Before you start reading this article, take a moment to ask yourself some questions. First of all, notice how you are breathing right now. Is your breathing fast? Slow? Shallow? Deep? Agitated? Calm? Also, take a mental note of how your day has gone so far. More specifically, what has been your general state of mind? Have you been rushing around and have your thoughts been scattered and fragmented? Perhaps you have been lazy today and spent most of your time in a mental fog. Have you flip-flopped back and forth between these two polarities? Do you feel like none of these apply to you? If so, you are probably an enlightened being and don’t need to read this article. That is—unless you are just too curious at this point to turn to the next page.
With the holidays come bustling crowds at the mall, warm gatherings that include family and friends, celebrations, music and dance performances, laughter, parties, holiday films, tantalizing food and drink, excited children and more. It is possible for this ‘ho-ho-ho’ spirit to become excessive and lead one to experience the negative aspects of the season: calendars that are over-packed with activities; heavy, sugary foods that stay with us long after the holidays and perhaps excessive spending and debauchery that can lead to lowered immunity, drained bank accounts, stress, anxiety or depression.
Ancient Yogis and Ayurvedic sages observed and wrote about this natural flow of ups and downs and refer to them as the three gunas or energies. Rajas, tamas and sattva are the Sanskrit terms for these energies. Rajas is hyperactivity, tamas is inertia and sattva is a balance between the two. An example of a person in a rajasic state is someone who gets behind you on the road or in a line at a register and pushes you along in a forceful way. A tamasic person is one who is lazy, drinks alcohol regularly and is generally uninterested in life. A sattvic person makes healthy food and beverage choices and is graceful, content, calm, humble, alert and meditative (the type of enlightened being who does not need to read this article!). Although it is natural for these energies to ebb and flow during the day, a conscious soul can cultivate sattva and spend less time in rajasic or tamasic states of mind and body. Sattva may not sound like an exciting way to live your life. Maybe you prefer to live by the “what goes up, must come down” motto. If, however, you would like some ideas on how to get off the roller coaster ride, keep reading.
Get your calendar out right after you finish this article and check to see if you have allotted ‘rest and digest’ time in between holiday festivities. Examples include going to yoga classes (especially restorative yoga), meditating, going for a massage, seeking rejuvenating recreation, spending time in nature, journaling, etc. If you do not see any such activities on your calendar during the months of November and December, plan them right away. Make sure that if your schedule is dependent on spouses and children that you tell them about your appointments with your friends named deep conscious breathing, harmony and sanity.
Eat sattvic foods and reduce or avoid rajasic or tamasic foods. Since eating is something we do everyday multiple times a day, it powerfully determines how we feel from moment to moment. Rajasic foods are acidic, hot, sour, spicy or overly salty. They increase speed and excitement in the body or mind so this includes all stimulants such as coffee, green tea, black tea, white tea, white sugar, chocolate and soda (especially diet). Tamasic foods are dry, fermented, deep-fried, deteriorated, without flavor, microwaved, boxed, canned, frozen (frozen raw is O.K.), rancid or leftover. Heavy meats, alcohol (especially beer), cigarettes and sedating drugs are all tamasic. Sattvic foods are fresh, easy to digest, organic and vitally alive. This includes fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, fresh dairy (local and organic are best), the highest quality meat if you are not vegetarian, herbal teas and water. Rajasic and tamasic foods leave one in an energy deficit. Eating sattvic foods is like putting money in a savings account—it inspires you and makes you feel like you have energy to spare.
This compassionate self-care not only develops sattva, but also promotes a profound and sustained sensation of being a whole person. There are a couple more Sanskrit terms to befriend during the holidays that refer to this state of being tightly packed/sane. Ojas is your vitality and immunity—the glue that holds you together. Vasant Lad says this about ojas:
It is like honey. As the honeybee collects the minute molecules of the essence of hundreds of flowers and accumulates them in the honeycomb, ojas, the pure essence of all bodily tissues, circulates via the heart and throughout the body to maintain the natural resistance of the bodily tissues. Ojas fights against aging, decay and disease. A person who has good ojas rarely becomes sick (Lad 212).
