Part 5 (1/2)
Physical Characteristics of Vata People.
People with a vata const.i.tution are generally thin, flat-chested, have noticeable veins and muscle tendons, and have difficulty gaining weight. The quality of dryness of the vata energy leads to a tendency to have dry, cracked skin and a thinness of the body. Such people tend to be more dark-skinned as compared to others of the same racial background and they tan easily. The skin of a vata person chaps easily and is p.r.o.ne to eczema and psoriasis. Oiling the skin is both balancing and healing for a vata, especially if done regularly. Rubbing oil on the skin, especially sesame oil, seems to balance the vata tendency for roughness, dryness, irritability, and lightness. This also seems to be emotionally soothing for those with a vata const.i.tution.
The hair of vata people tends to be dark, coa.r.s.e, and curly. Because of the quality of variability, head hair may be oily or dry in different places. The nails of a vata person are usually rough, irregular, and show marked ridges or depressions. The color of the finger just below the nails may look slightly bluish or gray in color. Nail-biters are often vatas. Irregularity also shows up in the teeth. A vata's teeth may be bucked, crooked, and uneven. Teeth tend to be brittle and overly sensitive to hot and cold. The jaw is often out of alignment with the rest of the mouth. Gums may recede early in life, and there may be an astringent or bitter taste in vata mouths.
Because of the vata quality of coldness these people crave the sun. Their circulation is usually poor and so their skin is cool to touch. Their innate coldness leads to scanty sweating. They love external heat sources such as the sun, saunas, and hot springs. Vata people love warm climates and more easily go out of balance in the windy, cold time of the year, such as in the fall and winter. A smart vata will dress warmly and may put cayenne powder in his or her socks and shoes during cold weather.
Vatas may be tall or short with narrow shoulders and/or hips. They tend to have long fingers and toes. The vata quality of irregularity leads to unbalanced body proportions and structural abnormalities, such as deviated septums, scoliosis, or bowed legs. The irregularity of a vata may also manifest as fluctuations in weight. These are also the people who seem to be able to eat almost anything without gaining weight.
Typical eye colors of vatas are grey or slate blue. They may also be dark brown or black. Vatas are erratic eaters. They often are in a hurry to eat but may take more food than they can eat. They also may eat too much and have trouble digesting it all. Their appet.i.tes are variable from day to day, and they often need to have snacks between meals. If breakfast is missed they usually function poorly because of the vata tendency toward hypoglycemia. The vata tendency to irregularity does not easily hold blood sugar levels stable. Unless vatas eat a heavy breakfast, they will usually want to eat an early lunch. Those with a vata const.i.tution have a harder time fasting unless they get juices every few hours.
Vata people tend to have irregular bowel function. Sometimes they have constipation and sometimes diarrhea. Their tendency to be irregular and to become dry gives some vata women irregular menstrual periods. Sometimes vata women miss their periods or they have scanty flow. Cramping with their periods is sometimes accentuated, as muscle spasms and cramping is a vata tendency.
Food Needs of Vata People.
Vata people can eat a raw-food diet if they eat heavier, oily foods such as avocado and soaked nuts and seeds, both of which have water to balance their dryness and oil to balance their lightness. Heating herbs help vatas by giving their raw food the warmth it needs. Since vatas have a tendency to be cold and to get cold, warming up food to 110-118 F in the sun or the stove is an especially good practice for a vata who likes raw foods. Vatas are unbalanced by the dryness of dried fruit but can eat some if they add back the water element by first soaking the fruit. Vatas should eat at regular intervals and not go too long without eating. Blending raw vegetables into a liquid soup form is good for vatas in that it supplies the water element in an easily digestible way while still preserving the enzymes. This blending process and soaking of nuts and seeds helps to minimize the gas that vata people tend to have because of the inherent air quality of their basic const.i.tution. In general, vata people are best maintained in balance with soupy, oily, salty, and warm foods. This is particularly true for those vatas who have been successful on a raw-food diet.
Psychophysiology of Vata People.
The vata psychophysiological type tends to be active and restless but often has low endurance. They have fluctuations in their energy and a tendency to expend energy quickly-they love to burn it up as soon as they get it. The tendency is to overextend themselves and burn out like a match which flames brightly and then exhausts itself. Exercise often tires them out. Like their energy, their pulses tend to be fast, thin, and irregular. Their s.e.xual activity tends to mirror this as well. They may have intense interest in s.e.x which peaks when it is expended in lovemaking. They have a tendency for s.e.xual overindulgence which often leads to exhaustion.
Creativity comes easily for a vata person. They have alert, active, and restless minds that verbalize rapidly. Sometimes they can become mentally fatigued easily. They are quick to understand things intellectually. Vata people often are the visionaries, artists, and people who theorize. They love excitement and variation in lifestyle. When in balance, a vata person is vivacious, energetic, talkative, gregarious, and enthusiastic.
Their sensitivity to subtle energies, desire for harmony, and open-mind-edness make it easy for them to pursue a spiritual life. Sometimes their will power is weak and needs to be exercised to increase it through balanced, harmonious discipline. Vatas tend to have quick memories and forget easily. They think predominantly in words. Often they are very sensitive to changing environmental activity and are affected by noise and pain. Loud music may actually be painful to them. I often think of vatas as people whose nervous systems have less insulation. They are knocked off their ”center” the most easily compared to the other dosha types. Balancing vata in general can miraculously clear up many nervous system imbalances.
