Reclaiming Radiance in Midlife: Ayurveda for Stress, Burnout, and Renewal

Ayurveda sees midlife not as a decline, but as a powerful transition, a moment when your body and mind start reorganizing for the next chapter. Perimenopausecan stretch over three to ten years, bringing shifts like irregular cycles and more dryness in the skin, hair, and tissues. As we move into the vata stage of life, the air and space elements naturally rise, creating feelings of lightness, sensitivity, and change. Instead of resisting it, Ayurveda invites us to use this time to strengthen our foundation, build resilience, and reconnect with what truly matters. With nourishing routines and supportive habits in place before menopause, the transition becomes smoother, steadier, and surprisingly clarifying. [1]

Midlife often brings a unique layering of responsibilities, growing careers, caring for aging parents, and managing the daily demands of home and relationships. This busy, high‑output season of “doing it all” leans heavily on pitta, the fire element that fuels focus, drive, and productivity. While pitta helps women show up fully in their many roles, that same fire can tip into burnout when it is pushed too hard for too long. When this happens, stress can feel sharper, energy becomes harder to access, and it’s more challenging to maintain a sense of steadiness and resilience throughout the midlife transition. [2]

Vasant Lad’s Ayurvedic Take on Stress

Vasant Lad, a renowned Ayurvedic physician, teacher, and author whose work has shaped modern Ayurveda since the 1980s, describes stress as a psychosomatic disorder arising from the pressures and friction of everyday life. Old‑school wisdom, totally timeless. We feel it when traffic stalls, when the line will not move, or when work demands pile up faster than we can respond. One of the biggest stress triggers, he notes, is the constant sense that there’s too much to do and not nearly enough time to do it.

As we enter midlife, we shift into the vata stage of life, where air and space become more dominant. For many women, this means stress shows up not as anger or irritation, but as anxiety, worry, fearfulness, or even phobias. [3]

We can’t talk about midlife without talking about depletion. In midlife, it is common that we experience a depletion, as Ayurveda calls a decline in ojas. According to Sahara Rose, a modern Ayurvedic author whose 2018 work brought a fresh, plant-forward interpretation of Ayurveda to a new generation, ojas is described as “luster of life”. Someone high in ojas beams with a shining golden light. They have a warm, welcoming presence, and they radiate like the sun, brightening up whatever room they are in. They have smooth, clear, and glowing skin and a strong immune system. 

In midlife, we sometimes experience low ojas. Someone low in ojas does not have a healthy appearance; they may look gaunt, weak, or tired, with baggy eyes and puffy skin. They become stressed and ill easily, and they look like they have not been taking proper care of themselves. In short, when ojas is balanced, we feel relaxed, content, stable, and joyful. When Ojas is out of balance, we may experience feelings of fear, weakness, heaviness, and lethargy. [4]

One of the most powerful ways to rebuild during midlife is through food,  especially foods that calm stress, nourish depleted tissues, and restore ojas. Ayurveda calls these sattvic foods: fresh, plant‑based, whole ingredients that support clarity, calm, and steady energy. They are simple, grounding, and easy to digest. Including all six tastes, sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, and astringent, helps the body feel balanced and satisfied.

Sattvic, ojas‑building favourites include:

• avocado + plant‑based oils

• sweet potato + fresh fruits

• sprouted nuts + seeds

• turmeric, cinnamon, saffron

This is where Sahara Rose adds her signature twist. Her “eat fresh” philosophy encourages prana‑rich, colourful meals that naturally rebuild ojas and support vata balance — perfect for the midlife transition.

More Specific Support for Midlife Stress

Since midlife is the vata stage of life, the body thrives on warm, cooked, grounding meals. Think stews, curries, roasted veggies, kitchari, and soups. These foods anchor the nervous system and help prevent the dryness, anxiety, and overwhelm that often show up during this phase.

Dry, cold foods, popcorn, crackers, and excess raw salads can aggravate vata, increasing stress, bloating, and gas. Warmth, moisture, and nourishment are your allies here.

Vasant Lad offers timeless, practical tools for calming vata, reducing stress, and rebuilding ojas. His approach blends ancient wisdom with simple, accessible daily practices.

Some of my favourite stress‑soothers from his teachings include:

Sort your stressors into two groups: what you can change and what you can’t.

• If you can change it, take action.
• If you can’t, soften, surrender, and release the fight.

Let yourself cry

• If grief or sadness is sitting in your chest, crying is a powerful release. It clears emotional congestion and resets the nervous system.

Laughter as medicine

• Even forced laughter works. Start laughing, and eventually the real thing comes along with a wave of tension melting away.

Yoga stretching

• Gentle movement calms vata, opens the breath, and brings you back into your body.

Meditation 

• A few minutes of stillness each day helps rebuild ojas and create inner steadiness.

A supportive midlife approach blends simple daily practices, like breathing exercises, gentle yoga, meditation, and stress‑relief tools, with very specific vata‑pacifying, ojas‑building foods. Warm, cooked, grounding meals; sattvic ingredients; and the full spectrum of Ayurvedic tastes help calm the nervous system, ease stress, and rebuild the vitality that often becomes depleted during this stage of life. We can draw on both traditional guidance from Vasant Lad and modern interpretations from Sahara Rose to support this rebuilding process in a way that feels both timeless and accessible. 

[1] Feeling Great Through Perimenopause - Banyan Botanicals

[2] What Ayurveda Tells Us About The Stress-Menopause Connection - MindBodyGreen

[3] Vasant Lad - The Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home Remedies

[4] Sahara Rose - Eat Feel Fresh - A Contemporary Plant-Based Ayurvedic Cookbook