Which is better: Nurture health or treat disease?
This reminds me of a cartoon where the doctor asks the patient, “what fits your busy schedule better: exercising one hour a day or being dead 24 hours a day”?
The Western Model of health seems to focus on the treatment of disease, which is excellent if you have a disease. But, is there a better approach to attaining good health? For example, nurturing health to prevent disease? If so, how would that work?
The Ayurvedic Model of Health
An Ayurvedic lifestyle includes preventative strategies such as implementing daily and seasonal routines. Examples include strengthening the digestion (agni) with the right foods, digestive aids, and the right environment.
The daily practices include reducing any toxic by-products from our lifestyle and dietary choices. This is accomplished by making conscious choices and with healthy purification practices essential to restore and retain health.
In a perfect world, we would have been addressing our health since attaining the age of reason and would have instilled these responsibilities into our children. Life happens, so we start wherever we are.
The Six Stages
According to Ayurveda, there are six stages in the development of dis-ease.
They are accumulation, aggravation, dissemination, localization, manifestation, and disruption of the doshas, a word meaning fault (more on dosha later).
During the first two stages of accumulation and aggravation, the person experiences no overt symptoms. The next stages of dissemination and localization are the point when a person might seek medical care. It may still be too early for detection through standard tests but the person feels like something is not quite right.
When the last two stages of manifestation and disruption appear, it will take a long course of treatment in most cases, to remedy. Sometimes the situation may not be reversible.
Clearly, noticing and taking action at the earliest observation of one’s health being a bit ‘off’ will lead to the most favorable outcome.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Some people wait too long to seek help due to a variety of reasons. The reasons may include being too busy, they aren’t that sick, or even that they don’t want to find out there is something wrong!
There are also the practical reasons such as finances, no regular primary care provider, the wait to be seen, no insurance, no referral… The list goes on and as I said, we start wherever we are.
Creating Vitality in Your Life
Building ojas, or the nectar of vitality is a goal of Ayurveda. Ojas is the end result of the healthy, unimpeded development of the seven tissues of the body and occurs with good sleep and strong digestion.
With ojas, the skin glows and is clear and well hydrated. The tongue is pink and free of residue. The person feels energetic, centered, has clear thinking processes, and is rarely sick.
Here’s a little aside
Ayurveda recommends raising awareness of your body’s natural rhythms by paying attention to subtle changes and making adjustments accordingly.
Developing daily and seasonal routines to respond appropriately to your environment will allow you to notice when your body or mind begins to show signs of needing attention.
Further, periodic cleansing and detoxifying your system of toxins routinely collected in daily living ensure that the seeds of illness do not have an opportunity to take root.
Learn Ayurveda
Ready to learn more? Join my Introduction to Ayurveda Course Facebook Group and be part of the conversation.
Not on Facebook? No problem. Sign up for a copy of the Ayurvedic Daily Routine (Dinacharya) while you wait for the course to begin: Ayurvedic Daily Routine.
