We all born with some unique “default” settings. These settings make us special among rest of the people.
Your inborn metabolic setting is your “Prakriti”. Prakriti means Nature. Your Prakruti is your first and foremost settings. This decides your first reaction when you interact with environment.
Your Constitution is a unique setting of characters and attributes. This setting determines- how your body and mind will instinctively react when confronted by a stimulus. Many of the traits you prize in your personality arise from and are dependent on these characteristics. Many of the qualities you dislike in yourself also arise from these tendencies.
Knowing your constitution allows you to know your body and mind better. You learn why there is no need to feel guilty for your dietary preferences, or for your mental traits like anger or fear.
Once you understand these traits, lifestyle change according to these can help you to get rid of the diseases and also help you in preservation of health.
What Decides Your Prakriti
Your Prakriti decides at the time, when you conceive in womb of your mother. The following traits decide the prakriti-
- Physical condition of your parents.
- Genetic composition of parents.
- Time and Season of conception.
- Behavior of parents at time of conception.
- Dietary habits and lifestyle of mother.
- Mental state of mother.
Once decided and fixed. Prakriti won’t change. It is a lifetime permanent condition.
What Your Prakriti Decides about You
This is the your Prakriti which decides many things about you, your behavior and your diseases.
Your prakriti decides much more about you-
- Dietary requirements
- Your mental state
- Behaviour
- Likes and dislikes
- Temperament
- Physical outlook.
- Diseases which are you are prone to.
- Impact of physical activities on your body.
- The best remedies for you.
- Line of treatment you need to follow.
- How your body will respond to different conditions.
You’re that unique as your fingerprints.
This is the reason, every treatment in Ayurveda is personalised. There cannot be a general rule for treatment as per Ayurveda. Therefore we know strongly that home remedies doesnt work in most of the cases.
What are Prakritis
Some people have an equal amount of all three elements (ether is combined in air and earth within water). Thus a more air-predominant individual needs to take in less air and more fire and water. A water person already has an excess of water, so there is a need to reduce the intake of water and to increase the fire and air elements in the diet and lifestyle.
Vata Prakriti
Vata prakriti means, when there is dominance of the Vata Dosha over rest of the two doshas.
Thin frame people (mostly) either tall or short. These Vata prakriti people can adapt to any condition, very easily. They are careless. Quick and impatient. They want to learn everything but they know least in depth. Irregular patterns in life is the truth of these people.
Likewise Air, they move from one place to another place. Easily get upset, but forgets everything quicker than that. In one word they are- impulsive.
Pitta Prakriti
Emotional, perfectionist and always in time are the Pitta persons. They are sharp. Very aggressive. Their reasoning and logic is always on a stronger side. This makes pitta people leaders. They believe in making decisions very pin-pointedly.
They express the feeling with anger, mostly. But inside they are emotional and sensitive, most of the times.
Grey hairs or no hairs, is an easy trait to find them around you.
Kapha Prakriti
When Kapha is excessive, they tend toward water excesses like water retention, being overweight, or having bronchitis.
Mentally, they will find themselves lethargic, too attached, and sentimental. As we discussed earlier, each person is made up of a combination of these elements, yet each usually has a combination predominantly of two or all three of these elements.
These elements in turn, form three physiological principles, Váyu (ether and air), Pitta (fire), and Kapha (water and earth). Like the elements, people are predominantly made up of one or more or these doshas.
Here are some basic questions about Prakriti- the Ayurvedic body type. These questions will help you to understand the concept of Prakriti properly.
Should one always eat according to Prakriti?
In short span of my practice I have met many people who say they are this Dosha or that Dosha. These people strongly believe in following the diet and lifestyle according to their prakriti.
Because these people believe by doing so they will never fall ill!
But…they do fall ill! Even though they keep on eating according to their Prakriti. Why does it happen?
They fall ill because- Prakriti is the not only concept of Ayurveda. Ayurveda is wider and deeper than just the concept of Prakriti.
Doshas doesn’t work only according to your Prakriti.
Doshas have their own pattern of working according to cycle of – Age, Day-Night and Season.
Is it confusing. Okay, let’s clear it with some example-
Consider, Sam, a young man leaving somewhere in Europe. He just assessed his own Ayurvedic-Body-Type and he found that he is a Vata person. After knowing this, he started taking everything according to his Prakriti. Vata spices, Vata tea, Vata masala and blah blah and soon after that he started having a lot of gastric issues.
Why did this happen?
This happened because-
Sam cannot be of a very unique – absolute Vata Prakriti.
Because age of Sam is young, so his Dosha according to his age is Pitta and he should take care of Pitta too.
Sam didn’t understood that he should eat according to his age and season too. Therefore Sam fell ill.
So moral of the story is- we should take care of many things other than the prakriti while deciding our diet and lifestyle. In most of the cases it is seen that what patients were doing to balance the Doshas. The same thing went against and caused imbalance.
That is why, some person trained properly in Ayurveda should design your diet, not anybody. And certainly not the websites which are selling the great blend of Vata spices or Kapha Tea!
Is Every Disease is Associated with Prakriti?
Your Prakriti is not your everything and certainly not responsible for everything bad in your life.
Before we clear something about NATURE. We need to understand its counterpart- NURTURE.
Yes, how much your nature is important. That much your nurture is also important. This is very important to understand when we want to explore the concept of the Prakriti and its use in daily life.
Again I can share one more example with you for the same Sam.
Sam and his family has a history of joint pain and stiffness in body. Sam always wondered that this is something related to his genes-his prakriti. Because this all was in family.
But it was in a different way.
The basic problem with joints of whole family was because of their dietary habits. Diet was more importantly common among them all, then the genes!!
This is important to know that today we understand the concepts like epigenetics. Which clearly establish that these are not alone genes. This is the environment and food what we eat- which are responsible for the expression of these genes. The same is applicable with your body type also.
When you are Vata, it never means that you will get neurological diseases or some musculoskeletal diseases. Yes it might be the case that you are prone for these diseases.
So believe, your Prakriti is not a reason behind your diseases.
If so, then what is the utility of Prakriti? Okay, let’s discuss this-
Utility of Knowing Prakriti
Basically, prakriti is a tool for your doctor.
But in haste to promote some products- some good marketing guys handed over this tool to common man. Seasoned information is the best marketing tool!
Yes, Prakriti is one of the basic tool for your physician. The best utility of the prakriti is to select medicines and treatments according to your body type. And this tool helps your physician to make right diagnosis and prognosis.
Diagnosis:
By knowing body type a physician can make a better judgement about a condition. Cracked heels and brittle nails are normal in case of Vata Prakriti. But in case of Kapha prakriti this can be a sign of a disease?
Prognosis:
A Vata person suffering with Vata disease- prognosis is poor.
Same is applicable with all the doshas. So it helps in making a proper comment about the prognosis.
It depends on a mechanic, how smartly he use his tool. So let your Ayurvedic physician use this tool. Don’t fall in trap of some marketing tools in name of a Dosha Quiz.
So this is all about Prakriti for now. You can mail me your questions and best way is to just leave a message to me on social media, so that I will get back to you with some perfect answer.
I will keep on adding the further queries in the discussion of same page…
