Six years.
That’s how long she hadn’t had her period.

At first, she brushed it off, “It will come back once things settle down.”
But things didn’t settle. They got louder.

A doctor eventually recommended the contraceptive pill “to induce a period,” because her bone density had already started to fall. Early signs of osteoporosis at 29. She was exhausted, wired, emotional, and flat all at the same time. For three years she spiraled into depression, moving from one medication to another with no explanation for why her body had switched off its natural rhythm.

Does this sound familiar?
Maybe not the exact story but the feeling of being disconnected from your own body, like it’s speaking a language you never learned.

This is what happens when Vata becomes deeply aggravated, and when Pitta and Kapha follow the chaos.
It’s what happens when the body whispers for months… and we don’t hear it until it begins to scream.

Today’s newsletter is for every woman who knows something feels “off,” even when the lab tests look “fine.”
For every woman who lost her cycle.
For every woman whose hormones feel unpredictable.
For every woman who wants to reconnect with her body, not fight against it.

Let’s dive in.

We often treat symptoms like separate, unrelated events:

“My sleep is weird.”
“I’m anxious for no reason.”
“My digestion used to be fine… now it’s not.”
“My period is late again.”
“I’m tired but I push through.”

But Ayurveda teaches something beautifully simple and deeply empowering:

Your body is talking to you long before it gets sick.

And modern science agrees.
Hormonal imbalance is rarely a single event, it’s a physiological story happening in multiple systems:

Ayurveda uses different words but describes the same reality:

When one dosha goes out of balance, the others try to compensate.
When all three go out of balance… the body finally forces you to stop.

Many women with amenorrhea or hormonal imbalance are told it’s “just stress.”
But Ayurveda sees a different picture:

When a woman loses her period for months or years, it’s almost always a Vata shutdown, with Pitta irritation layered on top and Kapha stagnation underneath a perfect trio of imbalance.

But here’s the empowering part:

The body can re-regulate when you learn how to speak its language again.

And that process begins with Vata.

In Ayurveda, everything in nature is made of five elements: ether, air, fire, water, and earth.
These elements combine to create the three doshas — Vata, Pitta, and Kapha, the energies that govern everything in the body.

Vata, made of ether and air, is the dosha of movement:

Ayurvedic texts even call Vata “the king of the doshas”, because it directs the other two.
When Vata is stable, everything works harmoniously.
When Vata is disturbed, everything becomes unstable, especially the mind and the reproductive system.

And here’s the beautiful connection:

Modern physiology mirrors this.

Vata’s functions are almost identical to the autonomic nervous system — the system responsible for stress, safety, energy, digestion, fertility, and survival.

So when Vata goes out of balance…
we feel it everywhere.

Vata increases with:

Women often experience Vata imbalance as:

This is why Vata is so deeply linked with hypothalamic amenorrhea (HA).
When the nervous system goes into survival mode, Vata becomes excessive — digestion slows, the mind speeds up, and the reproductive system shuts down.

This is not your fault.
And it is not permanent.

Your body is speaking to you.
Healing begins when you begin listening.

When I started studying Ayurveda, everything clicked.

I suddenly saw my own patterns:
the rushing, the cold hands, the pushed workouts, the skipped meals, the fear of slowing down… Vata everywhere.

I understood why my cycle changed under stress, why my digestion reacted first, why anxiety took over when I overwhelmed myself, and why grounding rituals felt like medicine.

Slowly, gently, one habit at a time, I began to balance Vata.

Warm foods.
Earlier sleep.
Softer workouts.
A calmer rhythm.
Meditation instead of intensity.
Nourishment instead of depletion.

The shift was subtle at first…
and then it was undeniable.

My nervous system stabilized.
My hormones followed.
And for the first time in years, I felt at home in my own body.

Now I teach the same approach to my students, because Vata is manageable once you understand it.

Here are simple, gentle, hormonal-friendly practices that nourish Vata and support menstrual health:

Avoid cold, raw, or dry foods.
Choose:

Warm food calms the nervous system.

Vata becomes unstable with inconsistency.
Try:

Routine = safety.

For hormonal balance:

Your hormones thrive on safety, not intensity.

You cannot calm Vata without calming the mind.

Try:

Let your body exhale.
Let your mind soften.

When Vata is high, the nervous system stays in alert mode.
Cortisol rises.
Digestion weakens.
Sleep becomes light.
Appetite becomes irregular.
And the reproductive system shuts down because the body doesn’t feel safe.

Balancing Vata leads directly to:

This is how we break the cycle of restriction → over-exercising → stress → hormonal shutdown.

This is how we come home to ourselves.

Your body speaks to you every day.
Not through loud alarms but through gentle whispers:

dryness, coldness, restlessness, skipped periods, irregular hunger, anxiety, exhaustion, the urge to push too hard, the feeling of being ungrounded.

You don’t need to fear these signs.
You just need to listen.

Because when you understand Vata — and learn how to nourish it — you unlock a calmer mind, a safer nervous system, healthier hormones, and a body that finally feels like home again.

And you deserve that.
Every woman does.

With love,

Audrey