In Ayurveda, the sister natural medicine science of yoga, doshas are the fundamental energetic principles (Vata, Pitta, and Kapha) that constitute an individual's unique psycho-physical blueprint or constitution, known as their Prakriti.
These three doshas—Vata, Pitta, and Kapha—are made up of the five elements of nature:
| Dosha | Elements | Primary Function |
|---|---|---|
| Vata | Air + Ether (Space) | Movement, communication, flow |
| Pitta | Fire + Water | Digestion, transformation, heat |
| Kapha | Earth + Water | Structure, lubrication, stability |
You can think of them as the "operating systems" of your body and mind—the blueprint of how you function physically, emotionally, and mentally.
Understanding the doshas helps you:
1. Know Yourself Deeply
Each person has a unique combination of the doshas (called their prakriti or constitution).
Each person has a unique combination of the doshas (called their prakriti or constitution).
This influences:
- Body shape and metabolism
- Mental tendencies
- Emotional patterns
- Digestion, sleep, and energy
- Your unique health strengths and vulnerabilities
Knowing your dominant dosha is like having a personalized owner’s manual for your body and mind. It helps you understand how you function best—what supports your energy, what throws you off balance, and how to stay healthy in a way that’s uniquely suited to you.
2. Recognize Imbalances Early
Each dosha can go out of balance due to diet, lifestyle, stress, climate, or age.
This leads to symptoms like:
This leads to symptoms like:
- Vata imbalance → anxiety, insomnia, dry skin, gas
- Pitta imbalance → irritability, acid reflux, inflammation
- Kapha imbalance → sluggishness, weight gain, depression
3. Make Personalized Lifestyle Choices
Ayurveda recognizes that well-being is not a one-size-fits-all journey. Instead, it offers personalized guidance on how to eat, move, work, and rest in harmony with your unique constitution—or dosha.
For example:
- Vata types thrive with warmth, grounding routines, and a calm, steady pace.
- Pitta types benefit from cooling foods, moderation, and time away from intensity.
- Kapha types flourish with stimulation, lightness, and regular movement.
By aligning your lifestyle with your dosha, Ayurveda supports better digestion, deeper sleep, emotional balance, and lasting vitality.
4. Adapt with the Seasons, Age, and Life Stages
Ayurveda teaches that the doshas not only shape our individual constitutions, but also move in cycles through the natural rhythms of time.
They influence:
- Times of day – Kapha governs the early morning, Pitta peaks at midday, and Vata rises in the late afternoon and evening.
- Seasons – Vata is most active in autumn, Pitta in summer, and Kapha in spring.
- Life stages – Childhood is ruled by Kapha, adulthood by Pitta, and the elder years by Vata.
By understanding and adapting to these shifting energies, we can stay in harmony, resilient, and in tune with the changing flow of life, and prevent the unease/diseases of imbalance.
How Is Understanding Doshas Helpful?
Knowing your dosha can help you:
Knowing your dosha can help you:
- Choose foods that nourish you instead of deplete you
- Find exercise that energize instead of drain
- Build routines that support mental clarity
- Understand why you react the way you do (and what to do about it)
- Prevent burnout, digestive issues, and emotional instability
- Live in harmony with your nature instead of against it
Instead of chasing trends or generic health advice, the Dosha system offers a personalized path to well-being for vitality that’s aligned with your nature. The doshas don't put you in a box with rigid labels—they’re dynamic energies that teach you how to work with your body and mind throughout your life.
By understanding the doshas, you gain the tools to:
- Know yourself more deeply
- Recognize and respond to imbalances early
- Live in harmony with nature’s rhythms
- Heal with compassion, awareness, and intention
In other words, Ayurveda doesn’t suggest to change who you are (you are perfectly you!)—it simply guides you to understand your nature (or constitutional tendencies) to cultivate the most vibrant, harmonized version of yourself.
Ayurveda Dosha Quiz
Select the option that best describes you for each question. After answering all, click “Calculate Dosha” to see your Ayurvedic constitution and recommendations.
Doshas & Chakras: A Deeper Dive
How to Use The Chart Below
The next chart I designed to help you recognize patterns of imbalance between the chakras and the Ayurvedic doshas (Vata, Pitta, Kapha) across different life stages and experiences.
It is not meant to diagnose, but to guide you in:
- Identifying potential vulnerabilities
- Understanding when and why those vulnerabilities show up
- Applying chakra-specific and dosha-balancing practices to restore harmony
Note: Your dominant dosha (prakriti) is not the only force at play.
We each have all three doshas within us, and we fluctuate between them depending on:
- Lifestyle
- Age and hormonal changes
- Emotional patterns
- Trauma
- Environmental factors (seasons, time of day)
- Even unresolved karmic and ancestral influences
You may see yourself reflected in more than one row—that’s not a mistake, it’s awareness.
How To Use This Guide
Step 1: Know your dominant dosha (prakriti)
…but also assess your current imbalance (vikriti). You may feel more “Kapha-like” when depressed, more “Vata-like” during stress, or more “Pitta-like” when overworking.
Step 2: Check which chakras are most vulnerable for you right now
Reflect on your current life stage, stressors, or repeating symptoms. Are you emotionally numb? Scattered? Judgmental? Burned out?
Step 3: Explore the practices
Don’t just treat the symptom—choose a chakra-focused AND dosha-balancing approach. This creates long-term energetic and physical alignment.
Step 4: Return to this guide often
Use it like a seasonal check-in or spiritual health tool. Chakra-dosha patterns shift like the tides.
