Ayurvedic wellness skilled, Avanti Kumar-Singh, MD, is on an essential mission to bridge the traditional therapeutic practices of Ayurveda and the trendy science behind Western medication to coach her readers (and listeners!) about enhancing longevity. Dr. Kumar-Singh is the host of the highly-rated ‘The Therapeutic Catalyst‘ podcast and creator of ‘The Well being Catalyst: Find out how to Harness the Energy of Ayurveda to Self-Heal and Obtain Optimum Wellness‘, which got here out in 2022.
Now, she’s again with one other aim: to coach us on the advantages of lowering irritation and growing mobile restore in her latest e book, ‘The Longevity Formulation‘, which can be revealed by Sounds True and out there for buy on December 17, 2024. On this unique excerpt beneath, Dr. Kumar-Singh shares the fundamentals of Ayurveda, the worth of connecting with nature, and the way a severe well being prognosis reminded her of the significance of therapeutic.
Over 5 thousand years outdated, Ayurveda is taken into account one of many oldest methods of therapeutic and was first recorded in India within the Vedic texts in 3000 BCE. The essence of Ayurveda, translated as “the science of life” or “the data of longevity,” is that we’re not separate from nature; as a substitute, we’re a microcosm of the macrocosm. As a result of it incorporates the roots of many different therapeutic methods, together with conventional Chinese language medication and Western medication, Ayurveda is taken into account by many to be the “mom of all therapeutic.”
Whereas Ayurveda has been round for hundreds of years, many people don’t perceive its multitude of longevity and well being advantages. These days, we regularly solely look to and think about the information and scientific research to inform us what to do to alleviate our signs and reduce sickness. However what if we additionally began to look to collective human expertise to inform us what to do to heal and improve our total well being?
In contrast to different modalities, Ayurveda reveals us find out how to stay with the every day and seasonal rhythms of nature, find out how to use meals as medication, and find out how to improve the move of important power, or prana, to steadiness our signs via medical, naturopathic, and anecdotal means. It’s a common, collective fact that has been handed down for hundreds of years and is part of our important essence and humanity, whether or not you deliberately use it or not.
Opposite to what many individuals consider, nonetheless, Ayurveda shouldn’t be against Western medication. In truth, as a result of it’s holistic, Ayurveda welcomes the combination of medication, procedures, and surgical procedures when they’ll assist the affected person. As well as, Ayurveda shouldn’t be synonymous with pure, various, or complementary medication. It might use such therapies, nevertheless it additionally makes use of typical therapies.
In 2017, the Nobel Prize was awarded to scientists for analysis on circadian medication, the ideas of that are discovered within the Ayurvedic clock that particulars find out how to stay in sync with nature. Proof of the “gut-brain” connection has been duplicated in dozens of research as properly, giving scientific proof that digestion is certainly the seat of well being (extra on this later). And the instruments of yoga are maybe essentially the most well-studied and well-accepted Ayurvedic treatments utilized in right now’s Western medication. There may be simple proof of the therapeutic results of breath, postures, and meditation on virtually each system within the human physique and thoughts, and Ayurveda has famous these advantages for millennia.
If I requested you what nature is, you’d most likely inform me that nature is the solar, moon, crops, bushes, lakes, oceans, animals, and bugs, proper? And also you’d be right; nature is all of this stuff. However what if I informed you that we, as human beings, are additionally nature?
In Ayurveda, nature is all the things outdoors of us, and it additionally is us.
We’re one with all of nature on the most elementary stage as a result of we’re made from the identical uncooked supplies—the 5 components in numerous mixtures—house, air, hearth, water, and earth. In different phrases, we as human beings are a microcosm of the macrocosm of nature.
