What is Ayurveda?

In Ayurveda, health is defined as the balance between mind, body, and environment. This includes your diet, lifestyle, exercise, and today more than ever, your stress management. Too often we look to just one of these areas to regain our health.

The road to Creating Perfect Health requires balance. The simplicity of Ayurveda (pronounced eye-your-VAY-duh) is that it focuses on the cause of the imbalance and sees you as an individual instead of treating a symptom or dis-ease.

Ayurveda is all about YOU!

With more than 28 years in the health care field I understand that too often the recommendations for improved health are based on the generic. What works for one clearly does not work for all!  We are beings of nature and once we understand who we are we can use nature to get and stay healthy and in balance. 

Thousands of years before modern medicine provided scientific evidence for the mind-body connection, the sages of India developed Ayurveda. Thanks to the works of Dr. Deepak Chopra it continues to be one of the worlds most sophisticated and powerful mind-body health systems. More than a mere system of treating illness, Ayurveda literally translates to “knowledge of life”.  (Ayur=life, Veda=science of knowledge). It is designed to help people stay vibrant and healthy while realizing their full human potential.

By now we know that there can be no health reform until there is self-reform. Freedom from illness depends upon expanding our own awareness, bringing it into balance, and then extending that balance to the body. This process isn’t as complicated as it may sound.

The first step is to have a basic understanding of your unique mind-body type. With some simple solutions, it is possible for each of us to maintain a vital and joyful state of health by identifying our mind-body type and then creating a lifestyle that sustains and nurtures our unique nature.

Here are some principles of Ayurveda that give you Simplistic Solutions that help you Create your Perfect Health.

1.) Eat from the colors of the rainbow. Ideal nutrition comes from consuming a variety of fresh foods that are appropriately prepared and eaten with awareness. Eating from the colors is simple way to make sure and your family is getting a balance of nutrients.

2.) Each meal dine from each of the six vital tastes. A simple way to make sure that you are getting a balanced diet is to include the six Ayurvedic tastes (sweet, salty, sour, pungent, bitter, and astringent) in each meal.

3.) Get abundant restful sleep. During sleep, our body repairs and rejuvenates itself. A lack of restful sleep disrupts the body’s innate balance, weakens our immune system, and speeds up the aging process.

4.) Sit down when eating. Don’t eat in front of the computer, TV or when you’re driving.

5.) Don’t drink ice cold beverages with your meals.

6.) Practice some form of exercise regularly.

7.) Minimize raw foods.  They are much harder to digest than cooked ones.

8.) Dine at a moderate pace. Don’t gulp down your food or eat too slowly.

9.) Spend time in nature regularly.

10.) Take it easy! The Ayurvedic approach is about aligning with the infinite organizing power of nature rather than struggling or trying to force things to go your way.