As you may have noticed, we’re in the middle of cold and flu season. People are coughing and sneezing all around. Maybe you’ve already gotten over a bug, but how can you avoid getting sick in the future? What’s the nature of immunity, and why do some people rarely get sick despite being surrounded by infection? We have learned that a healthy agni is key to optimal health and allows us to effectively combat illness and bounce back fast. However, the essence of kapha, called ojas, is equally important and plays a significant role in prevention. Ojas is the vital essence that nourishes our bodies and minds, giving them the strength to fend off disease. Ojas is vibrance. It is also the source of immunity. Ancient texts refer to it as the nectar of immortality! (So it’s easy to see why it’s so sought after.)

The more healthy kapha in your constitution, the stronger your inherent ojas, and the more resilient you will be to infection and illness. But, this doesn’t mean that if you are vata predominant, you have to resign yourself to being sick more often. Kapha provides a barrier of tolerance to the environment and there are other ways to build this tolerance barrier, no matter what your inherent constitution.

Let’s begin by remembering the essential characteristics of kapha. Kapha is nourishment, steadiness, peace, forgiveness, tolerance, and love. Because ojas is the essence of kapha, it follows that we increase ojas when we nurture these attributes in our daily life. This increases our tolerance to the environment. Immunity goes awry when it manifests as a cascade of intolerant processes, such as hypersensitivity reactions or the exaggerated symptoms of an upper respiratory infection. These forms of unchecked intolerance cause the symptoms that we recognize as allergies and colds. Though the symptoms can be reduced by simply dulling the immune response, this will ultimately leave us even more prone to illness.

By building ojas instead, we build an intelligent tolerance that prevents the diseases of immune hyperactivity while preserving our appropriate immune responses to infection.

Ways to build ojas/immunity

I’ve elaborated on a few of ways to maintain ojas in prior newsletters, such as establishing a daily routine, avoiding multitasking, and taking time out for nourishing self-practices. Here, I’d like to discuss a few additional important principles.

Appropriate Rest. We are part of a society whose mantra is “push harder, keep going, don’t be weak.” Often times, we don’t even realize how tired we are until after a few days of real rest. Have you noticed that you may fall sick right at the beginning of vacation!? What happens is that stress hormones keep us going till we stop, and then when their levels plummet in the blood, about 48 hours after stress is removed, we register how low the body’s ojas really is. It is during this post-stress period that we are most prone to falling sick. The key is balancing work and rejuvenation so that you don’t run your immunity into the ground.
Redefine rejuvenation. Feeling tired is the body’s cry for rejuvenation. Many of us unwind or reward ourselves by turning on the TV or going out to eat. True rest, however, requires us to rest the senses and the mind. The audio-visual stimulation of our conventional methods of relaxation actually contributes to fatigue. A few alternate suggestions are: turning down the lights, doing a self-oil massage followed by a hot bath, doing some nadi shodhana, and drinking a warm beverage by a fire. I like to call this “ojas time.” It may seem like more effort than turning on the tele, but trust me — it’s so worth it! Most importantly, it’s not so much about what you do, but how you do it. Even the most supposedly nourishing activity done out of a sense of obligation or guilt can be detrimental. Whatever you choose, do it tenderly and it will build ojas.
Feel inspired. The source of this is very individual. For me, I felt this inspiration first with music. Inspiration is a fast track to building ojas. You may recognize the feeling as a tingly sensation that begins in your chest and moves throughout your body.
Embody love. Love builds tolerance and tolerance is necessary for balanced immunity. Each time we judge, we are less loving and have less immunity. Reactivity is more than a personality trait. It’s how a being responds to everything in the environment, whether to people, allergens, or pathogens.

Nourish the doors of perception: the sense organs

I’ve spoken about the channel of the mind, whose root is in the heart, whose pathway is the entire body, and whose openings are the marmani. Another layer to this model is the concept that the 5 sense organs are also openings of the mind channel. This means that we can affect our heart chakra (the root) through our senses (the openings). Each chakra is related to an endocrine gland, and it is important to note that the heart chakra is related to the thymus (the gland of immunity). So, not only are the heart and immunity intrinsically related, but nourishing the sense organs is an important means to nourishing immunity.

