Monday, 9:30 A.M. Traffic lights flash on the streets of Los Angeles. Horns blare. Cars streak along the freeway. Golden sunlight bounces off the waves of the Pacific, but no one has the time to stop and gaze. Life is on autopilot.
Waiting in the reception area of a seaside office building, thirty-five-year-old Meryl pulls at her cheek to calm a persistent twitch. Minutes later, she sits across from a cheerful man who nods understandingly as her story comes tumbling forth.
That man, a vaidya, counsels dozens of angst-ridden men and women every day. It does not surprise or alarm him to hear that the young woman before him seems to be suffering from every conceivable problem, from backache, headache, and wristache to insomnia, depression, and chronic fatigue. Ninety percent of the patients he sees have similar stories to tell. The diagnosis: burnout.
In a world increasingly addicted to instant solutions — instant coffee, instant messaging, instant trading — Meryl could have taken her pick of instant medications: tranquilizers, sedatives, soporifics. Why is she seeing a vaidya instead? Perhaps because, like millions of other people, Meryl has begun to realize that instant remedies are not worth the price you pay in side effects.
To a vaidya, the option of suppressing stress with side-effect-causing pills simply does not arise. The vaidya knows that your stress has its origins in one of three places: your body, your mind, or your spirit. The first priority is to figure out the point of origin, then recommend simple ways to set you free of stress. The advantage in this approach is that you are encouraged to become your own physician. Here is how you, too, can detect the origins of your stress.
The human body is one of the most intelligent, resilient structures in all of creation. The kapha dosha rules body framework, holding bones and muscles together and providing support and strength. As long as you use your body well, the kapha dosha makes sure your body performs at peak levels.
But when you tax your body beyond reasonable limits, or simply do not use it enough, you start accumulating toxic ama inside your body. And, as we have seen, the kapha dosha cannot tolerate ama at all. In particular, two of kapha’s deputies, or subdoshas, are affected by physical stress:
• tarpaka kapha, which maintains moisture in such body channels as the sinuses, mouth, and eyes, and is also responsible for nourishing the five senses — sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell;
• sleshaka kapha, which looks after the health of the joints.
Disturbed, these subdoshas start sending distress signals, which, to a vaidya, are unmistakable. Among the most obvious of these symptoms are dryness, stiffness, and bloating. More specifically, kapha imbalance robs the skin of moisture, leaving it dull and dry. The joints fall short of lubricant and become stiff. The tongue is coated with ama and the breath smells stale. The eyes look dull and devoid of ojas.
Another way in which a stressed body creates imbalance is by disturbing the vyana vata, the vata deputy that governs circulation, blood pressure, and the sense of touch. If your blood pressure is high, your nerves on edge, or your circulation sluggish, it is probably your vyana vata calling out for relief.
These distress signals can seem terribly alarming, but if you give your body some tender loving care the damage can be rapidly reversed. Start by making a list of the small ways in which you have been misusing or abusing your body. Are you giving it too much exercise, too little exercise, or not enough rest? Have you been reading in low light, watching television too closely, not sitting erect? If you answer “yes” to some or all of these questions, don’t feel sorry. Instead, rejoice. You have done something remarkable: you have discovered the root cause of your stress. Now you can restore balance to your body without reaching for a pill or making a doctor’s appointment.
1. Drink plenty of water. Nothing tones up the digestive system like a regular sip of lukewarm water. This is important because, more often than not, the stresses that burden the mind originate in the gut. Warm water helps flush out the toxins that throw kapha out of balance and lead to problems like bloating and water retention. At the same time, water balances vata, which, when aggravated, can cause stressful digestive problems like constipation. Water (at room temperature) also calms pitta, which, though blessed with a strong digestive fire, can be plagued by acidity and ulcers. The answer to all three problems: irrigate your body. Drink more water.
2. Take a fresh look at your daily quota of exercise. If you spend most of the day sitting at a desk, your digestion can slow down, encouraging toxins to build up inside your system. Therefore, you will benefit by working a moderate amount of exercise — an easy-paced twenty-minute walk, for example — into your schedule. On the other hand, too much exercise also throws the doshas out of balance. In that case, you should stop exerting and start making time for some rest.
3. Eat a peace-promoting snack. In Ayurveda, certain foods are identified as natural stress-busters. Among them are walnuts, almonds, coconut, lightly cooked juicy fruits like pears and apples, milk, fresh homemade yogurt, ghee, and fresh cheeses such as Indian-style homemade paneer (see recipe in chapter 9) or ricotta. If your body is feeling stressed, get more of these ingredients in your diet — based on a vaidya’s assessment of which ones you need and how much.
