Spring Yoga: Why Your Practice Feels Heavier (and How to Shift It)

🎙️Show Notes

Summary

Spring often promises more energy — longer days, more light, a sense of renewal.

And yet, many people experience the opposite.

You might feel slower, heavier, less motivated… even your yoga practice can feel harder to begin.

In this episode, I explore why this happens through the lens of Ayurveda — and how the qualities of Kapha season (earth and water) influence both body and mind.

More importantly, I’ll walk you through simple, practical shifts you can bring into your yoga practice to feel lighter, clearer, and more energised again.

This isn’t about doing more.

It’s about doing things differently — in a way that works with the season, not against it.

Key Takeaways

• Spring is Kapha season, which can bring heaviness, sluggishness, and low motivation
• Your body is simply responding to the season — nothing is wrong
• Your yoga practice needs to shift with the season, not stay the same all year round
• Adding heat, movement, and intention helps rebalance Kapha
• Small, steady changes create noticeable shifts in energy and clarity

Chapters 

 00:00 Why Spring Can Feel Heavy
 01:10 Understanding Kapha Season
 03:20 Why Your Yoga Practice Feels Different
 06:30 Simple Shifts to Rebalance Your Energy
 10:30 What Starts to Shift
 12:00 Keep It Simple: Spring Yoga Recap 

Keywords 

Ayurveda, spring yoga, Kapha dosha, seasonal living, yoga for energy, sluggishness in spring, Ayurvedic lifestyle, yoga and seasons, energy and motivation, daily rhythm

Resources 

🌿 Free Guide
5 Quick Ayurvedic Fixes to Move from Scattered to Steady
→ https://pages.zestforyoga.com/5-ayurvedic-shifts

🌿 Live Session
When Rest Isn’t Enough
→ https://www.zestforyoga.com/events/stress-less-live-more-live-workshop

🌿 Read the full blog post
→ https://www.zestforyoga.com/blog/spring-yoga-guide

🌿 Explore more
https://www.zestforyoga.com/

Sound Bites (keep + upgrade slightly)

• “Your body is simply responding to the season.”
• “Your yoga practice doesn’t exist outside of the seasons.”
• “You don’t need to do more — just do things differently.”
• “Small, steady changes make a real difference.”
• “A little more heat, a little more rhythm — that’s enough.”

🎁 Get my free guide: My 5 Quick Ayurvedic Fixes from Scattered to Steady
 

Practical tips to feel calmer, clearer, and more like yourself — without overhauling your life.
 👉 GET THE FREE GUIDE HERE

🎙️ Rooted in the Seasons is created by Katja Patel at Zest for Yoga & Ayurveda.
 Explore more episodes at zestforyoga.com/podcast

Transcript

Katja Patel (00:00)
Hello and welcome back to Rooted in the Seasons where ancient wisdom meets modern life with a strong cup of tea and practical tools for real busy women. Katya Patel Ayurvedic diet and lifestyle educator, yoga teacher and teacher mentor. I help women find more calm and clarity through small

daily rituals, seasonal rhythm and timeless wisdom that actually fits into the real life.

This podcast is part of a wider body of work I offer, including my live workshop.

when rest isn't enough, where we explore rhythm, nervous system support and daily practices in a deeper, structured way. And we create the rhythms there and then.

If you're listening to this in spring, you are right in the heart of that transition where everything is starting to wake up again. And today I want to talk about something many people feel, but don't always connect the dots around.

you might be expecting to feel more energised right now. The light is back, the days are longer and yet you feel a bit slower, heavier or maybe less motivated and even getting onto your yoga mat can feel more like effort than it should.

this sounds familiar you are definitely not alone with that. So let's have a look at why this is happening because from an Ayurvedic perspective this actually makes total sense.

Spring is what we call the Kapha season dominated by the elements of earth and water and those qualities show up as heaviness, slowness and also stability. So there are no bad qualities but when they build up

they can start to feel more like stagnation, low motivation or that slightly stuck feeling.

