Benefits of Ayurveda

7 Benefits of Ayurveda

Quality of Life is fundamentally about living in a state of health, happiness, security and peace. As we age,particularly after we cross the ages 30 and 40, certain aspects of our health start to diminish: sexual vigour, stamina, endurance, physical strength,mobility, flexibility, athletic skills, memory, vision and other aspects of life. We may develop or start to notice aches and pains that weren’t there before and we gradually accept them as “normal” and just part of “getting old”.Ayurveda offers us tools to counteract the aging process, slow it down, and maintain mobility, flexibility, and a pain-free body even as we age. At its core, Ayurveda is about maintaining a good quality of life into old age.

Here we discuss the seven benefits of Ayurveda as a way of life. The 7 benefits cited below may also be the results of Ayurvedic treatment; however, there is a subtle difference between Ayurvedic treatment and Ayurveda as a way life.

• Ayurvedic treatment, such as Panchakarma (detoxification), is periodic and time-bound in nature,i.e. you might elect to undergo Panchakarma once a year or every two years, as your time and budget permit.
• Ayurveda as a way of life is not time-bound. It is continual and evolving. It is something that becomes more and more part of your everyday life. It is a well-spring of knowledge that can never be exhausted or fully implemented in your life. It requires you to observe yourself, change your diet, manage your indiscretions, adopt new habits and dispense with old ones. It is about making incremental improvements to your lifestyle.

Let’s dive into the seven benefits of Ayurveda as a lifestyle.

1. Efficiency

Efficiency may also be called “lifestyle optimization”, which is about getting the most out of your daily life:utilizing your time better; doing the right things at the right time; becoming more productive; identifying self-sabotaging behaviour and making adjustments;and introducing incremental improvements to our lifestyle through, for example,adopting one new positive habit a month.

If you desire to get more out of life and become more efficient and productive, Ayurveda offers a number of pointed tips and prescriptions.For example, limiting your intake of food to two solids meals a day (with no snacking between meals) could be a great way to maintain your ideal weight without resorting calorie counting or an austere diet.Similarly, the habit of rising at dawn and going for an early morning walk is a great way to align the body’s digestive fire with the energy of the sun. Like these, Ayurveda offers countless tips and tools for becoming more efficient in our daily activities and improving the body’s efficiency also.

2. Better Diet

Ayurveda can teach us how to eat better: the right times to eat; the right foods for our body type; the right combinations of foods; and what foods to eat to address certain ailments or health objectives. The Hippocratic dictum, "Let food be thy medicine and let medicine be thy food", is entirely consistent with Ayurvedic tradition and thought.

The bottom line is: "If we can eat better, we will have more energy to do the things we need to do."

3. Better Sleep

As we get older, many of us tend to lose sleep.We tend to lose sleep due to chronic stress, wrong feeding habits, too much caffeine, taking caffeine at the wrong time, false beliefs, imbalances in the body, and other reasons. Ayurveda can help us to identify the things that are impediments to good sleep.

Ayurveda also offers certain medicines, home remedies, and lifestyle tips that can enable us to take back control of our sleep. It may take time and nothing happens overnight, but if you truly want better sleep without getting hooked on sleeping pills, Ayurveda offers sustainable and healthy solutions.

The bottom line is: "If we can sleep better, we can be more healthy and productive in our day-to-day lives."

4. Better Exercise

As we get older, exercise becomes more and more challenging. It becomes harder to lose weight. It becomes harder to maintain our stamina and do cardio for as long as we used to do.It becomes harder to devote time for exercise as our commitments grow. And if we are fortunate to achieve material success, secure that dream job, make crazy amounts of money, and/or secure that dream partner and dream relationship, we sometimes lose motivation to exercise because we have everything we want or we have other things making us happy.

Our health is dependent not only on how much we exercise, but how regularly and consistently we exercise. Our brain needs it and the body needs it. And because it is so important, we need to get better at it. We need to get more efficient at exercise by exercising at the right times and in the right ways for our body type. This is where Ayurveda can help us: to exercise more efficiently and to adopt the right forms of exercise for our mind-body constitution, i.e. our dosha type.

