CHAPTER ONE
A QUICK IMMERSION in AYURVEDA
Even if a physician has profound book knowledge, without entering into the patient’s heart with the flame of love and the light of knowledge, one cannot properly treat disease.
— CHARAKA SAMHITA (SACRED AYURVEDIC TEXT)
Ayurveda is a vast body of knowledge. Some have even said this knowledge is as vast as the ocean, and that it’s difficult for a practitioner to master it completely. Let’s start with the basics that you will need to know to begin easily living an Ayurvedic lifestyle.
What Is Ayurveda?
Ayurveda is mind-body medicine that originated in India at least five thousand years ago. The name Ayurveda comes from two Sanskrit (an ancient language of India) words: ayus, meaning “life,” and veda, which means “science” or “knowledge.” So the name literally means the “science of life.” Ayurveda is a complete medical system or science that includes observation; diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease; detoxification and rejuvenation of the body; surgery; and herbal medicine. Ayurveda is called a consciousness-based system of medicine because the practitioner seeks to understand the patient fully before recommending or administering treatment, and because the practitioner works not only on observation but also on intuition. The Ayurvedic practitioner knows that the patient is not simply flesh and bones but a dynamic being with a mind, a body, emotions, a soul, and a spirit. As the Charaka Samhita states, the physician needs to enter the heart of the patient “with the flame of love.” If she does not, she cannot help him. I believe this statement points to what has been lost in allopathic, or Western, medicine, and to what can be found in Ayurvedic medicine.
Why Ayurveda Rather Than Another Healing Modality?
Ayurveda is all-encompassing. The practice of Ayurveda addresses diet, lifestyle, seasonal and daily routines, herbal medicine, massage or touch therapy, detoxification of the body, energy work, spiritual practice through yoga and meditation, and surgery. The philosophy behind Ayurveda says that if it works, then you should try it. Even if you apply the principles in this guide, you can still continue to follow your physician’s protocol, take prescribed medications, and make use of other methods used in allopathic medicine.
Another reason to follow an Ayurvedic practice is that it’s the most complete medical system on the planet. Other disciplines of Ayurveda, which I don’t have space to examine here, include Ayurvedic astrology and the study of object placement and space.
Finally, Ayurveda focuses on the practice of preventive medicine first. Awareness of the body, mind, and intellect can lead you to recognize subtle changes that occur before full-blown illness erupts. Reversing subtle changes in the body is much easier than curing a disease. By learning little things and applying them, you can make a big difference in your health.
Balance versus Imbalance
One major difference between Western medicine and Ayurveda is that Ayurveda looks at health and illness as a matter of balance and imbalance. If a person is balanced, she is healthy, vibrant, energetic, alive, happy, and motivated, and her skin and eyes glow. When a person is out of balance, she is dull, achy, tired, lethargic, worried, nervous, or depressed. Whether or not physical symptoms are present, Ayurveda can detect that a person is out of balance, and this imbalance will ultimately lead to a manifestation of symptoms and disease if not corrected. Discovering this imbalance before the patient becomes ill gives the Ayurvedic practitioner a little more wiggle room to help the patient. Patients go to the doctor because they are uncomfortable. And if the doctor doesn’t detect any physical symptoms or abnormalities, then all too often he sends the patient home in exactly the condition he arrived in. But the Ayurvedic practitioner, through observation, palpation, and a series of questions, can easily detect the state of imbalance and help tweak the patient’s health back into balance by recommending alterations in diet, exercise, yoga, meditation, and lifestyle, along with emotional clearing or herbs.
The Ayurvedic Definition of Health
Often, clients come to me for Ayurvedic consultations who claim to be completely healthy. On the questionnaires I send them before the first visit, they write, under the inquiries about their physical health and emotional health, that they are in “excellent” or “very good” shape. These same clients may be notably overweight or addicted to alcohol, or they may struggle with insomnia or anxiety or some other complaint that prevents them from living their lives to the fullest. Upon further questioning, they admit, “Yes, I have a few pounds to lose.” Or: “I can’t end my day without a drink.” Or: “I haven’t slept more than five hours a night in ten years.”
The shift I will ask you to make in your definition of health is from one that is typical of a Western mind-set — “If I have no symptoms, I am healthy” — to an Ayurvedic definition: “Health is an integration of my mind, emotions, soul, spirit, physical body, and purpose in life.” If one of these is out of balance, they are all out of balance, rest assured. In the following chapters, you will learn to recognize when you are out of balance and will discover that you possess the tools to regain true health.
