Intro to Ayurveda and your Doshas

Ayurveda is the oldest form of healing. It has been around for 5000 years and developed as a preventative medicine focusing on maintaining balance rather than what we see primarily in todays society, a more passive approach that focuses on treating illness and disease.

Ayur translates to life, veda to science. Ayurveda is the science of life. Followers of this healing science equate health to balance in lifestyle, diet, environment, and thoughts. In other words, what we do, eat, think, where we live, the climate, the people we surround ourselves with, how active we are all help determine how to remain balanced in our lives, AKA healthy. It is holistic and unique to each and every individual as we always look at the whole life and yet each person is completely different. There is no one textbook way to balance everyone.

So, how does this all work?

Ayurveda believes everything in nature has specific qualities: heavy, hard, liquid, soft, hot, sharp, light, mobile, clear, pervading, etc. They group similar qualities together into 5 categories, the 5 Elements: Earth (qualities of solidity), Water (qualities of fluidity), Fire (qualities of transformation), Air (qualities of movement), Ether (qualities of space). We, as humans, are apart of nature so we have all 5 of these categories within us which makes up our constitution. Our constitution, like a fingerprint, is unique to you. We all have different levels of these categories.

If the Elements are qualities from Nature, our Doshas; Vata, Pitta, Kapha; explain the interplay of these elements within us and describe our physiology and psychology. Similar to the 5 Elements, we are made of all 3 Doshas, just at different levels. Vata is the Dosha of movement combining the energies of Ether and Air. Pitta, the Dosha of Transformation, combines Fire and Water, and Kapha combines Water and Earth to make the Dosha of Structure.

Vata Basics:

- Movement, breath, muscles

- all tissues, heart

- Balanced: creativity and flexibility; Imbalanced: fear/anxiety

Pitta Basics:

- That which breaks things down

- all transformation, metabolism, assimilation

- Balanced: understanding, intelligence; Imbalanced: anger, hatred, inflammatory illnesses

Kapha Basics:

-Cohesion, lubrication, moisturizes, maintains immunity

- Balanced: expressions of love, calmness, forgiveness, or attachment

- Imbalanced: greed, possessiveness, congestion

Ayurveda uses the knowledge of your constitution (the elements you are made of) to determine what is needed for balance, for health. The way we live our lives, the food we eat, the thoughts we have either takes us toward or away from balance, but maintaining balance is harder than it sounds. Ayurveda believes in the Law of Continuity, or like follows like, which means if you are Vata you enjoy doing Vata like things, so you continue doing more Vata things; however, too much of one thing is never good so you need to incorporate Pitta and Kapha to maintain balance. The hard part comes when determining when too much of a good thing is too much.

Curious about what Dosha you are? Take this quiz to find out: The Ayurveda Experience - Dosha Quiz

I hope this was a good introduction to Ayurveda but there is so much more. I focused on some of the basics, but I plan to go further in next months blog diving deeper into the Doshas and how the climate, the food we eat, and thoughts we think affect our balance.

Food Then and How I See It Now

Over the last few months Matt and I have really put a microscope on what we eat. It all started when we watched Dr. Mark Hyman’s docuseries ‘Broken Brain’ and ‘Broken Brain 2’. He connected diseases like Parkinson’s, Dementia, Depression, Digestive health, Autism, plus many more to our (America’s) diet. We choose convenience over cooking. We choose affordable over quality. We choose sugar-rich processed foods over whole natural foods. This way of eating is the cause for our chronic disease and obesity epidemic. Matt and I have learned so much when it comes to food over the last few months it has been a little overwhelming. Don’t worry, in this blog I will tackle the two main takeaways that we use every day.

1) Starch = Sugar

Sugar. You hear this word and think candy bar. But, did you know your body treats ‘healthy’ breads and pastas just like a candy bar? The body does discriminate between simple (table sugar) and complex (breads) carbohydrates. This statement was a game changer for me, “Eating two slices of whole wheat bread raises your blood sugar more than 2 tablespoons of table sugar” (What the Heck Should I Eat?). And then we have the government saying we should be consuming 6-11 servings of grains (aka sugar) per day. This amount of sugar ‘is essentially the metabolic mechanism single-handedly responsible for today’s global epidemics of diabetes, heart disease, obesity, dementia and cancer” (What the Heck Should I Eat?). Lastly, unused sugar is stored in your fat cells and no amount of exercise will get rid of it.

2) Fat is good for you

Like most of you, from a young age I was told fat was going to make me fat and clog my arteries and kill me. With that fear instilled in me, I consumed high amounts of carbs and very little fat. During this time, I was never fat (being an athlete helped with that) but I always on the heavier side of my ‘healthy weight’. So why, if I was following the governments guidelines to healthy eating, wasn’t I fit and trim? (See point number 1). Did you know fats keep us feeling full? They increase our metabolism? Our brain is made of fat and needs fat to function? So why is the government telling us to use fat sparingly? Now, there are still some fats we want to stay away from like hydrogenated vegetable oils (aka Crisco and margarine, vegetable oil) and too many Omega-6 fatty acids (vegetable oil, packaged and processed foods). Omega-6 isn’t necessarily bad for you but too much induces inflammation (disease) within the body. Aim to have a 1:1 ratio of Omega-3 and 6. Overall, don’t be afraid to put real butter on our veggies (or bread), whole fat dressing (reduced fat just means they added more sugar) on your salad, or yummy avocado atop your eggs. One final fun fact on fat: A 2012 Harvard study found that a high-fat diet, compared to a low-fat diet, increases your metabolism by 300 calories a day!

Overall, this is just the tip of the iceberg but a great place to start. Limit your carb intake and enjoy bringing healthy fat back into your life. Whenever I’m not sure about a food I ask myself, “Does nature provide this for me?”. If it doesn’t, then I look for something it does.

Enjoy and let me know how your journey with food has changed overtime here.

If you want more information pick up Dr. Mark Hyman’s book, Food: What the Heck Should I eat, and listen to his podcast, The Doctors Farmacy.