Dosha Guide - Pitta Dosha
According to Ayurveda, there are three major life-forces in the body that correspond to certain elements. These are called the doshas. The doshas oversee the way we process and experience all things in this lifetime here on earth. The doshas are kapha, pitta, and vata. Kapha is made up of the elements earth and water, pitta is water and fire, and vata is air and ether. We’ll be focusing on pitta dosha, which is the dosha responsible for transformation and also digestion.
When we are in balance, we all have a balanced amount of pitta. Balanced pitta may manifest as ambition, leadership, passion, motivation, and organization. When pitta is out of balance, it may manifest as fiery and fast digestion issues, anger, irritation, judgemental tendencies, and irritability.
Pitta dosha is made of the elements fire and water and some of the qualities are oily, hot, sharp, light, and spreading. When fire and water come together, it can create steam. When we think of steam, we probably imagine there being some sort of flame or heat to cause transformation. We need pitta to digest and transform our food and to also digest and transform our thoughts and emotions. One of the main sites of pitta dosha is the small intestine, which is where our food gets “cooked” and transformed into nutrients that move through our body. We can see pitta within us whenever we are passionate about something and whenever we’re motivated. Those times when we feel unstoppable and incredibly driven are how we can recognize pitta within us.
The pitta archetype is someone with a medium sized frame, warm skin, light and intense eyes, an intense gaze, very strong digestion, the ability to walk with intention and talk in an assertive way. They may gain and lose weight quite easily and also tend to be very athletic and active. This is the person who probably has their closet organized by color, season, or clothing type. Their bookshelves are most likely arranged by author or the books are set up in some kind of color-coded system. They probably know where everything in their home is located and it’s rare that something gets lost. These are the people who can take you on a wild adventure, jumpstart a new business, plan a huge event, and be the life of the party. However, remember that fire can be something that warms us as well as something that burns us. When pitta is out of balance, this archetype can become angry when they haven’t eaten (“hangry”), jealous, overbearing, judgemental, and quick to make decisions without fully thinking things through. Make sure you bring snacks if you’re going on a long road trip with your pitta friend and remind your pitta coworker to take a break before they burn out.
Ayurveda teaches us that the doshas also govern the seasons and the times of the day and night. Pitta dosha’s season is summer and during the summertime we can see the qualities of pitta in mother nature. It can get incredibly hot and there’s also a sharp and spreading mood to the summer that can make us feel quite intense if we don’t encourage balance. Remember, like increases like and opposites balance. If it’s afternoon on a hot summer day, when the sun is strongest and I’m already sweaty and warm, I’ll feel even more hot if I ate spicy salsa and went to a high intensity boot camp class in the park. This would increase my pitta and bring me out of balance, so if a friend or coworker then pointed out that I made a mistake on a meeting time, I might respond back in a very fiery way. We can avoid fiery outbursts by keeping our pitta in balance. Perhaps instead of the salsa and bootcamp class, I could have drank coconut water and gone for a walk. Then, my mindset would have been much more calm and cool and I would have responded to my friend or coworker in a more mindful way.
The pitta times of day are 10am-2pm and 10pm-2am. These times of day have qualities of pitta, so they’re the times of motivation and transformation. That 10am-2pm time of the day is the perfect time to tackle projects, make moves towards goals, schedule phone calls, and do anything that requires motivation and drive. It’s the best time to open up your planner or to-do-list and check things off. It’s also an ideal time to have the biggest meal of the day because our digestion is strongest. The start of the evening 10pm-2am time might be when we may experience a feeling of a “second wind” which is basically just pitta time coming back around. Ideally, we want to be in bed, or at least trying to wind down, before evening pitta time kicks in. It’s a great time to be in bed because our bodies can experience more of a cleansing state when we’re relaxed and when we’re not digesting food. This is often a rough one for a lot of us with social lives that kick off later, but it can be such a transformational experience to honor this natural cycle in nature.
The beauty in understanding pitta dosha is that we can begin to notice where pitta shows up in our bodies, minds, hearts, lifestyle, and also in nature. When we are in sync with nature, we begin to feel more balanced as we move through our days and nights. Understanding the doshas is meant to be empowering and a way for us to understand why we act a certain way or feed a certain way during specific times in our lives. You may begin to notice that you aren’t really an angry or judgemental person, but you were just making certain lifestyle choices that increased your pitta and caused an imbalance. You may even start to see how certain people in your life are acting incredibly controlling because they haven’t taken a break in months and haven’t given themselves time to cool down and reset. Hopefully this knowledge helps us become more understanding, kind, and supportive towards ourselves and towards the people in our lives.