SUMMER SOLSTICE & GREESHMA RITUCHARYA
Art by Manikandan Punnakkal
As we move into Greeshma, the Ayurvedic season of summer, the sun reaches its peak expression. The days are longer, brighter, hotter, and drier. While we often associate summer with Pitta, Ayurveda teaches that prolonged heat gradually depletes our reserves, drying the tissues and beginning to accumulate Vata beneath the surface.
This is a season to soften rather than push. To nourish rather than deplete. To stay close to practices that cool, hydrate, replenish, and restore.
Some of my favorite ways to align with the season:
• Rise with the morning light before the intensity of the midday sun.
• Favor slower, more intentional movement. Gentle yoga, swimming, evening walks, and time in nature are supportive. Avoid excessive exertion during the hottest parts of the day.
• Practice cooling pranayama such as Sheetali or Sitkari when feeling overheated, irritated, or inflamed.
• Massage the body with coconut oil or a cooling herbal oil before bathing to nourish the skin and calm the nervous system.
• Spend time barefoot on cool earth, grass, or near water whenever possible.
• Favor foods that are naturally hydrating and easy to digest. Enjoy seasonal fruits, cucumbers, tender greens, coconut, soaked almonds, fresh herbs, and cooling herbal infusions.
• Let lunch be your main meal when digestive fire is strongest, and keep dinner simple and light.
• Summer is an ideal time to lighten the diet. Consider reducing red meat, pork, lamb, aged cheeses, alcohol, and excessively spicy, salty, or sour foods, all of which can contribute to heat and inflammation in the body. Instead, favor seasonal vegetables, fruits, legumes, fresh herbs, coconut, and other foods that cool, nourish, and hydrate.
• Emphasize sweet, bitter, and astringent tastes. Reduce excessive spicy, sour, salty, and heavily fermented foods if heat is already present in the body.
• Reach for rose, jasmine, sandalwood, vetiver, and other cooling aromatics to soothe the senses and support the heart.
• Stay attentive to the emotional expressions of excess heat: irritability, impatience, judgment, frustration, and anger. Create moments throughout the day to pause, breathe, hydrate, and return to center.
• Before bed, massage the soles of the feet with coconut or castor oil to draw excess heat downward and support deep rest.
• Sleep before 11 PM whenever possible. Summer invites activity and social connection, but restoration remains essential.
Summer invites us into a different rhythm.
The trees draw their roots deeper in search of water. The flowers open and close with the movement of the sun. The animals seek shade in the heat of the day and emerge again as evening cools.
We, too, are part of this living world.
Rather than pushing against the season, may we learn from it. May we rest when rest is needed, seek water when we are dry, and remember that balance arises through relationship with the land, the plants, the elements, and one another.
May your summer be balanced, abundant, and filled with rasa.
All my love,
Sheila