Reeni

Discover how to align your daily routine with Ayurvedic energies to optimize your health and focus.

English

Living in tune with the rhythms of nature, both daily and monthly, the seasons and stages of life. Each period has a dominance of qualities associated with the doshas. Living in harmony with the Ayurvedic clock brings you more energy and productivity. It can also explain why sometimes things don't work out well.

Understanding Ayurveda: The Ayurvedic Clock

The Ayurvedic clock. In Ayurveda we also work with a clock system. The clock is divided into six parts, a 24-hour clock. Each part containing four hours have a presence of different energy, that one of vata, kapha or pitta, which is their dominant. As you have heard in the talks about the doshas, vata belongs to the element of air and space, pitta to fire and water and kapha to earth and water. So the qualities of these elements also come back throughout the day. Between two and six, both at night and in the afternoon, it's vata time, the time of space and air. With this lightness and movement, getting up in the morning towards the end of vata time is a great idea. Your sleep has become lighter and the energy of movement helps you to get up and feel energized. In the afternoon it's still time to do some creative things but start to slowly wind down already. The energy of vata makes you less focused, so make sure you do important things that require your attention and focus during pitta time. Between six and ten, both in the morning and in the evening, it's kapha time, the idea of earth and water. You might imagine that in the morning it's a good idea to move during this period and to be out of bed already, so that you can get up with the lightness of vata that's before that time and not with the heaviness of kapha. Here you can also see why when you sleep in, it often makes it difficult to get out of bed and hard to get going because you're stuck in that heaviness and denseness of kapha energy. You don't have the energy you can get from vata but you are in the sluggish time of kapha. In contrast, the morning is a perfect time to be physically active, to get better rid of the stagnation of the body and to build strength, which is also a kapha quality. In the evening that energy is very useful for slowing down and getting ready for bed. It's also better to have a lighter meal here as your digestion also kind of slows down and you need heaviness and sluggishness to fall asleep, so that's where the kapha energy really helps you out. Between ten and two in the morning and in the evening, it's pitta time, the time of fire, of digestion and transformation. This is where your digestion is strongest, for food as well as for experience and emotions. That's why you want to have your biggest meal in the middle of the day to get the most out of it and you want to sleep at around 10 in the evening to be able to optimally process your day while you sleep. Daytime pitta is also the optimal time for tasks where you need your brain. Your focus is strongest during that time. At night you really want to use that focus to really regenerate and rejuvenate your body through sleep, not through working. These energies are also reflected in the seasons. Overall autumn and spring are more of a vata season with a lot of movement and change. Summer is more of a pitta with the heat and winter is more kapha with the cold. But with the variation within the season it's important to look at what's going on at the moment to best balance your system. When it's cold, windy or rainy we simply need different things than when it's warm or dry, regardless of the season. The transitions from summer to autumn but especially from winter to spring are big and bring along extra vata because it's a big change. That's why in Ayurveda a digestive reset can be done during these periods. Here in spring we ensure proper clearing of the built-up winter kapha which otherwise can cause stagnation, clogging up of your system, very ama-like, which can then also cause colds and the flu and stuff. And in autumn there's more of a gentle cleanup of built-up summer heat, summer pitta, which otherwise in a rainy and warm autumn opens the door to other colds and flus. So living with this clock, taking into account the different seasons, the different phases of the day can really support you in living a life that's more in balance with nature's rhythms, maintaining the health that you already have and trying to improve it where it's possible.