Harnessing Ayurveda for Chronic Diseases: A Holistic Approach to Wellness
By Dennis Bluthardt at Namaste Studios
Chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and arthritis are among the most common conditions in healthcare. These diseases are part of a class where the “remedy” is a lifelong sentence to maintain symptoms, personalized to each person’s biochemistry, physiology, genetics, and personality.
Ayurveda (uh-yoor-vay-duh) is an ancient system of medicine born in the motherland of India, and it focuses on holistic, balanced approaches to health. Ayurveda applies to anyone who wants to take the first step toward a healthier and happier lifestyle.
If you are a live human, take a read. We will discuss Ayurveda, and lastly, keep your hopes up—we know that managing chronic conditions can be challenging; this article is about what you can do. View it as a beginner’s guide to managing chronic diseases (but check with your doctor first or consider getting tested, okay?
Lifestyle Changes for Wellness
Ayurvedic dietary recommendations strongly focus on bio-individuality, tailoring the best foods for your unique and special mind-body type, or “dosha.” Like other functional nutrition practices, foods are understood to have different qualities or properties, all of which may add up to a dietary regimen to help bring your best self to light; this might lower your risk of developing chronic diseases and manage any active chronic diseases you may currently have. These techniques are also known to promote sustainable weight management! A few extra bits of essential nutrition wisdom in Ayurveda that are also important to note that you should opt for meals with lots of vibrant colors (the more, the better!); fresh (never frozen), seasonal, local produce; and thoroughly cooked foods, as this can help to promote better digestion of the nutrients in foods. You are also encouraged to truly enjoy your food in a calm, non-chaos/uninterrupted peaceful space (announcing my decree for “solo dinners” while watching Netflix to be highly advised against for optimal health moving forward, FYI!) with as minimal distractions as possible (bye-bye to “working “lunches or dinners that really just entail you not paying attention to your food, but only to the due date on the work at hand) – stuck squarely jumping up and down with my “Ayurveda is wise and amazing” banner, this only rings eighty-five MILLION % true, considering that: dieting-due-to-chronic-disease rate relationships in research usually only exist if one doesn’t frequently “distracted eat”; and that some middle of the road healthy weight categories can only be metabolism-healthy if an individual only eats when they are HUNGRY (or rather, if they are “reduced to the sensation of needing to slurp up soup from the gut…”?) – hey, shout out to the OGs of nutrigenomics, who have been basically known to man for 5,000 years or so!
Physical activity and yoga are also included in all of this! (Fist bumps to all my holistic health practitioners out there!) You can’t have optimal health in Ayurveda unless you incorporate some form of physical activity or “moving” exercise into your life from a place of love for yourself and your health. Varying modalities can contribute to either a more “heat” or “cooling” effect in Ayurveda (on a qualitative or “property” perspective), some of which are necessary to help balance out any mal effects of other imbalances in your diet or lifestyle. Moving frequently at a slow pace can contribute to better emotional regulation and stress mitigation; this can help grow “good” bacterial strains in the microbiota (notably Akkermansia muciniphila and Methanobrevibacter smithii) and, as you probably already know very well, can promote moving circulation, rising energy, and some forms of healthy weight maintenance.
Specifically, yoga is a practice that houses strength, flexibility, and mental calming based on one’s ability to connect different body structural movement poses together in flowing movements. The movement of “shape-shifting,” on a psychosomatic-energetic-physical level, is known to augment heart health. The heart is the center of all cardio-metabolic definers of health! (Yet again, more extra wisdom for FREE! You’re welcome!)
