Whistle While You Work

By Shannon Sexton • November 1st, 2009 • 6018 Views

Enjoy this healthy living article by guest author Shannon Sexton (selected from Yoga + Magazine) who offers tips in using Ayurvedic principles to help you achieve a more fulfilling career.

Work can fulfill us or deplete us. And since we spend easily half our waking hours on the job, our occupation affects our longevity and health. If we learn how to explore the full potential of our ayurvedic constitution (prakriti), we can design our lifestyles accordingly, reaping maximum success from our labors and increasing our levels of energy, joy, and vitality.

Our prakriti is comprised of three doshas—vata, pitta, and kapha. Although some people have dual or tri-doshic constitutions, most of us have one dominant dosha. Here is how the doshas play out at work and some ayurvedic advice on how to regain balance if your job is dosha-aggravating.

Vata
Are you creative and energetic with a gift for communication? If so, your dominant dosha is probably vata. You’re an original thinker bursting with ideas but tend to flit from place to place, project to project, instead of seeing a job through from start to finish. Intoxicated by excitement, you dive headfirst into projects and can easily exhaust yourself if you don’t take proper precautions.

Ayurvedic advice: At work (and everywhere else), make a concerted effort to practice moderation. Excessive responsibilities, boredom, interruptions, or multitasking will feed your erratic, nervous nature. And pay close attention to your working environment. A lack of fresh air; flourescent or flickering lights; and too much movement, dryness, and cold will further aggravate your vata imbalance.

If you can’t avoid some vata aggravation on the job, be sure that the rest of your life compensates for it by sticking to a strict routine—eat, sleep, work, and exercise at the same time every day. Warm, moist, slightly oily, heavy foods will nurture you; daily oil massage will ground you; and slow, methodical movement such as walking or swimming will soothe your changeable nature.

Your ideal career: When balanced, vata people flourish in the arts as designers, dancers, actors, teachers, writers, and photographers....