The Mahabhutas: The Great Elements
When Ayurveda was in its infancy, sages called rishis, or seers, observed people and nature. What they noticed was that people reacted differently to similar stimuli. For example, if you walk into a room with a friend, you may find yourself freezing while your friend complains that it’s too warm. Or if you and your spouse walk outside into the bright sunlight, he or she may need to immediately put on sunglasses to appreciate the outdoors, while you enjoy allowing the sun to penetrate your face. These differences, the rishis realized, occurred because each person has a unique dynamic, a different mind-body type based on the five elements that exist everywhere. Those five elements are space (akasha), air (vayu), fire (tejas), water (jala), and earth (prithivi). In Sanskrit, these elements are called the mahabhutas, or “great elements,” and they influence all other elements. The five elements make up the three principal doshas, or mind-body types, in Ayurveda.
An Introduction to the Doshas
The three principal doshas, or mind-body types, are Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. The Vata principle (pronounced VAH-ta) is composed of the elements space and air. “Space” means the vast open space, or ether, but also the space in a room, the space in a box, or the space between your cells. In order for air to move and circulate, it needs space. So these two elements work harmoniously together. The Pitta principle (pronounced PIT-ta) is composed of the elements fire and water, which together have transformational qualities. And the Kapha principle (pronounced KAF-fa) is composed of water and earth. These elements exist everywhere on our planet and in the universe, in different quantities. Since we are part of the planet and universe, the elements exist within each of us too.
Each person has all three doshas in his or her mind-body constitution. But the proportion of these doshas is different in everyone. General trends in doshic makeup usually exist in families, since genes are shared. But sometimes that’s not the case, since environment, geographical location, date, time, and season of birth often influence a person’s prakruti, or true nature.
To determine your prakruti, please take the following Mind-Body Type Test. When you assess each of the statements, think about how you’ve acted, reacted, or been for your whole life. If a statement has been true some of the time or during certain periods of your life, decide how accurately it describes you on average. The test will yield accurate information only if you are truthful to yourself. The results will guide you as you improve your health and come back to what is a naturally balanced state for you.
The Ayurvedic Mind-Body Type Test
Please assess each of the following statements as it applies to you, on average, for your whole life. If a statement doesn’t apply to you at all, score it a 0. If it is absolutely you, score it a 5. Score a statement 1 or 2 if it describes you rarely; give it a 3 if it applies some of the time; and score it a 4 if it applies most of the time.
SECTION I
TOTAL SCORE FOR SECTION I: _______
SECTION II
TOTAL SCORE FOR SECTION II: _______
SECTION III
TOTAL SCORE FOR SECTION III: _______
Total Scores and the Doshas
Transfer the total scores for each section to the blanks shown below. Then determine which of the three is your highest score, and check the list of possible mind-body types to find the corresponding dosha. If your highest score is more than 85 points, it’s likely that you’re a single dosha type. If your second score is close to your first score and at least 10 points above your third, you are a two-dosha type. For example, if you scored 73 points for section I, 54 points for section II, and 27 points for section III, you would be a Vata-Pitta. Only in very rare instances is someone tridoshic — that is, characterized by a mind-body type composed of equal amounts of all three doshas.
Section I score: _________ Vata
Section II score: ________ Pitta
Section III score: ________ Kapha
The possible mind-body types:
| Vata |
Pitta-Vata |
| Pitta |
Pitta-Kapha |
| Kapha |
Kapha-Vata |
| Vata-Pitta |
Kapha-Pitta |
| Vata-Kapha |
|
The purpose of the Mind-Body Type Test is to identify your natural state of being, not to make sure all three doshas are equally strong in you or to choose the traits you think you might like. When a person is in balance, he or she possesses all the positive traits of all the doshas. For example, a Kapha type is naturally trustworthy and faithful. That does not mean a Pitta or a Vata person cannot have those traits too. It simply means that trustworthiness and faithfulness come easily for a Kapha type, and that when in balance, Pitta and Vata types also tend to be aligned with these positive traits. However, when a person is out of balance, he or she usually shows the negative traits of the dominant dosha first; if the condition continues, negative traits of the other doshas appear, too. To return to my example of the Kapha person (who is naturally trustworthy and faithful), a negative outcome for an imbalanced Kapha is possessiveness and greed. And if the imbalance continues, the possessiveness can also lead to anger, which is a normal Pitta imbalance, or to anxiety, which is a normal Vata imbalance.
Once you determine your mind-body type, or prakruti, read the description of each dosha. Keep in mind that each description represents a classic example of that mind-body type and may apply to you only in part. It’s common to see several traits of your dominant dosha in yourself, a few traits of your secondary dosha, and maybe one or two traits of the dosha for which you scored the least number of points.
