To keep Pitta from flaring up this summer, consider these tips:

• Eat cooling, sweet, bitter and astringent foods like cucumber, watermelon, coconut, sweet fruits and green vegetables.   Try adding fennel, watercress and endive to your salads.
• Try to avoid tomatoes and spinach (I know it's difficult, but both of these favorites aggravate Pitta)
• Reduce intake of dairy and meat
• Avoid spicy food and cut back on salt
• Never skip a meal (Pitta types become like grumpy bears when they're hungry!)
• Exercise during the cool hours of the morning
• If you exercise during the heat of the day, reduce the intensity, be non-competitive and make sure you spend time in a long, slow cool-down
• Drink cool water infused with mint, cucumber and cilantro
• Keep a spray bottle of rose, sandalwood or lavender water nearby at all times for a cool, refreshing spritz 

Close your eyes and visualize a river flowing into the sea.  See yourself holding on to the bank of the river and see the river continuing to flow past where you are holding on.   

Now, let go of the bank of the river and flow down with the river and merge into the sea of life. Feel yourself, right at this instant, living in the here and now.  

Holding onto the river bank, we hold on to Holding on fear, worry, doubt, anxiety and nervousness. Detach yourself from the banks of the river and be free to float in the current of life.  

Learn to observe.  You will realize that you are not your mind, your body or your emotions. You will realize that you are the complete master of your mind, your body and your emotions.  

Here is another practice:  

Visualize yourself sitting by a rolling river.   Listen to the beautiful sounds of the river as its water runs over the rocks. Listen closely to the water connecting to the rocks.  Relax into the sounds the river is chanting and try to be in tune with the perfect universe. The cosmos is perfect.  Its laws are divine, its timing flawless, its design unique.

While you are sitting alone by the side of the river being one with the perfect universe--the earth, the air, the fire, the water and space, and the mind.  When a thought arises from your subconscious, something about your daily life, a problem or difficulty, pluck a leaf from a tree or bush, mentally put the problem into the leaf and place it into the river. The river will carry the leaf away along with the thought you placed into it.  

Then pluck a flower and humbly offer it into the river with both hands in loving appreciation for doing this great service for you.