your mouth, and curl the tongue lengthwise. Then, as B.K.S. Iyengar instructs in Light on Pranayama, "draw in air...as if drinking with a straw and fill the lungs completely." Withdraw the tongue, close the mouth, and hold the breath for five to 10 seconds. Exhale through the nose. Repeat this cycle for five to 10 minutes and then rest in Savasana (Corpse Pose).

If you can't curl your tongue, try Sitkari, which is similar to Sitali except that the tongue is kept flat. Part the lips and allow the tip of the tongue to protrude slightly. Practice gently and without intensity early or late in the day, when the air is cool.

Pitta Pops

Try this frozen treat on a hot afternoon.

Serving Size: Makes eight 4-ounce popsicles

Ingredients

• 1 quart vanilla almond milk
• 1/3 cup raw or turbinado sugar
• 2 tablespoons powdered cardamom

Directions

1. Pour one cup of the almond milk into a small saucepan. Stir in the sugar and cardamom and heat to almost frothing. Turn off the heat.

2. Pour the remaining almond milk into a large bowl. Add the hot mixture and whisk to combine all the ingredients. Allow to cool, then pour into Popsicle forms and freeze

Massagem Ayurveda no Yoga Kshetra no Porto :)

http://yogakshetra.blogspot.pt/

Rearing Healthy Children with Ayurveda

Children are our future. They are the ones who will continue our legacy into the futurity. In the current times, many people are working tirelessly on global issues threatening our future such as ecological imbalance, water crunch, poverty and global warming. It is only through a healthy contingent of children, who will carry forward the activities of these responsible denizens, that we can ensure ourselves a safe future. So it is important to see the current generation of children remain holistically healthier.

But with the mindless adoption of the busy, modern life of today, our children are often seen to be moving in a different direction altogether. They are nowadays assailed by a number of ‘artificial’ problems such as hyperactivity, aggression, TV-addiction, moody behaviour, mental stress, exam-phobia, allergies, child-obesity, sedentariness and fatigue. They are ‘artificial’ in the sense that these problems can be squarely attributed to the modern life that tends to alter children’s lifestyle and mental make-up from the natural way to an artificial way, for which their bodies and minds are not made up. If this alarming trend is allowed to continue, we are in for a real trouble as our posterity will not be as secured as ourselves. It is high time that we took some concrete steps to put back the normal life of children.

The best way to do so is to follow the principles of Ayurveda. According to Ayurveda, children with the above problems, although seemingly hale and hearty, are not healthy. When we talk about ‘health’ in the conventional terms, we mean only ‘bodily health’; but when we talk about this word in the Ayurvedic perspective, we mean the summation of ‘bodily, mental and spiritual health’. Health, as per Ayurveda, is the state where our bodies are balanced with the right amount of Doshas (the three life-energies—Vata, Pitta and Kapha), minds are high in Sattva (knowledge, purity) and the souls are filled with love for our fellow-beings.

Parents, who are children’s first teachers, and school-teachers, who have a profound influence in children’s lives, can do a lot to keep the children in the peak of their health, in the Ayurvedic sense of the term. It’s not that hard. The mantra is simple—let the children take diets and adopt lifestyles which are as close as possible to nature or the natural rhythm. Let me show you how.

Healthy Body 

All bodily problems such as allergies, asthma, child-obesity, sedentariness and fatigue and a great majority of mental problems such as hyperactivity, mental stress, moody behaviour, aggression and exam-phobia have their roots in an imbalance in the Doshas. One of the most significant causes of Dosha-imbalance is the production of Ama (toxins) in our body that is triggered by a snag in the digestive process. Undigested or semi-digested food instead of yielding the life-giving Ojas (vital fluid) produces Ama, which in turn gives rise to a host of anomalies and disorders. According to Ayurveda, Ama is produced with the intake of foods that are frozen, canned, refined (so as to denude the food of its nutritive value), genetically altered, grown with chemical pesticides or fertilizers or that are processed with artificial colours, flavours, additives or preservatives. Such foods are lacking in Chetana (living intelligence) and Prana (vital life-energy) and will do more harm than good in the physiology and psychology.

From the Ayurvedic perspective, the healthiest diet consists of whole foods, eaten in as natural a state as possible. Removing a peel or cooking is the only exception as this helps increase digestibility and assimilation. Here is a list of food items that are healthy: asparagus, bell pepper, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, corn, cucumber, lettuce, mushroom, peas, parsnip, potato, squash, zucchini, salads, apples, banana, dates, coconut, grapes, lychee, mango, melons, pomegranate, barley, oats, rice and wheat.