Vata Dosha: The Wind Principle
Possessing a dosha composed of space and air, the Vata person is thin and light and has angular features. Imagine the qualities of space: vast, open, infinite, and cold; and the qualities of air: moving, cool, changing, unpredictable, rough, drying. A Vata type has these qualities in his body and mind. Vatas are quick. They move fast, talk fast, walk fast. They think and learn fast but also forget fast. Vatas are easily excitable, engaging in the latest activities, fads, or fashions. They are fun, creative, communicative, and enterprising. Like the wind, they stay for a time then move on to the next location. Being with a Vata type keeps you young and laughing, because they are playful, funny, and witty. But they can also be unpredictable and unreliable. Often they are accused of being “airheaded.” Vatas resist routine, even though they need it, and forget to eat or sleep at times. It is typically Vata to start a project and not finish it, change jobs or relationships often, and spend money on trivialities.
When in balance, Vata types keep you on your toes with their boundless energy. But when out of balance, Vatas suffer from anxiety, panic attacks, weight loss, constipation, dry skin and eyes, aches and pains, and fear.
Pitta Dosha: The Fire Principle
Fire and water may seem like opposite qualities at first glance, but they work together to transform one thing into another. For example, if you make a batch of brownies, you mix together the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients. When you’ve finished stirring them together, you have a thick, wet, gloppy mixture. Factors that contribute to the wetness are generally eggs, water, and oil. Then you put the mixture in a pan and stick it in the oven to bake. Forty-five minutes later, you have brownies. But if you were to dig through the baked brownies to find the eggs, water, or oil, you would be unsuccessful. The reason is that the “fire,” or the oven in this case, transformed the ingredients into something else. That’s the transformative effect of Pitta.
Pitta types have a medium build. A Pitta has beautiful eyes with a penetrating gaze and a healthy glow to her skin. It is Pitta to want things to be in order, to be a perfectionist about details, and to not like having her time wasted. A Pitta is driven by education, learning new skills, gathering facts, and then sharing the knowledge with anyone who will listen. To others, Pittas are interesting, attractive, well spoken, and intense.
Physically, Pittas are like goats. They can eat anything they want, owing to a strong digestive fire, and will usually be fine. But they also tend to abuse their great digestion by overeating or eating too many spicy or fried foods, all of which aggravate Pitta.
When Pittas are in balance, they are strong leaders, passionate lovers, informative educators, and beautiful. But when a Pitta is out of balance, she spews fire, criticizing and judging everyone in her path. She’s irritable, unpleasant, and furrows her brow a lot. She gets acid indigestion or irritable bowels and has a hard time digesting any type of food. Her skin gets red with anger and often breaks out.
Kapha Dosha: The Earth Principle
Composed of earth and water, which together create mud, Kapha is slow, wet, cold, thick, viscous, compact, and heavy. A Kapha type has a large build, big bones, and more fat under his skin than the other dosha types have. He has large, loving eyes and rosy cheeks. Kaphas move like the tortoise. They walk slowly, talk slowly, think and process things slowly, and don’t worry much. It is Kapha to resist change, enjoy routine, and be methodical and affectionate. To others, Kaphas are grounding, steady, loving, and trustworthy, and they are great listeners. Kaphas have a difficult time understanding why they love food so much and gain weight easily. When in balance, Kaphas are the solid foundation of a family or company. Once a Kapha is out of balance, he gains weight, refuses to move off the couch, accumulates clutter, becomes possessive in relationships, and has excess mucus in his body. While all three mind-body types are at risk for depression when out of balance, a Kapha type is the quickest to become depressed, especially in late winter.
Interpreting Your Mind-Body Type
It’s important that you understand a few facts about your mind-body type in order to help heal yourself. Different doshas respond to different treatments, and by knowing which dosha is out of balance or likely to be out of balance, you will know which direction to take. For example, if you’ve had chronic constipation for most of your life, or constipation becomes a problem during times of stress or travel, then pay attention to the Vata dosha to rebalance yourself. But if you have acid reflux as a result of overeating, eating while upset, or eating spicy food, you need to rebalance Pitta.
Since all three doshas exist in us, it’s possible to experience an imbalance in any of the three. For example, suppose you have a Vata constitution and it’s winter in Michigan. You’ve broken your leg, and you’ve been laid up on the couch for weeks. It’s cold, you’re upset that you can’t move (Vata types are not well when they can’t move), and you’ve been eating too much in an attempt to comfort yourself. Once you recover from the broken leg, you discover that you’re tired most of the time, have a desire to sleep late in the morning, and have gained ten pounds. Because of the given situation, season, and circumstances, you, as a Vata, are now experiencing a Kapha imbalance. In this case, Kapha would be the appropriate dosha to rebalance.
