Ayurveda For Dummies^®

Introduction

My search for a medical system that truly encompassed the whole being began when I was 19 years old and studying the biomechanics of the lower limb at podiatry school. A sense of deep unease was growing within me because I realised that a problem in the knee, for example, may be related to the whole of the skeletal structure and not just to the part of the body we were allowed to take care of. Alongside this was the realisation that a disease entity can present a very different picture in people with differing constitutions.

Help arrived for me in 1986 when a doctor came to the hospital to give a talk on Ayurveda, called the mother of all healing systems. Dawn broke for me and shone a light on a system of healing that is so elegant yet so simple in its formation.

Coming from at least 5,000 years of human experience, Ayurveda really is the ‘prima materia’ (first matter) of all medical modalities. Ayurveda is a system in which the healers have a responsibility to keep themselves well, along with their patients. Encompassing wellness of body, mind and spirit, Ayurveda encourages vitalisation that extends into your every cell.

I hope this book fuels in you the enthusiasm to try Ayurveda for yourself and incorporate it into your daily life, which will benefit and be enhanced by it.

About This Book

Ayurveda For Dummies gives you the tools to comprehend the basic building blocks of Ayurveda. Use it as a basis to progress on the journey to well-being using simple instructions and interventions, which you can implement immediately into your daily routine. I give you tools for recognising problems as early as possible and treating them with both diet and herbs. I provide a lot of general information for maintaining your well-being. Everyone deserves better health.

Conventions Used in This Book

To help you get the most from this book, I follow a few conventions:

Italic is used for emphasis and to highlight new words or terms that I define.

Web addresses may split over two lines – if so, ignore the hyphen that links them when you’re typing the address into a search engine. If you’re reading this on an enabled device, the web addresses are hyperlinked and will take you straight to the site in question.

Bold shows the action part of numbered steps.

What You’re Not to Read

Of course, I hope that you’ll read the entire book, but in some cases I offer information that you may find interesting but that’s not essential to your understanding. Sidebars (shaded boxes of text) are an example of this kind of text and may include anecdotes, history or other titbits that I find juicy but you may not! And when I go deeper into the principles or science of Ayurveda, I use the Technical Stuff icon to let you know you’re perfectly welcome to skip that paragraph.

Foolish Assumptions

To generate this book, I made a few assumptions about you:

You’re keen to learn more about Ayurveda but don’t know exactly what it is and how to practise it.

You’re very busy and you want a simple, clear understanding of the fundamentals of Ayurveda.

You’ve already delved into other types of complimentary therapies and would like to expand your knowledge.

You’re interested in optimising your health and are ready to try a few Ayurvedic suggestions.

How This Book Is Organised

I’ve organised Ayurveda For Dummies into six parts. Each part contains a variety of chapters to instruct you further on various aspects of Ayurveda.

Part I: Getting Started with Ayurveda

In this part I explain the belief system and philosophy behind Ayurveda, which can appear quite esoteric at times. Getting to grips with the basics won’t take you long and the rewards will be worth it.

You probably want to get cracking straight away with learning your constitution according to Ayurveda from the questionnaire in Chapter 4. This enables you to put the interventions that I list into practise. Armed with this information you can better navigate the rest of the book.

Part II: Living in Harmony with Ayurveda: Promoting Good Health

In this section I take you on a journey to learn how disease develops in your system according to Ayurveda. Completing the questionnaire in this part can determine how healthy your system is. You also look at the health of the senses and how time affects your well-being.

This is the core of the book where ways you can promote good health are clearly laid out. I cover the daily routine, seasonal routines and evening procedures. There is a great chapter on yoga postures for individual constitutions as well as yoga as medicine for problems you may have. I include breathing exercises from which you can gain immediate benefit if you try them for as little as ten minutes a day. You’re sure to find advice in this part to suit your lifestyle needs.

Part III: Appetising Approaches to a Healthy Diet

Diet is of utmost importance to your health. In this part I share my enthusiasm for the Ayurvedic approach to diet and I provide you with ways to improve your digestion using food. I give dietary advice for different doshas (constitutions), because we all have different dietary needs. In Chapter 12, I share ways to optimise your diet and make it more nutritious. Bon appétit!

