Adapting your lifestyle and being mindful of how you are living from day to day—even in relatively simple or subtle ways—can be an extremely effective way of encouraging a return to balance.
A Qualitative Perspective
As a starting place, it’s helpful to understand which types of influences will be most supportive. Kapha is pacified by experiences that are:
Light (think energizing, inspiring, and joyful)
Sharp (think engaged, discerning, and penetrating)
Warm (think in terms of both physical and emotional warmth)
Dry (think arid, absorbing, and emotionally detached)
Rough (think stimulating and catabolic)
Mobile (think active, directional, and purposeful)
These qualities help to balance kapha’s heaviness, inertia, and it’s cool, dull, oily, wet nature. They are also a perfect antidote to excess kapha’s tendency toward stagnation and lethargy. While incorporating Kapha-pacifying qualities into your day-to-day experience may require a bit of effort and consideration initially, with practice, it can become quite intuitive.
Mental attributes of Kapha characters influencing life style
Kapha people are stable, loving, compassionate, and loyal. They have a steady and calm mind, a good memory, a deep melodious voice, and a monotonous pattern of speech. They can easily earn and tend to save money. Kapha people make pleasant companions and loyal friends. They have an amazing ability to nurture.Unbalanced and increased, Kapha suffers from greed, attachment, possessiveness and laziness. Excess Kapha will create neediness and passiveness. Rules of what is permitted and what is forbidden will benefit them and give them borders, they need clear limitations for eating and sleeping hours, this helps them define themselves more clearly and has a great positive effect on them. Seeking the warmth that is missing in their structure, they may abide to a burning religious faith or belong to a group that nourishes them with warmth and security. Food and security are important for Kapha people who tend to attach to possessions, habits, memories, desires, and food items. They may stubbornly hold on to ideas and conceptions that are no longer relevant and may suffer physical disease on their account. The ability to let go is healing for them. Tendency to passiveness, makes keeping a routine easy. Breaking and changing routine is balancing. Kapha people tend to love eating even though they don’t need to eat much. They find comfort in food, especially sweets. For this reason, Kapha should be careful to avoid overeating and emotional eating
Underneath their calm constitution, however, Kapha suffers from terror of the unknown. For this reason, Kapha people naturally gravitate towards secure, stable lifestyles. Change is very threatening to Kapha. Like an ostrich, they may bury their head into the sand.
Kapha in balance are loving, dependable, nurturing, and loyal. Kapha people provide stability and affection in relationships. They make great listeners. Of all the Doshas, they have the greatest stamina and immunity. Their bodies are as solid as their wills. When out of balance, Kapha can become stubborn, depressed, tired, and possessive. They easily tend toward weight gain, stagnation, and congestion and need to be mindful to move daily and to challenge what is comfortable by being adventurous. Kapha does best on a diet of lighter foods like green vegetables and legumes. They should avoid sweets, oversleeping, and withdrawing from the world.
Ayurveda says to treat Vata like a delicate flower, Pitta as a sweet friend, and Kapha like an enemy. Since movement and change don’t come easily to Kapha, they need to be prodded and motivated. Most Kapha people appreciate individuals that hold them accountable. Their tendency is to stay comfortable in familiar surroundings. Instead, they should shake things up a bit and branch out into new territory. Travel, signing up for an online e-course or a night out dancing can lift Kapha’s spirits and provide much needed inspiration.
Kapha’s cold, heavy nature leads to poor circulation, water retention, and hypothyroid. Kapha fluids are generally thick. They need cardiovascular activity to get things moving. Kapha needs stimulation on multiple levels. Dry and vigorous massage invigorates Kapha and prevents stagnation in bodily channels. Spicy and invigorating foods can help stimulate Kapha out of their corner.
Kapha should wear bright, stimulating clothing and choose stimulating surroundings. Rising with the sun helps keep Kapha’s clear headed and light on their feet. As a Kapha, you should not oversleep or take daytime naps, which make you feel sluggish.
Kapha’s poor circulation leads to respiratory congestion and low immunity. They should keep warm to protect their lungs and sinuses.
On the bright side, once Kapha is committed they have great stamina, and see a project through to completion. Like a bowling ball, they may be hard to lift and swing, but once they are rolling, they will go a long distance. As in the story of the tortoise and the hare, Kapha is the slow and steady one that will win the race.
Kapha’s can:
Eat more freely if perform a lot of exercise.
Benefit occasional fasting or just skipping dinner from time to time.
Give up early breakfast and start later with some toast or granola.
Go to sleep a little later and wake up earlier, recruit service life style.
Challenge laziness.
Key words for balancing: Stimulation and Diversity.
Elements of a Kapha-Pacifying Lifestyle
The most important thing you can do to pacify Kapha is to commit to getting regular exercise. This is one of the single-most effective ways to clear the mind and invigorate the body while balancing literally every single Kapha quality. But please don’t let this commitment feel heavy or obligatory—like something you “should” do, but don’t want to—either. Remember, you want more inspiration and joy in your life. So choose activities that are fun, challenging, and satisfying for you. In this scenario, exercise can become a gift, and doing it can actually begin to be its own reward.