Preventative Care in Ayurveda
“Ayurveda, an ancient system of medicine that evolved in India almost 5000 years ago, suggests a unique concept of preventing diseases by way of life. It emphasizes that we should not wait for the appearance of diseases; instead, we should strive to maintain the equilibrium in our health. The concept of preventing diseases is not new to Ayurveda. Ayurveda asserts that we should not allow the disease to grow, but how? The systemic root cause of any disease is the imbalance in the body and mind. The beauty of this concept is that it can potentially address the root cause and not the diseases themselves. Ayurveda believes in treating the origin and not the symptoms. So, this theory explains various regimens like daily routine, Dinacharya, and various other seasonal regimens, Ritucharya, to live in each season so that we remove the root causes before the sprout of the disease develops in the body and mind. And this approach to preventing disease is a sure shot for a lasting lifespan without any disease. It vastly covers the concept of living.
Adopting a fixed routine (Dinacharya) is, of course, beneficial for everyone. They have a salutary effect on health, as, with these routines, our biological clock is set, which, in turn, helps maintain the balance of Doshas when our daily routines are in accord with the physical, chemical, and biological norms functioning in the system. Regularizing the time of sleeping and awakening, religious behaviors and eating, and other daily routine activities certainly benefit health and happiness as all the nuances of the body become time clocked, i.e., the cell clocking function is maintained. Hence, an advanced feeling of vitality and cheerfulness is perceived.
Ritucharyas are further interrelated, indicating the correlation between daily, annual, seasonal, and human defensive functions. These lifestyle protocols occupy the most crucial chapter in Swastha Vritta, as the role of changing seasons in health and disease is inevitable. For instance, jaundice, prevalent in Madhya Pradesh, can be found during the monsoon season, and Kapha Dosha dominates during the winter season. It might include activities covering dietary, social, and behavioral factors, including Vichara’s code of conduct.
So, if administered daily, the economic lifestyle regimen fosters health and happiness and prevents man’s untimely death! Beyond Therapeutic benefits, Ayurvedic herbs are found to possess excellent health promotion. These preparations have a variety of health-enhancing properties. They are scientifically recognized as adaptogens and can help the body cope with the stress responsible for many diseases such as hypertension (High Blood Pressure), diabetes, gastritis, peptic ulcers, IBS, and anxiety & nervous disorders. They possess attributes that potentiate the body’s immune mechanisms to combat the ravages of advancing age and can nullify the toxic effects of environmental pollutants and Pathogenic Agents. They are considered all-purpose restoratives for promoting Longevity and delaying the onset of senility. Ayurvedic people also have a view on this. They find several natural herbs useful to confer upon the above-stated properties.”
Understanding Chronic Diseases
Many of the most common chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and arthritis, require constant tending and have secondary symptoms. Just fighting back, the fatigue and mood swings that regularly come with diabetes or the constant anxiety about heart trouble gnawing at the back of your brain, add to the wear and tear and can send health on a downward spiral.
On top of that, there’s often a list of physical limitations at play, and the diseases can drive depression and anxiety. The flip side is that physical symptoms can also arise from the mental health challenges of depression and anxiety. Just the weight of living each day as a fight to regulate blood sugar, heart, or nerve function takes a toll. At times, the frustration of isolation and hopelessness can crash in and take physical form as a fresh whack of new health challenges.
Over the past decade, discussion about the overall sensation of health among folks with chronic diseases has involved finding practical alternatives to the Western version of pharmaceutical prescriptions and medical treatments at the doctor’s office. The inhibitors of poor health that stem from the alternative care disciplines are efficacious at staving off the causes of poor health.
The Principles of Ayurveda
Ayurveda, an ancient system of medicine born in India, is based on the three doshas, which are our vital energies: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha.
These three doshas represent a mixture of the five elements (earth, water, fire, air, ether) in different proportions and govern various bodily functions.
Vata is concerned with movement and creativity, Pitta with transformation and metabolism and
Kapha, with stability and structure.
We seek a balance with these doshas for optimal health, while an imbalance can result in illness and unrest.
Another idea I love is the concept of the mind-body connection, which means that our mental and emotional states drastically impact how we feel physically.
This non-reductionist view of the body (and mind) promotes the idea of genuinely listening to our bodies and taking the time to decrease any stress we are feeling by calming our mind (meditation, yoga, etc.), which ultimately will enhance our body’s natural defense mechanisms against fear, illness, etc. or to improve dietary-related health problems or to calm, clear, and strengthen the mind.
