RITUCHARYA VASANT AND GRISHMA

Ritu means season and charya is the regimen to be followed during that particular season. Ayurveda has explained the systematic regimen for every season. "Swasthasya Swasthya Rakshanam Aaturasya Vikara Prashamanam Cha"

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The goal of medicine (Ayurveda) is to rejuvenate and preserve the health of the healthy and then to alleviate diseases in the ill. This order of first tending to the healthy and then treating the sick is specific to Ayurveda. It explains why so much of Ayurveda is primarily focused on health giving regimens rather than disease treatment.

Let's explore vasant and grishma ritucharya in this edition. To have a healthy and balanced lifesytle is an aim of Ayurveda and small changes in our daily and seasonal routine help us achieve that.

VASANT RITU MID MARCH ΤΟ MID MAY

Vasanta Ritucharya: What happens to the body in spring

With early March, we enter Vasanta Ritu, around the time of Holi or a week afterwards. This is a sharp transition from 4 months of Winter starting with November. As the sun transitions in the Uttarayana (northerly) direction, its intensity sharply increases.

In Vasanta, as the climate again starts to become warm and the sun's intensity increases, it begins working on ice, glaciers and other frozen bodies of water in the earth. Similarly, inside our bodies, the sun begins to work on melting stored fat, stored mucous and other Kapha deposits.

The amount of Kapha that is stored in your body varies. It depends upon whether or not we have followed Ritucharya guidelines in Hemanta and Shishira. If instead of regular exercise, regular abhyanga along with a rich, oily and heavy diet, we have simply eaten but not done exercise or abhyanga, we would have accumulated a greater amount of Kapha in Winter.