How To Stay Fit At Home

Sleeping more than the required hours creates a feeling of heaviness in the body and slows down our digestion.

Improper digestion coupled with overeating will not only lead to weight gain but also poor nourishment of dhatu (bodily elements) such as rakta (blood), mamsa (muscles), medha (fat), rasa (lymph), asthi (bone) and so on.

For improving your digestion, it’s important to stay physically active. Instead of sleeping in your free time, focus on physical household chores or home workouts with yoga or Zumba.

The best time to wake up is as early as 2 hours before sunrise, i.e., around 4 am. This is the vata kaal, which is considered the ideal phase of time for smooth excretion of stools and urine to prevent imbalances in vata.

Starting your day between 4 am and 5 am will keep vaat dosha under control.

Use this time for a morning routine that includes nasya (putting oils in the nostrils), karna puran (putting oil in the ears), gargling with hot water to remove excess kleda (stickiness) in the mouth, brushing the teeth, and abhyanga (application of oil on the whole body).

This can be followed by exercises, as sweating helps in oil absorption.

If you’re feeling stressed or anxious, you can practise meditation in the morning.

Students can utilise this period or the kapha kaal for studies, as early mornings are considered the best time to retain what we learn for longer.

However, in reality, we wake up by 8 am or by 10 am or even at 2 pm in the afternoon, because most of us believe that there is nothing else to do but stay at home.

It’s important to start the day early to avoid getting up at a time when we should actually be exercising after finishing with our morning regimen.

Exercise is something that should be done on an empty stomach in the kapha kaal. The kapha kaal covers the first four hours of day from sunrise, i.e., from 6 am to 10 am, and the four hours after sunset, i.e., from 6pm to 10 pm in the night.

Now when we mention exercise, we do not mean exertion. You should restrict your daily workout based on your prakruti, and in accordance with the season.

Vatas are generally agile and have quick bursts of energy but tire easily. If you are a vata dosha you will benefit from grounding and healing exercises such as yoga, Tai Qi, Qi Gong, walking, cycling and dancing.

Pittas are usually fiercely competitive, strong and have good muscle development. If you are a pitta dosha, you will enjoy active sports, cycling, running and swimming. Nature trails and gardening is considered calming for pittas.

Kapha body types are known to be hypo-metabolic and move slower but have steady energy and great physical strength. Endurance activities like running/walking, aerobics, dance and weight lifting can keep a kapha type motivated and healthy.

Pitta kaal is spread from 10 am to 2 pm in the day and from 10 pm to 2 am at night. You should eat food in the pitta kaal as our digestive power is the strongest during this time frame.

Eat by 10 am when the pitta kaal starts to properly digest your food and improve your metabolism.

When we get up at 2 pm in the afternoon, we’ve actually kept our body starving and eat food when our digestive power has become weak after prolonged fasting.

This leads to obesity or low absorption of nutrients, which further affects our immunity, increases our risk of infection, causes constipation or indigestion, and elevates stress and anxiety.