More Complementary Health Articles
What Is Ayurveda?
Did you know your lifestyle choices today will affect your wellness in the future? For example, have you ever met anyone who drank coffee everyday and then developed heartburn or acid reflux? How about someone who did not establish a work-life balance early, and then developed anxiety or panic attacks?
Ayurvedic medicine is the “sister science of yoga” and the oldest medicine system known to man, (originating in India over 10,000 years ago). Ayurveda is a holistic and preventative approach to medicine, meaning that, establishing a balanced and conscious lifestyle early on is considered to be the ultimate health care, rather than fighting diseases after diseases develop.
As integrative health coach, Joshua Rosenthal says, “We need health care, not sick care.” Ayurveda encourages individuals to invest in their wellness early on in life (in essence “saving their health”), in order to not have to “pay” for it later. The main goal is to promote good health, not fight disease.
When an individual looks to Ayurveda for lifestyle treatment, the practitioner considers the whole individual including the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of the individual. All three aspects of the individual need to be in balance in order for the individual to be healthy.
Ayurveda honors the five sacred elements: air, space, fire, water, and earth. These elements are the fundamental building blocks of the whole system, and create the three constitutions, or doshas. The three doshas are vata dosha (made up of the air and space elements), the pitta dosha (made up of the fire and water elements), and the kapha dosha (made up of the water and earth elements). Each individual is born with a doshic makeup (prakruti), however often because of environmental factors, societal factors and lifestyle choices, our doshic make-up becomes out of balance (vikruti).
Schedule a consultation with an Ayurvedic professional to find out your birth dosha, the current state of your doshas, and how to delicately bring the doshas back into balance through yoga and Ayurveda.