Thus said, I can sum up the fact that by switching to healthy home-made food yourself, you will set examples for your children to replace all their needs for snacks and junk food with healthier alternatives, thereby keeping their Doshas in equilibrium.

Healthy Mind

Our mind can be dominant in any of the three Gunas (states). They are Sattva (knowledge, purity), Rajas (action, passion) and Tamas (inertia, ignorance). According to Ayurveda, minds dominant in Rajas or Tamas are unhealthy. Mental disorders or imbalances are caused when Sattva decreases and Rajas and/or Tamas increase(s). As Sattva decreases, mental strength, concentration and the power to discriminate (to distinguish right from wrong) also decrease. When such a state is prolonged, the mind becomes stressed. This may then lead to a host of mental and behavioural disorders such as hyperactivity, anxiety, aggression, depression, exam-phobia and, even, nervous debility.

Below are some methods of increasing Sattva, which if followed, will bring about results remarkably fast.

Food: We can greatly balance the aggravation of Rajasic and Tamasic qualities by switching to foods that are Sattvic (Pure) in nature and by leading a pure and clean life. Sattvic food has an uplifting yet stabilising influence as against Rajasic or Tamasic food that stimulates and aggravates some aspects of the mind, heart or senses. Sattvic food helps promote mental clarity, emotional serenity and sensual balance. They aid in the coordinated functioning of the body, mind, heart, senses and the spirit. Some examples of Sattvic foods include almonds, rice, honey, fresh sweet fruits, Moong beans and easy-to-digest, fresh seasonal vegetables and leafy greens. To get the full Sattva from Sattvic foods, prepare and eat them whole and fresh.

Breathing: Mind has a very close relation with breathing. We have short and shallow breathing when we are anxious or stressed and we breathe deeply when relaxed and happy. Teach your children to make it a habit to always breathe through their nose and from their stomach rather than from their chest. Deep stomach-breathing helps the lungs to inject more oxygen into the blood stream that in turn sends more oxygen to the brain. This raises Sattva and empowers their brains to perform better. Deep breathing is also helpful in many other ways. It helps them control nervousness and mental stress.

Exercise: Exercise is not only good for physical health, but is also good for recreation and relaxation of mind. It changes the levels of hormones in the blood and may elevate the mood affecting brain chemicals. It is advisable to do some exercise yourself according to your stamina at a regular time of the day, preferably in the morning. This will set the precedent for your children. The exercise should initiate action in all parts of the body. Brisk walking is a good exercise to start with. Yoga is also a very good form of exercise. Playing indoor games and swimming (not for competition) are also relaxing.

Meditation: Meditation is a method of calming your thoughts by focusing on an object for a period of time. It is very helpful to improve concentration among children. They can concentrate on an object, picture, sound or mantra. They should sit in a lotus position or a comfortable posture while meditating. According to the research performed in recent years, it has been found that meditation slows down the breathing process, normalises blood pressure, relaxes muscles and helps to

reduce anxiety and stress.

Relaxation: It is very important to give short breaks from work and relax the mind of your children. A Yoga posture known as Shavasana (dead body pose) is a simple way to relax. Let them lie down on their back with legs a bit apart and hands making a 15-degree angle with the body. Let each and every muscle of their body relax. Ask them to close their eyes and focus their mind on their breathing. Let them breathe deep and watch their breathing in their mind. This posture can be done for five minutes once or twice a day.

Some other methods of relaxing the mind are giving them a gentle massage on the head (with or without oil), using their favourite aroma or fragrance, having them listen to soft music and chant Mantras and prayers.

Ayurvedic Remedies: Applying oil on the body (Abhyanga) at least once a week is a good method to relax the body and mind. Pouring oil on forehead (Shiro Dhara) is another popular Ayurvedic remedy for relaxing the tension in nerves and head. If you have access to Ayurvedic herbs you can ask children to use 

Brahmi or Shankhapushpi in powder

form, internally.

Jiva Ayurveda

Staying Balanced in Winter - Welcome to kapha season! :)

Staying Balanced in Winter

By Vasant Lad

Ayurveda flourished over 10,000 years ago in a civilization that was drastically different from ours, a culture in which human life was intimately intertwined with the natural world. The Vedic sages understood that the great rhythms and forces of nature—the alternation of day and night, the rhythmic cycle of seasons—all affect us, as do the seasons and cycles of human life. Being in tune with nature, they knew, also means being in tune with your individual constitution, or prakruti, which is comprised of three subtle energies: vata, the energy of movement; pitta, the energy of digestion or metabolism; and kapha, the energy of lubrication and structure.