The bottom line is: "If we can exercise better, we will prolong youthfulness and mitigate the effects of the aging process."

5. Detoxification

As already explained, toxins are the root cause of disease according to Ayurveda. Therefore, detoxification is extremely important for maintaining good health. Ayurveda tells us that the body has certain in-built mechanisms that perform detoxification on a daily basis,naturally and often unconsciously. However, there are things that we can do to support our body's natural detoxification mechanisms, such as going to sleep before 10 pm and performing certain breathing exercises.

Ayurveda offers certain systems and routines to help us detoxify on a daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal and annual basis. One of these systems is called Panchakarma, a structured 21-day detox that involves special massages, blood purifying remedies, medicated enemas, ghee drinking,induced diarrhea and many other treatments.

The bottom line is: "If we detox regularly, our body will be better able to prevent disease, resist viruses, and heal from sickness."

6. Pain Relief

Pain is an unavoidable and often inconvenient reality of life. As much as we don't like it, we will have to deal with it. In dealing with it, we have essentially two choices: we can rely on others to treat our pain or we can adopt an Ayurvedic approach to pain management. There are four broad approaches to pain management in Ayurveda: massage, yoga, diet,and detoxification.

While everyone loves a good massage, Ayurveda emphasizes the importance of self-massage on a daily basis if possible. This is not to say that you should not go to a massage therapist or a physiotherapist or a chiropractor to help you overcome pain, especially if it is chronic or acute.

However, Ayurveda teaches us that no one can know your body and heal your body better than you. Therefore, you can develop the ability to massage yourself, particularly in the areas where you can reach and which may be prone to stiffness, pain or discomfort.

Apart from self-massage, there are various herbal remedies, home remedies, supplements and decoctions in Ayurveda that enable us to manage pain and there are certain lifestyle injunctions that we can follow to prevent pain.

Yoga is also a critical component of self-care in Ayurveda. It is also a tool to manage, mitigate and eliminate pain. If you go to an Ayurveda resort and assuming it is the right resort, you will have the opportunity to learn yoga exercises and breathing techniques that will help you to manage and alleviate body pains. Yoga and Ayurveda are sister sciences. They reinforce each other. And yoga is absolutely indispensable in sustaining the benefits of Ayurvedic treatment, especially where pain management is concerned.

The bottom line is: "if we can learn to manage and mitigate pain on our own, we will not only save money but also, we will feel a sense of empowerment and independence, and we will enjoy a better quality of life."

7. Curing the Incurable

Many people are told that there is no cure for their condition. Many are told that they will have to live with a certain ailment for life and/or manage it through medication. In my case, I was told that I would need to see a chiropractor for the rest of my life, in order to manage my back pain and keep my spine in optimal health. This after having had two back surgeries already!

The reality is that someone else's prognosis of your condition does not have to become your reality. If you believe there is a cure and you are determined to find it, you can. The history of Ayurveda is replete with stories of people who have been miraculously healed from debilitating conditions and terminal illnesses, including cancer and auto-immune diseases. This is not to say that Ayurveda can cure each and every instance of cancer. The ability to recover from a serious illness depends not just on the doctor, the medicines and the course of treatment, but also, on the mindset, attitude, and cooperation of the patient. Very often, a healing must take place in the heart and mind before it can take place in the body.

But putting philosophy aside, I would like to emphasize two things: (1) never lose hope in finding a solution to your ailment, and (2) never let a doctor or anyone else tell you there is no cure.Whether you decide to pursue Ayurvedic treatment or not, whether you decide to adopt an Ayurveda lifestyle or not, is not nearly as important as your psychology and your attitude in facing any disease. Never lose hope in the possibility of a cure and a complete healing.

We, of course, hope that you will consider adopting Ayurvedic treatment and try Panchakarma at least once in your life. If and when you are ready to visit an Ayurveda resort, we do hope that you will consider Ayurooms. We stand ready to help you find the right resort for your particular health needs, time availability and budget. Book a free consultation today.

Aly Alidina

Yogi-in-Chief

Ayurooms Founder