This medical system has been used for thousands of years in India, and has recently gained popularity in the United States through lecturer and best- selling author Deepak Chopra.
Ayurveda the science of life, and this practice uses various modalities. such as herbs, diet, exercise, aromatherapy, and massage, to overcome sickness and enhance well-being.
Disease is treated as an imbalance of the elements earth air, fire, and water), and specific recommendations are made according to an individual’s constitution.
Individuals are classified into one of three types: pitta, vata, and kapha. Pitta types tend to be excessively hot vata types tend to be restless, and kapha types tend to be lethargic.
Getting well is a matter of correcting imbalances in these types.More than a medicine, Ayurveda is a knowledge about how to live correctly for optimal health and longevity.
Patient Stories
Lavonn on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and fihromyalgia
I had been seeing doctors for about seven years and they had yet to diagnose me according to their tests.
Everything is by tests. If they can find a test to diagnose you, then that’s what you have. Diagnosis was a long process.
There was a six-week wait here, and a six-week wait there. I was going down and had to sell my business. I couldn’t work anymore and I felt that the doctors werelooking at me as if I was nuts.
In fact one prescribed Prozac. Needless to say, I was depressed, because at one time I had worked 70 hours a week with my business and now I could hardly take a shower and get dressed in less than a couple of hours.
I was in the bookstore one day looking at the health books when I came upon Perfect Health by Dr. Chopra.
I read through it and thought that it sounded very interesting. I tried one of the recommendations boiling ginger root, and found that it helped clear out mucus. I wondered what more Ayurveda could do for me. Three to four months later, I went to their clinic in Lancaster, PA.
It’s a very interesting program that involves cleansing toxins that build up in the body and cause illness after many years. The system is guided by the seasons and the time of day. It works through natural processes rather than a lot of pills.My father was ill at the same time. By the time he passed away he was on $500 of medication a month.
I felt that I did not want to go down that road.
I really feel your physician needs to be behind you 100 percent. And I found that this was very true with Ayurvedic medicine.
When I arrived home from Lancaster, I started seeing some differences within two months. Four months later, I went down to Fairfield, Iowa, and went to the clinic there for another week.
They recommend you do it twice a year, but the first year I needed to go three times.The whole idea of Ayurvedic revolves around the digestive system. If the digestive system is not working, the body gets ill.
This is yen‘ important. What nourishment you put in your body is vital. Schedule is very important, and the main meal should be eaten between eleven and mo.The first thing I learned about was meditation, and that has been very helpful.
The mind is a positive force you need in your life because what you think about comes about. This is where the medical doctors have been so wonderful.They prescribe many combinations of Indian herbs.
I eat fresh basil leaves three times a day and that is helping to balance the body. Licorice powder and ginger root boiled together takes care of a lot of the mucus too. Before doing this,
I was using aloe vera, which I also recommend highly.Ayurveda works on balancing the elements or doshas in the body.
Once they get balanced, you get well. They don’t really like to talk about the fibrosisor fibromyalgia because these are just symptoms in the body.
The doctors are very supportive and call to check on me. I never had that with my regular M.D. It’s a wonderful program. I could not say anything more positive.
Bema on maximizing energy
I was a competitive athlete in college and I wanted to continue playing basketball and soccer, and weight lifting.
Of course. working full-time in New York, it takes a lot of energy to continue sports. I have been a vegetarian since 1970 and have studied meditation since that time as well.
This goes right along with my interest in natural foods and meditation. It has given me a lot more energy to pursue sports.
I’m not sick, but I use it for my training. The therapy consists mainly of herbs and natural foods. You go to an Ayurvedic store and you get the proper herbs from the people there. They try to balance you depending on your constitution. That’s what I did.
I went for an interview where they questioned me about the different foods I eat. My energy, and other things. Then they would prescribe depending upon my nature.
The herbs they gave me really increased my energy level, which I put into sports as well as my work day.
Matt on psoriasis
I had a severe case that began in I987 and peaked in I990. Ninety-nine percent of my body was covered.
There were not too many places that were not. What wasn’t red and inflamed was white and flaky and falling off.
I couldn’t even sleep at night. I went to western doctors, and they told me it was incurable. Then I went to an Ayurvedic doctor.
I was introduced to him through a friend who was a registered nurse. According to Ayurveda, just about anything is curable. It’s just an imbalance somewhere in the system.
So I opted for the system of medicine that said it was curable. And it worked!Ayurveda just nicely said, it’s toxins coming out of the body. They can’t find any other way out.
Ayurveda is very big on proper digestion and proper elimination. They recommended a specific diet for me, a specific exercise program, and a cleansing program.
I grew up on a very tough meat diet—meat and potatoes, meat and fries, you name it. I don’t think I touched a vegetable until my mid-20’s. Then I started transcendental meditation.