Do you think all the time but without clarity, work hard but without enthusiasm, and lie in bed without sleep? If yes, your stress has its origins in your mind. In Ayurvedic terms, these are classic symptoms of an out-of-balance vata — more specifically, the subdosha prana vata, or life force, that governs energy and calm.
When prana vata is disturbed, it impairs the mind’s capacity to learn, retain, and recall information. Ayurveda has names for these three essential functions:
1. dhi, or acquisition of knowledge,
2. dhriti, or retention of knowledge, and
3. smriti, or recall of that knowledge.
Therefore, if you can register new information in a flash, make creative use of it in your work, and have a photographic memory; congratulate yourself. Your stress levels are wonderfully low and your mind’s key coordinates are working in harmony.
But, given our overload of stresses, I doubt if many of us can afford to congratulate ourselves. I’m more familiar with the dhi/dhriti/smriti imbalance that shows up in little ways: going blank, forgetting our keys, struggling to remember a name. I know of someone who regularly forgets whether she has eaten her lunch!
Again, recovering from mental fatigue is not as frightening as it first looks. Philosopher and writer Franz Kafka, in fact, made it sound delightfully easy:
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
While such moments of quietude are no doubt divinely healing, they are hard to find. Take a more proactive approach: try the following simple ways to heal your unhappy prana vata.
1. Don’t work long hours at the computer; it saps the mind of energy.
2. Don’t stress over a niggling problem; it makes you lose your calm, thus disturbing prana vata.
3. Do get up and take a walk in between jobs; even a short break can restore calm in both body and mind.
4. Change coffee breaks into herbal-tea breaks. Good-quality Ayurvedic herbal teas (see resource list) contain healing herbs such as brahmi, ashwagandha, and arjuna. Extensive modern research has established that the herb brahmi enhances all three mental capacities: dhi, dhriti, and smriti. Ashwagandha is an effective weapon against physical fatigue. And arjuna heals the emotional aspect of the heart. Thus, just one cup of herbal tea can take you from stressed to rested within minutes.
5. Allow yourself the luxury of a nature walk, an evening spent among flowers, a healing nap. Such calming activities recharge your batteries and are very pleasing to prana vata.
Do you notice a pattern so far? Physical stress is connected largely with a kapha imbalance, and mental stress with vata disturbance. Logically, then, emotional problems should be related to pitta, right? Right. More specifically, emotions are the terrain of the subdosha sadhaka pitta. But more about that in just a while.
Ayurveda recognizes that deep-seated stress is always related to emotional problems. The most common among them are marital conflicts or the loss of a loved one. Because the situation that creates emotional stress is generally traumatic, it is also more devastating than any other kind of stress. People going through emotional turmoil can suffer from chronic depression, highly toxic bottled-up anger, nightmares, and terrible insecurity. When that happens, it is time to pacify sadhaka pitta, the vital force that governs comfort, contentment, and emotional fulfillment.
1. Appease your sadhaka pitta with sweet, bitter, and astringent foods. (See chapter 7 to find a list of foods that fall in each of these categories.)
2. Comfort it with sweet, juicy fruits in the morning or during the day, delicately flavored sweet lassi in the afternoon, and warm milk at night.
3. Calm it with the healing goodness of cooling herbs and spices such as cardamom, cilantro, and mint.
4. Don’t rush or skip lunch. To soothe between-meal hunger pangs, snack on something wholesome like fruit or a whole-wheat bagel. Sadhaka pitta rules comfort, remember?
5. Turn down the noise in your life: switch off your mobile phone, take a day off work, give yourself permission to enjoy some moments of solitude.
Consult a vaidya for guidance if you feel that your stresses run too deep. Sometimes a vaidya will prescribe a nutritional supplement to awaken your body’s immunity, strengthen your mind, and calm your emotions.
In addition to these targeted remedies, Ayurveda has some excellent therapies that can vaporize any kind of stress — whatever its origin and intensity. Here are some key recommendations.
When you deprive yourself of good sleep, you violate every law that is precious to Ayurveda: you cannot eat regular meals because your appetite is poor; this, in turn, slows down digestion, which results in toxin buildup; slowly, the toxins make you feel irritated and fatigued, and your strain affects your performance, your relationships, and your life. In such a state, you cannot hope to be creative, calm, or happy.