This synergistic perspective mainly views proper health as maintaining a healthy balance of (and within) the mind, body, and soul (or “spirit”) via lifestyle regimes that align with your body’s unique constitution: species of human, season, various temporary internal imbalances you have, age, location/region, etc.
Ayurvedic Treatments for Chronic Diseases
The ancient Indian system of medicine, Ayurveda, advocates for the use of natural remedies in the management of chronic diseases. One such remedy is turmeric, an incredibly anti-inflammatory root vegetable whose active compound is curcumin. This pungent, bitter spice occasions its bright golden color (you’ll find it in mustards), and it is regularly used in arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and many other pro-inflammatory conditions and disease states.
This herb powder is one of the few spices the spoonful can eat. This way, your body is regularly supplied with the chemical compounds it can use to reduce inflammation and improve joint health. Some even experience this culinary spice as an adequate substitute for their anti-arthritis drugs.
A stand-out herb is also ashwagandha. Known to be adaptogenic to help your body respond to stress, ashwagandha exhibits excellent stress-bearing properties that work miraculously to improve your health. You shouldn’t be living life as if your hair is on fire anyway, but stress is a killer; it ruins your emotional well-being and is the culprit behind increased blood pressure and heart disease. For some reason, too many people add unnecessary hustle and bustle to their day.
Over time, chronic high stress will kill you. But there’s an herb for that! Perhaps it, too, will work for you. Universities, health and wellness companies, and nootropics companies regularly use ashwagandha in their nerve-calming formulas because it gets results. People who take it end up enjoying low stress and high mental resilience. One Indian woman on YouTube, boiling some raw ashwagandha root, said this herb is good for everything physical and nothing mental. There is quite a bit of misinformation there, but no harm was done. She’s just drying her stock after some root ale brewing. Perhaps it’s just not one of her go-to’s for mental stress? One man’s treasure is another man’s junk, as they say.
Very many people have anecdotal stories about how turmeric and adaptogens completely changed their lives!” For one such person, chronic fatigue was killing them. Then ashwagandha allowed them to “find” and tap into a pit that was previously “energy, now depleted by life.” One tablespoon of raw turmeric a day. They have managed to turn back the clock. Others pinpoint “my Incredible Remission” to a set of protocols meted out during a five-, seven-, or 21-day retreat where they took herbs by the handful. At LifeSpa, Ayurvedic Tonify and Detox techniques inform the core offering of the popular Colorado Herb’s retreat and recovery experience. There, people who are sick and dying take up to 30 pills of straight herbs (5 groups of 6) a day along with several other dietary modifications, mentally affirming sessions (meditation, yoga, and breathwork), and Western herbs to personalize the approach.
Ayurveda, an ancient Indian system of medicine, is known for its holistic approach to managing disease and promoting health. It focuses heavily on the interaction of body, mind, and spirit to keep us in balance. Whenever disease arises, there is the understanding that everyone will require a unique, personalized treatment protocol.
It is so simple that it is often best when we talk about changes you can make to affect your Ayurvedic imbalances positively. One of the takeaways from that article might be that you should start to understand your basic dosha (body) type and formulate a diet around those findings. If you are out of balance in Vata (air), it might be time to find a few restorative yoga poses that help to lessen that imbalanced feeling. In addition to finding a restorative yoga approach, you could also take up mindfulness practice.
Talk with someone you care about and discuss what is going on in your life. It is the thing that makes your day perfect!
To learn more, visit Ayurveda at Namaste Studios to book an Ayurveda session. Additionally, you can find more of our Ayurveda Blogs here.
For a Limited Time: Get your NEW MOON JOURNAL for a massive discount at Amazon here!
Bonus for blog readers: Learn how AI Chatbots Work. Click here for a FREE WEBINAR – It’s pretty amazing!
