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Ayurvedic Insight

Issue #11, August 2002

In this Issue

Better Health By Establishing A Daily Routine
Balanced By Banyan Botanicals – Victory over Eczema & Asthma
Recipe: Coconut Macaroons – A Delicious, Cooling & Healthy Treat
Prana: Cooling Breaths and Calming Postures

“In the summer, the sun evaporates the moisture of the earth and therefore induces hot, dry and sharp qualities in the atmosphere, resulting in pitta aggravation. In summer, one should avoid or minimize excessive exercise and diets that are salty, sour, pungent or hot. In summertime one should enjoy forests, gardens, flowers and cool water.”
--Charaka Samhita, circa 400 a.d.

Better Health By Establishing A Daily Routine

In Ayurveda, how we live our daily lives is believed to be a key factor in determining our health and the quality of our experiences. And according to Dr. Vasant Lad, a leading Ayurvedic physician, it is also the factor over which we have the most control.

In his “The Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home Remedies,” Dr. Lad writes: “You can’t control the weather or your genetic makeup, but what you do every day either builds up your health, vitality, and resistance to disease, or wears you down. Your moment-to moment choices – what to eat, how much to eat, how to respond to others, whether to exercise or not, how late to stay up at night, and so on – play a major role in your mental and physical health.”

But how do you create your lifestyle, the rhythms of your daily living? Is it just pure habit, based on how your parents lived and how you grew up? Should the time you wake up be dictated by when you need to get to work? Should what you eat be determined by what’s available at fast-food restaurants or convenience stores? If you decide to take control of your lifestyle, what principles will guide you?

According to Ayurveda, you couldn’t do better than to strive to live your life in harmony with nature.

Being in tune with Mother Nature also means being in tune with your individual nature, your prakruti. This requires a commitment to being true to how you are built, mentally and emotionally as well as physically. Your food and exercise requirements, how much you need to sleep, how much sexual activity is healthy for you and what kind of climate is beneficial, all revolve around your individual nature.

Living in accordance with nature and natural law means continually balancing our inner ecology by adjusting to our ever-changing environment.

A daily routine is essential for maintaining health and for transforming our body, mind and consciousness to a higher level of functioning. A regulated daily routine puts us in harmony with nature’s rhythms. It establishes balance, aids in digestion, absorption and assimilation of food; it generates self-esteem, discipline, peace, happiness and long life. Regularity in sleeping, waking, eating and eliminating, brings discipline to life and helps maintain the integrity of the doshas (vata, pitta and kapha).

The daily routine is the art of bringing harmony between your biological clock and chronological time. According to Dr. Lad, here are its most salient features:

Wake up before the sun rises. This can instill freshness to the doors of perception and bring peace of mind.
Say a morning prayer (you may do this in your own way, as your religion or personal experience dictates); just remember to start the day by remembering the divine reality that is our life.
Wash your face; this will help you feel alert and fresh.
Drink a glass of room-temperature water. This will wash the GI tract and flush the kidneys. It also stimulates peristalsis and helps with having a good bowel movement.
Clean your teeth and tongue. Though most of us are familiar with brushing our teeth, few regularly practice scraping the tongue. This is an important part of daily hygiene. Simply use a stainless steel tongue scraper and gently scrape from the back or base of the tongue forward until you have scraped the whole surface (5-10 strokes). In addition to removing bacteria from the tongue, scraping sends an indirect message to all the internal organs and stimulates gastric fire and digestive enzymes.
Gargle twice a day with warm sesame oil. Gargling has been traditionally used to strengthen the teeth, gums and jaw, improve the voice and remove wrinkles from the cheeks.
Next, put three to five drops of warm ghee, sesame oil or nasya oil into each nostril. This helps to clean the sinuses and can also improve voice, vision and mental clarity. In dry climates and during cold winters when the house is heated with dry air, this helps to keep the nostrils lubricated.
Take four or five ounces of warm (not hot) oil and rub it all over your head and body. For specifics on how to do this see “Ayurvedic Self-Massage” at http://banyanbotanicals.com/ayurveda/abhyanga.html.
Follow your oil bath with a warm bath or shower. This is cleansing, refreshing, removes fatigue, brings energy and alertness and promotes long life.
Do some exercise every day. As a general rule, Ayurveda recommends exercising up to one half of one’s capacity. A good gauge is to exercise until sweat forms on the forehead, under the arms, and along the spinal column. Straining is absolutely not recommended.. Please check with your doctor before beginning any exercise routine.
Sit quietly and do some deep breathing after your exercise.
After your breathwork, go right into meditation. Over time, you will find that meditation brings peace and balance into your life.
Enjoy your breakfast. Take a fairly light meal in the hot months and a more substantial one during colder weather.
During the day make sure that you take your meditative mind with you.
Try to sit straight and walk straight.
Give thanks at meal times and be conscious of which foods you choose and how much of them you are taking.
Before going to bed do some spiritual reading, even if only for a few minutes. And don’t forget to drink a cup of warm milk with a little ginger, cardamom and turmeric. This fosters sound sleep.

