|
Ayurveda: Two Simple Tips for Optimizing Your Health and Well Being
Ayurveda is a system of health and well being that puts taking charge of your own health into your own hands. Through the use of herbs and spices, fresh organic food, appropriate exercise, and a sensible daily routine you can begin a path of self-improved health and well-being. Here are two very simple concepts that work... the trick is to put them into practice!
Daily Routine: “Early to bed and early to rise makes man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
I grew up hearing this quaint saying from my Grandmother. Imagine my surprise to one day 50 years later hear teachers Vaidya Dr. Rama Kant Mishra and Dr. Vasant Lad, both Doctors of Ayurveda, cite the same proverbial wisdom as rooted in Ayurveda.
In order to understand how this concept relates to health according to Ayurveda, one must begin by looking at nature’s flow of energy cycles within each day: from the breaking of the cool and introspective dawn, to the heat of the high noon sun, to the cycling down and settling in of eventide. Driving this cycle are three primary kinds of energy: (1) cooling, fast and transitional, (2) heating, moderate and digestive, and (3) warm, slow and stable. It makes sense that since we are part of nature we should try to align our daily activities with these natural rhythms, ebbs and flows as much as possible.
The time period just before dawn is the energy cycle of transition. This period is characterized by mental and creative energy. In Ayurveda this kind of energy is called Vata. Early morning is a good time to rise from bed because we connect with and can benefit from this time of introspective mental and creative energy. Many writers prefer early morning as a creative writing time. Many people who meditate consider this a perfect time for deep spiritual connection and growth. Another phrase one might use here is “the early bird gets the worm.”
Energetically it is simply a good time to get up, to make the transition from sleep to awake. And, it is a good time to begin connecting with whatever it is one wants to get done for the day whether it is writing, meditating, organizing and preparing, or putting things in order. It is a get ready time where you can ‘catch the train’ of your thoughts, your desires, your aspirations and set them in motion with very little effort that will carry throughout the day. Our natural energy and nature support us to do this during this time. When we sleep through this time period we loose our opportunity to harvest our inner nature and all the energy of nature around us which is in synchrony with these qualities.
We maintain our health when we comply with our natural energies. We compromise our health when we do things out of the natural order. Getting up later, at 8 am for example, is actually harder to do (contrary to the belief that doing so gives us extra sleep benefits). It is a totally different energy cycle. The result of late sleeping usually leads to feeling more sluggish and fuzzy headed, and to the use of coffee to wake up.
Once the sun has risen the energy of nature begins to slow down, stabilizes, and becomes more grounded. This time period, between 6 and 10 (am and pm) is characterized by Kapha qualities: slow, heavy, sluggish and sleepy. Have you ever noticed how you have deep intense dreams and feel hung over if you sleep between 7 and 9 am? (I have!) If you wait to get up until this time you have already missed your opportunity for health, wealth and wisdom. Or, at least it will be that much harder.
Why early to bed? Nature's next cycle is the Pitta cycle. This is the hot, churning, digestive, metabolic cycle. The time frame is roughly between 10 and 2 (am and pm). The best time to go to bed is before 10 pm, during Kapha time, before Pitta time sets in. The Kapha cycle of nature is a natural time for slowing down.
By waiting until Pitta has become active before settling down for sleep you may find your sleep is disrupted by disturbing dreams or thoughts about work and things you need to get done – literally churning things over in your mind. You may experience waking up frequently and possibly find it hard to get back to sleep. One thing you can do to help yourself is to go to bed during the natural sleep cycle – when your own energy will support you in letting go of the day and surrendering to the call of sleep - that means before 10 pm.
Many times it is difficult to follow the natural energy. The stress of meeting an artificial cultural cycle of activity can be difficult to ignore. Our cultural timetables are not synchronized with nature! To say no to the many possible scenarios that will keep you from following this simple routine requires making a conscious choice and following through on it. Perhaps give yourself a week to try it out and notice subtle or more obvious changes in your energy, how you feel, think and perform.