Part IV: Fitting Ways to Enhance Healing

In this section I present you with Ayurvedic suggestions to improve common health problems such as digestive disorders, respiratory problems, musculoskeletal ailments and skin and hair issues. If you’re experiencing difficulties in any of these areas, I provide helpful prevention advice you can put into practice.

Part V: The Part of Tens

No For Dummies book is complete without the legendary Part of Tens. In this part I present bite-size chunks of information about herbs and spices, including their amazing healing properties.

Head to www.dummies.com/extras/ayurvedauk for a bonus Part of Tens chapter: 'Ten Wonderful Ways To Enhance Your Health with Ayurveda'.

Part VI: Appendices

Last but not least are three short appendices: a glossary of Sanskrit terms (Sanskrit being the language of Ayurveda), a botanical index, and a list of suppliers of all things Ayurveda.

Icons Used in This Book

Sprinkled throughout the book you’ll see various icons to guide you on your way. Icons are a For Dummies way of drawing your attention to important stuff, interesting stuff, and stuff you really need to know how to do.

This icon highlights important concepts in Ayurveda or concerning health in general.

I love science, but maybe you don’t. That’s okay – you don’t need much of it to understand how Ayurveda can help you. When I delve into specialised info, I use this icon to let you know that the material is esoteric and skippable.

When I provide a way for you to do something more quickly or easily, I use this icon.

This dangerous-looking symbol lets you know when trouble may befall you, as when an ingredient I discuss is known to cause allergies. You won’t find many of these icons, but please do heed their messages.

Where to Go from Here

I’ve written this book so that you can dip in and out of it as you please. However, if you’re new to Ayurveda, starting at the beginning is most helpful. For the rest of you, take a look at the Table of Contents and see what takes your fancy.

Head online for special bonus content at www.dummies.com/extras/ayurvedauk, and visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/ayurvedauk for the cheat sheet created specifically for this book.

I wish you a happy excursion into the world of Ayurveda, which has enough breadth and depth to satisfy those of you who are hungry for knowledge to help you improve and sustain the well-being of your body, mind and spirit.

Chapter 1

Introducing Ayurveda: The Science of Life

In This Chapter

Discovering the history of the Vedas

Accessing the aims of Ayurveda

Learning about the Sanskrit language

Surveying the scope of Ayurveda

Mentioning the main texts and where to find the evidence

Welcome to the world of Ayurveda – a vast treasure house of knowledge of natural healthcare given to us by holy men called rishis. Literally meaning ‘science of life’, Ayurveda encompasses all aspects of your well-being, from breathing to digestion.

In this chapter, I introduce you to the ancient art of Ayurveda.

Living Well and Maintaining Health

Ayurveda is a truly holistic health system which supports you from the cradle to the end of your life. The Ayurvedic mode of living aims to maximise your lifespan by optimising your health through interventions that care for your body, mind, spirit and environment. Ayurveda places a great emphasis on the prevention of disease and on health promotion, as well as on a comprehensive approach to treatment.

Unlike some other systems of medicine, Ayurveda is not just concerned with the absence of disease. As Sushruta, a physician in the sixth century BC informs us, you are only considered healthy when your appetite is strong, your tissues (dhatus) are functioning normally, your humours (the doshas: vata, pitta and kapha) are in balance, bodily wastes are eliminated well, and your mind and senses experience joy. If these Sanskrit terms pique your interest, head to Chapter 3 for an explanation of the dhatus and Chapter 2 for the basics about the doshas.

An extensive body of knowledge describes the therapeutic use of minerals and plants in Ayurveda. Throughout this book, I recommend different herbal remedies for different ailments or as rejuvenating tonics. If you can’t find the particular herbs or spices in your grocers, you can find suppliers in Appendix C.

