Attune to Autumn – Justine Rintoul

Summer is waning in the southern hemisphere. As the crisp drier days of autumn arrive, we may start to notice imbalances in our systems, this can be triggered by Autumn weather. Most common, is an imbalance in the respiratory system.

To understand this from an Ayurvedic perspective, we look at the elements. Vata is the Ayurvedic dosha made up of air and ether elements. The qualities of Vata are the same qualities as Autumn, cold, dry and light. Think about autumn leaves, light, dry and crackling. In ayurveda ‘like’ increases ‘like’ so if the environment is cooler, dry, windy and brisk, our mind and body will start to feel the same. Fortunately Ayurveda provides plenty of tools to help us to attune to each season.

Following are some tips for autumn:

Diet
• Add more warm nourishing meals to your diet, try some one pot meals.
• Spice up your food with herbs that are warm, sweet and nutritive.
• Autumn is a good time to use fennel, garlic, cumin, coriander, curry leaves and black pepper in cooking and home remedies.
• It is a good time to swap raw desserts and food for warmer meals especially in the evening. See my Spicy Apples and Coconut Cream

Lifestyle
• Exercise that generates heat helps to pacify vata (wind and ether elements).
• Exercise that is grounding and fluid in nature are beneficial.
• When you are busy and rushing vata is easily aggravated even more so when the weather is in transition. This may show up as feeling scattered, spacious or anxious. Routine is great to help counteract this.
• Meditation, sleep and rest are all wonderful and helpful to calm the wind and ether elements in the body.
• Another lovely practice at this time is a lovely self abhyanga (self massage using oil), try Sesame Oil when it’s cold as it’s warming qualities will keep you toasty. For directions go here.
• Autumn is a brilliant time of year to work on your habits to help you gain clarity, improve your sleep and increase your energy so you can do more of what really matters to you.