Also by Kate O’Donnell The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook: A Seasonal Guide to Eating and Living Well Everyday Ayurveda Cooking for a Calm, Clear Mind: 100 Simple Sattvic Recipes Shambhala Publications, Inc. 4720 Walnut Street Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.shambhala.com © 2020 by Kathleen O’Donnell Photographs © 2020 by Cara Brostrom Talya’s Feel Better Tea recipe was printed by permission of Talya Lutzker, © 2018 by Talya Lutzker and Talya’s Kitchen. Cover photographs: Cara Brostrom Cover design: Kate E. White Interior design: Allison Meierding All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: O’Donnell, Kate (Ayurvedic practitioner) author. Title: The everyday Ayurveda guide to self-care: rhythms, routines, and home remedies for natural healing / Kate O’Donnell; photographs by Cara Brostrom. Description: Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala, [2020] | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019032537 | ISBN 9781611806519 (paperback) eISBN 9780834842830 Subjects: LCSH: Medicine, Ayurvedic. | Mind and body. | Self-care, Health. | Healing. Classification: LCC R605 .O323 2020 | DDC 615.5/38—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019032537 a_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0 For my parents, who taught me how to take care of my Self. CONTENTS Author’s Note Introduction PART ONE THE AYURVEDIC APPROACH TO HEALTH: BODY, MIND, SENSES, AND SOUL 1. What You Need to Know about Ayurveda 2. The Physical Body: Tissues, Circulation, and Digestion 3. The Mind: Anatomy of Awareness 4. The Subtle Body: Vital Energy, Metabolic Transformation, and Immunity PART TWO THE AYURVEDIC LIFESTYLE: DAILY AND SEASONAL ROUTINES FOR SELF-CARE 5. Dinacharya: Daily Routine 6. Ritucharya: Seasonal Flow 7. The Four Stages of Life’s Flow PART THREE DO-IT-YOURSELF HOME REMEDIES FOR NATURAL HEALING 8. Dravyaguna: Medicinal Qualities 9. Directory of Medicinal Substances and How to Use Them 10. Home Remedies Glossary Notes Resources Acknowledgments Index About the Author and Photographer E-mail Sign-Up AUTHOR’S NOTE M ore than twenty years ago, I journeyed to India on a quest for self- knowledge. I wandered the subcontinent with a backpack, delving into Indian culture, Vedic philosophy, and yoga practice. It was my struggle with parasites that brought me to Ayurveda. The diet and lifestyle practices I learned from doctors in India became my path of self-reliant healing. In this guide to self-care, I offer a process, based on my own experiments with Ayurvedic living, for befriending your body and discovering how best to care for it. It’s a unique journey to discover what works for you. The launchpad is an ancient body of wisdom, the fruits of collected observations from thousands of years of human trial and error. Join me, dear reader, for a journey into self and into care. It’s totally worth your time. This book offers a new way to think about your health and understand the cause-and-effect relationship between your body, your environment, and your lifestyle. Taking care of yourself is about maintaining good health through a steady practice of self-observation. Ayurveda works when you pay attention to your Self. The information you gain about what makes you glow is pure gold. Think about caring for plants and pets. You have to pay attention to them—figure out what kind of food they like, how much sun and water they need—and watch how they react to changes. Everybody knows you have to walk a dog and water a plant, but how often? Does it change as they age or at different times of year as the amount of sunshine and occurrence of rain shift? There’s no judgment if a plant likes less sun or needs fresh soil. And there’s no need to judge what makes you thrive, such as needing more rest than exercise or the other way around. There’s true intimacy, acceptance, and joy in this kind of self-discovery. What is special about Ayurveda is the recognition of the central relationship between us and our environment. Human beings are microcosmic members of the macrocosm, and the laws that govern nature govern us as well. For example, waking with the sun and sleeping in the dark have beneficial effects on our health. Modern science is presently fleshing out the details of this phenomenon through the study of circadian rhythms and the effects these rhythms have on our mental well-being, hormones, digestion, and so on. Ayurveda also takes into account our human nature and the role our minds, emotions, and energies play in our health. There is a subtle reality inside of us that can’t be seen or measured but certainly has its effects. Ayurvedic science teaches the art of daily living, of being an