Ayurveda Aromatherapy for Vata, Pitta, and Kapha
Updated: Oct 2
Ayurvedic aromatherapy has a history that spans thousands of years. It harnesses the energetic qualities of essential oils and their fragrances to restore and preserve dosha equilibrium. Explore this age-old tradition and discover its advantages for dosha balance in contemporary living. Find out which scents suit you best.
Explore more on the Saumya Blog, selected top Ayurveda blogs and websites.
What Is Ayurveda Aromatherapy?
Essential oils are the distilled essence of aromatic plants used to enhance your health and wellbeing. Though part of Ayurveda's ancient traditions spanning thousands of years, aromatherapy is now considered a holistic therapy that supports whole being--body, mind, and spirit.
"Essential oils can make a positive impact on your health and well-being as long as you use them in a safe way...Aromatherapy is the practice of using essential oils for therapeutic benefit.
Aromatherapy has been used for centuries. When inhaled, the scent molecules in essential oils travel from the olfactory nerves directly to the brain and especially impact the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain." according to Johns Hopkins.
How Does Aromatherapy Work?
Aromas influence the nervous system through tiny molecules that are noticed by olfactory receptors. Those receptors communicate to the brain via the olfactory nerve. These messages stimulate the hypothalamus and the brain’s limbic system.
What’s the limbic system all about? It functions to control emotions and warehouses memories. What happens next? Your brain, in response to the aroma, releases hormones such serotonin, endorphins, and dopamine. Those hormones play a vital role in several body functions including mood, sleep, and the all-important digestive process.
Think about a fond childhood memory, for example visiting grandma’s home. We usually recall the smell of her home, her food, her baking cookies, and not so much the color of her drapes.
Senses are important in Ayurveda and smell is a powerful connector to emotion and memory. When we understand our doshic picture, we can choose aromas that are correct, that is to say, balancing for us specifically and it can be a wonderful tool for restoring balance. The flips side is also true. Not clear on your doshic picture, using the wrong aroma can further aggravate an imbalance.
As with all herbs, the tenet of Ayurveda is that what works well for one person may be incorrect for another. Aromas listed below are for informational purposes only. To know what aromas are correct for you, please book a consultation.
What Conditions Are Treated with Aromatherapy?
According to the Cleveland Clinic, aromatherapy can help treat stress, anxiety, and sleep disorders. From Ayurveda's perspective, many other conditions can be helped with aromatherapy including colds, sinusitis, allergies, mood challenges, and digestive issues, just to name a few.
Essential oil treatment can be as easy, fast, convenient, and as simple as inhaling a few deep, diaphragmatic breaths of the aroma that is best suited to your doshic needs.
The Benefits of Ayurveda Aromatherapy for Mind and Body Health
Ayurveda uses essential oils to restore balance naturally and gently to the doshas. Essential oils can help with:
Low energy, dullness, and sluggishness
Stress and anxiety symptoms
Mood issues
Migraines and headaches
Enhance your breathwork/pranayama, yoga, and meditation practices
And much more.
"Essential oils can lift your mood and make you feel good with just a whiff of their fragrance. For some people they may even help alleviate the symptoms of various conditions." (Johns Hopkins)
Certain scents elicit physiological responses that can help us fall asleep. Aromatherapy is a fantastic Ayurvedic morning or evening ritual that’s easy to incorporate into your daily flow.
Explore our personalized services.
How Do I Know If I Have a Dosha Imbalance?
Look at these comprehensive and convenient lists of signs and symptoms of dosha imbalances.
As we are all comprised of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha, there can be an imbalance in any of the doshas, or a combination of dosha imbalances. Read all three lists and see if anything looks familiar.
How Do I Find High Quality Essential Oils?
Quality matters. Whether using a dried herb or an essential oil, it is plant medicine, and we don't want to skimp on quality.
It can be challenging to determine if an essential oil is high quality or not, but here's a few tips for what to look for:
Is that Latin, botanical name provided on the bottle, so you know you're getting the right oil.
Is the country in which the plant grown provided? Quality varies by country.
Is there a 100% purity statement?
Is the price similar to the same exact (Latin name) essential oil sold by other brands? If the oil is cheaper, or cheap, it is likely not the real deal and therefore, no deal at all.
The bottle should be dark, usually amber glass and tightly sealed.
Does the label state which part of the plant was used?
Does the label indicate the extraction process? (Distilled or expression.)
There should be details about the oil including cultivation, composition, country, plant part used, color, consistency, yield, and as mentioned, the extraction method.
If it says "fragrance" it is not an essential oil.
Explore More: What is Ayurveda? A Beginner's Guide and Beyond
How To Use Essential Oils:
Mist your pillow with a spray
Add a few drops to a warm bath
Use in a steamy shower
Disperse with an oil diffuser
Soak a cotton ball and place by your bedside
Direct palm inhalation: put a drop in your palm, rub the palms together and take a couple of deep breaths into the hands.
Add a few drops to your abhyanga oil. (Ayurveda self oil massage)
Be sure to use a carrier or base oil with your essential oil if applying it to the skin. Carrier oils include jojoba and almond. Do NOT apply essential oils directly to the skin. If you're adding essential oil to your bath, it also needs to be mixed with a carrier oil.
Be aware that even when heavily diluted in a carrier oil, there is the potential for skin irritation and related issues.
Enjoy our guided practice while performing aromatherapy to deepen the benefits.
