Ayurveda: The Wisdom of Life?
Mascari, Brooke. March 13th, 2024
Thousands of years before modern medicine provided scientific evidence for the mind-body connection, Ayurveda was being practiced by ancient people groups. Ayurveda continues to be one of the world’s most sophisticated and effective total health systems—highlighting the symbiotic nature of our physical health and our emotions, stresses, and relationships.
Ayurveda: A complete healing system that gives you tools and practices to create health daily by using your innate healing abilities.
Ayurveda is made up of two Sanskrit words: Ayu (meaning life) and Veda (meaning science or wisdom).
This science of life helps us understand that health is a byproduct of enlightened balanced living. It teaches us how to live in a way that fosters good health and gently guides us to be part of our own healing process.
The most powerful tool we have for healing is our own body, mind, and spirit. Ayurvedic practices empower the inherent healing power within all of us.
Ancient wisdom + modern living = your personalized roadmap to well-being.
Ayurveda is a personalized lifestyle medicine. It gives you the knowledge and tools to create a healthy, happy life while realizing your full potential.
In order to be truly healthy, we can't just take care of our physical body—we need to address the health of our mind, body, spirit, and environment so that we can experience a state of wholeness.
Ayurveda focuses on the unique qualities of the individual—how we each respond to different foods, exercise programs, and other activities and experiences.
Ayurveda is experiential. The choices we make every day affect the physical experience of the body and the mental experience in the mind—including decisions about what to eat, how we relate interpersonally, and even how we establish our daily routines.
The goal of Ayurveda is to create balance in all aspects of our lives.
Ayurveda offers practices that help us return to balance and experience our natural state of well-being.
Ayurveda is the original lifestyle medicine.
Ayurveda is preventative. It does not simply focus on fixing symptoms. Instead, Ayurveda considers health a state of wholeness—the dynamic and balanced integration of the body, mind, and spirit. When we’re healthy, we feel centered, energetic, and awake with possibilities.
Health isn't merely the absence of illness.
Ayurveda views disease as a blockage in the energy flow—an expression of toxic accumulations in the mind-body physiology. A toxin is anything that interferes with our natural state, creating imbalances that, over time, can lead to illness.
There are two major sources of toxins:
Physical toxins are found in our food, personal and household products, air, water (such as micro-plastics, fluoride, chlorine, lead, arsenic, and PFAS to name a few), and other elements of our environment.
Emotional toxins, such as negative thought patterns and beliefs, self-criticism, chronic stress, and painful experiences that we haven’t fully digested/processed.
Symptoms of sickness are the body’s signal that you need to restore balance, eliminate whatever is causing the blockages, and reestablish the healthy flow of energy and information.
Rather than only treating the symptoms of a disease, Ayurveda seeks to eliminate illness by treating the underlying cause—considering each individual's unique needs when developing a plan to balance the mind-body system.
For example, if someone is having frequent heartburn, rather than prescribing an antacid (treating the symptom), Ayurveda focuses on what is causing the heartburn. Is the person eating too many hot, spicy foods? Are they driving themselves too hard, not balancing work with leisure and downtime? Are they taking in toxins in the form of cigarettes, pollution, or processed food? Once the underlying cause of the heartburn is identified, Ayurveda can treat the symptoms while also addressing the root cause. In doing so, not only do the symptoms resolve, but there is less likelihood that the illness will recur.
Most chronic illnesses can be prevented—and even reversed—by our daily lifestyle choices. Ayurveda offers us tools and guidance to help us do this.
Our lifestyle is our medicine, and the most important part of this lifestyle medicine is the conscious, healing choices we make about our diet, exercise, sleep, stress management, and every other aspect of our lives.
Practicality
One of my favorite things about Ayurveda is how practical it is. It meets us where we are and allows us to look at our lifestyle choices and how we’re feeling currently and make our next decisions from there.
For example, if I am feeling irritable and frustrated, Ayurveda would say to not eat foods that are spicy or inflammatory. Ayurveda would encourage eating grounding and cooling foods like sweet juicy fruits or light leafy greens to help minimize inflammation and allow the body to cool down and maintain balance. Or perhaps Ayurveda would encourage some aromatherapy to help soothe the fiery emotions. Soothing aromatherapy includes lavender, chamomile, or sandalwood.
These are not drastic lifestyle changes, but small things that can be integrated slowly and daily to help bring an internal and external environment of balance. Simple practices are often the most profound; especially when practiced consistently.
Often, people wait until their bodies start communicating that they are out of balance by embodying disease or chronic sickness. But we do not need to wait for these signs and symptoms to occur before we start living a healthy and balanced life! And Ayurveda is a wonderful and enriching place to start regarding healthy living and balance.
Join us as we tackle more topics related to health and further aspects of Ayurveda that are both fascinating and wonderfully helpful.
Blessings and love to all on your journey,
Havah Holistic Health
