‘Without proper nutrition, medicine is of little use... With proper nutrition, medicine is of little need’ – Charaka Samhita, an ancient classical text on Ayurveda
Right now, a revolution is happening. A growing number of people are beginning to reject the conveniences and fast pace of modern life in favour of a more natural, more grounded one, where we know the source and environmental impact of the foods that we buy. A new fashion for wellbeing has resulted in practices that were once considered alternative, such as yoga, meditation and mindfulness, becoming mainstream. As quickly as we’re moving with the demands of technology there is the same strong pull that seeks a move back to nature, as we struggle with the irony that the more time-saving technology we create, the less time we seem to have.
WHY THE BIG CHANGE?
In the last century the power over our own health – the knowledge of what, when and how we should nourish ourselves – has been lost. In 2002 the World Health Organization (WHO) released a statement saying that the biggest threat to public health is our own lifestyles. In an age where the US, a leading nation with first-world healthcare, lists medical intervention as the third most common cause of death after cancer and heart disease, the big question is: where does that leave us? There are many factors at play, and many seem beyond our control, leaving us feeling dissatisfied and helpless. ‘Cured’ and ‘healed’ have become medical words. We are living in a time when most think we cannot ‘get well’ without the intervention of medicine, surgery and people who have studied allopathy. In an era where the concept of food as medicine is scoffed at and healthcare has become a disease-management system, the fusion of the holistic and considered approach from the East has never been more needed. It’s time for us to look at our whole being, not just diet and exercise.
Long before we relied on science, and after we’d pushed back the wilderness and had food to eat as well as shelter, we discovered the optimal way to care for ourselves. A mix of self-care, self-fulfilment and community, all of which we understood had to fit side by side with nature. Slowly, we are seeing the return of this ancient wisdom from cultures all over the world, and with it, Ayurveda.
The Indian traditions of yoga and Ayurveda were first introduced to the rest of the world in the 1960s, encouraging people to live a happy, healthy and conscious lifestyle. As has been the fashion in the West, the physical side of yoga took off in a big way and it has become the myriad brands and branches of yoga that we see today. Meditation and mindfulness, the more spiritual aspects, followed slowly behind, in part because they are harder to market, less tangible to ‘prove’, too closely linked to religion and sometimes seen as hippyish, backward or self-indulgent. Rather than a tool to prepare you for meditation, yoga became a tool to prepare you for the beach.
Now Ayurveda, ‘the knowledge’ of individual self-care and growth, completes the circle with the greater end product of benefiting our world. ‘Ayur’, or ‘life’, is understood as four parts: the physical body, the mind, the soul and the senses. Compare this to Western medicine, which focuses on the body and only more recently on the mind – we need to get to grips with the idea that everything is connected! The latest research into quantum physics echoes the Ayurvedic principles that we are made of the same elements as everything else in the universe and are moved by the same forces that move the oceans, the winds, the stars and the planets. It stands to reason that outside energies affect our day-to-day life, and so the modern lifestyle of artificial light, 24-hour technology, industrially produced food, global transportation, planet desecration and pollution pushes us out of sync with the natural rhythm of the world. Going with the flow of nature is the smooth way forward, anything less and things get tough. Yoga is described as the practice of Ayurveda, uniting the mind, body and spirit as a powerful system for creating health, nourishment and healing at home. Using ancient wisdom alongside modern tools, we have a tremendous resource to transform ourselves and our environment if we apply it to our daily lives.
Today Ayurveda is still flourishing in India and Sri Lanka and is now practised all over the world, often working in harmony with modern medicine. In the same way that acupuncture was once seen as ‘woo woo’, because it could not be proven as to why or how it worked, it is now accepted as a valuable ‘alternative’ or ‘complementary’ therapy to allopathy. There is actually no greater catalyst to health than beginning to look at your whole life based on Ayurvedic principles. It is the influence behind all natural therapies that we use today: acupuncture, marma therapy, herbalism, homeopathy – we have Ayurveda to thank for all of them.
THE KEY TO OPTIMUM HEALTH
Ayurveda helps me to strike balance in a world where we are constantly thrown around like a yo-yo, and 20 years of living and working in a big city has, for me, emphasised the importance of routine and a stable home. I could not operate as I do without the grounding principles of Ayurveda: from my daily meditations and Sundays spent lying in the park, to the rituals of going to bed early, rising early and eating homemade, well-cooked suppers. While I’m not ready to hang up my high heels just yet, I do everything I can to bring about a balance between my urban habitat and my natural soul, and my first port of call is the food I eat.
Dipping your toes into the pool of Ayurveda might seem intimidating at first, but the good news is that its overall message is simple: Ayurveda recognises above all else the importance of digestion, and that the strength of your digestive fire is key to good health. So if you focus on supporting your digestion with your lifestyle choices you don’t have to fixate on food types or study Ayurveda in depth. Balance means taking a holistic approach to life with a self-awareness that enables you stay you on track and bring you back if needs be. Once you reach a balance, you can really start to understand what makes you tick and what doesn’t float your boat. This is the starting point of intuitively mastering what you need to do in order to maintain your optimum health.