A short night, still a bit tired, but it was still cool enough to start the day before the heat set in. Breakfast, a bit of exercise, meditation, and then teaching a therapeutic yoga class on Insight Timer in the dome. In the morning it’s still in the shade, so it’s quite ok.
It starts around midday. About thirty degrees outside, so well over thirty-five in the dome, and as the afternoon goes on, it climbs towards forty or more with the sun beating down on the tent fabric. It’s not a temperature you can do much in. I finished the recordings I still had to do, and around midday, when I was done, I started to sweat, my mouth felt dry and I wasn’t really hungry, even though it was lunchtime.
That’s what happens in the heat. Your appetite diminishes, even though, according to the Ayurvedic clock, this is precisely the time when you’re supposed to eat your main meal. The sun is at its highest, so in theory your fire, your agni, is also at its strongest. But a heatwave turns that theory on its head. The body is too busy cooling itself down and has little energy left to digest a meal as well.
So we did eat – because I could feel my body needed it – but it was a light meal: rice, lentils, vegetables and spices in chicken stock. And in the afternoon we went to the river to cool off, have a siesta and do a bit of reading, as there was simply no energy left to do anything else.
it felt like six o’clock in the evening, but it was already nine. And just then, the hunger started to return.
So dinner was around ten o’clock – which is actually far too late for me, but any earlier isn’t really an option. Off to bed at eleven or twelve, not because I wasn’t tired, but because it was simply too hot to go to bed any earlier.
And this morning, I woke up feeling a bit tired again.
he heat disrupts your appetite, your hunger shifts to later in the day, your dinner time shifts with it, your sleep becomes less restorative, and you start the next day already running on empty.
What helps: eat according to how hungry you feel, not according to the clock. Keep it simple: cooked meals, perhaps at room temperature, and don’t snack too much. Avoid ice-cold drinks and raw, cold dishes, because digesting them forces your already weakened agni to work even harder, with the result that you may actually feel warmer rather than cooler. Keep your head cool with sunglasses, a hat and shade wherever possible.
And a little daily ritual that’s been doing me good these past few weeks: boil some water in the evening, leave it to cool overnight with coriander seeds in it, and drink it at room temperature the next day. This cools your body. Cardamom, cloves, licorice and most flowers (chamomile, lavender, hibiscus) work in the same way – do give it a go. A pinch of salt and perhaps a little sugar turn it into a proper hydrating drink. Cucumber water and mint water work well too. Lemon water, on the other hand, isn’t so good, as lemon actually warms you up.
Summer doesn’t call for the usual rules. It calls for listening to what’s happening right now.
Much love,
Rianne
