08.09.2026
I'm kapha and that explains a fair bit
By the ayurvedic classification I’m kapha. Translated: heavy body, slow metabolism, I put on weight easily, it costs me to get going and once going I keep going a long time.
You can take it as ancient medicine or as a fairly accurate description of a type of person. It’s the second that’s useful to me.
There are three types, and you need the other two or this is no use to you at all.
Vata is my opposite. Thin, bony, cold hands, dry skin. Eats at odd hours and sleeps little. Gets going the moment it decides to and runs down just as fast. When it goes off the rails, it goes off in the form of nerves.
Pitta is in between. Medium build, plenty of heat, punctual hunger and strong digestion: take its food away at mealtime and you’ll notice. It’s the one who organises, who corrects, who won’t leave a matter half done. When it goes off the rails, it goes off in the form of anger.
Almost nobody comes out a pure type. You come out a mixture, with one weighing more than the others.
Because the interesting part isn’t the label, it’s what follows from it. General advice is no use to a body like this. Get up early, yes. Eat little and early, yes. Sweet things, poison, and I’ve had a weakness for sweet things all my life. Long rest doesn’t repair me, it switches me off. I go to bed between eight and nine at night and I get up between four and five in the morning.
None of this did I find out in a blood test. It’s described in texts thousands of years old, with a detail that surprises: what happens to this type of body if it sleeps too much, how it reacts to cold, why its enemy is inertia and not lack of strength.
And here’s what I want you to take away today, which is the same as always: don’t believe it because I say it, nor because it’s ancient. Check it on yourself.
If it describes what happens to you, use it. If not, throw it out.