Three thousand years ago, in Ayurveda, it was established that the more unnatural we humans are, the sicker we will be. Therefore, this Indian health practitioner is carefully examining what is natural.
To follow nature makes you healthy and gives you a long life. Healing forces act all the time in the body, and if you help the body on the pile, you create your own health. It is an optimistic message but at the same time requires that you take responsibility for your own health. Aging is not a disease, and if you take care of your health you can stay healthy, alert and vital to your last day.
Within Ayurvedic medicine, there is a definition of health that is several thousand years old. It sounds surprisingly modern. You start by counting up four bodily balances.
The four balances
The first balance is what one in Ayurveda calls the doshoras (they are three and are called vata, pitta and kapha). The boxes are the functions that create health in balance and illness in imbalance. The boxes are influenced by our diet and lifestyle.
The other balance is digestion and metabolism. You are not what you eat, you are what you digest! The stomach is king. Only food that you can digest is useful. Therefore, Ayurveda mostly recommends hot food, as it is easily digested.
The third balance is that all the tissues of the body are nourished. A diet that covers all of the body's nutritional needs is the basis for feeling good. Therefore, there is an incredible amount of knowledge in Ayurveda about a balanced diet and how food can affect the body both positively and negatively.
The fourth balance is that the body can dispose of its slag products. Keeping the body's tissues clean is important, but don't overdo it! You become just as sick of clearing out too quickly as too slowly. You can feel that when you have diarrhea. To clear out too much and too often clear out important nutrients. Health is not just an absence of illness. Therefore, the same definition of health says that even the five senses, the mind and the spirit must be satisfied. To feel good, to enjoy life, to develop as a human being and to have the five senses get as important as the body functions.
The three dose horns, vata, pitta and kapha can be described as three basic personality types that carry different compositions of the elements earth, water, fire, air and space.
Vata - air and space
Carry on all the properties that these two elements represent: Light, moving, cold, dry, irregular, rough, subtle, open and expansive. Vata people are often longer or shorter than average. They often have a thin physique and difficult to gain weight. Their minds are mobile and sometimes fragmented, they move quickly and often speak quickly.
Vata people are creative and often artistic, have good intuition and easy to grasp spiritual aspects. When they become stressed or otherwise end up in the imbalance, this often manifests itself in the form of sleep problems, stomach problems, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and dryness of the skin, hair and nails.
Pitta - fire and water
Carries on all the properties of the fire and also the oily aspect that water has: Hot, light, moving, sharp, penetrating, transforming, oily, slightly irregular. Pitt persons are of medium length and medium weight, often athletic and have easy muscle building. They are determined, ambitious and have the ability to make quick decisions which makes them natural leaders. However, pitta people sometimes tend to push themselves too hard and risk burning out at too high a load. Under stress, they often react with anger and frustration. Things like stomach ulcers, heartburn, inflammation and eczema or acne are typical pitta imbalances that can occur after a prolonged increase of pitta dosha.
Kapha - soil and water
Carries on the qualities of earth and water: Stable, heavy, slow, tough, moist, oily, cold, regular, dense, liquid, soft and smooth. Kapha people often have a slightly larger and coarser physique. Due to a slower metabolism than vata and pitta, kapha people gain weight more easily and often accumulate fluid as a result of lack of circulation.
They move slowly and take plenty of time to think things through and make decisions. They are warm and caring individuals with their feet on the ground and stress does not affect their mood particularly.
However, when raising the kapha dosha (a so-called kapha imbalance), the slowness takes over and they become sedentary and passive, sometimes even apathetic or depressed. Typical signs of kapha imbalance are fatigue, weight in the body, constipation, swollen legs and feet (accumulation of fluid), colds, asthma and mucus.