Ayurveda is a consciousness-based approach to health and healing, stemming from the ancient Vedic culture and originating in India more than 5,000 years ago, considered to be the oldest holistic healing science. By adopting an Ayurvedic lifestyle, we can return to our natural state of health. Almost 95% of chronic illness can be reversed or prevented by creating a lifestyle that supports our constitution. Ayurveda provides the tools to help us achieve this, placing tremendous emphasis on the prevention of illness and encouraging the maintenance of health by teaching us of the power that we have to influence our own health and change our bodies through the choices we make regarding food, personal relationships, sensory experiences, sleep, work, social interactions, and daily routine. When we change our experiences, our biology changes as a result, and by adopting a diet that suits our individual constitution, effective sleep patterns, home remedies, daily and seasonal routines and a consistent exercise routine, we can gradually restore our wellbeing.

What are some of the benefits that an Ayurvedic lifestyle can promote ? :

A significant improvement in digestive function and a reduction in digestive issues, balanced endocrine system, weight loss, better metabolism, greater vitality, decreased ageing, regular elimination, clarity, increased focus, improved sleep, reduced inflammation or chronic pain, increased libido, sustained energy levels, reduction in mental afflictions.

Ancient healing for profound transformation :

Energy medicine is an ancient field of knowledge and its principles and techniques have been known to, and used by the ancient Egyptians, Indians, Chinese and Indigenous communities and healers for centuries, many of which are increasingly becoming the path to reclaiming health, uncovering mystery diseases, and illuminating why it is that we develop them to begin with. Ayurveda is one of those paths laid out many thousands of years ago - 5,000 to be precise - and a path to reclaiming our health that provides us with invaluable knowledge and understanding of why we possess the unique patterns of health and complex struggles associated with poor physical and mental wellbeing. It is a system that enables us to understand and determine what it is that we need for our unique mind-body composition to regain balance, and more importantly, maintain it.

Ayurveda originated from the vedas, which originated in India and were handed down orally to students over a period of ten centuries, transmitted through concepts and poetic phrases that were used to pass knowledge from one generation to the next. Needless to say, the vedas are some of the oldest written texts in the world. In-spite of the development of modern medicine, ancient holistic healing systems such as Ayurveda have withstood the test of time, and ceasing to crumble and fall away in place of newer and more advanced systems. It has miraculously began finding its way back into our modern day world, enabling individuals to understand the essence of who they are beyond their physical existence and the surface layers that so often veil us from uncovering the deeper aspects of our nature, or inherent patterns that drive us to make the decisions that we do, and inviting us to recognise the necessity of reconnecting our body, mind and spirit so that all are functioning as a whole, rather than operating against one another. This is where true health, joy and vitality can be found. When there is incoherence between mind-body and emotions, confusion, loss of life-force, fatigue, difficulty manifesting our desires or living a fulfilled life occur. Understanding our inner nature and applying the wisdom techniques of ayurveda to help us gain mastery and equilibrium in managing the full spectrum of who we are as multidimensional beings, is what creates strong expressions of good health.

In Ayurveda food is medicine. When a person eats and acts in a manner that is in alignment with their unique constitution, they not only improve their health but they thrive in the world, armed with an extensive knowledge of what foods, herbs and cleansing protocols, remedies and forms of movement are needed at each phase of their existence. In practising living in alignment with their unique individual needs and attuning themselves to what changes and disciplines are required on a day-today basis to maintain balance, they protect themselves from the onslaught of diseases and mental and physical imbalances. Even if you do get sick, having applied Ayurvedic principles to your way of being, your body will most likely recover in no time because you have conditioned and fortified your system in a way that enables it to flush out any toxins and imposters such as the flu and common cold, far more quickly than the person who has weakened their immunity and innate abilities for rejuvenation and healing due to long-term neglect. So following an Ayurvedic lifestyle can help us stay healthy, recover faster from illness and cultivate long term health.

An underlying principle of Ayurveda is that we consist of both energy and matter. Each of us, as well as our environment, is composed of the elements air, space, fire, water and earth. These are the fundamental building blocks that create our entire world. Space and air create our movement and circulation. Earth creates our foundation and structure. Fire creates transformation, light and metabolism, and water creates cohesiveness, digestive juices and secretions. These five elements are found in different amounts in every person and environment. For example, countries located in the northern hemisphere tend to be dominated by the elements air (cold) and water (dampness, lubrication) whereas countries located in the southern hemisphere hold more of the fire element (heat) and the space element (dryness). Regarding people, some of us are more ‘spacey’ which immediately suggests vata is our dominant dosha, whereas others are more fiery and intense which indicates pitta is our dominant dosha. Our unique combination of the five elements determines our predominant body compositions as well as the nature of our personality and mind.