Ojas is a biological substance that is rich in soma (moon energy). Soma can be compared to serotonin—a chemical that promotes happy, calm, blissful feelings in your body and mind. What does having an abundance of ojas mean for your enjoyment of the holiday season, you ask?
Having high ojas during the holidays means that you will have your own needs for health and vitality met so that you can then turn your attention outward. As your personal ojas proliferates it taps into cosmic or Universal ojas which is the Love that holds the entire universe together. Having cosmic ojas will expand your awareness and this will cause your attention to veer away from selfishness and turn toward the needs and desires of those around you. You will overflow with forbearance, generosity, loving-kindness, charity and bliss—similar to the expanded awareness of Ebenezer Scrooge at the end of A Christmas Carol. Put sattva and ojas on your wish list this year and make it your most joyful holiday season yet.
Patricia Wickman is a Certified Ayurvedic Practitioner, Certified Panchakarma Technician and Registered Yoga Teacher. She loves people and enjoys inspiring individuals to perceive their beauty and potential. She lives in Eau Claire, WI with her husband and two children. She owns Radiant Living Yoga and Ayurveda, LLC. For more information visit: www.rlyaa.com.
Sources:
Lad, Vasant. Textbook of Ayurveda. New Mexico: The Ayurvedic Press, 2002.
Ayurveda and Yoga provide an excellent way to enhance the quality of your life. You will increase joy as you eat vibrant foods, do yoga, consciously breathe, meditate, take herbs and connect with other like-minded people.
Monday, November 29, 2010
PCOS and Ayurveda
PCOS and Ayurveda
After 6 years of newlywed bliss, an apartment, two cats, and a home loan, my husband and I decided it was finally time to expand the family. We weren't getting any younger and our friends all had kids, so we thought we would join the race and see what it was like. So like all clock-ticking 28 year olds, I was excited and anxious to get pregnant. I wanted to experience the joy that I had heard about from friends for so long Well, after six long months of negative tests, we decided to be more regimented. So we started charting days, taking my temperature, trying more frequently, and finally visiting with my OB-GYN. I thought my history was pretty normal. I had been on birth control of some sort since I was 17 when my parents thought it was better to be protected than not I had no real reason to track my ovulation patterns. Besides, what healthy college kid keeps track of those things?
So when my OB came back with lab tests one visit and explained that I had PCOS, I was a bit shocked. PCOS, or Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, is a condition in which your hormones aren't being put out in equal proportions, making your ovulation cycle too long or too short and the likelihood of getting pregnant very slim. Women with PCOS may have acne, enlarged ovaries with small cysts, lack of ovulation and/or irregular menstrual periods, decreased breast size, hirsutism (male pattern hair growth), infertility, insulin resistance, male-pattern hair loss and fat deposition, weight gain or central obesity.
I don't have many of those common signs that indicate to a doctor that I may have that condition, but I still had it. Our understanding and wonderful doctor said we could continue to try to get pregnant on our own, but we would probably end up frustrated. So we started infertility treatments. Long story short, after the third treatment in three months, we were successful, and 9 months later, our baby boy was here.
Flash forward two years, and it is time for baby number two. Since we knew about the big glitch in my chemistry we decided to go another, natural route this time. I started by seeing a local Ayurvedic practitioner who took my history and documented everything about me, from how my tongue looks to how much I sleep at night, and all the information in between. She directed my diet to help combat the PCOS condition in my dominant kapha, dosha, and gave me some recommendations on what herbs and teas to drink to promote ovulation and cleansing the body.
By the 5th month of my regularly drinking specialty tea and taking ghee and castor oil, my menstrual cycles started to become more and more regular. I went from having a 44-day cycle to a consistent 30-31 day cycle. So we decided to try again and it worked! We only had two months under our belt when the pink line appeared. And I was overjoyed. We did it au natural, the way nature intended. I was so dreading the negative test after negative test, I almost didn't want to test myself at all, ever again. But, thanks to routine, ancient medicine, and some hope, we didn't have to try for long.
So, I am happy and excited to announce that the end of this June we will be welcoming our baby girl into our family. Fertility and hormones are complicated, but I am confident that the Ayurvedic steps I took played a role in my becoming pregnant without drugs and injections, or stress.
