The Five Elements in Ayurveda and Yoga: Your Connection to Nature

To understand Ayurveda and yoga together, it helps to start with the foundation of everything: the Pancha Maha Bhuta, or five great elements.

These elements make up the whole universe, including us: Akasha (space), Vayu (air), Agni (fire), Jala (water) and Prithvi (earth).

How the elements build on each other

Each element comes from the one before it. Space is needed for air to move, because without space, air has nowhere to go. Air creates fire (transformation), fire leads to water (all fluids), and water settles into earth, the densest element (structure).

The elements in your body

• Earth: bones, hair, nails, skin and tissues
• Water: blood, sweat and all fluids
• Fire: digestion and metabolism
• Air: all movement in the body
• Space: the room every other element needs to express itself

From these come the doshas: Vata (air and space), Pitta (fire and water) and Kapha (water and earth).

Balancing with the elements

Say there's too much fire in the mind: you feel irritated, controlling or "hot-headed." That's a Pitta imbalance, and to balance it, we bring in cooling. A cooling breath like Shitali, or a slower, softer class, will help far more than a hot power class.

This is how I build my classes: around the energy of the elements, so you can choose what you need instead of just "a yoga class to move." There's nothing wrong with any style of yoga. This wisdom simply helps you choose with intention. As someone with a lot of Pitta myself, it changed my practice completely.

Try this

Start journaling how fire, water, space, air and earth show up in you, in different situations, stages of life and seasons.

Want to practise along? Browse my free yoga classes on YouTube.

*Some links in this post are affiliate links. I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you, which helps keep my classes free. This post is for general wellness education and isn't medical advice.

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