Whenever possible, prior to bed, take a couple of moments to sit quietly and watch your breath. In the pauses between breaths you’ll meet with nothingness. And nothingness is energy and intelligence. Allow that intelligence to deal with your problems. In this way, meditation will stay with you, even during deep sleep.

The above article is a partial excerpt from Dr. Vasant Lad’s “The Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home Remedies” published by Three Rivers Press, a division of Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, NY 10022. It has been adapted from its original form to best suit our newsletter audience.

Dr. Lad is a master physician and teacher of Ayurvedic medicine in the West. He teaches classes at The Ayurvedic Institute, which he founded in 1984. To study under Dr. Lad, attend a lecture or to be seen for clinical consultations or Pancha Karma therapy, he and his staff can be reached c/o The Ayurvedic Institute, at 505.291.9698.

“I set more store by a good regimen that maintains my humors in balance and procures me a sound sleep. Drink hot when it freezes, drink cool in the dog days; in everything, neither too much nor too little; digest, sleep, have pleasure, and snap your fingers at the rest of it.”
-Voltaire

Balanced by Banyan Botanicals has been created in response to the numerous calls and emails we have received from clients who have achieved greater health through the use of our products and services. We proudly pass these true stories along to you - hoping to inspire you on your journey toward improved health and ever-increasing happiness.

Balanced by Banyan Botanicals

"I have had severe eczema my entire life. I have found between using the Blood Cleanse and the pitta diet, I have decreased the symptoms of the typical rash a significant amount, to the point that I rarely have discomfort from it."

I also have minor asthma and since I have been taking Lung Formula I rarely have any wheezing. I am very pleased with all of the help I have gotten from Banyan. The staff is extremely helpful and knowledgeable and they always take the time to answer my questions."
-- Janice Curry

Recipe: Coconut Macaroons - A Delicious, Cooling & Healthy Treat

¼ cup raw almonds
4 egg whites
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
½ cup maple syrup
½ cup brown rice syrup
½ teaspoon baking powder
3 drops rose water (optional, lovely flavor if you have it)
3½ cups shredded unsweetened coconut (2/3 pound)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Blanch almonds or soak them overnight. Grind them in the blender or a nut grinder, set aside.

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar in a stainless steel, glass or enamel mixing bowl. Beat until stiff enough to peak. Whip in baking powder. In a separate bowl, combine the sweeteners, coconut, almonds and rose water. Fold in the egg whites. Drop by the tablespoonful onto a lightly greased cookie sheet, mounding slightly into balls as you do. Bake for 30 minutes or until cookies are just turning golden around the edges and bottom. Remove from cookie sheet while warm, let cool on a plate.

Prana

A Monthly Interview With Certified Yoga Instructor, Chitra Giauque

AI: I thought today we could talk about cooling postures, especially for those that are currently experiencing heat intolerance or pitta aggravation.

