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Welcome to the Nourished Nervous System, an exploration of stress, the nervous system and resilience for parents and other humans through the lens of Ayurveda, somatics, herbs, and a whole lot more. I'm your host, Kristen Timchak, an Ayurvedic health counselor, stress and resilience coach, somatic stress release practitioner, and mother of a tiny human. Please join me for information and insights, deep thoughts and small steps to help you nourish your nervous system. Hello, hello, welcome, and welcome back to the Nourished Nervous System. So grateful that you're here today. I'm just coming out of a multiple day Ayurvedic retreat that I was co leading with some wonderful humans at Limina Renewal center in Searsport, Maine. It was so lovely. It was our first time working together. It was my first time being in this position leading a retreat. And it was so good. I got to talk about Ayurveda a whole bunch, hang out with lovely humans at this beautiful retreat center right on the ocean and give Ayurvedic treatments and learn about more aspects of Ayurveda from the other people leading the retreat with me. And it was just, yeah, just my favorite things all wrapped up in one package. So I feel really happy about that. We're going to probably be doing this more. We have one in May that I think still has one or two spots left. But yeah, I'm excited about this new incarnation of my Ayurvedic work. So today I want to talk about kapha season, because it's really here, folks, especially in Maine. We're really in that mud season now. There's such a change that happened throughout the course of the weekend. When the retreat started on Friday, half of my yard was still covered in snow. The river still had a lot of ice. Things are still very frozen. And coming home yesterday, my yard, there's only a couple little spots of snow. The rivers are flowing, it's still cool, but everything's getting softer. The ground is getting softer. Mud season is upon us. And in Ayurveda, kapha dosha is made up of water and earth. It is literally mud. And the qualities of kapha are heavy, cold, smooth, soft, unctuous, slow, dull and sticky. Kapha is sticky. Kapha can often be described as that which binds things or that which hold things together. And one of the roles of kapha in the body is stability and cohesion. If the earth is mixed with water, it becomes mud. Mud is sticky and it's also a building block. So if you think about primitive building using natural materials in mud to stick everything together, to build, to grow. It's a anabolic process. It's a process of growing and building. And that mud is that cohesive element, and it helps to hold it all together. But like anything in life, too much of that can get too sticky. It can create stagnation, stuckness, lethargy, dullness, heaviness. So in my email newsletter a few weeks ago, I mentioned an experience that I had with this sticky quality of kapha dosha. And because it really just illustrates this quality so well, I want to tell you my story here. So I got the flu in February. I was really sick for a couple days, and then still working through stuff for a couple weeks. And then after that, like, maybe a week after, I was feeling pretty much better, I started to feel some swollen lymph nodes in my armpit and in my throat. And this can happen after something like the flu, where your body's working so hard, your lymph, your white blood cells are working so hard, things can get clogged up. And I think it also has to do with when I got the flu. It's probably the first time that I've laid in bed for two days straight. And even after that, once I was up and about, I was still moving really slow. I was resting a lot. I just. A lot more still than I normally am. I wasn't doing exercise. I was just really, really taking things slow, which I think I really needed. I have to say, if I'm totally honest with you, as much as the flu was so uncomfortable and it really sucked, it also was kind of amazing to really stop and not do anything. I felt so sick that I didn't even want to look at my phone. I just spent time in bed, watching the light change on the walls and sleeping. And I just don't think that many of us give ourselves the opportunity to do that that often. It sucks that it has to come from getting something like the flu, but it was a really good reminder for me of what it really feels like to rest, what that really means, and how important to slow down. But anyways, I really slowed down. And if you are familiar with how the lymph system works, it doesn't have its own pump, the way that our heart pumps the blood. It kind of depends on us being active and moving and muscles contracting that help to move the lymph around. So I got these stagnant stuck pipes in my body, these lymph nodes, and at this very same time, in my house, my Kitchen sink got clogged, and I put drain enzymes down it. I tried plunging it. We took apart. We, meaning my partner, took apart the pipes underneath, directly underneath the sink, and cleaned them all out. The sink was still clogged. It was still not working. It was something that was down below the pipes that were in the sink. And so luckily, we have another sink in our kitchen. So we were using that sink, and we were going to get a snake to try to really get down in there, but we were very busy with work and things, so we weren't able to do that right away. So we just used the other sink. Meanwhile, I'm coming out of this flu and feeling these lymph nodes. And so the first thing I started to do for my lymph nodes was to start to add in some more vigorous movement. I started doing some sun salutation yoga practices in the morning or a little bit more cardio. Not for super long periods of time, like literally for, you know, 10 to 15 minutes. And I started to notice that after doing the exercise, I'd have a little bit of relief in the lymph nodes for a little bit, and then it would come back. But just in general, it started