PCOS, Female Reproductive Health and Ayurveda
Patricia Wickman
"Yo pa ka achte moso manman nan mache."
Mothers are irreplaceable.
--Haitian proverb
I had forgotten…A well
hidden amongst flowers
and willows,
jealously guarded.
A well o freshness and thirst
that exults and swells with rain,
pulling toward itself
from each bank
vital forces which
burst into life…
--Bernard Haillant
extract from the song Ma province
Arwen’s happy story is evidence that Ayurveda offers hope to individuals who have female reproductive imbalance. It is a joy for practitioners like myself to see people make the leap of faith to add and subtract elements to their daily schedule based on ancient wisdom that seems vastly different from Western medicine. Ayurveda literally means the science of life. It is a complete medical system that has evolved over 5,000 years and has its roots in Ancient India. The devoted student of Ayurveda learns that it is a profound art and science that inspires one to view health, vitality and longevity as a proactive and creative work in progress similar to a garden. In this article, I will give a shallow introduction to the Ayurvedic perspective on PCOS and then write briefly on the broader subject of female reproductive health. In doing this, I wish to inspire all women who read this article to experiment with Ayurveda. Just as nurturing a plant yields delicious food, so too, does self-TLC produce a woman whose health, beauty and vitality originate from deep within her cells and radiate out like petals of a sunflower.
Ayurvedic treatment of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) is specific to the individual. The Ayurvedic practitioner does a thorough assessment of the client and determines her Ayurvedic constitution based on the three doshas: Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Through questioning, observation, tongue observation and pulse diagnosis, the practitioner and the client jointly determine the nature and degree of imbalance. In the majority of women with PCOS, there is a strong Kapha component: they often struggle with mysterious weight gain that is hard to lose even while maintaining a light diet, healthy lifestyle and regular exercise. Some women with PCOS appear to be of a Kapha nature: large bone structure, plentiful tissues, calm disposition, etc. Upon questioning, observation and pulse taking I have found that some are Pitta-Vata (or Vata-Pitta), but are simply carrying extra weight. A few of the women I have seen with PCOS have said that their large bodies do not feel native to them—they feel as if they are going around in a suit that does not belong to them. Other women with PCOS are not overweight, but simply have irregular menstrual cycles. One of the phenomena of this disorder is that the eggs in the ovaries prepare to leave the ovaries, but the necessary hormones that cause the final leap out of the ovaries are lacking. The egg in this instance is like a seed that is ready to burst out of the ground, but then does not succeed because the sprouting conditions are not available. Reference the following website to learn more about PCOS from an Ayurvedic perspective:
http://www.atreya.com/ayurveda/spip.php?article104
After the initial consultation, the Ayurvedic practitioner designs a program for you that includes dietary recommendations, lifestyle modification, herbal supplementation, yoga, breathing, meditation, cleansing procedures and hands-on body therapies. There is no one-size-fits-all in Ayurveda. It is best to see a practitioner who will recommend a program that takes into account your constitution, your current state of health, your schedule, your family situation, and causative factors that are individual to you. For example, one woman may have a high level of ama (toxicity) that is causing imbalance in the female reproductive system. For another woman it may be that her digestion, metabolism, absorption or elimination is impaired. For another, it could be high levels of stress, lack of sleep, an unhealthy relationship, a poor diet or a genetic predisposition. Ayurvedic treatment protocols help people pluck out imbalance at its root and create a fertile field with life-promoting conditions.
For female reproductive health in general, Ayurveda calls for a woman to remember her place in nature and her female ancestral heritage that was passed down to her from her mother’s womb. In ancient cultures, women’s menstrual cycles were linked to the 28-day moon period. Women menstruated together on the new moon and retreated from the village in tents where they could take a break from nurturing others and spend time resting and relaxing. The modern woman is so busy that she does not take time to stop during her period. The manic pace at which we live our lives contributes to women’s woes such as PMS, PCOS, acne, heavy bleeding, spotting in between periods, endometriosis, fibroids, unsavory menopausal symptoms, infertility, etc. During my training in Ayurveda, one of my classmates shared an experience of being on a surgery rotation during medical school. She started her period in the middle of a surgical procedure and was so compelled to keep up with the other doctors that she bled all over the floor during the surgery.
