What is Ayurveda?

Ayurvedic is one of the world’s oldest holistic healing systems.   It is thought to be over 5,000 old, originating in India.  It is based on the belief that health and wellness depend on a beautiful balance between the mind, body and spirit.

Thousands of years before modern medicine provided scientific evidence for the mind-body connection, the sages of India developed Ayurveda, which continues to be one of the world’s most sophisticated and powerful mind-body health systems.  Depak Chopra

The Sanskrit word for health, svastha, is a state in which the mind, soul, and senses interact harmoniously to experience a feeling of Self, wellness, and even bliss. Achieving this may seem like a lofty goal, but Ayurveda provides a treasure chest of elegant and insightful tools to help us get there.

What is Ayurveda?

The definition of Ayurveda roughly translates as “the science of longevity” or “the sacred knowledge of life”. At its core, Ayurveda is a holistic tradition and way of living that than help us to claim and celebrate our capacity for wellness.  Its designed to help people stay vibrant and healthy while realizing their full human potential.

There are two main guiding principles of Ayurveda.

1. The mind and the body are inextricably connected,
2. Nothing has more power to heal and transform the body than the mind.

We believe that everything is connected.  If your mind, body, and spirit are in harmony with the universe, you have good health. When something disrupts this balance, di-sease can manifest and you may get sick.  Among the things that can upset this balance are genetic or birth defects, injuries, climate and seasonal change, age, and your emotions.

The 5 elements

Ayurveda believe every person is made of five basic universal elements: space, air, fire, water, and earth.  These elements combine in the human body to form three life forces or energies, called doshas. They control how your body works. They are Vata dosha (space and air); Pitta dosha (fire and water); and Kapha dosha (water and earth).

The 20 qualities (gunas)

Ayurveda includes twenty qualities (gunas) that can be used to describe every substance or experience. The gunas are essential to the Ayurvedic principle that like attracts like and opposites balance.

For example, a person who is slower by nature and physically heavier is likely to be aggravated by heavy, dense and oily foods.  The remedy would be to eat lighter, dryer foods and incorporate movement out in the fresh air.

These qualities are organized into the following ten pairs of opposites:

The Ayurvedic Doshas + your body type

Everyone is born with a unique mix of the three doshas. But one dosha type is usually stronger than the others.  It’s believed that your chances of remaining in good health with high vitality is intrinsically linked to your doshas being in balance.

Each dosha embodies a combination of the five elements and qualities (gunas) to create a functional entity—an energetic force of nature.  All three doshas are present in everyone, but the ratio between them varies a great deal from one person to the next.

Our constitution or Ayurvedic body type is the combination of doshas we are born with.  Everyone has a combination of these three doshas in our bodies at any given time. 

Understanding your Ayurvedic constitution and your current state of balance is crucial. The knowledge will enable you to slowly adjust how you manage your day.  Such as when and what type of movement you incorporate into your day or when and what you eat to better support your wellbeing.

There are key differences between the doshas that comprise your constitutional makeup and the doshas that can be imbalanced.

Your constitution or Ayurvedic body type is established at your conception and remains constant throughout your life.  It represents your natural state of equilibrium and your blueprint for exceptional health.

Ayurveda has seven basic constitutional types as mentioned below.  Its important to note that all have all three doshas (in most cases) in different levels, so a Vata dosha might still have minor amounts of Pitta and/or Kapha.

• Vata
• Pitta
• Kapha
• Vata-Pitta
• Pitta-Kapha
• Kapha-Vata
• Tridoshic: equal amounts of all three doshas

Your constitution will influence your physiology, likes and dislikes, tendencies and habits, mentional and emotional character and vulnerabilities towards imbalance and disease.  Therefore learning how to optimise and manage balance in your constitution is important for optimal health.

Differing to your constitution, your state of balance can and does change over time as we experience different climates, seasons and various stages of life.

• Vata Imbalance occurs when Vata is in excess.  You may feel fear, anxiety, physical and emotional constriction, poor circulation, dry skin, cracking joints, not grounded, insomnia, twitches and other abnormal movements.
• Pitta Imbalance occurs when Pitta is in excess.  You may experience anger, jealousy, inflammation, excessive heat, heartburn, loose stools, migraines, rashes, bruising, bleeding disorders, overactive metabolism and sleep issues.
• Kapha Imbalance occurs when Kapha is in excess.  You may become greedy, attached, resistant to change, unmotivated, heaviness in the mind and body, too much sleep, depression, sluggish metabolism, congestion, water retention, hardening of the arteries and formation of tumors.
• It is possible that more than one dosha is out of balance at the one time.

It is important to understand which dosha/s are imbalanced and not only what your constitution dosha/s is/are.

The state of imbalance you are experiencing is more important as it highlights which doshas you need to balance and the most effective strategies to do so.

The Ayurvedic principles are based on like increases like and that opposites balance.  If we are trying to correct an active imbalance, we can apply the energy of opposites in order to steer our bodies in the right direction.

The twenty qualities mentioned above with the ten pairs of opposites provides us with the framework of how this wisdom can be applied in practical terms.

The Ayurvedic principles are based on like increases like and that opposites balance.  If we are trying to correct an active imbalance, we can apply the energy of opposites in order to steer our bodies in the right direction.

The twenty qualities mentioned above with the ten pairs of opposites provides us with the framework of how this wisdom can be applied in practical terms.