What is Ajurveda - The Ancient Indic System for Treatments of Diseases

Ajurveda is an ancient indic system for health maintainance and treatment of diseases. The system has been used for millennia, has been steadily developed further, and it is still in full use and under development, so that it also constitutes a modern system of natural healing. the word "ajurveda" litterally means "knowledge of life".

In India Ajurvedic medicine is officially regarded on an equal basis as western medicine, and there one has a 5 years standarized education for people taking education as ajurvedic doctors.

Ajurveda has the aim of optimizing the physical health, the mental health, the spiritual standard and the realtionship to other people and the environment as a whole. The main principle of healing within ajurveda is to poverize the person to fight diseases and heal by hisher own physical, mental and spiritual capacities and to develop himherself to the maximum extent.

According to Ajurveda, the person is driven by three groups of forces wich has been given the names Vata (wind), Pitta (fire) and Kapha (earth). An imballance of these forces will create health problems. By ayurvedic treatment one will seek to ballance these forces by strengthening those that are too week or tuning down those that are too active. By creating a proper ballance of the forces, the person will be helped to heal himself both by his inner automatic processes and by actions governed by conscious decisions. Ayurvedic treatment can also be chosen to work directly against the symptoms and manifestations of the actual disease, but one will always choose the treatment so that the proper ballance of the forces also are provided, since only that will give stabile effects in the long run.

Vata are the functions that provide movement, including muscular movement, respiration and nervous cativity, it also encompasses emotions like entusiasm and flexibility. A person with much vata will be active and have a lot of initiative. He will also tend to be slim and flexible in mind and body. If vata predominates too much, the person will easily suffer from conditions that creates axiety, concentration difficulties, dey skin and digetive contipation.

Pitta encompasses digestion, circulation and metabolism and also mental tendencies like intelligence, determination in goals, sensorial intensity, friendliness and appetite for life. If there is too much pitta, the person tend to be compulsive and irritable, have feeble digestion and too much inflammatory processes in the body.

Kapha provides forces that gives development, maintainace, and repair of bodily, mentally and spiritually nature. Mentally kapha provides drive for daily activities of nutrition, appetite and ability to nurture. When there is too much kapha, the person easily gets over-weight, become sluggish and have constipatedsinuses.

However, Ayurveda also uses a theory of how the human body is composed, namely 5 physical elements:Space, Air, Fire, Water and Eart, and 5 metaphysical elements: Time, Direction, Mind, Soul and Tam (Origin). Some ayurvedic techiques aims at ballancing these elements rather than the three forces to achieve healing.


Ayurveda teaches that the body has a subtle structure consisting of 7 centers or chakras up along the body from the area between the legs to the top of the head. There are subtle channels or nadis between these centers and channels from these centers that branch out to the whole body and interconnecting with each other so that they constitute a network. Much of this network is more or less the same as the acupuncture network in Chinese medicine.

The centers distribute energy, called prana, and the channels lead the energy which is in constant circulation within the body. This is not the energy used for daily activities, nor the energy used for building processes. This energy is furnished through the air one breathes and the food one eats. The energy circulating in this network is of finer kind and the energy is used to support consciousness, create emotions and to coordinate development, growth and healing processes in the body and mind. Ayurvedic healing techniques will always work upon this network to resolve bad patterns or blockades in the network and then trigger the network to stimulate the right healing processes in the body and mind.


Ayurvedic treatment techiques

Ajurveda is made up of sveral groups of techiques:

Diet advices and special diets

The ayurvedic diet plans depend on which forses predominate in your body. One choses a diet composistion that both helps to alleviate disease symptoms, but also at the same time helps against overexpression of dominating forces and to strengthen the forses that are weaker. Practically this means that your diet will be fitted to your body type.

For Vata dominated persons one advices to reduce dry and crunchy foods, beverages with carbon dihydroxid, and cold or raw vegetables. One recommends warm, cooked sereals, cooked vegetables and warm milk. Also nuts and ghee is recommended. Generally one recommends food cooked to a mushy state.

Where pitta predominates one should not use much hot spices, coffee, alcohol, acidic fruit or vinegar in the diet, but instead use much sweet fruit and vegetables or fruit with a high water content.

Where kapha predominates, fat, carbohydrates and salt should be reduced in the diet. Kapha dominated persons should cook the food with a lot of spices and eat large amounts of vegetables, legumes and food with high fiber content.


Herbal medicine

One will use herbs with a direct effect on the symptoms and manifestations of the disease, and in addition the herbs are chosen so that they ballance the vital foreces in an appropriate way.

To tune down vata one uses herbs with a mild and pleasant salt, sure or sweet taste. To increase vata one uses herbs with astringent effects that taste bitter or pungent.

To reduce Pitta one uses drying, cooling, bitter, astringent and sweet herbs. To increase Pitta one uses herbs that are felt warming and moisturing and which teste pungent, sour or salty.

To tune down Kapha one uses herbs that provides elimination processes, are astringent and provides drying, that tastes pungent and bitter. Sweet, salty and sour herbs will increase kapha. Where Kapha predominates, garlic and gugul is often recommended.


Inner and outer body cleansing techiques

By ayurvedic cleansing, one eats a light diet combined with spices that stimulate the body itself to eliminate waste through the rectum, urinary tract and the skin. This can be combined with water enemas to wash the inside of the colon and therafter instilling through the anus special herbal blendings that stimulate further cleansing and the general function of the digestive tract. Coffee enemas and instilling of beneficial microbes, like acidophilus, are also used.


Massage techiques

Ajurvedic massage is usually performed on a flat mat. The massager uses the fingers, the whole hand, the knuckles of his hands and even his feet. sometimes the massager has fine silk gloves on the hands. One uses different degree of pressure. One can use long strokes like in western massage or rub around special points. One will nearly always use massage oils, often applied with a kind of ball. One will often concentrate on points called "marma points" which are more or less the same as Chinese acupuncture points.

Ajurvedic massage has the aim of helping the body get rid of toxins, bringing relaxation, or increasing muscle tone. This aim is achieved by using techniques that also regulates the life forces to a correct level. The oils used, the choise of marma points and also the physical forse used, depend upon this wider purpose.


Acupressure techiques

Ayurvedic acupressure techiques include using pressure, seeds, magnets or colors at the marma points. According to ayurvedic tradition, the body has an extensive system of medians and each median has one marma point for each of the 10 element in the human body. One uses the specific therapy techiques at selected marma points to strengthen or ballance the composition and function of the human body and mind.


Yoga exercises, including meditation

Ayurveda regards yoga to be a part of Ayurveda and that the principles of yoga are manifestations of the more general principles of Ayurveda. Ayurveda uses physical postures or asanas, breathing exersices or pranayama and meditation which also incudes chantings and mantra repititions. Yoga used as a part of ayurvedic healing has the aim of ballancing and enforcing both the maind and the body, and that the body cannot be healed properly without a contemporary healing of the spiritual and mental state and processes. Therefor one will hardly prescibe physical postures and breathing exercises without prescribing some kind of meditation. The good effect of the mind by by meditation will also give a good effect on the body.