ayurvedic therapy

Ayurvedic therapy is a traditional integrated health system that originated in ancient India 5,000 years ago. The core logic is to balance the individual's unique "three energies (Vata, Pitta, Kapha)" by adjusting diet, work and rest, external therapy, emotional management, etc., to achieve coordinated health of body, mind and soul.； It is neither the "IQ tax health regimen" promoted by marketing, nor can it replace modern medicine in treating diseases. It is essentially a lifestyle adjustment program adapted to individual physiques.

The first time I actually came into contact with Ayurveda was not at a high-end spa recommended by an internet celebrity. It was last year when I was working as a sea turtle protection volunteer on the southern coast of Sri Lanka. I stayed up all night guarding the nest for a week and my fever didn’t go away. The owner of a local B&B forced me to go to the Ayurveda clinic in the town that has been open for 27 years. The old doctor who attended the consultation did not prescribe me a bunch of unknown medicines with fancy packaging. He first felt the pulse of my wrist, and then looked at my tongue coating and fingernails. Within two or three minutes, he said that I had a typical "Vata imbalance" - I have a skinny and anxiety-prone constitution. After staying up all night, blowing in the sea breeze, and eating cold coconut rice every now and then, my energy was completely messed up.

It is quite interesting to say that regarding the classification of the three energies, Ayurveda practitioners around the world still do not have a completely unified standard. The local traditional school in India attaches more importance to the pulse diagnosis experience passed down by the family. Judging the physical constitution relies entirely on the doctor’s decades of experience. Even the consultation rarely asks many questions. After feeling the pulse, you can tell whether you like to stay up late or have constipation. ； The reformists in Europe and the United States are more willing to combine modern body fat testing and metabolic level assessment to classify people, and even incorporate the results of intestinal bacteria testing into the adjustment plan. The traditionalists think that they have lost their roots in Ayurveda, and the reformists say that the traditionalists are too conservative and cannot adapt to the fast-paced life of modern people. The two sides have been arguing for almost twenty years with no conclusion.

I followed an old doctor for half a month, and the operation was actually not that mysterious: I drank a cup of warm milk with turmeric and black pepper on an empty stomach in the morning, took a bite of warm cooked food before eating cold food, did not drink coffee after 3 p.m., and massage the soles of my feet with warm coconut oil for 10 minutes before going to bed every day. It’s not to say that the effect is amazing, but the constipation during seasonal changes and the problem of waking up at three or four o’clock in the morning that have troubled me for several years have definitely not happened again. Later, I went back to China to check relevant research. The curcumin in turmeric combined with black pepper can increase the absorption rate by nearly 20 times. Massaging feet with warm oil can reduce sympathetic nerve excitability. These are all supported by modern medical research and are not metaphysics.

Of course, I have met many friends who have fallen into the trap. A while ago, a girl came to me to complain, saying that she spent 30,000 yuan on a "whole body detoxification treatment" at a popular Ayurveda parlor in China. She fasted for 7 days and drank essential oils, and finally she was dehydrated and sent to the hospital. This is actually the core reason why Ayurveda is now criticized as having an IQ tax: many businesses package it as a miracle medicine that can cure all diseases, and even dare to ask patients with diabetes and high blood pressure to stop taking Western medicine for so-called "natural therapy". This is completely contrary to the core principles of Ayurveda - the traditional Ayurveda classics originally stated "see a doctor for acute illness, adjust your life for chronic illness", and never let you replace formal treatment. The WHO included Ayurveda in the catalog of traditional medicine as early as 2014, and also clearly reminded that Ayurveda therapy can only be used as a supplement to modern medicine, and relevant operations need to be performed by practitioners with formal training and must not replace conventional treatment.

In fact, many of my friends now come into contact with Ayurveda, not to cure serious diseases, but just to find a way of life that suits them. For example, a friend with a pitta constitution who is prone to acne and has a short temper used to follow a health blogger and drink ginger and red date tea every day to replenish qi and blood. The more he drank, the worse the acne became. Later, he followed the advice of Ayurveda and ate more cool coconuts and pears, and his skin became much more stable. ； Friends with a Kapha constitution who have a slow metabolism and are prone to edema used to imitate other people's practice of drinking ice every day to reduce edema. The more they drank, the more swollen they became. However, when they switched to warm clove and tangerine peel tea, their faces were no longer swollen the next day. To put it bluntly, there is no universal health formula. The most useful part of Ayurveda is that it allows you to stop and see what your body needs, instead of just following the popular health posts on the Internet.

Last time I exchanged an email with an old Sri Lankan doctor, he said that many people nowadays make Ayurveda too complicated, with sky-high price of essential oils and customized treatments. In fact, the most important thing is: "Eat what makes your body comfortable, sleep how you should sleep, and don't compete with yourself." Hey, after all, isn't this the simplest health principle that our ancestors also taught.