How Ayurveda Body Types Help Determine Best Strategies for Balancing Health

It has been over twenty-five years since the first time I took an ayurveda body type quiz, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in my late twenties, practicing chiropractic. My husband and I had our two young children and I was living life with my "pedal to the metal", as they say. I was keeping up, but not exactly enjoying the ride. When your life is so demanding and your cortisol levels hover near burn out, that is when your body type tendencies reveal your weaknesses and your strengths. Taking the ayurveda body type quiz was an epiphany for me. The questions were revealing by themselves without my answers. And my individual answers helped me accept my responses to my "extreme busy lifestyle syndrome." I felt so relieved to see that I was not just a product of all the inner voices that kept saying improve this and improve that. My inner voices were saying to work harder at losing weight and to exercise and repress my intense emotional feelings and expressions. That did not offer relief or a sense of well being. It made me feel tapped in a driven state that I could not satisfy. The ayurveda body type quiz helps you to determine if you are a person with a naturally fast mind and fast metabolism, a person with a slow metabolism and a relaxed easy going attitude, or a person who is naturally intense with a strong sense of leadership and power. These are just a few of the basic qualities that the ayurveda body test can help you to clarify so you can deepen your self knowledge in order to make unique choices for your needs and tendencies. There are over thirty categories that the test will help you with: for instance what type hair you have, your eyes, your skin, your mental state, your emotional state, your sexual appetite and much more. The test helps you examine you so that you have the owner's manual to your body. Weight, of course, is a subject that carries an intense emotional charge. Taking the ayurveda body test helped me understand a lifetime of weight management issues that I have to constantly manage to this day. I am a Kapha - Vata, which means I gain weight very easily, especially if I get nervous or anxious. I do that a lot because, of course, that is what my body type has a tendency to do. However, because I know about this body type blueprint, I have realized that I need to eat foods that stoke my digestive fire and nourish my nervous system. In this way I can support my body type in such a way that it can naturally maintain my weight. Otherwise my nervous eating habits and my Kapha tendencies of not wanting to exercise will take over my life. Taking the ayurveda body test helped me to understand this for the first time in my life. After learning this about myself, I developed a lifestyle that supports my nervous system and stokes my digestive fire, keeping me fit as a fiddle and feeling strong. As for my weight, I remain a Kapha, tending to look on the thick side. Body types individualize the ayurvedic practices and techniques, including recommendations for food and herbal teas, meditation, yoga, and exercise, by tailoring them to each dosha (body composition). My experience as a professional practicing ayurveda has proven to me and the thousands of patients I've seen that when you know your tendencies and you follow life habits that balance your unique needs you feel great and do not get sick.