What are we women of the post-feminist world to do? We are bright, successful, educated and capable of both professional and domestic excellence, yet our ancient bodies seem to be calling us back to the moon hut. What good is accomplishment if we destroy our health, shorten our lives and lose our happiness in the process? I propose that we take small steps toward listening to the call of nature and revolt against the market driven, competitive, frantic culture in which we live. In Maya Tawari’s book The Path of Practice, she explains that connecting with shakti energy is fundamental to women’s physical and spiritual health:
According to Vedic seers, a woman’s femininity cannot exist apart from her shakti—the one energy that gave birth to everything. Shakti is the Mother’s power behind creation, and signifies the sacred mysteries of creation, regeneration, and destruction…The Divine Mother endowed all females with two gifts: the power to nurture and the power to protect. Shakti is more than the energy of reproduction. It is the spirit of protecting the sacred, gathering food, worshiping the Divine and giving birth to children, to inspiration, to ideas and art (Tiwari 54 55).
There are an infinite number of ways to honor shakti. Lie low during your two or three days of heavy bleeding, perform daily warm oil self-massage, oil your hair, receive shirodhara (an Ayurvedic body therapy where warm oil is poured in a continuous stream over the third eye), keep a moon calendar by your bedside and perform the moon salutation on the full moon, practice the goddess pose (supta baddha konasana), do the yoni mudra, drink a quarter cup of aloe vera juice everyday (aloe vera is fantastic for balancing women’s hormones), take moments to squat. Squatting connects a woman to the earth. Have an Ayurvedic practitioner guide you through a women’s cleansing program. Become a master of pelvic floor exercises, paint your toenails, get a henna tattoo, pick up a silk scarf, turn on some sultry music and let your hips and pelvis dance, prepare a lovely meal of farm-fresh food for you and your family, rock a baby to sleep, spend time in nature, cultivate deep and lasting friendships with other women, repair any hurt in your relationship with your mother and/or mother-in-law. Create something. Teach all of this to your daughters. As you nurture shakti, may your reproductive balance be well established, your eyes sparkle, your skin shine and your garden of health be plentiful and fruitful!
After 6 years of newlywed bliss, an apartment, two cats, and a home loan, my husband and I decided it was finally time to expand the family. We weren't getting any younger and our friends all had kids, so we thought we would join the race and see what it was like. So like all clock-ticking 28 year olds, I was excited and anxious to get pregnant. I wanted to experience the joy that I had heard about from friends for so long Well, after six long months of negative tests, we decided to be more regimented. So we started charting days, taking my temperature, trying more frequently, and finally visiting with my OB-GYN. I thought my history was pretty normal. I had been on birth control of some sort since I was 17 when my parents thought it was better to be protected than not I had no real reason to track my ovulation patterns. Besides, what healthy college kid keeps track of those things?
So when my OB came back with lab tests one visit and explained that I had PCOS, I was a bit shocked. PCOS, or Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, is a condition in which your hormones aren't being put out in equal proportions, making your ovulation cycle too long or too short and the likelihood of getting pregnant very slim. Women with PCOS may have acne, enlarged ovaries with small cysts, lack of ovulation and/or irregular menstrual periods, decreased breast size, hirsutism (male pattern hair growth), infertility, insulin resistance, male-pattern hair loss and fat deposition, weight gain or central obesity.
I don't have many of those common signs that indicate to a doctor that I may have that condition, but I still had it. Our understanding and wonderful doctor said we could continue to try to get pregnant on our own, but we would probably end up frustrated. So we started infertility treatments. Long story short, after the third treatment in three months, we were successful, and 9 months later, our baby boy was here.
Flash forward two years, and it is time for baby number two. Since we knew about the big glitch in my chemistry we decided to go another, natural route this time. I started by seeing a local Ayurvedic practitioner who took my history and documented everything about me, from how my tongue looks to how much I sleep at night, and all the information in between. She directed my diet to help combat the PCOS condition in my dominant kapha, dosha, and gave me some recommendations on what herbs and teas to drink to promote ovulation and cleansing the body.