In Ayurveda we do this daily and directly through lubricating these openings with oil in the form of nasal oil drops, swishing or holding oil in the mouth, oil drops in the ears, and oil applied all over the skin. Oil is the ultimate nourisher and plays a role in prevention. A word of caution, though: during an acute infection, oil should be avoided.

This connection between the senses and our immunity is another reason that it is important to balance the ever-growing stresses upon our senses with true sensory rest. This helps to maintain the strength of our immunity.

What to do when you first feel like you’re getting sick

An upper respiratory infection begins at weak doors of perception. Ama circulating through the blood is responsible for the initial flu-like symptoms of achy muscles, fatigue, and fever. The idea is to flush out these doors and burn ama in the blood.

Eyewash. The type varies per individual. Two examples are rose water and strained triphala tea.
Neti pot. An over-the-counter or homemade saline solution works well. A steam facial with eucalyptus oil or calamus root added to the water may be beneficial to loosen debris prior to doing the saline rinse. (For a steam facial, lean your head over a pot of boiled water with a towel over your head for 5-10 minutes)
Gargles. Mix black salt, turmeric, ginger powder, and black pepper and dissolve 1 tsp. of this powder per cup of warm water. Gargle with this 3-6 times per day. If you don’t have all the ingredients, use the ones you have. Even plain salt and warm water gargles will help. (Also, honey or licorice tea after a gargle has a demulcent effect and will soothe the throat.)
Baths. Soak in a hot bath with ginger powder and Epsom salt or baking soda for about 15 minutes. This helps promote sweating to pull out and burn the ama that is circulating in the blood. Be sure to stay warm after you get out of the tub.
Drink fresh ginger tea. Ginger burns ama. Immune tea is a turbo-charged variant of this (See the Recipes/Formulas page; if you don’t have all the ingredients, just use the ones you do have).
Rest your digestion. Agni is low during an infection, because it has been redirected to the periphery to burn away the infection in the circulation. Eating light, warm, spiced, soupy meals will rest digestion, kindle agni, and provide needed nourishment. This is why chicken broth feels just right. A vegetarian equivalent is soupy, spiced mung dal kichari. Avoid hard to digest, heavy, rich, cold foods such as dairy, wheat, brown rice, and sweets.
Rest your body and mind. Stop your world as much as you can. Your tolerance is already down and noises and lights may feel exaggerated to you. The more sensation, experience, and thought you have to process (all of which require agni and dip into your total agni reserve), the less agni you will have to burn away the illness. Prop your head up with a couple of pillows at night so that you don’t feel like you are drowning in your secretions and so that you can rest better.
Lean on the intelligence of herbs. Order a bag of the cold/flu formula (see Recipes/Formulas page) to have on hand at the first signs of cold/flu symptoms, and in general continue it for a few days after symptoms are resolved. (my source is from the Ayurvedic Institute herb department. To order visit Ayurveda.com) I place the herbs on my tongue and swallow them with a teaspoon of honey and hot water. In Ayurveda, honey is a yogavahi or vehicle that takes the herbs directly to the respiratory tract to catalyze the herb’s effect.

These measures can turn things around so that you evade illness entirely. However, if you do end up getting sick, they will likely decrease the severity and duration of illness.

Part of healing is recognizing what led to your falling sick. Traveling to new environments plays a role, because the immune system is challenged with new things: some harmful, such as viruses, and some not so harmful, such as local pollen. The immune system must learn which of these to defend against and which it must register tolerance to. A few other contributors are doing things out of season — eating cold, heavy foods in a season with like qualities, not slowing down enough to mirror the grounding, building nature of the winter, or slowing down too much so that we lazily forgo our nourishing daily practices. Remember, it’s all about balance.

Sometimes getting sick is inevitable, but it is always a valuable learning experience – an opportunity to reflect on times when we may have gone against our wisdom, been less nourishing to ourselves, and less tolerant of others. With these lessons, choose to live a life that will prevent you from getting sick in the future!

– Nisha Khanna, M.D.

Balancing Kapha: Ojas vs. Mucus