The Ayurvedic Guide to Fertility. Heather Grzych

apana vayu when you have your period. In fertility, apana vayu is an important wind current to study. A woman needs to allow some pull of gravity to feel stable, safe, and secure, but she must let apana vayu take over even more when menstruation begins. This is one of the reasons why women are not advised to practice handstands or other inversions in yoga class during menstruation. It’s also a reason why women notice changes in their bowel movements around menstruation. The downward force is at play.

      If a vayu becomes increased or blocked, it can affect other vayus by increasing or decreasing them. For example, a constipated person may find herself with health issues showing up in the upper part or periphery of the body, because if apana vayu has become blocked, then pressure will back up in the gut and this can push any toxicity into the blood, the lymph, and even the nerves. Also, if a person overexercises and increases energy taken in through the breath (prana), the preexisting imbalance patterns of each of the other vayus can increase even more.

      Knowing that these wind currents exist, you can begin to direct energy mindfully throughout your body. You may have already noticed that some of these wind currents seem stronger than others. Your task is to seek out all the places in your body that may have become blocked so that you can let these currents flow freely — in just the right amounts for you to enjoy health and longevity.

      Fire, or tejas, is responsible for transformation and provides heat, while our eyes perceive the light emitted from it. We need fire for body heat, proper digestion, and metabolism. Enzymes have fire in them to carry out their action. Too much fire element will burn (as in the case of hyperacidity or ulceration), and too little of it can cause slowness and stagnation. Extreme cases of low heat can also end up looking like burning tissues, as in frostbite, and an individual can have a burning sensation in the stomach when the body is too alkaline. The key is that the body needs a delicate balance of fire for metabolic purposes, and this balance is maintained by hunger, desire, bodily wastes, and excretions. The main fire tissues of the body are found in the liver, blood, and bile. Anemia signals an issue with an individual’s fire element, as do the colors white, yellow, or red in the stool, skin, eyes, or tongue.

      Hunger is desire, and desire is fire. Without desire, there would be no matter in the universe. Both desire and fire quicken movement. Heat makes water rise and evaporate. The result is lightness. When you’re trying to create anything, fire gives objects their form, like a clay pot solidified in a hot oven. The positive transmutation of anger is passion and intensity. Do not hold in your fire. Find a way to lovingly escort it out toward a purpose that is greater than yourself so it does not damage your body.

      The fourth element is water, or jala. Our planet is said to be made up of over 70 percent water, and our bodies have a lot of water, too. In the human body, water is responsible for lubrication, allowing mixing to occur, and maintaining temperature. Our tongues taste food because of water, and if we are dehydrated, our sense of taste can become affected. The many fluids of the body — plasma, lymph, cerebrospinal fluid, interstitial fluid, breast milk, and so on — all need water to be formed. Too little water prevents flow. Too much also prevents flow because it takes up too much space, causing pressure and diluting fire. All nutrients are transported in water.

      When we are young, we are very juicy. Our bodies become drier the older we get. This causes the tissues to become less flexible and changeable. Very old people will often have large swatches of skin rip off because it has lost its moisture and has grown brittle, thin, and flaky. A baby is gestated in water. Water sustains life, but too much of it dulls the senses and fire element and dilutes potency. We can drink too little or too much, or imbibe at the wrong times.

      The last and most tangible element is earth, or prithvi. Earth provides structure, coolness, and grounding. Our noses can smell the earth element, like the ground after a rain or the trees as we walk through the forest. We need earth for material form — our bodies need nourishment from the plants that grow on our planet. If we are meat eaters, the animals also get their nourishment from the plants. Too much earth will make us heavy and cold, and can create blockages and growths. Too little will waste away tissues and cause degeneration. All growth hormones include the earth element. We may feel a sense of lightness when we reduce the earth element, but too much lightening will then cause the body’s functions to lose their integrity.

      You are both an artist and a scientist. By noticing the five elements — space, air, fire, water, and earth — in all matter, you can direct and shift energies; your will becomes potent and effortless. When you have fire in the food you eat, you become fire. When you feel the air you breathe, you become air. When you stretch your arms out in a wide-open space, you become space. This is the poetry of the mind, body, and senses. This is Ayurveda.

      Dosha Theory

      Ayurvedic scholars of long ago discovered something really brilliant. They noticed that, despite the myriad physical and mental issues people have, all maladies can be grouped into only a handful of different categories of imbalance. The body displays these patterns through physiological signals, temperament, and behavior, but what’s responsible for these displays is actually an imbalance of humors in the body. These humors are called doshas in Sanskrit. The word dosha literally means “that which can go out of balance.”