Wellness Digest

Ayurveda is an ancient traditional medicine system that originates from India. It is more like a lifestyle and covers all aspects of health from nutrition and surgery even. It is possible for anyone, once they have obtained a good all round understanding about Ayurveda, to introduce Ayurvedic principles into their life and they will find that they are able to gain great benefits from doing so.

The main aim of Ayurveda is prevention. The old ancients texts tell us that humans should be able to live to be about 100 years old and that all of these years should be lived in good health, both physically and mentally. Ayurveda does not accept that getting old equals a failing health and a poor quality of life as we do here in the West.

There is an overlying emphasis on trying to achieve a positive and equal balance between mind and body. Ayurvedic practitioners will often strive to find health issues which may just be in their early stages and try to deal with them before they get more serious. In all, Ayurveda seeks to take a preventative stance when it comes to diseases, both physical and mental.

In Ayurveda, the types of treatments may be things like herbal preparations to be taken orally. Often, an Ayurvedic doctor will advise that you change your diet as well. There is also a great focus on stress relaxation and Ayurveda can involve some deeply relaxing massage techniques.

The philosophy behind Ayurveda is quite complex and it can take some would be practitioners many years before they can fully grasp and even appreciate it all.

Practitioners of Ayurveda knew about the concepts of atomic physics thousands of years ago; they even knew that that atom was divisible.

In fact Ayurvedic teachings state that each atom is made up of five elements:

- its weight comes from earth

- its cohesion comes from watcxer

- its energy comes from fire

- its motion comes from air

- the spaces between the particles are made of ether

And so, in this way, in Ayurveda, the entire human body is comprised of these same five elements. An excess of one or more of these could throw the body into imbalance and in doing so lead to illness.

Over time, Ayurveda came up with three bio-energies or "doshas" which are effectively combinations of these five elements. An example would be "pitta" which comes from fire and a little water, or "vata" which comes from a combination of ether and air. The ideal would be to have all of the three doshas in perfect harmony and in balance with each other. However, the reality is that this is rarely the case. Ayurvedic medicine is focussed on balancing the "doshas" so as to restore health.

It is usually the case that we have one or more doshas out of balance.

Even so, there is no typical Ayurvedic session and methods of diagnosis and types and variations of treatments will differ from practitioner to practitioner.