integrated, whole person among the needs of job, family, home, and the spiritual heart. It’s absolutely possible for anyone to cultivate higher states of health and happiness through the Ayurvedic lifestyle. I’ve been observing the healing potential of this traditional medicine in all sorts of people, in all sorts of ways, for twenty years. Let’s see what it can do for you. Your Friend, Kate O’Donnell INTRODUCTION The Ayurvedic Definition of Health S wastha literally means “to be seated in the self” and is loosely defined as “health.” This word not only gives us clues about how the system of Ayurveda works to support a long and happy life but also defines the true essence of health. Being seated in the self is like being comfortable in your own skin. To feel at ease in a body requires both physical health and a philosophical sense of OK-ness. Being OK with who we are, with the body we’ve been given, and with the process of becoming is to be seated in the self. With imbalances like a sour stomach or a disturbed mind, it is more difficult to feel at home in the moment. It’s easier to “be here now” when you feel clear. The ancient sages who began the path of Ayurveda pointed out certain aspects of life that are important in the maintenance of swastha. Ayurveda is defined as the “science of life,” but what is life? The root word ayuh does not mean simply “life”; it actually describes four aspects that, when combined, form what we call life: the body, the senses, the mind, and the soul.1 Maintaining good health requires paying equal attention to each of these aspects and respecting their interdependence. Physical wellness, mental wellness, and spiritual wellness are intertwined in this paradigm. To ignore any aspect of life would be to diminish the whole. The Ayurvedic definition of health goes further to describe the components of health. To be considered a healthy person, each of the following needs to be in balance: ♦The functional compounds in the body responsible for movement, transformation, and cohesion (doshas) ♦Digestive fire (agni) ♦The seven bodily tissues (dhatus) ♦The production and elimination of waste (malas) ♦The sensory and motor organs (indriyas) ♦The mind (manas) ♦The soul (atman) In The Everyday Ayurveda Guide to Self-Care, we look at taking care of each of these parts of the self. Part one examines the building blocks of the body—the five elements and the three doshas—and how these make up your unique constitution. Part two describes daily and seasonal routines for the preservation of health. Here you learn how to take into account your climate, constitution, and stage of life to create daily and seasonal rhythms that will support you in being your best self. Part three discusses the medicinal qualities of foods, spices, and herbs and how to expand your self- care rituals with home remedies for cleansing, rejuvenation, management of common imbalances, and support of the mind and nervous system. From the philosophy to the practice, you will learn about the Ayurvedic view of the body and self, as well as how to care for your body, mind, senses, and soul. I know you will feel confident and inspired to begin some self-care routines after understanding the bigger picture of how Ayurveda achieves swastha. Give it some time to gain a slow and steady sense of what your body needs, in real time, and how to deliver the goods. Consider this effort a journey into yourself, which will yield experiential knowledge and the kind of understanding that supports self-healing. PART ONE The AYURVEDIC APPROACH to HEALTH BODY, MIND, SENSES, AND SOUL W elcome to self-care, the Vedic way. This information about health and wellness has philosophical underpinnings that are said to be divinely inspired. Vedic wisdom comes from rishis, sages living thousands of years ago who devoted themselves to meditating on the nature of self and universe. The study of this ancient knowledge requires an open mind, as it is your own experience that will reveal the nature of what is true about your unique body/mind/spirit complex. An understanding of Ayurvedic principles encompasses universal truths, which have been discovered by collective human experience over millennia. This way of seeing inevitably expands the mind of the student to hold a truly holistic sense of reality. The Vedas, India’s body of traditional knowledge, cultivated over at least four thousand years, contains not only medical knowledge but also topics such as religious ritual and mantra, music and dance, and architecture. The principal Ayurveda texts—the Charaka Samhita, Sushruta Samhita, and Ashtanga Hrdayam—represent the codification of knowledge gained through ages of human experience that predates the texts.