Feeling anxious? We wouldn’t blame you. Life moves so fast these days, and it’s hard to keep up. Work. Friends. Bills. Romance. Staying afloat can feel like a full-time job in and of itself.

Though stressors run rampant through our lives, we are lucky enough to live in a time where anxiety management and self-care are valued so highly. A whole host of options are available to us to help mitigate stress, from meditative breathing to float chambers. You’ve probably tested them all and found what works for you, but have you ever considered eating to reduce anxiety?

If you haven’t, let us introduce you, and if you have, well then it’s nice to see you again. Ayurvedic wisdom purports that the way you eat can have an enormous effect on anxiety reduction. In Ayurveda, anxiety builds in the body as a result of excess vata – the dosha, or energy type, that’s related to air and space energy – in the mind. The more of this you have, the more turbulent you become within.

In order to calm these vata winds, you must ground yourself with pitta – a fiery present energy – and kapha – an earthy past energy. These lower chakras will help us connect with our body, the earth and nature as a whole, tying us to what happens in the world around us.

This all may sound a bit confusing, we know. Are those vata winds kicking into gear? Not to worry. We’ll break it down into a list of a few Ayurvedic foods you can eat to help you achieve, if not quite inner peace, at least a greater sense of calm within.

Routine will ground you. If you want to be more centered and grounded in order to increase earthy kapha within, establishing a routine is ideal. If you continuously change up your eating habits, your body will be confused, creating stress. Sip a warming – this will help with pitta too! – cup of Cleanse Tea each morning after you’ve meditated to establish a grounding routine.

Rev up digestion. One of the easiest ways to increase fiery pitta within your body is to rev up your digestive fire. When our digestive system cannot manage to process the food we eat, we will not be able to digest whatever life brings us. Reach for a Charcoal Black Sesame Latte to help with digestion, cleansing and anti-aging. Not your cup of… ahem… latte? The chia seeds and coconut oil in our Strawberry Lemon Chia Seed Pudding will do the trick. This will stimulate your agni, or digestive fire.

Warm from within. Though cold and raw foods are refreshing and cleansing, when you are feeling anxious, it is important to eat warm food that is easy to digest to further increase your agni. If they include spices that stimulate such as coriander, ginger or cumin, all the better! Our Carrot & Lentil soup is just what the (Ayurvedic) doctor ordered. It’s chock full of warming spices, including cumin, black pepper, chili powder and ginger.