By the 5th month of my regularly drinking specialty tea and taking ghee and castor oil, my menstrual cycles started to become more and more regular. I went from having a 44-day cycle to a consistent 30-31 day cycle. So we decided to try again and it worked! We only had two months under our belt when the pink line appeared. And I was overjoyed. We did it au natural, the way nature intended. I was so dreading the negative test after negative test, I almost didn't want to test myself at all, ever again. But, thanks to routine, ancient medicine, and some hope, we didn't have to try for long.
So, I am happy and excited to announce that the end of this June we will be welcoming our baby girl into our family. Fertility and hormones are complicated, but I am confident that the Ayurvedic steps I took played a role in my becoming pregnant without drugs and injections, or stress.
PCOS, Female Reproductive Health and Ayurveda
Patricia Wickman
"Yo pa ka achte moso manman nan mache."
Mothers are irreplaceable.
--Haitian proverb
I had forgotten…A well
hidden amongst flowers
and willows,
jealously guarded.
A well o freshness and thirst
that exults and swells with rain,
pulling toward itself
from each bank
vital forces which
burst into life…
--Bernard Haillant
extract from the song Ma province
Arwen’s happy story is evidence that Ayurveda offers hope to individuals who have female reproductive imbalance. It is a joy for practitioners like myself to see people make the leap of faith to add and subtract elements to their daily schedule based on ancient wisdom that seems vastly different from Western medicine. Ayurveda literally means the science of life. It is a complete medical system that has evolved over 5,000 years and has its roots in Ancient India. The devoted student of Ayurveda learns that it is a profound art and science that inspires one to view health, vitality and longevity as a proactive and creative work in progress similar to a garden. In this article, I will give a shallow introduction to the Ayurvedic perspective on PCOS and then write briefly on the broader subject of female reproductive health. In doing this, I wish to inspire all women who read this article to experiment with Ayurveda. Just as nurturing a plant yields delicious food, so too, does self-TLC produce a woman whose health, beauty and vitality originate from deep within her cells and radiate out like petals of a sunflower.
Ayurvedic treatment of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) is specific to the individual. The Ayurvedic practitioner does a thorough assessment of the client and determines her Ayurvedic constitution based on the three doshas: Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Through questioning, observation, tongue observation and pulse diagnosis, the practitioner and the client jointly determine the nature and degree of imbalance. In the majority of women with PCOS, there is a strong Kapha component: they often struggle with mysterious weight gain that is hard to lose even while maintaining a light diet, healthy lifestyle and regular exercise. Some women with PCOS appear to be of a Kapha nature: large bone structure, plentiful tissues, calm disposition, etc. Upon questioning, observation and pulse taking I have found that some are Pitta-Vata (or Vata-Pitta), but are simply carrying extra weight. A few of the women I have seen with PCOS have said that their large bodies do not feel native to them—they feel as if they are going around in a suit that does not belong to them. Other women with PCOS are not overweight, but simply have irregular menstrual cycles. One of the phenomena of this disorder is that the eggs in the ovaries prepare to leave the ovaries, but the necessary hormones that cause the final leap out of the ovaries are lacking. The egg in this instance is like a seed that is ready to burst out of the ground, but then does not succeed because the sprouting conditions are not available. Reference the following website to learn more about PCOS from an Ayurvedic perspective:
http://www.atreya.com/ayurveda/spip.php?article104
After the initial consultation, the Ayurvedic practitioner designs a program for you that includes dietary recommendations, lifestyle modification, herbal supplementation, yoga, breathing, meditation, cleansing procedures and hands-on body therapies. There is no one-size-fits-all in Ayurveda. It is best to see a practitioner who will recommend a program that takes into account your constitution, your current state of health, your schedule, your family situation, and causative factors that are individual to you. For example, one woman may have a high level of ama (toxicity) that is causing imbalance in the female reproductive system. For another woman it may be that her digestion, metabolism, absorption or elimination is impaired. For another, it could be high levels of stress, lack of sleep, an unhealthy relationship, a poor diet or a genetic predisposition. Ayurvedic treatment protocols help people pluck out imbalance at its root and create a fertile field with life-promoting conditions.
