Weather changes during seasonal transitions can affect your health, your moods and your energy.   To get the most benefits of the season and to protect yourself from the negative seasonal effects, Ayurveda recommends certain protocols which correlate to the energetic balance of each season. 

The weather is one type of environmental factor which can impact your internal bio-chemistry balance.  Have any doubts?  Just watch your body’s reactions to the different seasons – basically, what symptoms you get in different weather.   This hot, humid summer in Wisconsin brought up many heat symptoms – such as hot flashes, skin rashes, urinary tract and yeast infections, summer colds, increased thirst - for me and my clients.

To balance the external stimuli, you need to modify your lifestyle and foods to compensate for such seasonal changes.  These modifications are what we call seasonal regimes or Ritucharya.

To stay balanced in this upcoming autumn season, the main goal is to balance the dry, light, mobile, and cold characteristics which accompany the windy or Vata season.  To do this, Ayurveda uses lifestyle elements which have the opposite characteristics – in this case warm, moist, stable, and heavy.

On a practical basis, that means incorporating as many of these Vata-pacifying elements as you can:

• Enjoy warm, heavy breakfasts such as oatmeal, cream of wheat or rice topped with milk, ghee/butter and nuts or seeds.

• Eat more warming food in general– such as cooked grains, root vegetables, spices, soups and stews with a nice bread, cooked fruits.  Minimize salads and raw foods.

• Reduce the very active, vigorous exercise that further depletes you. Instead try leisurely walks, enjoying the beauty of the woods and the color of the season.

• Regular schedules for sleep and meals will help ground you.

• Every morning before bathing, do a self-oil massage with sesame oil which is a heavy, warm oil.

• Surround yourself with nice warm, fall colors such as red, yellow, orange, and brown.

• Stay warm – protect yourself from the elements by dressing warmly, wearing gloves and keeping your head covered.

• Warm baths before bed help keep your core temperature toasty.

• Try to go to bed early – by 10 pm – and if you need help with sleep, try a cup of warm, spiced milk (pinch ginger, cardamom, nutmeg) or Yogi Tea© Bedtime tea.

• Take particular care to minimize loud noise, music, fast driving, excess sexual activity, and avoid cold drafts and winds.

Vata Tea: helps calm and ground the vata life force which is increased during this season

• ¼ tsp fresh ginger, grated
• ¼ tsp ground cardamom
• ¼ tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ajwan (like celery seed, you can find in Indian groceries)
• 1 c. water

Boil the water and add the spices.  Turn off the heat and let sit for a few minutes.  Sweeten according to taste with a natural sweetener (not white sugar).

Easy Carrot Ginger Soup
 Serves 4-6 good size bowls.

• 1-2 pounds of organic carrots peeled and cut in large chunks
• 4-5 inches of fresh ginger root peeled and cut in slices  

Put all of the carrots and ginger root in a pot with water to cover the carrots.  Bring to a boil then lower the heat to a simmer and cook until the carrots are very tender. 

Remove from the heat and pour off several inches of the water in which the carrots and ginger were cooked. Reserve this liquid.  Use a hand held blender to puree the carrot ginger mixture to a smooth soup texture.  You can add some of the reserved liquid or milk or unsweetened soy or rice milk to create a more creamy soup. 

Adjust the seasoning with sea salt and pepper.  The soup is nice with a sprinkle of cinnamon or nutmeg if you want to accentuate the carrots sweetness or with a sprinkle of cumin powder or coriander powder if you like a more Indian flavor. 

To make this a heartier meal, add 1/3 cup of cooked quinoa or cooked rice to the soup before serving. 

A big part of my professional mission is to make the world a better place – one healthy person at a time.  One person becoming healthy and whole creates a ripple that spreads out first to your family, then to your community, and slowly out to the larger world.

This means that I’m interested not just in helping you get healthy and stay healthy, but helping your whole family do this as well.  Having the family involved in wellness has several benefits:

• Builds healthy habits in children at a young age
• It is much easier to eat healthier when everyone is doing it together versus one part of the family having tempting junk food around
• The buddy system – the more people supporting each other, the greater the success

I recognize that making these changes and getting wellness support isn’t easy.  And since most holistic wellness services are not covered by insurance, choosing natural health care can create a financial challenge.

To help your WHOLE FAMILY succeed in your wellness goals, I’ve developed a new Family Care Plan which includes a 10% discount on initial assessments for the family (after one family member is an established client) as well as packages of 6 discounted sessions which can be shared within the family.

Jamie Durner, CAP assists individuals in achieving their wellness goals on all levels of body, mind, and spirit in a supportive, non-judgmental, and empowering way. Jamie helps people feel better through natural, holistic, and non-invasive techniques with a focus on Ayurveda medicine, the science of life and longevity. She works to help balance chronic health and pain conditions and their life-disruptive symptoms - whether those symptoms are physical like fibromyalgia, headaches, or regular shoulder tension; emotional like stress and anxiety, or life oriented such as dissatisfaction and unhappiness with job, self or relationships.

Her areas of expertise include:

• Health and wellness on all levels of body, mind, spirit, and life
• The art & mastery of self-care
• Living in alignment with nature and your highest self
• Life balance
• Personal and spiritual development
• Developing and expanding a yoga and meditation practice
• Lifestyle modification and habit change

Through individualized wellness consultations, group workshops, and home self-care products, Jamie's mission is to assist individuals to live healthy and harmonious lives.