Arogya Mantra

Arogya Mantra 001 --- Adopting an Ayurvedic lifestyle

If you are busy, constantly plagued by headaches, stomach ailments and are a victim of Chronic Fatigue Symptoms, have heard of alternatives to allopathy but are not sure how to integrate these alternatives into your life do please read on. The reason I have chosen to write about the options available is because I would myself have greatly benefited from some such advice on leading and maintaining a healthy lifestyle early in my life. Having been brought up in a household which valued Western ways of scientific thinking my early adult years of maintaining a health lifestyle was basically allopathy-based. When I look back I can see how I could have prevented the appendectomy that I had to undergo when I was 26 if I had had the insights I have now. Having just finished my administrative training at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie I joined at Chidambaram as a young Sub-Collector in the pink of health and raring to go. I loved the work and would often keep working till 3 or 4 pm without taking a break for lunch. I would probably have been far more effective and healthier if I had broken for lunch around 1 pm and been conscious of what I was eating. I had set up my own household and recruited a Chettinad cook who used to make the most delicious Vatha Kuzhambu being both oily and extremely spicy. I still remember the taste of the golden fried potatoes that was the side dish and the mainstay of many of my lunches. Dinner time was often postponed to the post-file session at around 9 to 10 pm. Not surprisingly, I soon developed frequent stomach pains. I wish now that I had known a good ayurvedic vaidyar I could have consulted. She would have first asked me what I was eating and when and made the necessary modifications to my food habits and the problem would in all probability been solved. But of course I consulted the best allopathic physicians in Chennai and what they advised me after a battery of tests, when they really found nothing wrong but the stomach pain continuing on the right side, was that I should have an elective appendectomy. According to them, while the appendix was not really inflamed right then, that was probably what was happening. They advised me that I should not take any chances as I would be touring the remoter parts of the district where emergency medical help would not be readily available and that I should have my appendix removed. So I underwent a totally unnecessary surgical procedure with no real impact on the stomach pain. That experience set me thinking and I started exploring alternatives that were less invasive and which looked at the cause of the problem.

Ayurveda, the science of life, is a holistic system of Indian medicine dating back to the Vedic times. Ayur means life and veda means knowledge. According to Sushruta, one of the foremost exponents of Ayurveda, the focus in this system of medicine is on maintaining good health. The focus in allopathy is on the treatment of disease.

In Ayurveda, you learn about why disease occurs and what you can do to prevent it. Disease occurs when there is an elemental imbalance of the three doshas viz. vata, pitta and kapha. The primary aim of Ayurveda is to help people maintain the three doshas in balance and thus prevent disease. Where such imbalance has occurred Ayurveda strives to restore the balance. In my case, the stomach pain and burning sensation were because of the vitiation of the vata and pitta doshas. So all that I had had to do then was to ensure that I ate my meals on time, avoided the potatoes which increased vayu, thereby causing pain, and moderated my intake of chillis which were pitta enhancing and caused the burning sensations.

As a rule of thumb, if you have pain the dosha that has been vitiated is vata and if you have burning sensations the dosha that has been vitiated is pitta. So if you have pain you do the things needed to lessen vata dosha or vayu. In my case, if I had known that potatoes increase vayu, that being on an empty stomach for long hours increases vayu, I could have easily avoided these and saved myself an appendectomy. As you settle into an ayurvedic lifestyle, you learn what vitiates the three doshas and try to avoid it. It will be my endeavour in these articles to help you adopt an ayurvedic lifestyle. No, it does not mean that the fun has gone out of your life, you will be so healthy that you can have all the fun you want. My next article will deal with a classic ayurvedic digestive preparation, Ashta Chooranam (from Ashtanga Hridaya:Gulma Chikitsa; 7th Century AD).