Another helpful area to focus on is the elimination of as many lifeless habits as possible. Now is a great time to embrace more spontaneity, lighten up, and cultivate your capacity to think outside the box. Too much routine and monotony aggravate Kapha, while changing things up is very balancing. Consider bolstering your confidence by surrounding yourself with a community of support: an accountability partner, exercise buddies, and friends who will bring out the adventurer in you. These are fantastic ways to encourage your own success.
Below, you will find a few suggestions to get you started. Please try not to feel daunted. Aggravated Kapha can bring out the pessimist in anyone, but you need not try to do everything. Even just one or two intentional shifts can have a dramatic impact. This is a perfect opportunity to embrace taking one manageable step at a time, and to resist the urge to throw in the towel if you start to feel discouraged. Instead, draw on kapha’s reserves of strength and endurance to create some dedication and persistence, and ask for support wherever possible. The best approach when pacifying Kapha is to follow your inspiration, to take on only what feels doable now, and to build on your commitments over time.
Daily Routine
Kapha does well to balance routine with spontaneity. So think of the repeating aspects of your routine as tools for creating enough predictability to anchor your system in a sense of normalcy and alignment each day. And then you can pepper in open windows of time specifically designated to encourage freedom and adventure. Your routine might be as simple as getting up and going to bed at the same times each day and exercising a designated number of times per week, or it might be quite a bit more elaborate.
You might also want to consider waking up by 6 am, when Kapha tends to weigh things down with an added sense of heaviness and inertia in the atmosphere. If we’re still sleeping when the extra Kapha rolls in, it can actually cause a certain sluggishness and lack of clarity throughout the day. While it’s not likely that waking up comes easily to you, you may notice that by getting enough rest, and rising no later than 6 am, you feel better all day long.
Life habits to decrease and balance excess Kapha:
- Keeping a high level of activity
- stimulating activity
- exiting experiences
- warm and dry sun bathing
- dry sauna
- less sleep at night
- refraining from day sleeping
- early rising
- mental stimulation
- diverse activity
- challenging activity
- extreme sport
- endurance traveling
- avoiding the coach potato position in front of a screen
- keeping motivated, enthusiastic and diversity in activity
Life habits that increase Kapha and create imbalance:
- Heavy greasy food
- Cold food, uncooked food
- Snacking on chips and bear
- Prolong sitting
- Excess sleeping
- Day sleeping
- Excess nourishment
- Falling asleep after meals
- Denying your artistic side
- Presuming someone else will do it, or just waiting for things to happen
- Avoid exercising
- Doing drugs
- Suppressing emotions
- Desert every day, especially ice cream or cheese cake
Yoga for balancing Kapha
While there are Asanas (yoga postures) that are especially Kapha-pacifying, it’s the overall approach to your practice that is going to have the biggest impact. As with other aspects of your life, bringing the qualities that balance Kapha into your yoga practice can very effectively encourage a return to balance.
Intentionally create a sense of warmth, engagement, muscular effort, and expansiveness. Invite your movements to be well-paced and invigorating, focusing on the subtlety in each pose and noticing the expansiveness created in your energy body. Embrace variety by changing things up regularly.
Pranayama for balancing Kapha
If you are new to pranayama, start with Full Yogic Breath. Once that feels natural and comfortable, there are a couple of practices that can be added for powerful support with pacifying Kapha. Kapalabhati (also known as Bellows Breath) is a heating practice that burns accumulated toxins and stokes the inner fire—supporting proper digestion on all levels. Bhastrika (or Skull Shining Breath) tones the digestive organs and strengthens the core while bringing lightness and clarity to the mind. Committing to just ten or fifteen minutes of pranayama each day can dramatically improve one’s state of mind and overall well-being. These practices offer a practical and effective means of tending to needs of the physical, mental, and emotional spheres all at once.
Exercise for balancing Kapha
As we have already seen, the qualities of exercise are extremely balancing for Kapha, so any exercise will be beneficial. That said, taking a few simple steps to adapt your approach to exercise could encourage a far more efficient return to balance. While Kapha responds best to vigorous and challenging workouts, it’s also important to prioritize making them fun and inspiring. Otherwise, we might find any number of excuses not to exercise. Working out during the Kapha times of day (6–10 AM and PM) will be especially beneficial and can help to shake off the increased heaviness of these times of day. But if these windows of time don’t work for you, any time of day will do. Celebrate kapha’s endurance by embracing longer adventures and explorations as often as you like. You may also find it helpful to change things up regularly, consciously engaging with the newness of each workout.
Experiment with pushing yourself where you might normally tend to relax the pace, and also play with finding a pace that you can maintain for longer periods of time. Exercising outdoors can help to feed your spirit and inspiration. Most importantly, get creative about ways you can bring joy and pleasure into your physical activities—celebrating your life, your body, and your adventures alike.
Awareness Is Everything
At the most fundamental level, following a Kapha-pacifying lifestyle is about inviting more Kapha-pacifying qualities into your day-to-day experience, whether through specific, focused practices, the overall attitude you cultivate towards life, or both. This is why fostering awareness is so critically important. With a little effort, we can become quite astute at knowing which types of experiences are going to support our health, and which might tend to sabotage our well-being. Choosing to follow a Kapha-pacifying lifestyle is a simple matter of practicing more discernment. It is an invitation to intentionally fill our days with supportive types of experiences, while limiting those that will be less so. As our understanding deepens, the very way we move through life becomes a powerful opportunity for healing.