Sadly, many people have misplaced our connection to nature and, because of this, have misplaced our well being. Many people go to work early within the morning when it’s nonetheless darkish outdoors and depart late at evening when it’s darkish once more, fairly actually by no means seeing the sunshine of day. We stare at our telephones and screens all day and grow to be blue-light poisonous, which indicators the flawed hormones and prevents our our bodies from functioning correctly. We eat strawberries and blueberries in winter by freezing them in the summertime. We eat mangoes that don’t develop the place we stay by having them flown into our grocery shops. We cook dinner with microwave ovens and devour meals that’s in containers and wrappers to save lots of time. We climb rotating stairs and stroll on shifting belts for train. The record goes on and on. Our days have been designed round expertise and comfort that was meant to enhance our lives however as a substitute has destroyed our well being. All as a result of we now have misplaced our connection to nature.
One of many keys to therapeutic with Ayurveda is sustaining our connection to nature and dwelling in concord with its every day and seasonal rhythms which can be created by the motion of the earth in relation to the solar—rhythms of nature created by nature. After we rise, sleep, eat, play, and work in concord with the sunshine of day, the darkish of evening, and the change of seasons, we’re related to what’s outdoors of us—the solar and the moon, crops and bushes, lakes and oceans, animals, and bugs . . . all of nature.
After we don’t stay in concord with nature, we progress from toxin overload to signs to sickness and, lastly, to persistent illness. In Ayurveda, the street from well being to sickness shouldn’t be a straight one however as a substitute a development via six levels that lie on a continuum.
Well being and sickness aren’t black and white constructs in Ayurveda however as a substitute have many shades of grey.
The street from well being to sickness begins with the buildup of poisons, and when toxins overwhelm the human system, signs seem. These may be low-grade, nonspecific signs corresponding to “not feeling properly” or “not feeling proper” or extra particular signs corresponding to nervousness, despair, GI misery, weight acquire, complications, sinus congestion, joint ache, and so forth. If we course-correct and start to lower the poisonous load at this stage of the method, we are able to keep away from development to sickness and persistent illness. In the end, the journey in Ayurveda is the every day follow in fact correction between toxin elimination, which creates well being, and toxin accumulation, which creates sickness.
Ayurveda takes the 5 components of nature and combines them into three energies (doshas). Area and air mix to create the power of Vata, which is all about motion. Fireplace and water mix to create Pitta, which is the power of transformation. And eventually, Kapha is the mix of water and earth, which is the power of construction. Every of those energies has a main perform that correlates again to the weather that mix to create it. These three doshas are how a conventional Ayurvedic practitioner (Vaidya) classifies a affected person to make suggestions of treatments for imbalances displaying up as signs.
I point out this as a result of lots of my college students inform me that they’ve taken “dosha quizzes” however don’t know find out how to use this info. For those who haven’t taken a dosha quiz, please resist the temptation. And if you have already got taken a dosha quiz, please ignore the outcomes you obtained for now. On this e book, I’ve purposely offered these ideas in a means that’s extra accessible and helpful, emphasizing the qualities as a substitute of the doshas themselves as a result of understanding the qualities is the way you heal with Ayurveda.
So, what does all of this must do with longevity? I’m attending to it, I promise.
I’ve spent my whole life dedicated to the artwork and science of therapeutic, first as a Western physician after which dipping again into my roots as an Ayurvedic practitioner. Although I had already written a e book about Ayurveda, I began fascinated about this e book on longevity as I used to be approaching my fiftieth birthday. I used to be reflecting on my life to this point— the profession path I’d chosen, the follow I’d constructed, the e book I’d written, the podcast I’d created, the household I’d grown, the chums I’d made, the relationships I’d maintained, the locations I’d traveled, the experiences I’d had—and I used to be wanting to step into the subsequent section, or period, of my life.
4 months into scripting this e book, I felt a small nodule in my proper breast.
No different indicators. No different signs. I believed it was nothing greater than a cyst, as I had a historical past of fibrocystic breasts since my early twenties. Once I went in for my routine mammogram, I wasn’t alarmed when the radiologist mentioned he needed to do a breast ultrasound, as this was the drill I’d gone via many instances earlier than with my “dense” breast tissue. Nonetheless, when the radiologist started taking extra photos and measurements through the ultrasound than regular, I turned more and more nervous as a result of I knew he had discovered one thing flawed.
