Hello Friend!
I’m finally returning to incorporating Ayurveda into my life again, and it’s honestly been so nice! So today, I figured I would cover a bit of my journey with Ayurveda, especially recently, and give an intro to this science for those new to Ayurveda.
My Journey With Ayurveda
When I was deeply living Yoga back in 2021, Ayurveda became a core pillar of my life. I knew for my best health, implementing Yoga and Ayurveda in my life, as sister philosophies, would make a tremendous impact on my mind, spirituality, and physical body. I was by no means a cook, but I made the effort every day to eat an Ayurvedic breakfast at minimum, if not also a simple khichuri or other Ayurvedic meal for lunch/dinner. I was mindful of the effect of my food on my doshas, and I was pretty consistent about a schedule that aligned with Dinacharya.
However, over time, that had faded. I never fully grasped the Ayurvedic lifestyle to the point it seamlessly integrated into my life, so as I increased my commitments, I didn’t have the mental energy to sit and think about how to follow Ayurvedic practices on a daily basis. After starting my full-time job and settling into life with my partner, I decided it was finally time for me to shift back into living Ayurvedically, for the benefit of my mind, my spirituality, and my health.
The more I started consciously incorporating Ayurveda into my life, the more acutely aware I was when I deviated from the Ayurvedic lifestyle, which started to highlight something quite problematic for me - if it wasn’t the right time to consume a certain food or if it wasn’t the recommended time to go move my body, I would choose not to do it and end up just not doing it that day… which would repeat the day after, and the day after, and the day after.
Essentially, I had started viewing the Ayurvedic lifestyle as rigid rules to never break rather than guidelines/recommendations for a healthy life. What resulted is that for many days in a row, I missed out on essential parts of an Ayurvedic lifestyle - daily movement, mindfully consuming food - which meant I was causing my body more harm than good!
So, ironically, trying to never break a “rule” ended up going against the very principles of Ayurveda because the Ayurvedic lifestyle is centered on living intentionally and making choices around food and mental+physical activity to be most beneficial for you; hence, if my schedule isn’t aligning well for Dinacharya or my meals are stacking up in a way that doesn’t align with Ayurveda, I still have to ask the question “what will my body appreciate more?”
I can assure you, movement later in the day is more appreciated by your body than no movement at all; in fact, you can move later in the day and then follow it by taking a nice, relaxing shower, drinking a warm cup of tea, and just doing activities that help you wind down a little extra to help realign your energy with the slowing down energy of the evening. Or if you’re eating a non-Ayurvedic meal, be extra mindful and positive as you prepare/eat the food, so those layers of eating are aligned with Ayurveda even if the physical food itself isn’t. Ayurveda gives you the tools to allow you to deviate from the ideal lifestyle and still return to balance afterwards.
So, living Ayurvedically doesn’t have to be black and white because honestly, that can be really hard to do. What’s more important is how you incorporate your learnings from Ayurveda to still live as in-alignment as possible no matter how life looks on any given day.
Intro to Ayurveda
Ayurveda is a science of human constitution, incorporating one’s intrinsic nature and temperament, physical health, lifestyle, and living environment. Like Yoga, Ayurveda takes a holistic approach to health, recognizing how your mental and spiritual health play into the physical manifestations in your body and vice versa.
To determine the state of one's health, Ayurveda uses this notion of doshas, or “three energies that circulate in the body and govern physiological activity”. Each dosha is associated with different sets of dominant elements within the body - Pitta is associated with fire and water, Kapha with water and earth, and Vata with air and space/ether. The time of day, the season, and the food/media consumed all can aggravate or pacify the different doshas in your body, either bringing you more into balance or causing problems for your body and mental health.
Ayurveda also has this concept of Dinacharya, which is the ideal daily routine for maintaining physical health and physiological balance. Since the time of day plays a role on your dosha balance, Dinacharya outlines a routine that aligns activities with the time of day to best keep your doshas in balance. Each activity has a purpose, whether it’s movement or cleansing or working or eating, and it’s intended to be followed in a mindful manner with other Ayurvedic practices to best serve your health and spirituality.
Hence, an Ayurvedic lifestyle entails living a life where the activities you do, the time you do them, how you do them, and where you do them are all consciously aligned to balance your doshas and maintain your physiological health. Because it's so tied to lifestyle, Ayurvedic medicine focuses on the prevention of problems within your body/mind and the slow treatment of existing problems in a way that gets rid of the root cause rather than the symptoms.
Conclusion
As I continue to incorporate Ayurvedic principles in my life now, I’m far more conscious of the intention behind my choices. I’m grateful for my choice to live intentionally because it showed me how my rigid views of Ayurveda took me further from the philosophy rather than closer to it, allowing me to shift my mindset and lifestyle to better serve my higher self.
I’m hoping to do a series on Ayurveda the more I learn about it and live it, so I hope you liked this first dip into this incredible philosophy and science. The more I dive into it, the more it blows my mind, so I’m really excited to share this with all of you!
Lots of love,
Shreya
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