It took me I0 years but I slowly became vegetarian. Today, I don’t eat any meat at all. Apparently, for my particular constitution, it was a blessing. I couldn’t digest the things that were in that meat, and that was coming out through the skin.
I weaned off meat to fish and turkey for a couple of years, and then less and less of that.
Also, according to Ayurveda, there are three particular doshas, or predominant qualities in the body.
And that is pitta, vata, and kapha. I was diagnosed with a particular tendency toward one of those called pitta, which is hot and moist. So, I should stay away from those foods.
No salsa, no onions. no garlic—nothing that would inflame the internal because that was being reflected through the external, through the skin. . . . And if you buy into the concept that what comes in has to eventually come out, I was then.
Through Ayurveda, put on this road of taking in less and less that was bad for me. I was going through purification techniques as well.
I literally woke up one day and 80 percent of it was gone. As quickly as it came, it left. It was amazing.
Nobody has to sell me in Ayurveda. I’m a firm believer in it.
Hubbard on chronic sickness
I tried a number of other approaches. I did acupuncture and I also tried Western medicine.
They couldn’t find anything wrong with me and it was very frustrating. I had horrible hay fever.
Nothing was life-threatening, but I had one cold after the next. Six months out of the year I was sick.
I didn’t know what it was, only that I felt lousy and that I couldn’t do anything for it. A friend of mine went to the Raj in Fairfield, Iowa, and had had miraculous results.
His cholesterol dropped 50 points in seven days. He told me to go and I was so desperate that I did.It’s truly amazing. As I said, I tried all these other ways of going and nothing has helped like this.
I have not been sick once in two years. It is such a restful experience.I have changed my diet a little bit, but not as much as some other people. $0, I really think it depends on the person.
But what I can say is that this technique works. I learned about cycles of rest and activity. I used to live in New York City, where I was a night bird who would stay up all night long.
I would paint and work all the time. Now I go to bed before ten. For my physiology, it’s really important that I get sleep. I also meditate, which I never did before. And I eat my biggest meal of the day at noon because it’s when the digestion is the strongest.
I would say that everyone should start with where they are at. You make the adjustments slowly.
The whole philosophy is to be gentle and to do it in your own time. It’s not at all a rigid thing.What they do is they unblock.
They feel the reason you get sick is that things get blocked up. They give you massages. You lie on these tables.
The temperature in the room is body temperature. If you are a woman you will have two women working on you.
You are massaged with warm sesame oil. And it’s all done in silence. I think a combination of going there, changing your diet a little bit, taking some supplements, and just living a natural life, exercising, and getting enough sleep, can make a difference.
It’s not all that difficult or demanding. It’s really quite a natural process.Sharon on Epstein-Baw virus and menstrual pain I was getting sick every two weeks when I found out that I had the Epstein- Barr virus.
I also had severe menstrual problems. Conventional medicine did not help.
I even went for a laparoscopy just to determine what was causing all of this. Nothing was found. I also had irritable bowel syndrome.All this led me to seek out alternative ways of healing.
I discovered Ayurveda at a health fair and started taking one of the formulas, which helped me a great deal.
That led me to find Dr. Chopra’s book. As I read it, the whole concept made a lot of sense to me. So I decided to go to the school and become a practitioner.
I have seen tremendous success, not only with myself, but with a lot of my clients and family members and friends.I used to eat raw broccoli and cauliflower. but I learned through Ayurveda that this was the worst thing for me because I’m a vata type, an air type, and this increases air.
I realized that if l only knew how to cook these vegetables. using various digestive spices and herbs it would be a lot easier on my digestive system. Cardamom, ginger coriander fennel: These are all things that I have learned to cook with that basically help mv digestive system to work a lot better.Epstein-Barr is basically related to a very stressful life.
That’s where meditation helped me a lot. It brings the body into focus and helps calm the mind down. It keeps you in touch with the higher self.
If you just take the time to meditate, two times a day 15 to 20 minutes, it is very beneficial, as isyoga, massage, and aromatherapy.
David on maintaining nervous system balance
There are a lot of different things you can do in your daily routine to help keep your nervous system in balance.
They include keeping regular hours in terms of when you eat, when you get to sleep and when you get up in the morning. When I get up in the morning. I have a routine that I follow.
In terms of the Ayurvedic practices one thing I do every morning is an oil massage. Usually it lasts for about five to ten minutes.
This is a routine that I learned the first time that I went to the Ayurvedic clinic.
I also take an herb called amrit kalash, which is free radical scavenger.I probably would be a lot more stressed if I didn’t meditate. That I do every single day, twice a day.
It is part of my Ayurvedic routine in terms of preventive medicine. I am not someone who has any particular illnesses.
I have some minor things that bother me occasionally but overall, I would consider myself a very healthy person, and I would like to stay that way.
The way I look at it is that there are a lot of things that one can do to preserve one’s health, and Ayurveda is one of those things. It’s an ongoing process.