Chitra: I think one thing to consider as we explore what it means to have a fiery (or pitta) constitution, is to understand how the internal and external environments are interacting with each other. And to understand that we can balance the five elements internally, in response to what is happening in the outer environment…so, that no matter where we are, or how hot it is, we have tools to bring our system into balance on all of those different levels.

AI: Can you share some heat-reducing postures; are forward bends cooling?

Chitra: For pitta constitution, the yoga postures that are most helpful are those that are cooling and in a sense sedating, in terms of the mind, the poses that allow the mind to kind of soften and relax.

Forward bends are good for that because they bring us into more of an internalized state. You see, pitta is activated partly through the eyes and that sense is taking in stimulation all day long, whether it’s at a computer, driving – we’re just constantly responding through vision, through the prana (vital energy) moving out towards the object.

In forward bends, our eyes have a moment to rest. The forward bends bring the energy back in towards the core. If there is stagnation of heat in the organs of pitta (like the liver and small intestines) it will relieve it and give that kind of general massage on the organs so that the cellular function is optimized in terms of the exchange that is happening between the cells and interstitial fluid.

And another interesting thing about forward bends is that though they work primarily with pitta dosha, they also have a really calming effect on those people who are experiencing overwhelm or anxiety (vata-symptoms) because they effect the kidneys and adrenals. And you know, in some way all of the doshas are flowing and interacting together, we can’t really separate them, but you can see how, if there is anxiety, like a deadline - and that causes frustration, those two emotional components begin interacting – and in Ayurveda, this can be understood as vata aggravating (or pushing) pitta.

AI: Are their some other heat-reducing poses?

Chitra: Spinal twists are good because of their action on the liver, gallbladder and small intestines.

AI: Spinal twists are also really good for kapha too, right?

Chitra: Yes, I mean, in some sense, all poses are tri-doshic. Spinal twists have that extra component of opening up the sites of kapha – the lungs and heart and they accentuate the sites of lymph, like the inner groin, up through the center line, the deeper nodes that come up through the center of the body and also into the armpits and that area. So, they are good because kapha governs lymph.

Also, for spiritual purposes, twists open up every chakra along the spine. So in that way, we can see that this pose is an especially integrative pose for all of the doshas.

AI: What kind of poses would you recommend for people who wouldn’t necessarily describe themselves as generally hot or overheated, but notice a tendency toward emotional heat…like anger and aggression. Is there some type of calming posture?

Chitra: One of the things to think about if there is an emotion that keeps coming up, is what kind of history do we have in terms of how we have expressed that emotion in the past. If that emotion has been backed up for a long time, we need to give it a movement. And that movement would be something like the moon salutation because it is calming and actually opens up the channels. The moon salutation is good because it really integrates us with the breath and some of those things that are kind of buried in our consciousness can slowly sift up to the surface and we can start looking at those things from a place of equanimity.

Because if it is so, and in Ayurveda it is, that the physical body is just an interface for the emotional and spiritual aspects of who we are, then moving from the physical body can also move those other aspects through us, giving things a movement can release things from the holdings in the tissues.

You know, it’s like after a good yoga or meditation session, you can come out and your whole world looks different. And from that place there is some clarity. It doesn’t mean that we don’t express or that we deny what is there for us, but we can come from a larger perspective.

The breath is essential in helping people and/or things move. It irrigates the tissues, in a sense. It flushes things out. So if one goes into a pose, it’s much more beneficial to go into it from a place of engagement - a place where you can really relax deeply and go into the breath until you feel like the whole body is moving and breathing…that’s what is going to relax the mind. The mind will respond to that relaxation of the body – because they are not separate.

AI: What if someone is overweight and so overheated that the last thing they want to do is move?

Chitra: For every question there are many answers because there are so many diverse people walking this planet, huh?