How to Adapt
The seasons, like your prakruti, are characterized by cycles of vata, pitta, and kapha. If you want to stay healthy all year long, try living in harmony with these natural cycles, adjusting to the changes in your environment through the food you eat, the type and amount of exercise you do, the herbs you ingest, and so on. While you can’t control the weather, you can control these factors, which either build your health, vitality, and resistance to disease, or wear you down. Here is ayurveda’s view on winter—and what you can do to stay balanced this season.

In winter, the sky is often cloudy and gray, the weather is cold, damp, and heavy, and life, even in the cities, moves more slowly. Welcome to the season of kapha. When balanced, kapha supplies strength, vigor, and stability to both body and mind. This subtle energy is responsible for lubricating the joints, moisturizing the skin, and maintaining immunity. But in excess, it can lead to sluggishness, mucus-related illnesses, excess weight, and negative emotions such as attachment, envy, and greed.

In general, we should follow a kapha-pacifying regimen in the winter. But dry, cold, windy weather can provoke vata, too, and can lead to arthritis, indigestion, and other problems. To calm both vata and kapha when temperatures plummet, read on.

Morning Routine
Ayurveda suggests waking up a bit later in the winter (around 7 a.m.) than you would in other seasons. Upon rising, scrape your tongue to remove the dead bacteria and yeast that have accumulated overnight, and to improve circulation to the visceral organs. Then brush your teeth with toothpaste made from heating herbs such as cinnamon, clove, bilva, and haritaki. Next, drink a cup of warm water to stimulate a bowel movement. Then treat yourself to a quick massage. Rub warmed sesame oil all over your entire body (it’s heating and good for all prakrutis in the winter). Let the oil soak in for 5 to 10 minutes, then take a hot shower and exfoliate your skin.

Conclude your morning regimen with yoga, pranayama, and meditation. Surya namaskara (sun salutation) and poses that open the chest, throat, and sinuses remove congestion in the respiratory organs. Try the fish, boat, bow, locust, lion, and camel poses, along with the shoulderstand and the headstand, if you can do it. Follow this with a systematic relaxation and a few rounds of bhastrika, the breath of fire. This breathing practice builds heat and eliminates mucus from the respiratory tract.

After meditating, it’s important to eat a nutrious breakfast. If you don’t feed your digestive fire in the morning, it will dry up bodily tissues and provoke vata. Enjoy a bowl of oatmeal, barley, cornmeal, tapioca, or poha (basmati rice flakes) mildly spiced with cinnamon. An hour after breakfast, boil 1/2 teaspoon of fresh or powdered ginger, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, and a pinch of ground clove in a cup of hot water for 5 minutes. Drink this tea to increase your digestive fire, improve circulation, and reduce excess mucus. (Skip the tea if you have an ulcer or another inflammation-oriented problem).

Indoor Activities
Join a gym, do a workout video, or hit the treadmill to increase circulation and quell kapha. Soak up sunlight, too. Sit by a window to bathe in early morning or evening light. Sun rays relax the muscles, produce vitamin D, soothe Seasonal Affective Disorder, and help the body maintain healthy sleep rhythms.

What to Eat & Drink
Incorporate whole wheat unyeasted bread, buttermilk, cottage cheese, steamed vegetables, warm soup cooked with ghee (clarified butter), and spicy food into your meals. Because your appetite is heartier in the winter, eat more protein—beans, tofu, eggs—and if you’re not a strict vegetarian, chicken, turkey, and fish. Add warming spices such as cinnamon, cloves, and black pepper to promote digestion. Drinking a few ounces of sweet or dry wine with your meals will stoke your agni (digestive fire), improve your appetite, and increase circulation. Avoid cold drinks (they aggravate kapha and vata) and opt for hot water, hot tea, and occasionally, hot cocoa or chai.

Staying Warm
Avoid cold drafts, wear warm clothes, and don’t forget to wear a hat outside. (Grandma was right: more than half of the body’s heat is lost through the head.) Also, cover your ears and neck to keep vata and kapha in check.

Curing a Cold
Ayurvedically speaking, colds are a kapha-vata disorder. The body builds up an excess of cool and moist kapha qualities, resulting in congestion and a runny nose, and at the same time it may suffer from excess vata, which reduces agni, leading to chills, loss of appetite, and poor digestion. Here’s help.

Try Ginger. It’s the best remedy for colds. Drink ginger tea, take a bath infused with ginger and baking soda (put 1/3 cup of baking soda and 1/3 cup of powdered ginger into a hot tub and then soak the body from the neck down), or try a ginger steam treatment. Boil one teaspoon powdered ginger in a pint of water. Turn off the stove, put a towel over your head, and inhale the steam through your nostrils for about 5 minutes. This will relieve congestion and help you feel much better.