Two days later, I had two biopsies in my proper breast and one other in my proper axilla, and per week later, I used to be assembly with a standard oncologist, an integrative oncologist, and a breast surgeon. A lot to my dismay, my physique was recognized with breast most cancers, and all of the sudden, all the things I believed was put into query. How did I, somebody who practiced integrative medication, who had so many instruments for therapeutic, who had lived her life based mostly on the ideas on this e book, now have a breast most cancers prognosis?
I’ve by no means smoked, I hardly drink, I eat a wholesome vegetarian weight loss plan, and I handle my stress properly. I’ve no household historical past and no genetic elements for breast most cancers. With this shock prognosis, all the things in my world shuddered to a halt. I used to be confused, scared, and overwhelmed by all that comes with the phrase “most cancers.” All we ascribe to it. All that it means in our Western world. As a substitute of panicking, I stilled myself and requested what my physique was attempting to inform me. Had I been so busy constructing a life and a household, writing, instructing, doctoring, and going, going, going that I had stopped being attentive to my therapeutic? Had I inadvertently stopped connecting with nature and myself?
As I examined my life, I noticed that although I built-in wholesome instruments, I additionally lived in a polluted city metropolis that didn’t usually join me to nature every day. I had an elevated poisonous load, a crammed schedule, and extra stress than I most likely preferred to confess. I had feelings I had by no means handled—anger and loneliness from my childhood, nervousness, and worry from the well being challenges of my now grownup youngsters throughout their teen years, and deep grief and disappointment from the lack of my beloved canine, Mia, simply 4 months earlier than my prognosis. Whereas constructing my profitable life, I’d let slip among the very ideas I do know to be true.
I believed in regards to the development from well being to sickness that Ayurveda teaches: maybe the elimination of poisons via my every day meditation, nutritious diet, and deeply significant work couldn’t preserve tempo with the buildup of poisons created by my setting, schedule, stress, and undigested feelings. Whatever the causes behind it, my prognosis was a reminder for me to return to my roots, return to what I do know, and heal my physique and thoughts.
First, I made a decision to clear my schedule of all the things—social occasions, affected person consultations, pupil workshops, podcast recordings, and even scripting this e book. For nearly six weeks, I ended all the things and centered solely on therapy and restoration. In stopping all the things, nonetheless, I noticed that I additionally stopped the move of life. I had stopped shifting with life and had stopped the move of prana, the ever-moving, ever-creating life power power that permeates all of us. Like a river, whether it is blocked, it can create new pathways to proceed its path ahead. Whether it is allowed to move freely, it can wash away what shouldn’t be wanted and supply water and vitamins to what’s. After we transfer with nature, we transfer with life. It’s crucial that we transfer with the important life power power that’s inside us and that wishes to move via us. That is what creates well being. As a result of all of life is a therapeutic journey.
Longevity requires this motion.
Motion of our bodily our bodies. Motion of our ideas. Motion and evolution of our souls. Longevity additionally requires connection. Connection to nature. Connection to ourselves. Connection to others. Connection to a better energy. Connection to the Common life power power, prana. The secrets and techniques to longevity are literally in plain sight once we look to historic therapeutic modalities like Ayurveda.
That is what this e book will train you. Past the science of longevity and the mechanisms of growing older, you’ll learn to transfer the life power inside you to create well being and stay higher longer. It took a most cancers prognosis to remind me how magnificent the physique actually is and the way all of us have the capability to heal, whether or not it’s from a stomachache or a illness.
As I write this, I’m nonetheless in therapy, however I’m assured that I’m studying and re-learning what I have to stay an extended, higher, more healthy life and that if I return to what I do know—that I’m nature— the therapeutic will come.
I hope it comes for you too.
