Q: What is Ayurveda?
A: Ayurveda is one of the oldest systems of preventive medicine and health care that orginated in India over 5,000 years ago. The word Ayurveda comes from two Sanskrit root words: Ayus, or “life,” and Veda, meaning “knowledge” or “science.” Ayurveda offers practical tools, insights, and information for living a balanced healthy life.

Q: Is Ayurveda a form of holistic medicine?
A: Yes. Ayurveda is a healing system that treats the whole person - body, mind, and spirit – rather than simply treating individual symptoms. For example, it is known that ongoing stress damages our immune system, and when the immune system is weakened, we are more vulnerable to disease and illness. It is also a fact that when our mind experiences pleasure, our brain releases healing chemicals to our entire body, creating feelings of happiness and well-being as well as promoting health.

Ayurveda takes holistic medicine a step further. It sees life as the exchange of energy and information between individuals and their extended body – the environment. If our environment is nourishing, we thrive; if our environment is toxic, we may become ill. Therefore, learning how to eliminate toxicity and surround ourselves with a nourishing environment is the key to good health.

Q: How is Ayurveda different from conventional Western medicine?
A: Conventional medicine has devoted a lot of effort to isolating the differences among various diseases. Ayurveda focuses on the unique qualities of individuals, highlighting that diseases differ mainly because each individual is different.

Ayurveda teaches that all health-related programs — whether an exercise program, dietary plan or herbal supplement — must be based on an understanding of an individual’s unique mind-body constitution. This is called a dosha. By knowing a person's dosha, an Ayurvedic doctor can recommend the appropriate diet, physical activities, and medical therapies that are most likely to help or which might not be beneficial to that person.

While Western medicine tends to treat the symptoms of disease, Ayurveda seeks to eliminate illness by treating the underlying cause. For example, an allopathic physician would more than likely prescribe a course of anti-depressants or therapy for a patient suffering from depression. An Ayurvedic doctor, on the other hand, would seek to understand the underlying imbalances contributing to the depression. The doctor would look at the patient as a whole, taking into account his lifestyle, activities, diet, recent stressful events, beliefs, and mind-body constitution (dosha). The Ayurvedic practitioner would then recommend a treatment plan taking all of these factors into account.

Ayurveda does not reject the use of anti-depressants and other prescription medications. Ayurveda’s main principle is that we should make use of whatever healing methods that are available which can restore health and balance to the body, including herbal remedies, dietary changes, pharmaceutical medications, meditation, exercise, psychotherapy, to name a few.

Q: What are the doshas?
A: According to Ayurveda there are five master elements that make up everything within our bodies and everything outside of our bodies: space, air, fire, water, and earth.

• Space carries all the aspects of pure potentiality or infinite possibilities.
• Air has the qualities of movement and change.
• Fire is hot and transformational.
• Water is cohesive and protective.
• Earth is solid, grounded, and stable.

These five forces are woven into three primary patterns known as doshas or mind-body principles that govern our style of thinking and behaving.

• Vata dosha is made up of the elements of Space and Air, and regulates movement and change in our minds and bodies.
• Pitta dosha is comprised of Fire and Water, and governs digestion and metabolism.
• Kapha dosha is made up of Earth and Water, and maintains and protects the integrity and structure of our mind and body.

All three doshas are present in every cell, tissue, and organ since movement, metabolism, and protection are essential components of our daily life. Although each of us has all three doshas, they are mixed in each of us in a unique way, which determines the distinctive qualities of our mind and body.

Knowing what your dosha is provides invaluable information that will help you get in touch with your body’s inner intelligence. You can find out what your dosha is by taking the Dosha Quiz.

Q: What is the Ayurvedic perspective on health and illness?
A: The guiding principle of Ayurveda and the other Eastern healing arts is the interconnection of all things. Health is not just the absence of illness or symptoms It is a higher state of consciousness that allows vitality, well-being, creativity, and joy to flow into our experience.

Illness is a disruption or blockage of the flow of vital energy in the body. Symptoms and sickness are the body’s signal that we need to restore balance, eliminate whatever is causing the blockages, and reestablish the healthy flow of vital energy.

Q: What are Ayurveda's guiding principles?
A: Ayurveda teaches that the mind has the greatest influence in directing the body toward sickness and health. Thousands of years before modern medicine "discovered" the mind-body connection, the ancient sages had mastered it. They developed Ayurveda as a system for contacting our mind, bringing it into balance, and then extending that balance to the body.

The Ayurvedic principles for restoring and maintaining mind-body balance are as relevant today as they were thousands of years ago:

1) Take time each day to quiet your mind (meditate).
2) Eat a colourful and flavourful diet.
3) Participate in daily exercise that enhances flexibility, strength, and cardiovascular fitness, eg, yoga.
4) Sleep soundly at night.
5) Eliminate what is not serving you.
6) Cultivate loving, nurturing relationships.
7) Perform work that awakens your passion.

Q: Can Ayurvedic medicine help with physical injuries?
A: Ayurveda has been used for thousands of years to alleviate every type of health issue, including physical injuries. Ayurveda contrasts with the mechanical allopathic approach to medicine in that it looks at the whole person, mind, body, and spirit, and by including consciousness, it is not excluding the physical body. For virtually every physical ailment or injury, Ayurveda can offer a healing solution.