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Taming Your FIre

Foods to Cool Pitta

Pitta Pacifying Herbs

Pitta

Pitta symbolizes our internal fires or “Agnis” of both the mind and body. All heat, metabolism and transformation in the mind and body are controlled by pitta.  When it is in balance we are joyous, focused and motivated. When we have too much fire we get “burned out” and “hot headed.”

How do you know if you are running hot?

• Do you tend to be controlling, demanding or critical?
  
• Are you often frustrated, angry or intense?
  
• Is your skin ruddy and prone to rashes and eruptions?
  
• Are you often irritable or impatient?
  
• Is your hair prematurely gray or thinning?
  
• Do you wake up in the early hours and find it difficult to fall asleep again?
  
• Do you feel discomfort in hot weather?
  
• Are you a perfectionist?
  
• Do you experience hot flashes?
  
• Do you have excess stomach acid?
  
• Do you experience loose bowel movements

Taming Your Fire

If you answered yes to most of these questions, you need to balance pitta. Here are some tips for balancing pitta:

• Learn to be more accepting of yourself and others
• Keep a cool head. Avoid hot temperatures, food and situations.
• Favor cool, heavy, dry foods and sweet, bitter and astringent tastes.
• Reduce pungent, sour, salty tastes and warm, oily and light foods.
• Moderation, don't overwork yourself or others.
• Spend time by the water.
• Regular mealtimes, especially lunch at noon
• Abhyanga (ayurvedic oil massage) with a cooling oil such as coconut.
• Reduce alcohol consumption to avoid waking in the night
• Avoid conflict

Foods to Cool Pitta

Cook with savory spices like fennel, cardomom and coriander, and avoid peppers and pungent spices.  Cucumbers, watermelon, and sweet (not sour)  fruit are a wonderful way to keep a cool.  Milk, ice cream and ghee (clarified butter) are excellent, but avoid too much hard cheese or sour cream.  Whole grains are an important fuel source for pitta types.

Don’t skip meals and have your biggest meal at lunch when your digestion is at its peak.

Warm weather agrevates pitta, so be sure to keep cool, and eat cooling foods in the summer. Red meat, coffee and alcohol are heating and should be kept to a minimum.

Pitta Pacifying Herbs

Taking these herbs internally as a tea or in pills or inhaling them as essential oils cools excess pitta.

Gotu Kola
Bramhi
Licorice
Peppermint
Chamomile
Lavender
Coconut
Sandalwood
Aloe vera
Passion flower
Skullcap
California Poppy