Ayurveda Practices for Winter - Little Bites Of Joy

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Learn a few easy and simple ayurveda practices you can incorporate into your routine for winter wellness.

We are in the middle of winter, surrounded by cold, rainy (and snowy) days, complete with wind and ice. Bundled up in coats and enduring temperatures in the teens, we can only dream of spring blooms but succumb (happily) to hot teas, good books and cozy blankets. I firmly believe that there’s a reason for every season, and I like to lean into its wisdom rather than fight it. Working within parameters that warm us up, slow us down, take time to reflect and dream and rest, I love incorporating ayurveda practices for winter that help us do just that.

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Here are a few practices that are recommended in Ayurveda for the winter that I’d like to introduce you to.

Warm up

Wear comfortable clothing, especially for extremities, such as hats, scarves, gloves. Keep yourself protected from the cold. This helps to keep stress in your system low, and help support your body.

Eat the right foods

Eat warming foods, such as stews, beans, rice, soups, such as kitchidi. Kitchidi is a warming stew made from lentils and rice and spices and is considered one of Ayurveda’s most healing foods. There are many recipes online, such as this one.
Use spices such as ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, and chiles to warm up.
Favor heavier foods such as dates, nuts, dark lentils, good fats, and seasonal fruit. In the Ayurvedic tradition, winter is the heaviest season when it comes to food, both in nature and in quantity.
Ayurveda also mentions eating more sweets in winter, such as dates, warm milk, porridges. This can easily also translate to roasted veggies, carrots, and stored winter squashes.
Eat plenty of hearty mineral-rich foods, such as greens (I love kale salads), herbs (like parsley in soups), beans, nuts, and seeds.

Give yourself an oil massage

Oil massage is a wonderful way to warm up and also to bring moisture back to dry skin and also joints. It’s beneficial to keep skin and joints protected during the dry winter months. According to Anata Ripa Ajmera and her book, The Ayurveda Way, it’s beneficial to oil on an empty stomach, after eliminating in the morning and before showering. Sesame oil is the best oil to use at these times. Simply follow the following steps.

Place your oil in a closed container and then place it in a bowl of hot water for a few minutes to warm.
Start at the bottom of your body with your feet and legs and massage the oil into your skin. For muscles, use a circular motion and for long bones, use a vertical up and down motion. Ms. Ajmera mentions to use some vigor here, and get the circulation going.
Continue all the way up the body.
Shower as usual, and use a soap that is neutral. In Ayurveda, people make a soap paste using bean powder (like green mung flour) and water as it’s not drying to the skin.

Ayurveda Practices For Winter — *Original post 1/22 ~ updated 1/24*

Rest and reflect

While this may not be an isolated teaching of Ayurveda, I can see how it would be welcomed. Winter is a time of rest. Deer get an extra coat of fuzz, the trees and bears and other creatures and life hibernate, and in many ways so should we. I find that I’m naturally slower in the winter. I like to process my thoughts, make plans, declutter, clean up from the prior year, make new dreams happen in the new year and allow myself guilt-free time to just think and reflect.

In a society that doesn’t necessarily honor that, I find that our work schedules don’t change, the morning cup of caffeine doesn’t change, nothing really changes. Our workouts are still rigorous, we still maneuver snowy roads to meet friends for parties and drinks and festivities. But a little bit of slowing down can be encouraged, most especially if you need it (like I do). Quite opposite of the energy I find in July days that never end, with juicy invigorating fruits, sunshine, plenty of beach water and activities to do, I like to balance it with a winter of, well….let’s talk walks and make soup and take it easy. You deserve that too.