For female reproductive health in general, Ayurveda calls for a woman to remember her place in nature and her female ancestral heritage that was passed down to her from her mother’s womb. In ancient cultures, women’s menstrual cycles were linked to the 28-day moon period. Women menstruated together on the new moon and retreated from the village in tents where they could take a break from nurturing others and spend time resting and relaxing. The modern woman is so busy that she does not take time to stop during her period. The manic pace at which we live our lives contributes to women’s woes such as PMS, PCOS, acne, heavy bleeding, spotting in between periods, endometriosis, fibroids, unsavory menopausal symptoms, infertility, etc. During my training in Ayurveda, one of my classmates shared an experience of being on a surgery rotation during medical school. She started her period in the middle of a surgical procedure and was so compelled to keep up with the other doctors that she bled all over the floor during the surgery.
What are we women of the post-feminist world to do? We are bright, successful, educated and capable of both professional and domestic excellence, yet our ancient bodies seem to be calling us back to the moon hut. What good is accomplishment if we destroy our health, shorten our lives and lose our happiness in the process? I propose that we take small steps toward listening to the call of nature and revolt against the market driven, competitive, frantic culture in which we live. In Maya Tawari’s book The Path of Practice, she explains that connecting with shakti energy is fundamental to women’s physical and spiritual health:
According to Vedic seers, a woman’s femininity cannot exist apart from her shakti—the one energy that gave birth to everything. Shakti is the Mother’s power behind creation, and signifies the sacred mysteries of creation, regeneration, and destruction…The Divine Mother endowed all females with two gifts: the power to nurture and the power to protect. Shakti is more than the energy of reproduction. It is the spirit of protecting the sacred, gathering food, worshiping the Divine and giving birth to children, to inspiration, to ideas and art (Tiwari 54 55).
There are an infinite number of ways to honor shakti. Lie low during your two or three days of heavy bleeding, perform daily warm oil self-massage, oil your hair, receive shirodhara (an Ayurvedic body therapy where warm oil is poured in a continuous stream over the third eye), keep a moon calendar by your bedside and perform the moon salutation on the full moon, practice the goddess pose (supta baddha konasana), do the yoni mudra, drink a quarter cup of aloe vera juice everyday (aloe vera is fantastic for balancing women’s hormones), take moments to squat. Squatting connects a woman to the earth. Have an Ayurvedic practitioner guide you through a women’s cleansing program. Become a master of pelvic floor exercises, paint your toenails, get a henna tattoo, pick up a silk scarf, turn on some sultry music and let your hips and pelvis dance, prepare a lovely meal of farm-fresh food for you and your family, rock a baby to sleep, spend time in nature, cultivate deep and lasting friendships with other women, repair any hurt in your relationship with your mother and/or mother-in-law. Create something. Teach all of this to your daughters. As you nurture shakti, may your reproductive balance be well established, your eyes sparkle, your skin shine and your garden of health be plentiful and fruitful!
Monday, November 1, 2010
October, 2010
This past weekend I had a wonderful appointment with one of my clients who looked me in the eye and said, "I'm following every bit of my Ayurvedic health plan." Wow! The symptoms that she had in her initial appointment have improved significantly and even some of the health issues that she did not come to Ayurveda for are resolving themselves. I love being an Ayurvedic practitioner! I do not mention this to lay guilt on those of you who follow only portions of your plan or who have fallen off the wagon entirely. I write about this because my client's discipline and determination inspires and impresses me! I know that the plans that I design for people are not easy fixes to your health questions--they take time, effort, money and planning on your part. For some of you, it requires that you make new friends--with your kitchen and all of the appliances, dishes, utensils, tables and chairs in them. Others may find it a challenge to give up iced drinks, diet soda, coffee or candy. Maybe you have to overcome the obstacle of shifting relationship dynamics as you modify your diet and lifestyle. To live Ayurvedically is to go against the grain of American food habits and resist the strong tide of grab-and-go eating and living. It's worth it! A new report from the Center of Disease Control and Prevention predicts that by 2050 one in three U.S. citizens will have diabetes. Get on an Ayurvedic health plan and prove this study wrong!