Vatas also have a tendency to insomnia. They either have difficulty falling asleep or they awaken early. They dream frequently and often have flying dreams or dreams that are intense and active. Because of the sensitivity of their nervous system they tend to be nervous, anxious, and fearful. Vatas may be irritable and anger easily, but it is an anger that fades quickly. Vatas' active minds require continual stimulation. They make friends easily, but often the relations.h.i.+ps are not sustained. Often these people appear to be ”s.p.a.ce cases.” Vatas are receptive and open to spiritual development. It even comes easily for them, but they have a tendency for poor follow-through. They may move from one stylish social group, or experimental activity or group, to another.
Spiritual Challenge for Vata People.
One of the most important spiritual challenges for people with vata const.i.tutions is learning how to regulate their energy and balance their lifestyle so they do not fall into the unbalancing syndrome of overextension of their energies and the resulting chronic exhaustion. As a medical doctor I have instructed my vata clients in developing and mastering a balanced, regular, harmonious lifestyle. They become quite pleased with the improved quality of their health and spiritual life. Balance is one of the most difficult achievements for a vata. It is, however, stability that allows them to manifest their vision.
How to Recognize an Imbalance in the Vata Dosha.
I can often recognize an imbalance of vata on the psychological level as nervousness, fear, anxiety, insomnia, pain, tremors, and spasms. This vata imbalance may also reveal itself in its drying tendencies as rough skin, arthritis, emaciation, stiffness, constipation, general dryness, thirst, insomnia, excessive sensitivity, and excitability. Vatas have a tendency to manifest large intestine disorders and to suffer from excessive gas. A vata disorder may also manifest in the muscle system with low back pain or in the nervous system with sciatica, paralysis, and various types of neuralgias. Almost any sort of psychosomatic symptom can be connected to a vata imbalance.
These vata imbalances more often manifest during weather conditions such as cold, windy, stormy weather. I once was able to solve the problem of insomnia of one of my vata patients by suggesting that this person turn off his fan at night. The wind from the fan was causing a vata imbalance and the consequent insomnia.
It seems that with vata people, anything excessive such as strenuous exercise, mental work, extreme diet changes, grief, anger, suppression of natural urges, severe weather conditions, or any activities taken to the limit will cause an imbalance. A calm, stable environment will usually bring a vata person back into balance.
Several of my predominantly vata clients have found that to successfully live in the world they need to pay constant attention to keeping their lifestyle and diet balanced. I have found that high-functioning vatas approach their vata const.i.tution as a spiritual challenge. When they don't, pure vata types have difficulties adjusting to society. To ill.u.s.trate with a case example, when one of my patients first came to me she was a typical, thin, high-strung, anxious vata who was in constant turmoil with her husband. She was unable to commit herself to the role of mother and frequently spoke about ”skipping out” as she had done in the past. She was using marijuana and other stimulating drugs. She was on a heavy flesh-food diet and she ate at irregular intervals. She often tackled projects in the work world that would overwhelm her. She was depressed and angry with herself and her work. After eighteen months of nutritional and dietary work, homeopathy, family therapy, and meditation training, her life was transformed into a model of balance and harmony that she could hardly believe. Her marriage became a happy one, she began to enjoy her motherhood, she meditated on a regular basis, she changed to a balanced, vegetarian, 80% raw-food diet, and got off drugs. She stopped taking on those stressful extra projects and focused on making her home her own Garden of Eden. A key component in her success was increased self-understanding, which included an understanding of her vata const.i.tution, and committing herself to not creating stressful situations on any level in her life. By seeing her vata const.i.tution as a spiritual challenge rather than a limitation, she turned her chaotic, unhappy life into one experienced by her as blessed.
Another vata const.i.tution patient who came to see me was already on a spiritual path and quite aware of her vata const.i.tution. One major balancing factor for her was sticking to an 80-90% raw-food, vegetarian diet. She was extremely sensitive, and when she wandered from this diet, her mind and body would go out of balance. One typical characteristic of vatas is what I call time disease. They tend to overextend, stress out, and go into crises. A major improvement in this person's vata-balancing effort occurred when she became strong enough to refuse to let herself be overworked by the demands of the spiritual group she belonged to. Healthy vatas usually have learned to ”say no” and have become experts in their own time and stress management strategies.
My const.i.tutional type is kapha-vata. One way my vata manifests is in the musculoskeletal system. By doing stretching and breathing exercises regularly, I have found a way to keep my vata balanced. Traveling is a vata stress for me so it is a time when I pay particular attention to hatha yoga and other vata-balancing factors. Because travel is potential stress for my const.i.tutional type, I have found that the day after I arrive at my destination it's best to eat lightly and only do light yoga and exercise. When I travel, I keep myself warm and avoid cold breezes that are unbalancing to vata. These might seem like little things, but to me they have meant the difference between feeling great and full of energy or suffering with a stiff neck or some pulled muscle.
Summary of Ways to Unbalance Vata People.
Avoid calm, soothing environments.
Be excessively physically and mentally active with travel, overscheduling, overworking, excessive fasting, or extended periods of any extreme.
Live chaotically without any regular schedule or rhythm connected with the natural Earth cycles, such as working a graveyard s.h.i.+ft, eating irregularly, and being on the run.
Don't get enough sleep, rest, or meditation.
Live in a windy, cold environment.
Use cocaine, speed, and other drugs.
Overly act out or suppress feelings.
Eat dry, frozen leftovers; cooling, light, bitter, astringent, and pungent foods.