Ayurvedic healers studied sleep in great depth and observed several natural rest-friendly aids. Here are some:
• Eat an early dinner. Avoid eating after 7:00 P.M., when digestion is slow and even light foods sit in the stomach and interfere with good sleep. Ideally, your physical digestive processes should be completed before you get into bed.
• Do some pre-sleep preparation. About an hour before you get into bed, start switching off heavy sensory inputs like the three-hankie tear-jerker on television. Such information accumulates ama in your mind, causing disturbed sleep. Now prepare for the night ahead: light some aromatic candles to create an ambiance of peace, listen to soft music, or just lie down and breathe deeply.
• Drink milk and honey. Just before you sleep, drink a glass of warm milk with a little honey in it. This has a settling influence on the mind and the body. Although this is an ancient remedy, modern medicine has now established the link between milk and good sleep: milk contains the amino acid tryptophan, which releases serotonin, a brain chemical that makes sleep come easily. Never heat honey, as this eliminates its beneficial qualities. Adding a pinch of nutmeg or cardamom to the milk also promotes better sleep.
• Go to bed early. Try to go to bed by 10:00 P.M. If you are in the habit of staying up late, aim to achieve this in gradual stages: on the first night, try going to bed half an hour earlier than usual. This will help set your biomachinery in rhythm, promoting better rest. If you work night shifts, follow the rhythm of your body and mind, which will tell you when they need rest and how much. The simplest thing to do is: sleep when you feel sleepy.
• See a vaidya. If nothing works, consult a vaidya to help you determine what specific imbalance is disrupting your sleep.
Have you ever noticed how you breathe when you are angry or depressed? Depending on the intensity of your mood, your breath at that time is shallow, rapid, or labored — never deep, calm, and relaxed. Again, this is a sign of imbalanced prana vata. It follows, therefore, that practicing the art of breathing properly will balance your vata and thus ease stress.
Ayurveda recommends some easy and effective breathing exercises — the most important among them being pranayama (regulation of life force). This is how you do it:
1. Sit straight and comfortably.
2. Now gently press your right nostril with your right thumb, shutting the nostril.
3. At the same time, breathe out slowly through your left nostril until you have exhaled a full breath.
4. Now breathe in through your left nostril and, once you have inhaled completely, release your right nostril and press the left one with the middle and ring fingers of the right hand.
5. Breathe out gently through the right nostril, then breathe slowly in again.
6. Repeat this rhythm for five minutes, and you will feel your body and mind become relaxed and healed.
Do this exercise whenever you can find five minutes, and you will find it extremely soothing to your nerves.
Herbs are a highly venerated tool in Ayurvedic healing. Rich in antioxidants, they are mighty fighters, capable of calming the deadliest of stresses. Of course, Western medicines are also largely herb-based. But the way Ayurvedic herbal formulations are prepared is different from the way they are prepared in modern laboratories.
To explain, let me ask you a question: Can a car move without its wheels — or its gears, or the engine? In the same way, an herb cannot heal without all its component parts. This is where vaidyas say modern medicine errs. Isolating and minutely studying a plant’s “active” ingredients, it assigns them individual roles in treating disease. While this “magic bullet” approach works, it also triggers a series of side effects, listed in curled-up slips of paper inside medicine bottles.
The Ayurvedic disagreement with this method of treatment begins with the use of the word active. Vaidyas argue that there is no such thing as an inactive ingredient. Every ingredient in every plant has a definite role; even the seemingly inactive ones serve to balance the functions of the “active” ingredients. That is why, imbued with nature’s own abundant intelligence, the plant kingdom has survived and thrived through the ravages of time.
Ayurveda’s herbal formulas, therefore, enter the body as intended by nature herself. This is not to say they aren’t processed; they are also ground into powders and pastes, but they are prepared in conformance with the stringent guidelines laid down in ancient texts. Therefore, good-quality Ayurvedic preparations retain their intrinsic synergy. When such preparations enter the human body, it greets them enthusiastically because it recognizes their configuration. Metabolizing and absorbing these holistic plant compounds is easy for the body because they carry their own balancing codes. That is why Ayurvedic medication is generally free of side effects.
A word of caution: Always take herbal preparations after consulting a vaidya. Never experiment with herbs on your own, for they can be quite potent if they are not balanced in the correct proportions with the right companion herbs.
There are times when stress can take you to a breaking point. You feel saturated with demands, yet completely empty. Regard such times as the perfect opportunity to rebuild yourself the Ayurveda way.