Throughout this article you have repeatedly bumped into three Ayurvedic terms: Vata, Pitta and Kapha. These terms have a dominant role in Ayurvedic literature. Ayurveda, the study of life, discovered thousands of years ago that we carry all the same energetic qualities as nature. They also learned that each of us carries a dominant energy. Knowing which dominant energy you carry (Vata, Pitta or Kapha) can take you a long way toward understanding imbalances (dosha) in your health, energy, or spirit that may show up from time to time. It can give you knowledge about how to understand and manage an imbalance. More than that, it can be a powerful preventative approach to supporting your own health
Dosha means imbalance. It means that one of the three primary energy forms is dominant in your physical and mental being. This is set at birth, you are born with it, and it defines your constitutional type. If you know your type, your dominant dosha, you can adjust your life style and routine, as well as diet, more accurately and in a more customized way. Ayurveda is all about customized health care! Understanding how these energies become aggravated and how to bring them into greater balance is a large part of the study and benefits that Ayurveda can give us. Through understanding your own imbalances, Ayurveda offers an opportunity to actively customize a self-health care plan that is suited to your particular needs. It puts the ability to manage many practical aspects of your own health and well being into your own hands.
This article is presented as a beginning step to understanding Ayurveda and the role of daily routine as a support for your health.
Eat When you are hungry - don’t eat when you’re not! This second common sense tip to health care is rooted in understanding the qualities of nature’s cycles.
As described above, each cycle contains certain qualities. Vatta is cooling, fast and transitional, Kapha is warm, slow, and stable, and Pitta is hot, moderate, and digesting.
The most suitable (health supporting) time to eat is during Pitta time, usually 12 - 12:30 pm is best. This is a time when our digestive juices (agni) become activated and heat up, ready to cook and process food that we ingest. At this time nature’s gastric juices begin to churn and signal that it is waiting and ready to begin the process of digestion. When we ignore this signal we disrupt out innate intelligence and a process of dis-ease sets in.
When nature’s Pitta cycle kicks in we should feel hungry. However, because many times our cultural schedule requires us to eat when we are not hungry (from not eating all, to an eat-and-run approach, or multi-tasking eating, or to a heavy late evening meal), we may not experience hunger at all at this time. If this is true for you, then you may want to reassess your eating schedule. You can re-educate, re-activate, your digestive cycle to bring it more in tune with nature’s cycle. This will support the digestive process. And, your body will get the most benefit from the nutrients you supply to it.
Re-educate your digestive system by purposefully planning to eat during the Pitta cycle. High Noon is the peak time for eating the best meal of the day. A best meal of the day is when you eat your largest and most nutritional portion of food. Very quickly you will find your natural digestive intelligence will respond to this timing.
Give yourself time to eat and time to digest. Again, our fast paced schedules often require us to eat and run. Pitta is not fast. It is moderate. It takes time to digest. So, plan to give yourself about ten minutes after eating to just sit and allow your digestive system to get well underway before running to your next meeting or task.
If you wait all day to eat, you will feel hungry later in the day. This leads to eating heavy meals late at night. This kind of hunger is a result of starving and depriving your inner nature from its natural high noon digestive cycle. And when we mess with Mother Nature, we suffer the consequences. Not only does it confuse your natural digestive timetable, it will cause your body to be in the process of digesting late at night when your body is ready to slow down and unable to utilize the food efficiently. Eating late at night will most assuredly lead to difficult sleep and other difficulties in the long run.
When we eat when we are not hungry - that is, when we eat when we can rather than when we feel hungry, our system is not activated. It is cool and/or sluggish and not ready to digest. Ayurveda views the effects of eating when we are not hungry as a source of many ailments. Food eaten when you are not hungry remains unused. Like food that has been left to sit out it begins a process of decay creating toxins (ama) that get stored in various locations in our bodies. These toxins lead to many different kinds of ailments.
In Ayurveda, when we have stored toxins in our system, we must also begin a process of detox as well as realigning ourselves to natures’ cycles and qualities. This does not mean running out to the store and buying a detox program. It means mindful daily attention to what we eat and when we eat. What we eat is also important and what you eat will depend on your particular dosha (imbalance).
Many times we may need to add specific herbs and spices to our diet to assist the body in supporting our natural processes and releasing stored toxins. The use of specific herbs, spices and foods is the science of the Ayurvedic approach to health care and maintenance. Your specific approach to managing a toxic situation is best determined with the help of an Ayurvedic Practitioner or Consultant - someone who is specialized in the effects of specific herbs, foods and spices.
Here is a general, sensible Ayurvedic guideline for timing and getting the most nutritional value from your food and help from Mother Nature:
Kapha: 6-10 am: heavy and sluggish time - eat light, easily digested foods
Pitta: 10 am - 2 m - sun is the hottest: eat heaviest meal of the day,
protein
Vata: 2 - 5 pm - cool, transitional - eat light, easily digested food,
This is a general guideline for optimum self-health support. Again, Ayurveda is a customized health care approach and depending on your particular dosha (imbalance) you will want to customize this to some degree by choosing foods, herbs and spices that will be more balancing for you.
Written by Dianne Mekelburg |
