The Rambam does connect eating and drinking with the “nefesh” because bodily life depends on nourishment, but he does not explicitly lay out the full five fold scheme “fasting = Nefesh, washing = Ruach, intimacy = Neshamah, anointing = Chayah, shoes = Yechidah.”

That fuller one-to-one mapping is a later mystical interpretation built from Kabbalistic categories. Rambam on Yoma 8:1 says that eating and drinking are the form of affliction upon which the nefesh depends, while the Gemara explains that the five afflictions correspond to the five Torah references to inui.

1. Eating and drinking — Nefesh: physical vitality

The strongest of your correspondences is Nefesh ↔ eating and drinking.

The Rambam writes on Mishnah Yoma 8:1 that the Torah's phrase “you shall afflict your souls” is received by tradition as referring especially to eating and drinking because these are the things upon which the nefesh depends. His Mishneh Torah likewise identifies the Torah obligation of inui principally with fasting.

This fits the biblical use of nefesh. The Torah repeatedly uses nefesh for embodied life, appetite, and vitality. In Kabbalistic language, Nefesh is the lowest of the five levels and corresponds to Asiyah — the world of action, bodily life, and concrete mitzvah performance.

So fasting says:

“For one day, my physical vitality will not dictate my consciousness.”

The body normally says:

“I need food in order to continue.”

Yom Kippur answers:

“My biological life depends on food, but the ultimate Source of my life is HaShem.”

This is why Deuteronomy 8:3 is so fitting:

“Man does not live by bread alone.”

The point is not hatred of food. Torah sanctifies eating throughout the year. The point is temporary de-centering of physical dependence.

There is also a longstanding penitential image in Jewish prayer and ethical literature: the diminished fat and blood of the fasting person are offered symbolically before HaShem, recalling the דם וחלב— blood and fat placed upon the altar. This should be understood metaphorically: the worshipper is not literally a Temple sacrifice, but offers bodily desire and ego in repentance.

So at the level of Nefesh:

Food sustains bodily life.

Fasting quiets bodily domination.

Nefesh is redirected toward HaShem.

2. Washing — Ruach: emotion, movement, and purification

The association Ruach ↔ water does have an ancient mystical foundation, though we should formulate it carefully.

Sefer Yetzirah describes a cosmogonic sequence in which Ruach produces water, and water subsequently participates in the formation of the created order. The text therefore does connect ruach and mayim at a primordial level.

But it does not explicitly say:

“Therefore washing is prohibited on Yom Kippur in order to purify Ruach.”

That is a later symbolic application.

Chassidut identifies Ruach especially with the middot — emotions: love, fear, compassion, desire, anger, jealousy, enthusiasm. It corresponds to Yetzirah, the world of formation.

Water is a particularly suitable symbol because emotion behaves like water:

it moves,
flows,
spreads,
descends,
surges,
and seeks an outlet.

A person's emotional world is similarly fluid.

Normally washing cleans the outside.

Yom Kippur asks for an inward washing.

David says:

“Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity.”

The prophet Yechezkel says:

“I will sprinkle pure water upon you and you shall become pure.”

So the deeper Chassidic meditation is not:

“Water is bad for Ruach.”

Rather:

Because outward washing is suspended, I am forced to confront the washing of the heart.

The question becomes:

What cleans anger?

What washes jealousy?

What purifies desire?

What removes resentment?

The answer is:

teshuvah, Torah, prayer, humility, reconciliation.

Therefore:

Nefesh asks: What sustains me?

Ruach asks: What moves me?

Fasting disciplines vitality.

The suspension of washing symbolizes purification of the emotional current.

3. Marital intimacy — Neshamah: unity and the mystery of “one flesh”

Your third correspondence draws upon a real and important Kabbalistic theme, but again the sources should be distinguished from later interpretation.

Genesis 2:24 says:

“They shall become one flesh.”

Jewish mystical literature develops marriage as a profound restoration of unity between masculine and feminine dimensions.

The Zohar frequently describes souls and marital union through this imagery of two dimensions being joined into one. But the popular formulation that “every soul is literally split into two halves before birth and one half placed in a man and the other in a woman” is more complicated than it is sometimes presented; Zoharic passages on soul pairing contain several layers and should not be reduced to a universal mechanical soulmate formula.

Still, the central Kabbalistic point stands:

marriage can reveal unity.

Why then abstain from marital relations on Yom Kippur?