In Ayurveda, it is understood that everyday toxins can build up to a point where they need removal through trained hands. In fact, regular seasonal rejuvenation is a unique and important Ayurvedic concept. It is called panchakarma, which literally means “five actions” (emesis, or vomiting, purgation, enemas, nasal cleansing, and blood purification). Today, however, panchakarma experts usually avoid inducing vomiting — the therapies they administer are pleasant, relaxing, and detoxifying. These include herbal massages and baths, light meals, steam baths, and herbal-paste rubs. All are designed to remove deep-seated toxins from your physiology, leaving you stress-free and renewed.
Ancient Ayurvedic texts recommend taking the panchakarma treatment three times a year, at the beginning of winter, spring, and fall. But if you find it expensive — and panchakarma can be heavy on the wallet — even once a year is highly beneficial and well worth the expense. Spring is said to be the best time for panchakarma treatment, for it is the season when everything in nature sheds its lethargy and starts to rejuvenate. The entire procedure takes about a week — and it leaves you so rejuvenated that you won’t want to leave!
While panchakarma is an elaborate, complex therapy and thus best explained in detail by the physicians at a panchakarma center, I’ll give you a basic idea of what to expect from it. You could think of the panchakarma routine either as a treatment or a treat. Either way, you would be right.
This is how panchakarma is generally done: You start on the road to rejuvenation a few days before you actually check into a panchakarma center. Ayurvedic experts interview you and outline for you a set of personalized instructions on how to start loosening impurities from your body. Easy to follow, these home-based therapies — such as drinking ghee, reducing your caloric intake, and using mild laxatives — are geared to prepare you for the wonderful detoxifying therapies you will receive in the panchakarma clinic.
Once in the clinic — where you can opt to be either an inpatient or an outpatient — you will receive a series of treatments designed to flush out long-accumulated toxins from your entire being.
The sequence begins with a full-body, warm-oil massage administered by two trained experts working in tandem. A good panchakarma center will generally use the highest-quality, cold-pressed, herb-infused oil for this part of the treatment. These special oils can sometimes contain up to seventy-five different herbs — which, when rubbed expertly into your body, stimulate skin cells, smooth away fat deposits, enliven the tissues, and — as Ayurveda’s founder Charaka said — “give you 100 years of life.”
Along with the oil massage, you will receive massages with whole-grain paste, raw silk, or wool, which further purify, tone, and nourish your body at a deep cellular level. Then your nasal passages are cleared with drops of nasya, or medicated oil. These tiny drops unclog residual toxins from your head and neck, balancing the prana (essential energy or life force) that is so vital to clarity of perception.
The crowning glory in the panchakarma process, however, is shirodhara (shir means “head,” and dhara means “flow”). Two therapists work in tandem, pouring a continuous stream of herbalized oil gently across your forehead. For thirty relaxing minutes, you do nothing but lie there with your eyes closed, feeling the stress slide right off your head. The oil used is blended with careful attention to the needs of your physiology. This treatment settles and balances the nervous system. Those who have experienced it describe it variously as “royal,” “divine,” and “utterly blissful.” After shirodhara, you are likely to feel your anxiety, insomnia, and depression dissolve.
The massage therapies are followed by toxin-loosening heat-treatments such as swedana, which is an herbalized steam bath that dilates your shrotas, or channels of circulation. Swedana balances both vata and kapha doshas (pitta can do without additional heat), allowing the loosened impurities to move into the digestive tract in readiness for their removal by internal cleansing procedures.
By now, the impurities in your system have moved to the colon and lower pelvis, from where they will be further swept out through gentle herb-based enemas. Called basti, this part of the treatment is crucial to healing. The enemas used in basti are either made from warm herbalized oils or from water-based herbal decoctions — either way, they are very gentle and healing.
This then, is the promise of panchakarma. Some of its treatments calm the mind, while others cleanse and tone the body. Together they restore the functional integrity of your being. Your three doshas begin to work in harmony, and your endocrine system starts to perform at peak efficiency. Having flushed out its long-accumulated impurities, your immune system is stronger than ever. After panchakarma, you will exude ojas, or essential energy. Once you have taken a panchakarma treatment, experts advise daily detoxification at home through simple routines such as drinking plenty of water and giving yourself a daily pre-bath massage. This maintains, and even enhances, the benefits you receive from panchakarma.
Do you see how holistically Ayurveda heals stress — how perfectly it tunes the violin of your being, stretching the strings just right; not too loose, not too tight? Panchakarma makes it easy for you to close your eyes and enjoy the music that flows spontaneously in your being.
In the next chapter, we shall learn about yoga — another gem in Ayurveda’s treasury of holistic healing therapies.