So, What Even Is Pitta Season?
Hello to all my fellow pitta doshas we are entering a time of the year that can be really difficult to find some balance.
Ayurveda originated in India over 5000 years ago. It is all about what is happening outside is happening within.
Pitta season runs roughly from late spring through summer, and it's governed by the elements of fire and water.
Think: the midday sun, intensity, sharpness, transformation. Pitta is the dosha of ambition, digestion, and drive and in balance, it makes us brilliant, focused, and warm-hearted leaders. Out of balance? We become irritable, inflamed, and burnt out.
The thing about Pitta season is that most of us don't even realize we're swimming in it. We just notice that we're snapping at people we love, that our skin is breaking out, that our sleep feels restless... or that our yoga practice somehow stopped feeling nourishing and started feeling like one more thing to conquer.
Sound familiar? Let's talk about it.
How Summer Changes Your Body And Your Practice
Here's something I want you to really sit with: what served you in winter and spring may not serve you now.
In Ayurveda, like increases like, and opposites heal. So when the world outside is hot, sharp, and intense, our internal fire gets stoked too. That means the strong, heating, ambitious practice that felt amazing in January lots of vigorous vinyasa, lots of backbends, lots of pushing to the edge can actually tip us into imbalance come June.
On the mat, you might notice:
- You're more competitive with yourself (or others)
- You feel frustrated when a pose "isn't working"
- Your practice feels driven by ego rather than curiosity
- You're overheating faster than usual
- You're skipping Savasana because you've "got things to do"
Off the mat, Pitta imbalance can look like:
- Inflammation in the body- skin issues, acid reflux, joint tenderness
- A shorter fuse- irritability that surprises even you
- Perfectionism and overachievement going into overdrive
- Difficulty surrendering or slowing down
- Disrupted sleep, especially waking between 10pm–2am (classic Pitta hours)
What can we do instead?
What To Do Now: Your Pitta-Pacifying Practice
Let's get practical. Here's how to shift your yoga and lifestyle practices to move with this season rather than against it.
1. Cool Your Practice: Literally and Energetically
Swap some of your vigorous vinyasa for slower, more cooling flows. Moon Salutations (Chandra Namaskar) are a beautiful antidote to the solar intensity of summer. Forward folds, twists, and side body openers are your friends they wring out heat and create space.
Avoid practicing during the hottest part of the day. Early morning practice, before the sun peaks, is ideal for Pitta season.
Poses to lean into: Sitali breath (the cooling breath), Seated Forward Fold (Paschimottanasana), Supine Twist, Legs Up the Wall (Viparita Karani), Moonbird pose, and long, luxurious Savasana — yes, you have time.
Poses to approach with care: Intense backbends, hot yoga, and anything where you're pushing to your edge on repeat. These aren't off-limits — just approach them with softness rather than heat.
2. Let Your Breath Be the Thermostat
Pranayama is incredibly powerful in Pitta season. Two practices I love recommending right now:
Sitali Pranayama — curl your tongue into a tube, inhale through it like a straw, exhale through the nose. You will feel the coolness travel right down into your belly. Do this for 5–10 rounds any time you're feeling overheated or reactive.
Chandra Bhedana — left nostril breathing. The left side of the body is cooling, lunar, receptive. Simply close your right nostril and breathe only through the left for several rounds. Calming for the nervous system and beautiful before bed.
3. Bring the Ayurvedic Kitchen Into Summer
This is one of the most accessible and delicious ways to balance Pitta. Foods that pacify fire are sweet, bitter, and astringent think fresh fruits, cucumber, coconut, mint, cilantro, fennel, leafy greens, and good quality dairy like ghee and milk.
Reduce: Spicy foods, fermented foods, excess salt, alcohol, and caffeine all of which fan the Pitta flame.
And please eat somewhere peaceful. No scrolling. No working lunches. Ayurveda teaches us that how we eat matters just as much as what we eat. A calm meal is a cooling meal.
4. Protect Your Midday
Pitta rules from 10am to 2pm this is when the fire is highest, both in nature and in us. Use this window wisely. Do your deep, focused work during Pitta hours if you need to it's a great window for it but build in a real midday pause. Eat lunch. Step outside (in the shade). Let yourself be a human, not a machine.
5. Cultivate Santosha — Contentment
One of the Niyamas (personal observances) in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, Santosha- contentment is the spiritual antidote to Pitta's tendency toward ambition and comparison. It's the practice of saying this is enough. I am enough. Right now, as it is, is enough.
Try ending your practice each day or even each meeting, each meal, each conversation-with one breath and the silent affirmation: I am enough. This is enough.
It sounds simple. It is radical.
Seasonal Strength
If you are craving a new way to lift during the summer, Seasonal Strength Summer Edition will be officially dropping next week! If you get my newsletter be on the lookout for a newsletter only promo code to save some money!
Summer is a season of abundance. The light is long, the energy is expansive, and there's so much to celebrate. Pitta, at its best, is what allows us to show up fully to lead, to love, to create.
The invitation of this season isn't to extinguish your fire. It's to tend it wisely. To add the right fuel, to protect the flame from becoming a blaze, and to let it illuminate rather than consume.
You are not meant to burn out this summer. You are meant to shine.