One of the nice aspects of Ayurveda is that when you do away with one option, there are ten or more other things that you can have in its place. When you get out of your habitual eating and lifestyle ruts, it opens your life to greater creativity and diversity. When my Ayurvedic practitioner taught me that tomato sauce provokes the pitta dosha and I wanted to overcome my pitta-type headaches, I realized just how much I was cooking with tomatoes, tomato sauce and tomato paste. Between the pizza, spaghetti, salsa, tortilla soup and chili, our family was consuming large amounts of foods that were low on the pH scale. Once I reduced the tomatoes, I realized that there was a whole world of taste bud-pleasing recipes that did not provoke pitta: quinoa and vegetable pilaf, kitchari, chicken soup, 20-minute curry anyone? And yes, the frequency and intensity of my headaches are greatly reduced.
If coffee is the item that is holding you back from enjoying greater health, you can replace it with an array of tantalizing aromatic herbal tea blends that promote supple colons, strong bones, beautiful skin, even-keel days and sweet dreams at night (adios to arthritis, irritated/dry skin, anxiety and insomnia!). I've also been having fun making caffeine-free chai blends for my clients who absolutely need a thick, dark, comforting substance to drink every day. Maybe you have to give up eating your dinner in front of the T.V., but that means that you can sit at a nicely set table and have eye contact and conversation with your loved ones (I have not yet mastered the silent eating that Vaidya Mishra endorses so I do not ask it of my clients). Some of you eat your meals alone so turning off the T.V. means that you can spend your eating time deciding what you want to be going through your mind as you eat instead of letting the T.V. decide for you. The great news about Ayurveda is that when you follow your program, it produces results. It's one of those rare things in life that gives back more rewards than the effort you apply.
If you already have an Ayurvedic health plan, schedule a follow-up visit today so you can have a "tune-up." If you are not yet on a plan, today is the day for you to invest some time and money in yourself and be a proactive health and happiness seeker!
May you all be blessed with happiness, wholeness, peace of mind, joy and prosperity and thank you for your continued interest in Radiant Living!
Love,
Patricia
One of the nice aspects of Ayurveda is that when you do away with one option, there are ten or more other things that you can have in its place. When you get out of your habitual eating and lifestyle ruts, it opens your life to greater creativity and diversity. When my Ayurvedic practitioner taught me that tomato sauce provokes the pitta dosha and I wanted to overcome my pitta-type headaches, I realized just how much I was cooking with tomatoes, tomato sauce and tomato paste. Between the pizza, spaghetti, salsa, tortilla soup and chili, our family was consuming large amounts of foods that were low on the pH scale. Once I reduced the tomatoes, I realized that there was a whole world of taste bud-pleasing recipes that did not provoke pitta: quinoa and vegetable pilaf, kitchari, chicken soup, 20-minute curry anyone? And yes, the frequency and intensity of my headaches are greatly reduced.
If coffee is the item that is holding you back from enjoying greater health, you can replace it with an array of tantalizing aromatic herbal tea blends that promote supple colons, strong bones, beautiful skin, even-keel days and sweet dreams at night (adios to arthritis, irritated/dry skin, anxiety and insomnia!). I've also been having fun making caffeine-free chai blends for my clients who absolutely need a thick, dark, comforting substance to drink every day. Maybe you have to give up eating your dinner in front of the T.V., but that means that you can sit at a nicely set table and have eye contact and conversation with your loved ones (I have not yet mastered the silent eating that Vaidya Mishra endorses so I do not ask it of my clients). Some of you eat your meals alone so turning off the T.V. means that you can spend your eating time deciding what you want to be going through your mind as you eat instead of letting the T.V. decide for you. The great news about Ayurveda is that when you follow your program, it produces results. It's one of those rare things in life that gives back more rewards than the effort you apply.
If you already have an Ayurvedic health plan, schedule a follow-up visit today so you can have a "tune-up." If you are not yet on a plan, today is the day for you to invest some time and money in yourself and be a proactive health and happiness seeker!
May you all be blessed with happiness, wholeness, peace of mind, joy and prosperity and thank you for your continued interest in Radiant Living!
Love,
Patricia
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