Today, Ayurveda is fast finding its way back into modern day society, as well as health care systems, because of its ability to so align us so intelligently with our innate constitution that we come in with at our time of birth. This is what we refer to as our ‘prakriti’ which translates as original creation and is who we are in a state of perfect balance. These days, it is rare to see people living as their prakriti, and far more common to see them suffering the consequences of their ‘vikriti’ : Who they become when the mind-body system is in a state of imbalance and their unique proportions of vata, pitta and kapha are, to say the least, a bit out of whack! Perhaps this is why Ayurveda is slowly but surely becoming a modern day health trend. Because more and more people are awakening to the reality that modern day living simply isn’t providing them with the deep wisdom and profound knowledge required to maintain longevity and youthful, vital health well into our mid 40s and far beyond. Unlike other healing wisdom traditions, Ayurveda provides us with a system that allows us to perform a deep inquiry into our own nature, why we suffer the imbalances and conditions that we do, and how to adopt a way of eating and living that can restore us to balance, changing the way we view the matter of health and wellness. For once we become aware of the profound intelligence and brilliance that powers our body-mind system, we develop a newfound respect and deep gratitude for all that our bodies do to keep us alive and functioning.

Since Ayurveda has such power to transform our lives, and has a history of use for over 5,000 years, why isn’t it a more known and common approach to dealing with so many of the ailments that plague society today? Unfortunately, it is a human tendency to assume that what is new and innovative is somehow better or superior to what came before, and that more modern concepts of health and healing hold the key to good health and longevity. But as we can see, this is clearly not the case. In countless ways, both Ayurveda and Chinese medicine understood how to provide an explanation for the seemingly most complex, mysterious and intricate of health conditions that afflicted patients mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually, in a way that modern science has yet to understand (or is slowly catching up to). Perhaps what makes these ancient systems superior in many ways is their ability to perceive what our five senses can not perceive, and recognise the many subtle layers of energy and vibration that make up our existence and build the foundations of our health.

Ayurveda understands that we are energy beings as much as we are human beings, for after all, everything in the universe is composed of energy and sound, and everything requires energy to sustain itself, and if that flow or pattern of energy is even in the slightest bit disturbed or disrupted, imbalance can arise, and if left unattended to, eventually develop into expressions of poor health and disease. It is the understanding of these subtle layers of energy that surround our body that make up our existence that enables an Ayurvedic practitioner to get to the root of health disturbances that our modern day healthcare professionals struggle to find permanent resolutions to. An Ayurvedic practitioner will take your pulse, examine the quality of your hair, skin, nails and eyes, ask you a series of questions and quickly come to a conclusion of what it is within your constitution that isn’t quite functioning as it should. As well as this, they will often inquire of your environment, relationships, work situation, and your general emotional and mental wellbeing to establish a sense of who you are as an individual, and what it is you require as an individual to return to a state of wellbeing. In other words, an Ayurvedic practitioner will attune themselves to whomever they treat, and devise a plan of action that will serve this person’s particular physical-mental-emotional constitution.

We could pull every last strand of our hair out attempting to get to the root of our health imbalances by opting for the traditional western approach of doing blood tests, stool tests, SIBO diets, GAPS diets, gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free diets, or trying palo, macrobiotic, low FODMAP methods, and whilst all of these methods certainly play a role in assisting us correct imbalances presenting themselves, ultimately many of these methods won’t bring us any closer to healing the underlying issues as long as we dance around the deeper emotional aspects at play. This is where the holistic view of Ayurveda comes into play. The true solution to health is to live in harmony and alignment with our nature by creating a routine, and adopting a diet and healing, cleansing practises that are correct for our particular constitutional needs. We have reached a stage in our evolution where we are ready to embrace a system that acknowledges and treats all facets of our being in order for true equilibrium to prevail. Ayurveda is a system rich with profound healing wisdom and the understanding of how inherently complex we are as unique individuals, and at the same time, so simple in its principles and guidance, that I have no doubts that once applied to our everyday way of being, miraculous changes begin to unfold in our expression of health and quality of life.

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