Ayurveda places great emphasis on the effects of the different seasons and your diet on the equilibrium of the body. Different doshas, or attributes, are prevalent at different times of the day, and during the seasons these cause physiological changes in your body. Ayurveda understands that moving with the times and climate is a mainstay of good health because you are a microcosm of what’s going on in your environment. I discuss these cadences of time and what you can do to ensure optimum health throughout the seasons in Chapter 9.

Talking of the environment, Ayurveda recognises the importance of the environment to your health: in Ayurveda, everything is part of the same consciousness. How can we be truly healthy when the environment is being brutalised by development, forests are being cleared on a massive scale and farming practices are employed that disrespect the lives of sentient beings?

The food that we eat has often been packaged, chilled and reheated until it contains very little vital force. Your immune system operates at top capacity when your fuel is so poor. Immunity, known as vyadhishamatva, or ‘disease forgiveness’, is the starting point for good health, and Chapter 12 addresses eating the best food to improve your immune system.

Health is described by the word swastha in Sanskrit, which means ‘to be established in the self’. Health is really moment-to-moment awareness, and this can be obtained through meditation. Details on how you can put this life-changing practice into action are provided in Chapter 6.

Surveying the Scope of Ayurveda

Within the practice of Ayurveda are specialities – just like in Western systems.

Here are the eight primary Ayurvedic specialities (I don’t cover all of these in this book – certainly not surgery, you’ll be relieved to know!):

Toxicology (agada tantra)

Childhood diseases or paediatrics (bala tantra)

General surgery (shalya tantra)

Internal medicine (kaya chikitsa)

Psychiatry and mental disorders (bhuta vidya)

Management of diseases of the head and the neck (salakya tantra)

Fertility treatment (vajikarana)

Rejuvenation and the treatment of geriatrics (rasayana)

The forte of the approach of mainstream medicine is in diagnosis and acute medical conditions such as trauma. If a bus knocks you down, you need to be in the accident and emergency room at your local hospital.

However, in the management of deep-seated chronic ailments, mainstream medicine sometimes lacks the sophistication of Ayurveda, which always takes the underlying causes of pathology into consideration. Ayurvedic interventions can deeply purify your body and eliminate toxins from your system.

Iatrogenic diseases – those that are unintentionally caused by medical treatment – are on the increase and were estimated as being the third-largest cause of death in a study by Starfield in 2000 in the United States. Ayurveda’s more subtle and individualised approach to treatment shows no such ill effects. However, I’m not suggesting you ditch your doctor for Ayurveda – far from it. But as long as your doctor is happy for you to follow the remedies in this book, Ayurvedic treatment can be very effective.

Primary healthcare is considered as very important in Ayurveda. This book gives you the tools to stay well throughout your life. In Chapter 6, I give you very simple lifestyle recommendations called dinacharya, which keep your diet, digestion and sleep – considered the pillars of your health – in good order.

Locating the Practice and the Evidence

Ayurveda has been the only system of medicine in some rural parts of India for thousands of years. Under the rule of the British, Ayurveda was undermined in the belief that the more mechanistic Western medicine was more efficacious. Thankfully for us, the poor continued to use the tried-and-tested native treatments for their ailments, and Ayurveda survived underground until 1947. This is when India became a free nation and Ayurveda received full recognition as a medical system.

In the past 20 years, Ayurveda has undergone a resurgence. It’s now practised all over the world and often works in harmony with a more modern approach. Qualified Ayurvedic physicians are medical practitioners, and many hospitals treat patients using solely Ayurvedic tenets, without causing any of the adverse reactions of modern treatment.

To find a qualified Ayurvedic practitioner near you, see Appendix C.

A wellspring of research is available for those of you who are interested in the science and efficacy of Ayurveda. Over and over again, studies have validated the efficacy of this system using the stringency of Western approaches to research and statistical analysis. To get you started, visit:

www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam

www.oxfordjournals.org (search for 'Ayurveda')

For the countless systemic reviews of Ayurveda, try:

www.systematicreviewinayurveda.org

To begin following the tenets of Ayurveda is to enter a realm that can be truly life-enhancing. Here’s to your personal journey.