Leo and Āyurveda: Understand your Constitution🔗

In a birth chart, many influences have to be considered to find out one's body type. Consulting an experienced Ayurvedic doctor will help you to understand your body constitution.

Generally, the Ayurvedic dośa (body constitution) related to Leo is pitta.

Let's use this scale:

If you experience symptoms such as excessive body heat, digestive problems, a tendency to be unnecessarily angry, impatient, a tendency to exert excessive effort to achieve goals, vision difficulties, tendency to make errors in judgment because of mental or emotional confusion, then there is a good possibility you are suffering from pitta imbalance.

If you have a strong power of digestion, a good vitality, goal-setting inclinations, problem-solving skills, a keen intelligence, decisiveness, courage, a bright complexion and mental clarity, then your pitta is balanced.

Here are some of the common characteristics of people who have a predominantly pitta body constitution:

○ A strong and well-built body

○ A sharp mind, good power of concentration

○ A sense of order and focus

○ Assertive, self-confident and entrepreneurial at their best

○ Aggressive, sometimes demanding or pushy

○ Enjoy challenges

○ Under stress, pittas become irritated and angry

○ Uncomfortable in sun or hot weather; heat makes them very tired

○ Perspire a lot o Good public speakers, capable of sharp and cutting speech

o Generally good management and leadership ability

o Subject to impatience and anger

o Typical physical problems include rashes or inflammations of the skin, acne, boils, ulcers, heartburn and acidity, insomnia, burning eyes and blurred vision and anemia.

Factors that can cause pitta to increase include a diet that contains too many hot or spicy foods, fasting or skipping meals, over-exposure to the sun or to hot temperatures and emotional traumas. Pitta is stimulated by pungent, sour and salty food and weakened by sweet, bitter and acid tasting foods. A pitta type should also take care not to do things too rapidly, including eating!

Dairy milk, butter, and ghee are good for pacifying pitta.

Sweet, bitter, and astringent tastes decrease pitta influences. Therefore if your pitta characteristics are too pronounced, you can add complex carbohydrates like wheat, white rice, barley and oats to your plate and favor sweet fruits such as grapes, cherries, melons, berries, avocados, coconuts, pomegranates, mangoes, and fully ripened oranges or pineapples. Incorporate asparagus, cucumbers, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, ladies fingers, beans, green beans, zucchini and green leafy vegetables such as lettuce to your diet.

And remember, except tofu and split-mung dhal, beans and bean products are not too good for your constitution.

Leo natives can be benefitted through techniques which build energy in their body and enable them to radiate their natural warmth. Leo people like to work on themselves in a practical way, through physical practices (hatha yoga) or mental techniques like visualizations, or rituals fostering gratitude and devotion.

Here is a meditation for you:

The first 10 minutes: In standing position, close your eyes and start to shake your body intensely from head to toe. Let your body become like a liquid.

The next 10 minutes: Sit down wherever you are. Sit on a chair if you need to and create whatever sounds and gibberish comes to your mind. Release all the irritation you hold inside. If it is needed, visualize or remember situations which caused tensions in you, and focus on bringing out sounds from your navel area. Express yourselves!

The last 10 minutes: Just sit quietly. Witness whatever is happening in your body and mind, without passing any judgment on any of your thoughts, without resisting any thought and without destroying any thought. Just be as you are, enjoy the light sensation in your maṇipūraka cakra!