When the doshas are balanced, a person is in good health and has a vibrant energy, but when they are disturbed, the body becomes susceptible to outside forces such as viruses, bacteria, and stress. Keeping the doshas in balance will help prevent disease and keep the body in good health.
The unique proportion of vata, pitta, and kapha within a person makes them unique, and is known as the person's prakriti (constitutional type) (Horrigan 81). Everything in Ayurvedic medicine is based on an understanding of these individual prakritis which means that a dozen different people with the same disease will be treated in a dozen different ways in Ayurvedic medicine, and this is what attracts many people to the practice: that it is completely individualized. People are treated as individuals, whereas in Western medicine they are often treated more as a "disease" entity, where everyone with the same disease gets the same treatment.
The vata energy is made of air and space, and governs the processes of circulation, breathing, and the beating of the heart ("Ayurveda" 2001; Lad 64). The vata body type person tends to be thin, with prominent features, joints and veins. They have cool, dry skin, and are moody, enthusiastic, imaginative, and impulsive. The vata type is good at initiating things, but poor at finishing them. They eat and sleep erratically, and are prone to anxiety, insomnia, constipation, and in females, premenstrual sy