to make me feel better. And then one day I decided to go to the store and get some more drain enzymes and just give it one more try with drain enzymes. And I also was getting some tea. My son had wanted some tulsi tea. And so I was looking at all the teas, and this turmeric, ginger, licorice tea just really kept on popping out at me. When I look at the box, the box was warm and orange, and it had the pictures of the roots on it, and I just craved it. I was like, I need to have that, that tea. And so I got this tea, I got the drain enzymes. I was drinking the tea, and I could literally feel after drinking a cup of the tea that things were starting to move in my lymph nodes, that there was some relief happening with my kitchen sink. I poured the enzymes down, I tried plunging again. Nothing happened. And so then I just thought, huh, kapha dosha. What if it needs some heat? Like the ginger tea? The heat of the ginger. So I started pouring really hot water down the drain. The drain was just filling up with water. I was looking at the sink being like, what am I doing? I'm just filling this up with water. This is not helping. But I kept on doing it. I would, like, let the sink fill up as much as it could, and then I'd let it go. Down. And then I'd fill it up with hot water again. And eventually I started to notice some tiny little bubbles bubbling up from the drain, which made me think that this was working. So I just kept on going. And I kept on going past this time where it seemed ridiculous to keep on doing this. My rational brain said, this is not working. But my Ayurvedic brain said, keep on going, keep up with the heat. And then eventually, all of a sudden, whoosh, the drain just went down all at once, just unclogged. It's been fine since. And it just felt like this really interesting reflection of my body and just how everything is Ayurveda. One of the things that the person I was leading the retreat with this past weekend said that I really loved was that if we took the word Ayurveda out of it, you'd realize that you're already practicing it, you're already doing it. And I just love that perspective, that there's so many ways that we're in tune with the elements without even meaning to be in tune with the elements. But when we're in tune with the qualities of things and we're practicing balance, we're practicing Ayurveda in that Ayurvedic concept of like increases, like in opposites balance, adding heat and movement helped to both melt and unstick the kapha dosha in my body, in my lymph, and also in my drain, in my home. And I think there's so many ways that we can feel stuck in this transition into spring. I know I do. I mean, we can feel stuck in the physical channels of the body, like that swollen lymph, slow, sluggish digestion. This is sometimes a time of year where I know I can gain some weight and it feels kind of stuck on me. There can be a feeling of heaviness. And we can also feel stuck in our mind and our emotions. It's not uncommon to feel some depression this time of year or having a hard time to get up in the mornings, especially after the time change, hard time getting going, or just feeling that general feeling of stuck in life. It's this time of, like, newness and freshness and things are thawing and we're getting outside more. There's the potential of gardens to grow and all of the things that come with that. But I think there's this transition period that sometimes can feel hard. And especially if you have a little bit more kapha in your body, it can be really easy to get stuck. And I mean, I guess the other piece of that is that throughout the winter we've been doing all these things to nourish and calm and ground vata, and all of those things that we're doing increase our kapha. So if we've increased our kapha so much and we haven't started to balance it, we can come into this season with some of this stickiness and heaviness, the stuckness. So before I go any farther, I want to give my disclaimer that this podcast is purely for entertainment and educational purposes and should not be considered health or mental health advice. Anything said should not be taken as a replacement for medical, clinical, professional advice, diagnosis, or medical intervention. So this episode is Some ways to get unstuck. This could be during kapha season, but this can really be anytime that you feel that heavy, slow, sticky quality in your body and in your mind. And guess what? Often getting unstuck in the body can help the mind and vice versa. Because as we know, they're not two things, but connected and interdependent. So the first way I get unstuck in the season is movement. As I mentioned a little earlier, this one can be hard if you're deep in the stock. Kapha dosha has inertia, so when it's not moving, it's really hard to get it moving again. But movement is so important to getting kapha unstuck. We all know that exercise is really important for the health of our body, and we are animals. We're not meant to be as sedentary as we are. And all kinds of movement are great. But I would say this time of year, if you have some kapha in your constitution, if you're feeling those qualities, those heavy, slow, dull, sticky qualities, then vigorous movement is key here. Some cardio, taking a brisk walk, dancing, jumping on a rebounder, shaking your body for five minutes. It doesn't matter what the movement is. Do whatever you can in your range of motion. It could literally be shaking your arms vigorously until you get some movement, some energies, the blood flowing, your heart rate up a little bit. But I think the key is to do it consistently, even if it's only for five minutes a day. It doesn't have to be a big long thing. The studies show with both exercise and meditation that the consistency is more important than the duration. It's more important to do five minutes, as many days as you can than to do one hour every once in a while. And specifically with kapha dosha, the time that you exercise can also be really