Often in consultations I’m asked, “Can my doshas change throughout my life?” The answer is, your prakruti does not change, your vikruti changes. Your prakruti is the genetic hand you were dealt at the time of your conception. Just as you would have a difficult time permanently changing your eye color, you cannot change your prakruti. However, I have seen clients so terribly imbalanced that it appeared they had one prakruti, but after detailed questions, I discovered their true nature was totally different.
Vikruti is your current state. Most often, it’s your state of imbalance. We are constantly swinging from balance to imbalance. If we live a healthy lifestyle according to our doshas and the Ayurvedic principles, we remain more or less balanced most of the time. However, if we continue to ignore our body’s signs, eating whatever we feel like and living a sedentary or chemically abusive lifestyle, we will continue to pull ourselves out of balance. Disease doesn’t happen overnight. We may think that it does, but subtle changes take place over days, months, years, and decades.
The question in your mind may now be: “Well, which dosha should I balance?” For the sake of simplicity, it’s best to begin by balancing your dominant dosha, the dosha for which you scored the highest. Balancing a person’s prakruti, especially when illness is present, can be a complicated matter, and it’s best done under the guidance of an Ayurvedic practitioner. But I can assure you that if you apply the principles in this book, your health will improve exponentially. And once you’re sold on the method, you can seek out an Ayurvedic practitioner in your area for more complicated health issues.
In The Wheel of Healing, I describe individual doshas as being aggravated and explain that they must be pacified. Pay attention to the six stages of disease, described in the following pages, in order to understand the concept of how disease develops. It may seem completely new and strange to you as a Western reader, but remember: this is wisdom of the ages. This wisdom, passed on through generations and millennia, is sound. And once you understand how Ayurveda works, it will make complete sense.
The Six Stages of Disease
Stage 1. Accumulation
When focusing on your mind-body type, embrace this statement: You don’t need more of what you already have. A Pitta has a fair amount of fire and water in his mind-body constitution. So by increasing the fire and water elements, you aggravate the Pitta dosha. Accumulation means that a dosha increases in an area of the body, usually an area where the dosha normally sits. For example, Vata is present in the colon. So when the air and space elements accumulate in the colon, it increases the amount in that area of the body. Since air and space are already fairly abundant in the colon, increased amounts can aggravate the colon.
Stage 2. Aggravation
The accumulation of the dosha begins to distort the normal function of the area it’s occupying. In the colon example, a person with increased air and space elements may begin to experience bloating or abdominal discomfort but not really understand where it comes from.
Stage 3. Dissemination
The aggravated dosha begins to spread outside its normal zone. To continue our example, the person may begin to experience excess gas and have a feeling of general discomfort in the abdomen, decreased appetite, and fatigue.
Stage 4. Localization
The expanding dosha begins to settle in an area of the body that already has some weakness, such as a site of previous injury, a spot where a person has had surgery, or some other vulnerable place in the body. So now, the person with excess Vata that began in the colon may be experiencing gas and constipation but also upper back pain.
Stage 5. Manifestation
If the symptoms in stage 4 are ignored, they will be exacerbated and exaggerated in a given bodily space. For example, if the aggravated Vata moves up into the brain, the imbalance may manifest as a panic attack.
Stage 6. Disruption
At this stage, if the imbalance is not corrected, full-blown illness erupts. It could be a repeated acute attack (such as a panic attack, asthma attack, or heart attack), a chronic condition (lupus, fibromyalgia, heart disease), or a complete disruption of all the doshas, as is seen in cancer.
According to the Ayurvedic model, a Western doctor wouldn’t be able to detect an abnormality until about the fourth or fifth stage. At this point, the seeds of illness have been planted and have been growing for some time. Often, a patient will go see a doctor in stage 3 or early stage 4 with complaints of fatigue, discomfort, and a general sense of “not feeling well.” A Western physician will have a difficult time pinpointing the origin of the illness. She may ask a few questions and run some tests, and if all the tests come back “normal,” she will write the complaint off as a virus or may even prescribe an antidepressant or another mood-lifting drug. Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming the medical community at all. Doctors have saved my life many times over. I was a very sick child and continued to be sick as a young adult. And it’s because of Western medicine that I’m here today. But the model takes healing only to a certain level. Doctors simply don’t have the tools to see the entire picture. However, this wasn’t always the case.
