More About Ayurveda

I've discussed my Ayurvedic experiences thus far in other posts, but I'll try and condense it here for those of you that don't read my blog regularly.  (Although you should!).

Ayurveda is defined in the dictionary as the ancient Hindu science of health and medicine.  Started over 5000 years ago in India and currently practiced there, it is slowly starting to catch on in the United States.  According to Ayurveda, there are 3 doshas within the body that make up our constitution - vata, pitta, and kapha.  Each must be balanced to have good health, and an imbalance causes illness.

When I had my Ayurvedic consultation last month, I was told I was constitutionally pitta with a vata imbalance.  The vata imbalance is caused by years of traveling, which aggravates vata.  The Ayurvedic doctor prescribed several things for me, most of which are a huge challenge to the western lifestyle.  Luckily for me, I was doing a lot of these things already.

A panchakarma was recommended, which is a detox program to rev up digestion and balance the doshas.  My panchakarma was a three day series of massage and dietary restrictions.  I wrote about my experience in this entry.  Panchakarma.  And the more positive follow up here.  Panchakarma results. The dietary restrictions were to ease the load on the digestive system, and increase the digestive fire.  It worked, because I was hungry all of the time.  I was used to dietary restrictions from working with the nutritionist last year, so although it was difficult it didn't mess with my head too much.  Unlike the other poor girl who was doing a panchakarma at the same time.  I thought she was going to have a full on mutiny when she was told to stop eating yogurt. (Sour, cold, difficult to digest).

Diet-wise, the Dr. recommended room temperature drinks, mostly vegetarian meals, and cooked food instead of raw.  No yogurt or spicy food.  All of this was to ease the load on my digestive system.  She also recommended meditation, self massage, and yoga.

I was scheduled for two private yoga sessions, the first of which I had yesterday. My intent for this post was to write about the yoga.  Since I've taken up most of the post describing Ayurveda, I will write about yoga in the next post.  Ahh, the dreaded TO BE CONTINUED..........