Restlessness? Anxiety? Feeling spaced out? Too many thoughts? Sleepless nights?

These are clear symptoms of ‘Vata Imbalance.”

Vata dosha implies the imbalance of air and space elements in the body. Vata governs the movements in the body, activities of the nervous system, and the process of elimination from our body.

When Vata dosha becomes imbalanced for a sufficiently long enough time, pitta and kapha dosha also get imbalanced.

Ashtanga Hrdayam, a major treatise on Ayurveda talks about the properties of the Vata dosha:

“Tatra ruksho laghu sheetah, khara sukshmaschalo nilah”

The qualities of Vata are dry, light, cool, rough, subtle, and mobile.

— Ashtanga Hrdayam: Sutrasthana

Vata-dosha renders these qualities to the mental, emotional and physical plane.

Symptoms & Effects of Vata Dosha Imbalance:

Symptoms

Physical:

• Constipation
• Gas formation or distension in the abdomen
• Dehydration
• Dry and rough skin
• Pains and general body-ache
• Astringent taste in mouth
• Loss of strength, fatigue, low vitality
• Disturbed or lack of sleep
• Tremors and twitches
• Feeling dizzy or spaced out
• Sensitiveness to cold and desire for warmth

Behavioral:

• Irrational, Anxious, Nervous, Agitated, Impatient
• Wanting to run away
• Feeling confused, fearful & shaky
• Feeling ungrounded
• Excessive movement or talking

Effects

• Wasting of muscles
• Joint pains
• Stiffness
• Headache
• Retention
• Constipation

• Weight loss
• Cramps
• Convulsion, tremors, paralytic attacks
• Colic
• Dryness, scaling
• Phobias

What causes Vata Imbalance ?

A basic tenet of Ayurveda is “like increases like.” Therefore, increasing the inherent qualities of vata (dry, light, cool, rough, subtle, and mobile) will increase vata in your body.

• Cool is uncool: Dry/Cold weather conditions can increase the vata imbalance in your body. So if you are a vata prakriti person, stay hot!
• Dry/Cool Foods: Avoid pungent and bitter foods. Also dry and cold food can aggravate vata.
• Bored to Vata: Dry emotions, cold behavior can aggravate vata.

How to balance Vata?

Vata dosha can be balanced with suitable lifestyle and dietary guidelines.

For food, follow the 3S’es

• Sweet: If your sweet tooth has already started dancing, please hold on. Here we are talking about the naturally sweet foods like grains, squashes and sweet fruits. Not the chocolates, cookies and your other favorites which have refined sugar. Those ones are actually vata pacifying food.
• Sour: Let your taste buds have the fun with sour foods.
• Salty: Here, salty does not mean the intake of excessive salt.

PS: Heavy food is good to reduce vata, but don’t be a food hogger. Very heavy food can also lead to vata imbalance.

Lifestyle changes

Vata imbalance leads to restlessness in the mind-body complex, because of which you may feel like doing a lot of things together. But remember that too much of activity can further aggravate vata imbalance.

It is advisable to follow a routine in your sleeping and eating timings and also don’t exhaust yourself with too much of activities.

Yoga

You may practice following postures at a slow, smooth and steady pace.

• Vajrasana
• Cat Stretch
• Surya Namaskar
• Virabhadrasna (Warrior Pose)
• Vriksasana (Tree Pose)
• Makar Asana (Crocodile Pose)
• Pawanmuktasana
• Shavasana
• Ujjayi breathing

Herbs

• Ashwagandha & Shatavari : The healing properties of Ashwagandha & Shatavari have proved to be helpful in balancing Vata Dosha.