You might notice your body responding in subtle ways at first. So have you noticed that you feel a bit more sluggish in the morning or that your usual yoga practice doesn't quite lift you in the same way anymore?

There's nothing extreme happening it is just something that lingers in the background and your body is simply responding to the season and here's where things start to connect because your yoga practice doesn't exist out of season it's part of it.

What works beautifully in autumn or winter doesn't always work in spring. And if we keep practicing in the same way all year round...

we can actually reinforce the imbalance rather than shift it.

So instead of asking, why do I feel like this?

we could start asking how can my practice support me right now?

Again from an Ayurvedic view we balance like with the opposite. So if spring brings heavy, slow and cool

then what we introduce is light, dynamic and warming and this is where your yoga practice becomes incredibly supportive. Let me talk you through a few simple shifts you might not have thought about yet.

You don't need to change everything.

Let's just look at a few simple things you could start with. For example, setting an intention. Before you even begin, take a moment.

This is something I see again and again. We rush onto the mat.

In the same way we rush through the day and then we expect the practice to somehow feel different.

clear intention creates direction. brings focus and energy in what we are doing.

or you could use your breath more.

Here's something interesting. The breath is one of the quickest ways to shift your state. In spring we don't just want calm, we want clarity and warmth. So you could try breathing a little more consciously down towards your navel and gently drawing the navel back.

on the out-breath. This alone can create warmth and focus without forcing anything.

Another way is to create a little bit more heat in your practice. This is probably the most important shift. Because spring is not the time for long, slow, heavy practices, instead think of movement, flow and challenge. This might look like a few more or faster Suya Namaskar's Salute to the Suns, adding

few more twists in standing or sitting continue with this breathing

or adding some stronger back bends if that is for you. In practice, it's about moving with a bit more energy than usual and staying engaged. So how you can stay mentally engaged? Kapha has a tendency towards a more, let's say, relaxed approach, which can sometimes turn into drifting a little or losing focus.

or going through the motions. So here's a simple shift that you can implement is lift your gaze away from the floor or straight away to upwards. Sharpen your focus in balancing for example. Even that small change creates alertness and lightness.

Also don't be afraid of sweating. Let me pause here for a moment because this is where many people hesitate. We often associate yoga with slowing down but in spring we actually need a little bit more effort, a bit more heat, a bit more engagement. My teacher used to say we all should sweat.

at least once a day properly and it shouldn't be out of fear but to keep things moving.

spring is exactly the time where that gentle effort becomes really supportive.

And then over time something starts to shift, that heavy slightly stuck feeling begins to lift and you might notice something like more energy, more clarity or more lightness.

It doesn't happen all at once and not the first time you implement something, but it's noticeable.

So if you remember nothing else, let's bring this back to something simple.

Spring yoga isn't about doing more. It's about doing things differently. A little more heat, a little more movement, a little more intention.

Small steady changes really do make a difference.

So if you're thinking right now, I try to do this but I really struggle staying consistent. And also here, you're not alone. This is exactly why I created my live session when rest isn't enough. It's a space where we explore how to rebuild a steady daily rhythm in a way that

actually works in your real life. You don't have to figure this out on your own.

Before we finish, let's keep this simple.

you don't need to change everything even small shifts in your practice can start to move things along a little more heat, little more focus, a little more rhythm and that's enough

Thank you so much for listening to Rooted in the Seasons.

If this resonates with you, can follow the podcast on Spotify or Apple podcasts. new episodes land automatically for you. And if you like more support between episodes, you can download my free guide, my five quick Ayurvedic fixes from Scattered to Steady and join my Sunday read newsletter.

You'll find all the relevant links in the show notes below. And if something in today's episode landed for you,

I'd genuinely love to hear from you. Until next time, stay rooted in the seasons. Thank you. Bye bye.