Following a workshop I attended last weekend with the wonderful Laura Green Yoga, I have been looking more and more into Ayurveda.

The Ayurvedic medical system and way of living has been about for as long as yoga itself, going back over 5,000 years.

One starting point is finding out your Dosha. This is decided by your generic makeup as well as personality traits. So part of it is fixed and some of it can be fairly fluid with changes in your lifestyle over time. You may be purely one dosha at this moment in time or a combination of two or all three.

From here it will make suggestions as to what may help you find balance in your life.

Why not take the Dosha Quiz

So… you know your dosha, what now?

You may be Vata, Pitta, Kapha or a mix of two or three of them and it may change over time as life and circumstances change.

I know personally I am very Vata, but my yoga teaching really helps to balance me out. I can be very much in my head but my slow, calming, soothing and nurturing yoga practices really help to ground me.

So it is about getting to know yourself and finding what you can do to help you find balance. If you are very Kapha you may need more of a fiery practice to raise your energy. If you are pitta you may need a class where the teacher tells you exactly what to do so you can come out of your leadership mind and can be guided.

But what is Ayurveda?

Ayurveda is about learning how to live and work with your constitution and the Ayurvedic principles to prevent illness rather than treating a medical condition once you become sick.

This medicinal system may sound very different to what we have today but to me it sounds a lot better. It gets me thinking about the old saying “prevention is better than cure”.