Pursuing the “right” way or the “perfect” outcome tends to rob us of the experience that anything is good enough, setting us up to feel perpetually dissatisfied.

To practice eating mindfully, take a deep breath and say a word of gratitude over your food. Now take your first bite. Put your eating utensil back down and rest your hands in your lap. If you are enjoying a sandwich or hand-held food, place it back on the plate. Sit and experience the taste on your tongue and the texture of the food in your mouth.

If you were to go over to your mirror right now and stick out your tongue, would you see a thick, white coating? If so, it might be time to clean your tongue.

When you first discover Ayurveda, you feel a magnetic pull to learn more. The way the system addresses each person as a unique individual feels a lot like having a friend that really “gets” you. There is some glitz and glam around uncovering your dosha (if you don’t know yours, take the Ayurvedic Profile™ quiz), and staking your claim as a vata, pitta, or kapha is like illuminating a path with your best health as the destination. 

Just as all individuals have all three doshas inherent within themselves, dual-doshic or tri-doshic manifestations can be identified in our natural environment.

Ayurveda has seven tissue systems, and keeping them healthy is critical to our well-being. Vibrant tissues provide us with greater vitality and immunity. The dhatus are sequential in their function—they nourish one another.

Leave it to Ayurveda to devote an entire branch of its ancient science to the practice of rejuvenation. One can only imagine how important this concept should be in our stressed-out, ever-busy world.

Have you ever noticed how often we use the word “breath” in our daily live? We use phrases like, “I’m not going to hold my breath,” “Like a breath of fresh air,” “I have to catch my breath,” “It took my breath away,” “Take a deep breath first,” and so forth. Pranayama is a yogic practice commonly translated as “control of the breath.”

The saying “You are what you eat” takes on increased importance in Ayurveda, which teaches that food affects you both physiologically and psychologically. To be more Ayurvedic, we can modify this saying to “You are as healthy as the tastes you consume.” Everything you eat has a certain taste and that taste has specific actions on the body and mind.

When I set out to write this article on how Ayurveda can help us lead a calm and peaceful life, I immediately thought of something I learned from my teacher, Maya Tiwari. She taught us that all the herbs in the world wouldn't heal us if we’re not living in harmony with Nature.

The Ayurvedic take on digestion includes the idea that the whole process happens in three stages, that digestion happens on a subtle level as well as a gross physical one, and that it takes a full 36 days to complete the digestive process. Here is a break-down with more information.

Space element, sometimes called ether, is the place where everything happens. In the modern yoga world, Space element abounds. The practice of intensive, drying asana sequences, an emphasis on raw food, and the devotion to practices and substances that make us feel “blissed-out” all contribute to excess Space element.

The wind element carries the qualities cold, dry, rough, mobile, subtle, and light. Sound familiar? That's right, vata dosha is made up of wind and space!

Fire element is the principle of transformation. In the body, this most obviously manifests in the flame of digestion. Fire element expresses as hot, sharp, bright, upward-moving, and spreading.

Water element is the principle of cohesion. In the body, this emerges as nourishment, growth, and lubrication. Water element cools, moistens, adheres, soothes, softens, smoothes, dulls, and spreads.

Earth element expresses as stability. The qualities of Earth element are cool, stable, heavy, dry, rough, gross, dense, dull, and hard. In the body, this emerges as growth, accumulation, and support; the muscle tissue, fat tissue, and hard part of the bones depend heavily upon Earth element. 

Rejuvenation is a lovely thing to do to help us feel better and it can bring ease from long, ongoing stress or illness. Restorative practices boost our mental and physical energy while we work on recovery and help us be our best selves. 

Eating is a wonderful and enjoyable act. Unfortunately, with busy lives, we can forget how important it actually is and how directly it affects our minds and bodies. Ayurveda teaches that the act of eating is just as significant as the nutritional content of the food. 

Yoga and Ayurveda enrich each other in mutually enhancing ways. So if you are looking to deepen your yoga practice, why not introduce yourself to Ayurveda?

Nadi Shodhana, or alternate nostril breathing, is a type of pranayama that balances the right and left hemispheres of the brain and has a calming effect on the nervous system while creating a more alert mind. It cleanses the channels of the subtle energy body by removing energetic blockages along the nadis (channels) that correspond to the nerve ganglia on either side of the spinal cord. It is extremely centering, making it one of the best practices for vata dosha.

We are all going to approach work and projects differently. Let's explore how we can work more in harmony with good understandings of each other according to the three doshas.

Ayurveda, thought to be the most ancient form of medicine, and touted as the science of life, is centered upon the concept of balance. Within Ayurveda, this teaching of balance shows itself everywhere and within everything. 

Ayurveda names 3 causes of disease. Dis-ease is disease. Dis means having a negative or reversing force. Ease means free from difficulty, effort, or trouble. Dis-ease, therefore, is a negative reversal of the flow of ease. Behaviors that reverse the flow of ease develop disease. 

Unless you are a saint, you will go out of balance and become sick from time to time. Occasional sickness is inevitable for a mortal; continuously perfect health does not exist on our planet. Every body-mind-spirit has some weak point, somewhere.