Ayurveda Aromatherapy for Vata, Pitta, and Kapha
What Aromas Balance Each Dosha?
Vata: warm, sweet, grounding, soothing aromas. This includes lavender, vetiver, cedarwood, clove, patchouli, sweet orange, geranium rose, ylang/ylang, frankincense, and vanilla.
Pitta: sweet and cooling. This includes sandalwood, rose, honeysuckle, and fennel.
Kapha: warm, spicy, and invigorating. This includes camphor, juniper, eucalyptus, marjoram, grapefruit, bergamot, rosemary, sage, cedar, pine, musk, patchouli, and clove.
"I found Saumya Ayurveda when I was looking for a holistic approach to my health and lifestyle.
The Ayurveda Consultation with individual attention and focus has been wonderful. I have transitioned from pharmaceuticals to herbal and dietary approaches to manage my high cholesterol and calcium deficiencies.
Digestive issues that have plagued me my entire life have disappeared. I am a dedicated user of the oils to ease arthritis pain.
I was so pleased with my results that I recommended Saumya Ayurveda to my daughters and my mother. My mother enjoys the tea, and the oil is working so well for the arthritis in her hands and shoulders that she has been able to stop using harsh pain medications. Ayurveda is helping me to take care of myself and I can enjoy each day.”
--Rachelle Chase, retired Director Business Process, Target Corporation, Minnesota
“I have been so fortunate to have been introduced to Veena by a friend, and I absolutely want to share her information with you. Veena is so dedicated to one’s health that it feels amazing to have her on my side. She's truly a beautiful soul. She is helping me navigate all my issues with perimenopause and I am so glad, as the herbs she has given me have not only boosted my immune system greatly, but have chilled my nervous system out", and I’m sleeping again.” – S.J., Saudi Arabia
Psst! Our clients say it best – so read and watch more of our client's stories.
Ayurveda Aromatherapy for Vata, Pitta, and Kapha is another tool to add to your Ayurveda lifestyle.
There is a saying, "The mind is more in the body, than the body is in the mind." The Saumya 3 step meditation process shifts us from fight-flight-freeze mode, to rest-restore-relax mode. Give it a try for forty days and observe the changes. The more grounded and relaxed we are, the smoother life flows.
"The breath is the connection between the mind and body, so by training the breath, we become calm, focused, and grounded, we slow down the aging process by decreasing stress. These practices are so simple and easy to have as part of our daily life. We actually feel and look younger."
- Veena, Saumya Ayurveda
1. Learn Diaphragmatic Breathing and Change Your Life. When we re-learn to breath diaphragmatically, we move from the flight-fight-freeze mode, to rest, restore, relaxation mode from where we want and need to live.
2. Free Daily Guided Practices: 11 minutes in the morning and in the evening, as anchors of your daily Ayurveda routine.
3. Ayurveda Daily Routines: Ayurvedic Morning Routine | 6 Rituals for a Calm and Centered Day
"Choose a couple of practices from the Ayurveda routines that provide you with the greatest support. Perform them while applying our two minute meditation technique and your mundane tasks, just transformed into a mellifluous meditation. This is meditation applied to daily life." - Veena, Saumya Ayurveda
"Veena was able to help me regain my energy in just a few months and I’m feeling like my “young” self again! I love the food plan she designed for me, and all the supporting practices (am/pm routines, breathing techniques, herbs, and spice mixes) are so enjoyable to incorporate into my day. I highly recommend Saumya Ayurveda if you want to feel better and have more vitality.”
-Molly Rossini, Minnesota
Explore More: Ayurveda Breathwork Pranayama
Discover the Saumya Ayurveda Way
We all want to be heard, understood, and cared for as whole beings, not a set of isolated symptoms. True health is more than the absence of disease, which is why Western medicine so often leaves us feeling hopeless and unseen.
Deep down, you already know what you’re searching for: a new framework for living – one that brings your entire being back into balance. With Saumya Ayurveda, you’ll receive individualized guidance to create the physically, mentally, and spiritually vibrant life you crave.
Saumya Ayurveda provides concierge, top-notch, award-winning Ayurveda care. We strive to keep it simple, so you can focus on you! Our practice model is client focused not on retailing herbs.
Our effective multi-appointment consultation packages provide you with experienced Ayurveda care, enthusiastic guidance, and inspiring support.
Explore our personalized services and book your FREE discovery call today.
BEFORE YOU LEAVE…
If you found value in this article, please help others by sharing it and reposting it on your social media platforms. Just click the three vertical dots at the top of this page.
Saumya Ayurveda is dedicated to offering you insightful Ayurveda content for free to assist you in embracing an Ayurveda lifestyle. Thank you for your support.
MEET VEENA: YOUR AYURVEDIC GUIDE
Veena is a Certified Ayurvedic Practitioner and meditation teacher, and monk.
She is President Emeritus and teaching faculty of the Meditation Center.
Veena fell in love with the traditional medicine used in her family’s home, learning herbal remedies at her grandmother's knee.
An experienced Certified Ayurvedic Practitioner, Veena’s deep, intuitive knowledge of Ayurveda empowers her clients to reclaim their fullest, most vibrant lives –mentally, physically, and spiritually.
Veena individualizes treatment plans to each person, rather than offering a one-size-fits-all approach, so it fits your life and becomes woven in your lifestyle, naturally.
Learn more about Veena's work and book your FREE discovery call today.