So, a couple of responses I can think of are #1) if the heat is exhausting someone and they have a kapha imbalance (if they are overweight, for example) the medicine for that is movement…because the qualities of kapha are heavy, dense, immobile and stable and so we need something to come in and lighten that up and break it up, and that something is movement - something like simple flow.

Even tai chi will get the energy moving – it doesn’t have to be rigorous exercise. The lungs need to open and the heart needs to work a little bit so that we can allow that life force to move through us. If that is still too much, if there is resistance to any kind of movement at all, then we can go into a restorative pose.

If there is no high blood pressure, one can go into Viparita kandi mudra in passive form. Which would be to put a bolster near the wall and you drape the lumbar curve over the bolster and put your feet up on the wall so that you are lying on the floor. That balances all the vital energies (pranas) in the body, it rests the nervous system, reduces excess heat and it’s also one of the best things for immunity – so any symptoms of fatigue or exhaustion can be ameliorated.

AI: And how long should they stay in the pose?

Chitra: It’s a pretty individual thing, in the beginning, what I usually tell people is to come down when their feet start to tingle. That is a queue from your circulation that you need to come back up and get some more blood flowing in your feet.

You know, earlier we talked about forward bends being excellent for reducing heat. Well, the downside of FWD bends for people that are overweight is that they can be uncomfortable because there is so much bulk.

So an alternative pose to forward bends or viparita mudra, for people with high blood pressure and/or for those who are overweight, is to place a bolster a couple of inches away from the sacrum – and just lay over it with the chest open. This will help open the sites of kapha and also open the solar plexus area for pitta. It will help increase the circulation and respiratory functions, and tone and rest the kidneys and adrenals so the nervous system goes into the psns response, which is the rest response. This is also true for vipariti mudra.

Again, in restorative poses, the breath is what brings the deepest healing. It’s like treating yourself to a massage. Sometimes I wonder what was more beneficial the massage or just the fact that I stepped out of my busy, hectic schedule for a while and just rested, with nothing else to do. In that space, the mind can rest. It’s like a meditation. So when you combine the physical benefits of the pose with the quietness of the mind as it focuses on the breath then there is a lot of healing potential that can come in, in that moment.

AI: Can you suggest breathing exercises for people who need a healthy way to cool down their systems, but just can’t move around too much?

Chitra: The best cooling breath is Shitali. You just curl the tongue; make a little funnel with the tongue. Then, you draw the breath in through that funnel, with the lips closed around the tongue and you exhale through the nose. For people who can’t curl the tongue, they can just put the teeth together and smile and suck the breath in through the teeth and over the tongue with a normal exhalation (through the nose). This is a cooling breath.

If you do this for 10-12 rounds you will notice a difference. This can have a pretty immediate effect on the mind too, in terms of the emotional component. If people are feeling really irritable or agitated from the heat and they just go into this breath and relax into it and let that breath flow, it can really wash out some of that heat and there is more perspective available at that point.

AI: How and where should people sit while doing a breathing practice?

Chitra: They could be sitting anywhere and in any position. You could sit in cross-legged position, but you can even do it at work or while stuck in traffic. If you are feeling heated up, this breath can be done. I think that’s the wonderful thing about yoga. We have the ability to reach for that tool and use it whenever we need it rather than only using it while we are on the meditation cushion or yoga mat.

If I feel a certain imbalance in my system, can I do something in that moment, can I respond in that moment so that I can come back into balance? Otherwise I am waiting until something more extreme happens and then I have to fix that and that takes a lot of time. But if we can do it moment by moment and use the tools that we have, it’s very powerful and it’s really a kind of meditation of life. Can we stay tuned into that? So that every moment we can fine tune how we are in relationship to the larger environment, because we are not really separate from that; we are just tuning ourselves moment by moment.

AI: Wow. I think that’s a great place to end. What will we cover next month?

Chitra: Next month, since we will be getting ready to enter the fall, how about if we discuss seasonal transitions and how they can affect our health - and let’s include how that’s different for each person depending upon where they live.

AI: Perfect. Namaste Chitra.

Chitra: Namaste.

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