important. Kapha dosha is strongest between 6am and 10pm and that's a really great time to counteract that heaviness of that time of day with some vigorous movement. It can also be great if you're having a hard time waking up in the morning. And this may seem counterintuitive, but it does help. It's to wake up before the sun rises, even if it's just a teensy bit before. But that can really help to counteract some of that kapha energy. But, yeah, exercise movement in the morning time. I know it's made a huge difference for me in my world, the timing of my exercise. The other kapha time is also 6 to 10pm but at that time, we kind of want to ride the kapha energy and get ourselves down for bed. So, you know, gentle exercise, gentle yoga, restorative yoga, things like that could be okay at that time, but we don't want to really pump things up in that later kapha time. Sometimes it can be a little tricky to tell if that heavy lethargy, tired fatigue feeling is because there's too much kapha dosha, or if it's because you've pushed vata or pitta too hard and you're burnt out. And what you actually need is rest. But the great litmus test is to do that. Five minutes of getting it really vigorous, getting the endorphins flowing, and then seeing how you feel after that, seeing how you feel later on in the day. If you do that and you're completely wiped out and exhausted afterwards, that might not be what you need right now. But if you do it and you feel a bit more bright and alive, some more energy, then I would say just slowly build it to longer stretches. I also want to include breath work in with movement, because I think of movement as not just exercise, but any way of moving. And breath work can be a great way to move energy in your body. And so it can be helpful in these times to do breath work that's a little bit more vigorous, a little bit more fiery. It can be really helpful in clearing that stickiness from the mind. So you can take a class, you can find a video. I wouldn't recommend overdoing it with vigorous breathwork, especially if you're new to it or if you have a lot of vata or pitta in your constitution and you don't have to do it super fast. We're not trying to hyperventilate here. So a really simple breath that you can do is taking a breath in, filling your belly, taking another short, fast breath in Filling up your chest and then exhaling, letting it all go. So it can sound like this. And so in some ways, it's a very gentle breath, but there's a bit of force to it that is getting some things moving. And if you do a few rounds of that, it can really help to clear your mind, to dissolve some of the stickiness in your mind. And if you ever feel lightheaded or dizzy, that's a time to stop and take some slow breath. My second way to get kapha unstuck is warmth. So, like my drain, like my lymph nodes, warmth helps to melt that sticky kapha. So this could be internally warming yourself, drinking some ginger tea or warm water with lemon in the morning, or adding some warming spices to your meals. And once again, if you have a lot of pitta in your constitution, go slow with the spices and lean more towards cumin and coriander and things that will help to kindle the digestive fire without overheating. I would go slow with hot peppers or dry ginger. Fresh ginger can be okay for pitta in moderation, but I would say if you have a lot of pitta, I would stay away from the dried ginger, having a cup of chai tea, eating warm, brothy soups. You could also take a sauna or a hot shower, or apply a warm compress to a place in your body that feels really stuck or stagnant. If you have one of those pillows with the rice in it that you heat up in your microwave, you could do that or get a hot water bottle and put a towel and a hot water bottle over the area. But this is a great way, especially in your digestive system, if you're feeling some stagnation, some slowness in your digestion, you can do the internal spices, but you can also externally warm it with a hot compress. And then the third thing is more of an actual technique or practice. And in Ayurveda, we call it Garshana, you can use either raw silk gloves or those loofah gloves or a dry brush. And it's just brushing your skin, doing it dry before a shower, and starting from the extremities and moving in towards the heart can help to move lymph. It's detoxifying. If you can get your hands on the garshana gloves, the raw silk gloves, gloves, the friction with that specific material creates a field of positive ions around the body, which is very nourishing for the body. We do a treatment in Ayurveda. I'm going to start doing this in my practice in Maine, where we do a whole dry silk glove massage on the body before we apply oil and do kind of a vigorous sort of invigorating springtime ayurvedic treatment. But you can do this for yourself at home. It's great. And it's friction, right? So friction is movement and warmth. It's creating movement and warmth. So it's great for moving those sticky qualities of kapha dosha. If you have dry skin, if you have vata dosha, which means that you might be drier, I would definitely put oil on after doing the gharshana. I would use a lot, lot less oil if you a lot of kapha dosha because you don't want to bog it down with the heaviness. But sometimes it can still feel nice after that friction to smooth it out with just a little bit of oil. Maybe a more warming oil like sesame oil or something really light and neutral could be good for kapha dosha. The fourth thing is spring cleaning. If you've ever done spring cleaning, you have practiced Ayurveda so you can open some windows to get some fresh air in your house. If it's still really cold where you live, like it is here in Maine, even opening a window for five to 10 minutes can be helpful. It's just bringing some fresh energy in, going through your closets or cabinets and simplifying, organizing, getting rid of stuff, cleaning things that you don't normally clean, Just getting into those nooks and crannies. It's