Ayurveda is a 5000-year-old medical system that originated in the Vedic culture of India. It was banned by English colonists, but is now experiencing a recent resurgence, alongside yoga and other traditional and medicinal approaches to health.
If yoga is a teaching of psychology, spirituality and mental balance, Ayurveda is a teaching of physical and bodily health, wealth and vitality. Proponents of Ayurveda suggest that it is a science of life, which incorporates four dimensions: body, mind, soul and senses.
The roots of Tibetan medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, and early Greek medicine lie in Ayurveda, and the goal of practitioners is to establish and maintain lifelong health and balance. It provides a framework for daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal routines that allow people to maintain optimal health and vitality. Test drive some Ayurvedic principles today and make note on the difference you feel in your energy levels, mood, and sleep patterns. Try making lunch your biggest meal, make daily detoxification practices a priority, incorporate spices into your meal plan, exercise mindfully, and take time to schedule your day so that you can have piece of mind while you achieve what you would like to achieve.
Make Lunch Your Biggest Meal
Ayurveda is all about timing: seasonal timing, weekly timing, and daily timing. Ayurvedic doctors will tell you that your digestive faculties are at their peak at around noon, so it would serve your health well to schedule your biggest meal at lunch time. Although conventional wisdom might suggest that breakfast is the most important meal or an especially hearty dinner might serve you, Ayurvedics suggest that consuming lighter foods in the morning and in the evening is more harmonious with the body’s natural digestive processes. Try making lunch your main meal today and note how much more energy you may have throughout your afternoon and evening.
Make Daily Detox A Priority
Ayurvedic practice is replete with practices that encourage the body to gently detox daily. A conventional ayervedic diet is vegetarian and full of whole foods, which are high is nutrients and fiber and low in toxins. Ayervedic practicioners are very concerned with good digestion, as this is a means to allow the body to absorb maximum nutrition from the food that we ingest, and to keep out our intake in toxins low. Although not all Ayurvedic practitioners are vegetarians, all Ayurvedic doctors will encourage you to add more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and beans to your diet. Fill up on these high water content and highly nutritive items to encourage better digestion. Ayurvedic practicioners encourage two yearly cleanses, which coincide with the change of seasons, so schedule your juice cleanse wisely.
Some other vitality maximizing tricks to add to your routine include drinking warm water with a freshly squeezed lemon or warm water with a tablespoon of raw honey as a morning elixir. Both drinks not only hydrate the body, but provide detoxifying and tonifying properties to the organs and digestive processes. More advanced Ayurvedics will use the neti pot for detoxing breathing passageways, the tongue scraper for manually removing toxins from the mouth, and a practice called oil pulling to cleanse and freshen the breath.
Cooking With Spices Is Key
Ayurvedic food is full of fresh ginger, turmeric, garlic, cumin, black pepper, and other spices. Not only can these spices spice up your already tried and true home cooked meals, or encourage you to try new restaurants and cuisines, but you will be able to reap huge health benefits from these small changes. Ginger has a long history of use in alieviating digestive disturbances and pain. Turmeric is now being touted as the latest superfood for its high antioxidant content and for its strong anti-inflammatory capabilities. Garlic, which was actually used by Hippocrates to treat a variety of medical conditions, is nutritious, very supportive to the immune system, helpful for detoxing, and can be beneficial in lowering blood pressure. Cumin has carminative, stimulating, anti-fungal, and antimicrobial properties. Black pepper promotes intestinal health, is antibacterial, and is traditionally helpful in respiratory conditions. All herbs and spices have health supportive properties, so get inspired and see if you can change the flavor profile of a favorite soup, salad, or stew, while also making is a more health supportive meal.
Exercise Mindfully
Ayurveda is a life long practice, and daily exercise is important component for health and vitality for people of all ages. Ayurvedic practitioners suggest that you listen to your body when choosing the type of and the intensity of the exercise that you are choosing to participate in. In Ayurveda, exercise is contradicted when you are ill or already physically tired from activity, work, travel, or study. It also suggests that you are at your most physically vigorous during the winter and spring, while the heat of summer and fall may make you feel depleted and tired for no apparent reason. Ayurvedics suggest that you plan your most grueling work outs for the winter and spring on days that you are feeling strong and vigorous, and choose more gentle routines in the summer and fall, or while you are feeling run down. Many of us feel that we must unilaterally stick to a certain exercise routine, no matter what our bodies are telling us. Ayurvedic doctors suggest that it is important to remember that exercise is a life-long practice and there is no such thing as a one approach fits all in life-long well-being. Exercise is vital to health, but intensity should be practiced mindfully to reap the life long health benefits. If you are feeling energized, go for it. If you feel like you need to take a break, take a break
Organize A Daily Routine
Ayerveda is all about balance. Organize your daily routine in advance to achieve mental, emotional, and physical harmony. Schedule your work time, your family time, your exercise time, and your time to unwind in advance to make sure that you are taking care of yourself to your best ability, so that you are sure to have time to take care of the things are important to you. Tip: ayervedic doctors advocate an early bedtime and an early waking schedule, so that you may get the most of the most productive morning hours and the most restful sleep out the most restortative pre-midnight sleeping hours.