Examples of physicians in the early twentieth century show that because of the intimate nature of villages and home life, physicians knew their patients personally. A doctor’s personal relationship with not only the patient but also the patient’s family, friends, and neighbors expanded his healing capability. Doctors in those days visited a sick patient’s home. They observed the patient’s environment and knew what else was happening in the patient’s life. And since intimacy helps hone a person’s intuitive skills, the doctors were also more intuitive. They didn’t have the plethora of drugs available that we have today, so they had to rely a little more on common sense, compassion, observation, and relationship.
Let’s fast-forward to today. Doctors are governed by health insurance companies, costly malpractice insurance, and the financial demands of big medical practices that they share with other doctors. All of them are under pressure to see an overlarge number of patients each day and don’t have the luxury of getting to know their patients intimately. How can they become well acquainted with a patient in a fifteen-minute window of time or less? Moreover, in medical school, physicians are not taught compassion and given the tools for connection with a patient. Most take only one course in nutrition and lifestyle, and that may be optional. For the most part, they are taught pathology. They know how to diagnose and treat illness. Let me give you an example from my own experience.
After two surgeries for thyroid cancer, along with radioactive iodine therapy, I began feeling miserable. I was extremely fatigued, lacked motivation, was jittery, had brain fog, was fearful, and had panic attacks, to name a few symptoms. All of these can be signs of hypothyroidism. I went to my endocrinologist and explained the symptoms. He ran some tests and announced that all tests were normal and there was nothing wrong with me. After seeing the symptoms only increase, and after going through two more doctors who told me my symptoms were all in my head, I went to see Dr. Leonard Wisneski, an endocrinologist with a background in herbal medicine, acupuncture, and holistic healing. Dr. Wisneski walked into the examining room and opened his arms to give me a hug. After giving me a good squeeze, he tossed his file aside and asked, “So what’s going on?” He listened intently while I poured my heart out to him, and then responded, “You’re not crazy. You’re going through post-traumatic stress disorder, and you’re probably depleted nutritionally and on the wrong thyroid medication.” Here’s what he did right:
1. He addressed me as a human, and not simply as a patient, by hugging me.
2. He listened intently.
3. He believed what I was telling him.
4. He assured me that what I was telling him about my health was correct.
5. He told me there was a solution.
6. He offered a solution that was multifaceted and that addressed more than simply my symptoms.
As the quote from the Charaka Samhita says a physician must do, Dr. Wisneski entered the heart of his patient. In illness, there’s a tremendous amount of fear. If through compassion, a physician can dispel the fear, symptoms improve. But the physician must also have tools other than prescription medication and medical interventions.
An Ayurvedic doctor or practitioner can detect an illness at stage 1, well before symptoms appear. In an Ayurvedic consultation, a practitioner will make recommendations in order to balance doshas — through lifestyle, nutrition, meditation, and yoga and other forms of regular exercise. Preventive measures are recommended to stop the aggravation of a dosha, and this will arrest any symptoms.
Creating a Symptom Plan
The type of symptoms that may appear are specific to a certain mind-body type. For example, at some point in their lives Vata types will see symptoms of gas, bloating, constipation, nervousness, a racing mind, anxiety, panic attacks, loss of appetite, restless sleep, weight loss, and fear. Being Vata, it’s inevitable. Healthy Vatas will see these symptoms less often, while unhealthy Vatas will see them more frequently.
Pitta types often see hyperacidity, acid reflux, diarrhea, acne, skin redness, hives, rashes, eye sensitivity, ulcers, canker sores, a ravenous appetite, nausea, anger, irritability, impatience, and self-criticism or criticism of others.
Kapha types usually experience lethargy, weight gain, inertia, hoarding, mild to moderate depression, laziness, water retention, sinusitis or allergy symptoms, asthma, and chronic bronchitis and wheezing.
Please take a few minutes to write down the symptoms that most often manifest in your life. If you’re not certain, close your eyes and take a walk down memory lane to your earliest childhood memory, and then scan your lifetime. You will notice some patterns in yourself. Awareness of whether your typical symptoms are more typically Vata-, Pitta-, or Kapha-like will assist you in rebalancing yourself.
Checklist for Health
An Introduction to Ayurveda
Rate your physical and mental health today. Do you feel your health is poor, fair, good, very good, or excellent?
Take the Mind-Body Type Test and determine your Ayurvedic mind-body type.
Read the descriptions of the doshas and determine which one most resonates with who you are today.
Create a list of your typical symptoms, including any that have occurred throughout your life.
