In case you haven’t noticed, Summer has begun. In this season, you will find people covering their faces while riding bikes, sunscreen filters on car windows and women carrying umbrellas with them.
Fun Fact: Umbrellas were initially invented to protect us from the sun!
But why do a lot of people want to cover themselves from the sun? There can be a number of reasons. A common one is to avoid skin diseases. Yes, the sun/heat can cause diseases. However, it is not the primary causative factor in summer diseases. A lot depends upon your body constitution and how it responds to the heat.
Skin Care in Summer Season is also important. A number of summer diseases are associated with the skin. Therefore, taking care of your skin is extremely important. As mentioned earlier, treating summer seasons isn’t just about escaping the heat. To ensure that proper care is taken, the body will have to be treated internally as well. This is where Ayurveda comes in. Ayurveda is at the forefront of internal healing and cleansing systems. Therefore, this article will deal with Ayurveda and how it can help to treat summer season diseases, especially when it comes to skincare in summer season.
According to Ayurveda, in the summer season, the ‘pitta’ dosha increases in the body. Our body keeps continuously maintaining harmony between the three doshas to ensure optimum health. Outside factors such as weather, pollution, and similar factors affect these doshas in a number of ways. Pitta is basically the ‘fire’ element. Therefore, it makes sense that in the summer season, the fire element will increase. Therefore, a lot of summer disease remedies involve pacifying this dosha Also, it does not matter if a person is predominantly Pitta since a sudden increase in the ‘Pitta’ dosha will affect everyone.
The Pitta dosha controls metabolism. Since it is a heat-generating activity, it will increase with an increase in outside heat. Increase in this dosha can lead to a number of ailments. Some physical manifestations can be in the form of loose bowels, pimples, overtiredness, hot flashes, sunburn. The effects won’t be restricted to the physical body and will affect an individual’s emotions as well. A person may become impatient, jealous or angry. The rise in temperature is thus equivalent to a rise in the ‘pitta’ dosha. And this will lead to a rise in summer season diseases.
To know how your skin responds to various factors, you should first know the different types of the skin according to Ayurveda:-
The Vata Skin: Skin that is dry,thin, sensitive and is usually cool to touch. This type of skin gets dehydrated very quickly. This type of skin can form flakes and quickly shows signs of aging.
The Pitta skin: This skin is fair, soft, a bit warm, and sensitive. If not maintained, it easily shows signs of moles, acne and freckles.
The Kapha skin: This skin is usually oily, thick and can withstand sun-damage better. Some demerits of having Kapha skin is getting pimples, water retention.
A person can also have a combination of two or more types of skin mentioned above.
Skin Care in Summer Season should, hence, be based on the above understanding of different skin types. Any remedy for the diseases should have a cooling and healing effect. This will hold true for any remedy that you choose. It is irrelevant of the condition, be it acne, or hot flashes. Treatment will involve herbs and foods that help to cool the body.
The best thing to reduce Pitta in summer would be cooling summer drinks. Juices of sweet fruits are excellent coolants. Milk can also be consumed, after heating it a bit and mixing it with some spice or maybe, rose petals. Lassi is also an excellent drink that can be had during the summer season. As usual, water is one of the best things to consume during the summer. Since the body sweats a lot in the summer season, water consumption will help to maintain fluid balance. Caution should be taken to avoid the consumption of fizzy drinks and ice-cold drinks. These drinks can play/hamper your immune system and digestive system.
Care should be taken throughout the season to ensure good skin health.
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