Not because marital intimacy is impure.

Quite the opposite.

It is holy.

But Yom Kippur temporarily suspends even permitted and sacred physical unions so that the soul can turn toward an even more fundamental union:

the bond between the Neshamah and HaShem.

Genesis 2:7 says:

וַיִּפַּח בְּאַפָּיו נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים

“He breathed into his nostrils a breath of life.”

Neshamah in Chassidut corresponds especially to mochin — intellect and higher Divine consciousness, and to Beriah.

So Neshamah asks:

“What truth am I united with?”

Throughout the year, the married person sanctifies human union.

On Yom Kippur, even that holy relationship steps temporarily aside before the person's direct covenantal encounter with HaShem.

This culminates in Neilah.

The gates close.

Ordinary relationships and concerns recede.

The soul stands before its Creator.

So the deeper message becomes:

Physical union is holy.

But every holy union receives its holiness from the primordial relationship between soul and HaShem.

4. Anointing — Chayah: transcendent presence

The association Chayah ↔ anointing/cosmetic enhancement is more interpretive and should not be presented as an explicit teaching of the Mishnah or Zohar.

Chassidic sources describe Chayah as a dimension beyond ordinary conscious intellect and emotion. It corresponds to Atzilut and to supra-rational dimensions such as ratzon and ta'anug — will and delight.

Chayah is therefore called a makif, an encompassing level.

“Encompassing” does not necessarily mean a visible aura surrounding the body. It means that this level cannot be fully contained in ordinary conscious faculties.

That distinction is important.

Still, anointing with fragrant oils and creams makes a beautiful symbolic analogy.

Oil affects:

appearance,
fragrance,
comfort,
social presence,
and bodily pleasure.

In biblical life, oil can also signify honor, joy, consecration, and abundance.

Psalm 23 says:

“You have anointed my head with oil.”

So when Yom Kippur suspends pleasurable anointing, the spiritual question becomes:

“Who am I without enhancement?”

Without perfume.

Without presentation.

Without beautification.

Without the outer impression I create.

Chayah represents a much deeper vitality than social appearance.

Therefore the Yom Kippur symbolism can be read as:

Stop enhancing the outer self so the deeper encompassing soul may become perceptible.

The person no longer asks:

“How do others experience me?”

but:

“What does my soul ultimately desire before HaShem?”

That is very close to Chassidut's Chayah consciousness.

The deeper pattern: internal soul versus transcendent soul

Kabbalah divides the five levels in a useful way.

Nefesh, Ruach, Neshamah are relatively pnimiyim — internalized.

They enter recognizable faculties:

Nefesh → action and physical vitality.
Ruach → emotion.
Neshamah → intellect and Divine understanding.

But:

Chayah and Yechidah are increasingly makifim — transcendent/encompassing.

Chayah corresponds to supra-rational will and delight.

Yechidah is the innermost essence, whose bond with HaShem is intrinsic rather than dependent on any function.

So Yom Kippur can be viewed as a movement from the visible self toward the hidden self:

Body → emotion → consciousness → transcendent will → essence.

That is why the number five works so powerfully on the day.

The five afflictions themselves are explicitly grounded by Chazal in the five occurrences of inui. Later Jewish teaching also connects the number five with the five prayers, five immersions of the Kohen Gadol, five books of Torah, and other patterns.

The mystical soul correspondence is therefore best treated as a derash/sod structure built upon this established fivefold pattern, rather than as the simple halakhic reason for the prohibitions.

A concise Chassidic reading

The first four can therefore be understood like this:

And each step removes another layer.

Nefesh: I am more than what feeds me.

Ruach: I am more than what I feel.

Neshamah: I am more than my ordinary relationships and concepts.

Chayah: I am more than the identity I project outwardly.

Then one reaches the fifth question:

Yechidah: Who am I at my absolute root?

That is where the symbolism of removing the shoe becomes especially profound: Moshe removes his shoes because he stands on holy ground. Yom Kippur similarly strips away the final layer between the human being and the place upon which he stands.

The movement of the day is therefore not simply:

“hurt the body five ways.”

It is:

quiet five layers of ordinary consciousness so the deepest relationship between the soul and HaShem can become revealed.

That is a much more faithful way to integrate the halakhic sources, Sefer Yetzirah, Kabbalah, and Chassidut without attributing the later mystical correspondences directly to Rambam or Mishnah Yoma.