Chakra–Dosha Relationship Chart
▶️ Scroll to see the full chart →
| Dosha Type | Most Vulnerable Chakras | Life Stages or Events of Vulnerability | Why These Chakras? | Signs of Chakra Deficiency | Signs of Chakra Excessiveness | Associated Dis-eases or Imbalances | Balancing/Harmonizing Practices | Preventative (Maintenance) Practices |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vata (Air & Ether) |
Root (Muladhara) Throat (Vishuddha) |
Root: Early childhood, aging, trauma recovery Throat: Puberty, transitions, menopause |
Root chakra needs grounding during unstable times. Throat chakra struggles when voice or direction is unclear. |
Fear, anxiety, disconnection, silence, stuttering | Over-talking, controlling speech, rigid planning | IBS, insomnia, anxiety, thyroid issues | Grounding yoga, Mula Bandha, Nadi Shodhana, journaling | Routine, warm diet, oil massage, gentle expression |
| Pitta (Fire & Water) |
Solar Plexus (Manipura) Heart (Anahata) |
Solar Plexus: Adolescence, career drive, burnout Heart: Grief, relationship stress, parenting |
Solar Plexus inflamed by ambition & stress. Heart chakra burns out from emotional pressure. |
Low self-worth, bitterness, coldness | Anger, control, over-competitiveness | GERD, ulcers, hypertension, heart issues | Cooling yoga, heart openers, loving-kindness meditation | Avoid overwork, cool foods, forgiveness, compassion practices |
| Kapha (Earth & Water) |
Sacral (Svadhisthana) Third Eye (Ajna) |
Sacral: Adolescence, postpartum, emotional suppression Third Eye: Midlife, spiritual stagnation |
Emotional repression and stagnation block the Sacral. Third Eye closes with resistance to change or growth. |
Numbness, lack of joy or drive, foggy mind | Emotional dependency, escapism, fantasy addiction | PCOS, depression, obesity, thyroid/hormonal sluggishness | Vinyasa, hip openers, breath of fire, visualization | Stimulating routines, early rising, light spicy diet, spiritual practice |
Post-Chart Insights: Exceptions & Deeper Considerations
1. Everyone Has All 3 Doshas.
You are not just one dosha. The goal of Ayurveda is not to “fix” a dosha—it’s to balance all three, like tuning strings on an instrument. Over-identifying with one can actually blind you to where real imbalances lie.
2. Symptoms Don’t Always Match Dosha Labels.
A Kapha can have thyroid issues. A Pitta can have a cold, sluggish digestion. A Vata may be surprisingly grounded. The body is complex and layered, and these patterns are dynamic, not fixed. The tendencies guide, but don’t define you.
3. Emotions Are the Missing Link.
Most chakra imbalances start emotionally—often before physical symptoms appear.
- Vata: fear, fragmentation, abandonment
- Pitta: anger, self-criticism, control
- Kapha: grief, attachment, stagnation
4. Look at Transitions.
Imbalance is most likely during transitions:
- Puberty
- Postpartum
- Menopause
- Career shifts
- Relationship changes
- Grief/loss
- Spiritual awakening
These are thresholds that reshape identity, and often reveal where energy is blocked or overactive.
5. Wellness & Healing are Not Linear.
Stay curious, not rigid. The body and soul evolve, and so do the imbalances we’re called to work on. You may work on your Solar Plexus for a period of time and your Throat the next. That’s okay. Healing is an ongoing spiral-shaped shaped, not a straight path to an end destination. But the goal is to have enough self-awareness to live as much of a preventative lifestyle as possible.
6. Use This With Intuition.
Ultimately, only you know your inner truth. Let this chart be a flashlight, not a rulebook. You may not resonate with every detail—and you don’t have to. Trust your inner sense of where energy feels stuck, inflamed, or depleted. That’s where to begin.
7. Some Imbalances Are Collective, Not Just Personal
Not all energy blockages stem from personal choices or habits. Many of us carry ancestral, generational, or societal imprints that weigh on specific chakras:
- Fear-based Root imbalances from colonial trauma or poverty
- Throat suppression in women across generations
- Sacral disconnection due to cultural shame around both innate abilities and sexuality—especially for women's disrespected and marginalized bodies.
These imprints require compassion, not just self-discipline.
8. Harmony Is Rhythmic, Not Static
Balance (vs imbalance) doesn't mean everything is always calm or equal—it means you're in rhythm with what’s needed now.
- In winter, you may need more Kapha grounding.
- In summer, more Pitta cooling.
- During travel, multitasking, new beginnings, loss, endings, or major life transitions, creative overflow, processing trauma or spiritual awakening... more Vata soothing.
Harmony may be a better metaphor here than balance—like the ocean, your life moves in waves, tides, and storms. Stillness isn’t constant, but peace runs deep. Let your wellness journey flow with your inner currents, not resist the changing motion. Much like surfing, it’s about learning to ride the waves of life with growing skill and joyful confidence.
If you found this article valuable, please consider supporting INDA Yoga with a donation. Your generosity allows me to dedicate myself to researching, synthesizing, and sharing these profound teachings in an accessible practical way—nurturing the emergence of the Golden Age or what other modern mystics refer to as the new Earth, the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible, the new paradigm—humanity's awakening. And in the spirit of dharma, may your contribution return to you manyfold—in clarity, peace, and blessings along your path.
With love and gratitude,
Teacher Inda
Helping you remember and embody your inner light.
