HeyMonicaB: A Blooming Resource on Ayurveda

Ok! More goodies about our mental state and whether the quality of our mind is living in sattva, rajas, or tamas. If you haven’t read about the three qualities of the mind (or trigunas) give it a quick read and this will make more sense. A quick reminder, sattva is purity, rajas is activity, tamas is inertia.

Below is a handy dandy chart (download here) which shows each dosha, the gunas, and how they are unique to a person’s mental state. For example, a vata person in a rajasic state will feel totally different than a kapha person in a rajasic state. OR! If you are naturally vata, but feel like a rajasic kapha, that is an indication that kapha is increased/imbalanced in you at the moment. Make sense?

A super crazy example about the trigunas is from the movie “Milk” (Watched it last night. Loved it). When rolling the credits (stop reading right now if you have not seen the movie or don’t know what happens. Skip to next paragraph), it said that Dan White’s psychiatrist testified that White was depressed and eating junk food and sugar-laden soft drinks. He explained that because his diet was so bad, it would worsen existing mood swings. They called it the “Twinkie Defense.” DUDE! This totally makes sense. Assuming Dan White had a pitta personality (firey, intelligent, sharp) like most politicians do, the chemicals and low quality of the food, directly affected the qualities in his mind and turned them completely dark and vindictive. That is a perfect example of a tamasic state of mind, where someone is in complete darkness, ignorance, and delusion.

The best way to feed our minds is by feeding our bodies complete and nourishing foods. Let’s choose food that are high in prana, avoiding canned, frozen, fried, fast food, refined sugars, and processed foods. These foods are lifeless and give no nourishment to the mind or body. They might leave us feeling lifeless, depressed, self loathing, or crabby. If you find you are in a rajasic or tamasic state more than you’d like to be, start observing what you are eating. Make adjustments and begin to incorporate foods closer to the source.

When in doubt, you can always do a mono-diet of kitchari for 3-5 days. I do that every so often and it works wonders for mental clarity and energy levels. Otherwise, let’s just continue being mindful of what we eat. Coming soon is a list of sattvic, rajasic, and tamasic foods!