Back to the Basics: Results

In terms of the ayurveda experiment, the results were meaningful to me:

1.      Ayuvedic Daily Routine.

(a)  While I have felt overall very healthy for quite some time, the morning rituals of Dr. Lad’s, including tongue viewing and scraping, kept me in touch with what I am eating and how that is affecting my body and equally important that I have a nutritional deficiency since there are some ridges on my tongue.  Whether ayurveda or the Chinese system, there is fundamental sense and insight from taking the eastern approach and spending time LOOKING at things like the tongue, eyes, ears, bowels, urine etc…

(b) The eye exercises brought energy and seemed to improve my eye sight given the amount of computer work I have been doing.   It was very noteworthy the degree to which these exercises felt refreshing and revitalizing.

(c) Both nasya, nose drops, and abhyanga, self message, were very soothing to the body.  Abhyanga also made me realize how much I missed having a chlorine filter in my shower as my skin started feeling particularly dry with the change in the season.  While the oil massage is great, it is also time to replace the filter, which I have been without for about 4 months.

2.      Food.

I have been surprised that substituting fruit for refined sugar has helped my cravings, brain and food habits.  Although I had some apprehension about eating fruit ‘alone’ per ayurvedic guidelines (as I thought it might be too much of a sugar rush), it has been for the most part fine.  My brain had energy to work, and I did not experience the tendency I have when eating refined sugar to want ‘more’ refined sugar.  There were some occasions when I felt tiredness later after taking fruit, but I have to experiment a little more since there may have been other things factoring in to the situation.

3.       Pranayama and Meditation Practices.

I ended up feeling too cooled by pitta-pacifying pranayama practices (shitali).  Since I loved the effects of bhramari in class, which is vata pacifying, I ended up practicing the Four Purifications and Bhramari, along with Dr. Lad’s Empty Bowl Meditation, in the mornings and dirgha rechak (long exhale) in the evenings.  It will be interesting to experience how this changes over time – or whether it will change over time and what the overall effects will be.