so helpful for getting kapha dosha unstuck. And it's another one of those things that if you're really in the stuck, it can feel really, really hard to do this and just have grace and compassion with yourself. If you're in that place, you can start so small, Clean one shelf of one cabinet, clean one small, tiny little thing. Just start really small and be really gentle with yourself because it's hard to be in that stuck place. But this can really help to start to move things, especially if the stuck place is in your mental space. And I know for myself, with a young child, deep cleaning is not the easiest task. I feel like I'm barely keeping up with just the regular cleaning. I'll admit something to you that my fantasy vacation right now is to have two weeks by myself in my house. And the first week I would declutter and deep clean every room systematically. And then the second week I would just be in my house and, you know, go for hikes. But just enjoy living in A clean house for a week. And yeah, that's a really different fantasy vacation than what it was, you know, five years ago before having a child. But it's real. And since this is my reality, I have a 5 year old in my house. I've been working on trying to compromise with my pitta nature that wants to do things all the way or not at all, and to just do a little bit when I have space. Sometimes it's literally just one cabinet, going through it, getting rid of stuff, cleaning the shelves, putting stuff back in, organizing it. And even that makes me feel better. There's something magical in how freeing up space in your home can also free up space in your mind. And the fifth thing is to get outside, get that warming energy from the sun. If it's a warm day out, take some time to sit or walk in the sun, go for a brisk walk in nature. It's amazing what it can do for us, especially if the stuckness is in the mind. Just getting outside, putting yourself in a different environment, being in nature, it really is incredible. And if you can do some movement outside and get things flowing in that way, you'll get double the benefits from that. I think about prana, the vital life force. It's the vital essence of vata dosha. And we take it in through the breath. And the prana feeds our cells, it feeds our internal organs. It's the spark that animates life. And so things like opening the windows or getting outside for a walk, we're bringing more fresh air, more fresh prana into our spaces, into our lungs, into our bodies. And that lightness of the prana can help to counteract that heaviness of the kapha dosha. So getting the freshness, getting the fresh air, getting time outside, and really imagining that prana coming into your body and moving through anything that's stuck in your body. And if all of these suggestions feel out of reach or hard to even attempt, I would say talk to someone, a therapist, a coach, an ayurvedic consultant, a friend that might be willing to be an accountability partner for you. You don't need to do all of these things and you don't need to spend a lot of time doing them. But starting with something small that feels doable, the smallest change you could make the least effort you can put in and then do it consistently. Because that's the thing with inertia, right? It works in both directions. I think about it like if you're trying to push a big round rock, like a huge round rock and you could either use a lot of force, a lot of effort and push that rock and get it moving. But if you don't have all of that force and effort, you could start slowly but push it gently until it begins to rock back and forth. And it might feel like nothing's happening, but eventually you're gonna build momentum and those small little bits of effort over time pushing the rock are going to get it moving. They're gonna get the inertia flowing. And then once you're in that inertia, you can keep on going, but there's no effort that's too small. You don't have to do the big huge push. You don't have to push it all at once. If you can just be consistent with it, it's going to get moving over time. If you'd like to take some space and give that rock a little bit of a bigger push, you can check out my Weekend Nervous System Reset template. It's a guide to a do it yourself ayurvedic somatic reset. And it's like a choose your own adventure. So you could use the structure that I've created and and then add in the practices to help to melt, move and get kapha unstuck into the different time slots and you could give yourself a kapha balancing reset. It could be a day long, it could be a couple days long, but it could really be a chance to. As I've talked before about ways that we can take scoops, little scoops of dosha out of that bucket that's always accumulating. This is a great way to take some concentrated time and take a big scoop out of the bucket to help you really get back into balance in this transition of season. So I'll link it in my show notes. It's on my website. It's Weekend Nervous System Reset. Okay, my friend, so for your small step for this week is just a question. What is holding you back from doing the things you need to do for yourself? You could journal about it, you could think about it, you could talk about it with a friend, but is there anything that's holding you back? If you're feeling stuck, what is it that holds you back from that? And it might not be something that has a clear answer. It might be just a question. That's a question that gets pondered. Okay, well, I hope that you have a wonderful week, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, and I'll be back next week. Hey there. Thanks for listening. I really appreciate you. If you weren't listening I'd be sitting in this room talking to myself, and that could get kind of weird. So I really, really do appreciate, appreciate you. If you can think of anybody else that might enjoy listening, please share. And if you share on social media, please tag me at nourished nervous system. Have a beautiful day.