Take Vitamin C. Try 500 mg daily for up to three months.

Use Natural Nose Drops. Lubricate the nasal passages and relieve the irritation and sneezing of a cold with nasya. Lie on your back, face up, with a pillow under your shoulders and your head tilted back, so your nostrils are facing the ceiling. Put 3 to 5 drops liquefied ghee in each nostril and gently sniff the oil upward into the nose. You can do nasya in the morning and night (on an empty stomach and at least one hour before or after showering).

Drink Hot Water. Drinking hot water several times a day removes toxins from the system and speeds up your recovery time.

Avoid dairy products. Strictly avoid dairy products, including yogurt, cheese, milk, and ice cream, until your congestion clears up.

Why Is Your Appetite Stronger in the Winter?
In response to cold weather, the body constricts the skin pores and superficial connective tissue to prevent heat loss, which directs the heat away from the peripheral tissues and into the body’s core, including the stomach. Agni (and, therefore, your appetite) becomes stronger in winter. However, if kapha or vata are provoked, agni plummets, leaving you more susceptible to colds, poor circulation, joint pains, and negative emotions.

Winter no-no’s
Avoid cold drinks, fasting, late nights, naps, exposure to cold drafts and wind, and stay physically active.

Vasant Lad, BAMS, MASc, is a world-renowned ayurvedic physician from India. He is the founder of the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the author of numerous books.

Workshop de Massagem - A Arte do Toque ♡

 Workshop de Massagem! :)

- A Arte do Toque

Com Isabel Santos & Elisabete Silva

Vamos aprender técnicas simples de massagem com base nas terapias orientais, que vão desde a Ayurveda com óleos simples e medicinais à Thai Yoga massagem.

A prática da massagem tem vindo a ser cada vez mais utilizada, as pessoas comprovaram o quanto pode ser relaxante e trazer imensos benefícios para a saúde, nomeadamente o alívio imediato de dor. 

Assim, de uma forma divertida e descontraída, irá ter a oportunidade de desenvolver o toque e as técnicas na arte de dar e receber, contribuindo para fortalecer os laços que nos unem a todos, fundamentais para o nosso bem-estar físico, psicológico e espiritual. 

Este workshop visa essencialmente tornarmo-nos conscientes e presentes na arte de tocar. 

Todos os participantes irão por em prática as técnicas aprendidas, experimentando uma sequência básica de massagem completa : dar e receber.

A massagem, tal como outras técnicas terapêuticas, não têm que estar reservada a profissionais – são técnicas ancestrais, praticadas e transmitidas desde sempre de geração em geração : Na Índia, desde os primeiros dias de vida que o bebé recebe massagem, estendendo-se esta prática a toda a família. 

O toque e a massagem podem ser facilmente aprendidos, basta que venham do CORAÇÃO! :)

Sábado dia 09 de Dezembro de 2012 no Marques no Porto! :)

HORÁRIO:

9:00 - 12:00

pausa para almoço

13:30 - 18:30

Cada participante deve trazer:

2 toalhas de banho ou lençóis de algodão; 3 toalhas de rosto, roupa confortável, de preferência de algodão; biquíni, se desejar; snacks leves e vegetarianos para partilhar.

ABERTO A TODOS, CRIANÇAS OU ADULTOS

Investimento: 40€

Contactos:

91 256 8717 Isabel Santos

93 686 2783 Elisabete Silva 

Inspira.zen@gmail.com

terapiaseayurveda@gmail.com

Massagem com Cristais e Gemas semi-preciosas! :)

O uso de cristais como terapia tem as suas raízes na ancestral tradição indiana, como o Ayurveda. Os antigos investigadores ayurvédicos estudaram as propriedades terapêuticas das gemas, e descobriram que diferentes pedras criam diferentes efeitos no corpo humano. Todas as gemas, com excepção do coral e da pérola, são a consolidação mineral mais pura e bela que existe, formadas sob um calor e pressão imensa no interior da terra. Os cristais de cura, são cristais minerais purificados e límpidos que podem ser encontrados no corpo humano.

As gemas servem como agentes válidos da energia electromagnética que influenciam a natureza electroquímica do organismo humano. O contacto dos cristais com os campos electromagnéticos do corpo torna-se fácil quando estão incorporados em electrólitos puros como o cobre, a prata e o ouro ou em contacto directo com a pele. Os cristais trabalham com a energia físico-química bem como com o prana (energia vital), quer sejam usadas em joalharia, tomadas oralmente como medicamentos, ou em terapias, como a massagem.

Podem experimentar esta maravilhosa terapia! :)

terapiaseayurveda@gmail.com

936862783