Pitta: Burning Out And Quiet Quitting

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Learn how Pitta dosha may be showing up in your body and mind and what you can do about it. Quiet Quitting is another way of saying, reclaiming our calm and rebalancing our entire life! Very Well Mind’s article, People Are ‘Quiet Quitting’ And It Could Be Great For Mental Health highlights the changes people are creating in their lives now, and that is work/life balance. We’re tired of being burned up and burnt out.

Seeing a dramatic increase in the number of new clients, from teenagers to people in their 80’s with heartburn, GERD, IBS, Ulcerative Colitis in the past two years, it is clear we are literally burning up–our digestive tissues are being burnt by acid, in other words, high Pitta dosha. If Pitta is not rebalanced at that point, Pitta spills over into general circulation and lands in our weak spots or kavya guna. We may feel inflamed all over, have migrating issues, and go to one specialist after another and find no answers.

Work demands too much of us, and the world is intense, creating a Pitta and Vata imbalance for most people, which is to say, a chronic state of overwhelm with intensity. In other words, Vata becomes aggravated, causing anxiety, panic attacks, poor sleep, constipation, and more. Pitta becomes provoked, leading to symptoms such as high blood pressure, migraines, imbalanced menstrual cycles, hot flashes, GERD, loose stools, and on the list goes. Here’s how it works. Vata (wind, movement) becomes aggravated, typically we first feel overwhelmed and stressed. When this state is chronic, we tend to go into flight-fight mode and get stuck there. Then, Vata, the wind pushes Pitta, heat, and intensity.

Picture a wildfire. What starts out as a spark of fire, when the wind blows on it, what happens? The fire spreads – back and forth it goes; the more wind, the more fire, which leads to us feeling burnt up and burned out. When Vata and Pitta are chronically elevated, we feel it, and it doesn’t feel good.

“We need to save ourselves. If we don’t, who will? If not now, when? Simple, well-guided adjustments to food as medicine, herbs and lifestyle, creates significant and lasting change.” – Veena, Saumya Ayurveda

Signs and Symptoms of Pitta Manifesting Emotionally and Psychologically:

1. Short fused
2. Hot tempered
3. Mental burnout
4. Feeling mentally overly intense
5. Frustration, anger
6. Being judgmental
7. Irritability, impatience, intolerant
8. Excessive perfectionism
9. Overworking
10. Burning bridges
11. Packing one’s schedule too full
12. Being overly critical of oneself and/or others
13. Difficulty relaxing
14. Overthinking, overanalyzing, living in one’s head
15. Intensity

Signs and Symptoms of Pitta Manifesting Physically

1. Red irritated skin conditions
2. Migraines
3. Acid reflux, heart burn, gastric reflux, upset stomach
4. Loose stools
5. Nausea
6. Unpleasant body odor
7. Excessive sweating
8. Painful menstrual cycles, may also be clotty and heavy
9. Dry, red, irritated eyes
10. Intestinal and stomach ulcers
11. Acne
12. Physical burn out
13. Eczema and other skin conditions
14. Liver issues
15. Bad breath
16. Anemia
17. IBS, ulcerative colitis

Pitta Governs Metabolism and Transformation

Pitta is responsible for all metabolism and transformation, whether it’s in our body or mind. Let’s look at Pitta’s five sub-doshas to better understand what a significant role it plays in our lives.

Alochaka Pitta: Vision and Discernment

Alochaka Pitta influences how we see the world, both physically and psychologically. It governs visual functions, like our eyes and retina – but also our inner vision and discernment.

Sadhaka Pitta: Heart and Consciousness

Another important Pitta subdosha governs our brains and hearts. Sadhaka Pitta controls how we metabolize emotions and stress – and acts as a direct line to our inner consciousness.

Bhrajaka Pitta: Skin & Touch

Bhrajaka Pitta subdosha rules our skin – our largest organ – and sense of touch. We don’t think of our skin as a vehicle of ingesting and digesting, yet skin metabolizes such things as touch, sunlight, and air. Our skin covers and protects our entire body, and everything within it. It is through this complex organ that we encounter and experience the physical world.

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Ranjaka Pitta: Blood & Circulation

Ranjaka Pitta governs how blood forms and circulates through our body and organs. In Sanskrit, the word Ranjaka means “coloring agent.” Accordingly, Ranajaka Pitta colors our inner and outer physiology.

Pachaka Pitta: Stomach & Digestion

Pachaka Pitta governs digestion from within the lower stomach and small intestine. In Ayurveda, digestion is considered the bedrock of our health. Plus, Pitta dosha is deeply associated with agni, our digestive fire. Thus, Pachaka Pitta has a profound influence on all other forms of Pitta and why Ayurveda emphasizes appetite, digestion, and elimination.

If Pitta is running high in the gut, and it’s not addressed, that heat spills over and where does it go? It can manifest physically and mentally, or both and when Pitta goes out of balance, it can spread like wildfire.

Pitta is About Intensity

We live intense lives. Commuting, stressful, demanding jobs, work-life balance challenges, pandemics, the Great Resignation, and on it goes. There’s a lot of intensity just navigating daily life.

“According to NOAA’s 2021 Annual Climate Report the combined land and ocean temperature has increased at an average rate of 0.14 degrees Fahrenheit (0.08 degrees Celsius) per decade since 1880; however, the average rate of increase since 1981 (0.18°C / 0.32°F) has been more than twice that rate.”

The heat has been turned up in many different ways, and we all feel it. So, we need to release the pressure and learn how to keep it from building up. Picture a pressure cooker with the release valve at the top. If that valve is not releasing the steamy pressure, the pot explodes.

How to Avoid Burning Up and Burning Out from Sustained Intensity | Pitta

There are varying views on quiet quitting, yet in the context of Ayurveda, it’s about long overdue balance–whatever that means and however that looks for each person. NPR’s article, The economics behind ‘quiet quitting’ — and what we should call it instead, states it in Ayurvedic terms–“It’s about divorcing your ego from what you do for a living and not striving for perfection.” Creating boundaries, not responding to emails after work, leaving work on time, and being content with the current job level are important steps to protect ourselves from burnout. To protect ourselves from burnout, we need to take those steps that reclaim ourselves, and our lives, and we need to restore with a custom Ayurveda plan that fits into our lives. To learn more, book your free consultation today.

Here’s what we can and must do to protect and restore ourselves. First, Learn Diaphragmatic Breathing and Change Your Life. Breathing links us both to the mind and the body. And the more we pay attention to breathing by way of a gentle awareness, the more we can relax. We need to learn to move from chronic flight-fight response to rest, restore and relax part of our nervous system. Our lives depend on it, as do our mental and physical health and happiness.

Next, use our free guided practices daily. 11 minutes as part of your morning routine and 11 minutes as part of your evening routine, and in between, weave in our 2-minute guided meditation technique. This brief, do-anywhere-at-anytime-meditation, keeps the pressure and heat from building up. When Pitta goes out of balance, it lets us know. We feel ourselves burning out and burning up. We need to pay attention to the signs and symptoms and restore balance with the guidance an Ayurveda expert can provide using food as medicine, herbs, and Ayurvedic lifestyle tools.