Tag Archive for: ayurveda

Morning Monster: Both Eyes Open

Overall I learned so much from observing my mind’s struggle with the mere idea of implementing more Kapha reducing practices in my diet and lifestyle. I came to appreciate in a whole new way my struggles with body image and how that is connected to feeding myself. I don’t think I have ever given space to that topic to air those complexities and so I am very grateful for the new awareness and for my intuitive wisdom to take it easy and observe. From that departure I learned so much about how judgment, shame and perfectionism are wrapped up in my struggles with food and body image. I truly believe in the beneficial effects of mindful eating and I know that approaching it from a non-judgemental framework would benefit me in the future. In the future I would like to implement a morning routine for myself that includes a Kapha reducing flow, and to try adding some Kapha reducing foods in my diet.

 

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Get Rid of Road Rage with Ayurveda!

Who doesn’t have road rage from time to time? This Axis Yoga Teacher Training student noticed anger on the road was becoming just too common and decided to use lessons from the Ayurveda segment of the training to reduce these negative feelings. Read how changes in daily habits helped this yogi find some zen on the road!

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Road Rage: Making a Plan

After taking the Ayurvedic quiz and speaking with Susan, I determined my prakruti to be V3P3K2. Recently I’ve been experiencing symptoms of excess pitta: frustration, and anger-specifically when I’m driving. I explained to class that I feel quite happy and peaceful for the most part, but when I step behind the wheel I develop quite a short fuse. In addition, I’ve been struggling to manage my daily stressors since I started my own business. The inability to manage my stress response in a healthy way has definitely affected my attitude and it seems to all come out when I’m driving!!

In an effort to manage my stress and become a more peaceful driver, I have implemented a number of practices designed to balance/reduce my excess pitta. Because I have many food sensitivities, I chose not to change my diet. Instead, I adopted personal care rituals each morning including: oil pulling, massaging pre-shower with almond oil and tongue scraping. I also wanted to implement a yoga routine in the morning including: specific asana, pranayama and meditation. Susan also suggested I practice deep belly breathing while driving to calm myself down and get centered.

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Road Rage: Taking Action

I initially thought that this new routine would be a piece of cake. I quickly learned how foolish that was! I considered myself to be a morning person until I was forcing myself to wake up early to do sun salutations and grease my body up with oil. The asana, pranayama and meditation was extremely difficult for me to do in the morning. My morning meditation went something like this:

Om. I’m hungry. And uncomfortable. Om. And still really tired. I should just go back to sleep for a couple of minutes. Om. I have so much to do today. In fact, I should be getting organized for the day right now. Om. I have to figure out how I’m going to make it to three different appointments on opposite sides of town. Om.

After week one, I decided to try this routine later in the evening. At night, I was already done with all of my tasks for the day so I wasn’t constantly creating to-do lists in my mind. It also helped me go to sleep better, which sometimes I struggle with. I found that I woke up feeling better rested and in a better mood on days that I did my full routine. I continued with my personal care routine in the morning. I loved the oil pulling and quickly made this into a new habit! I liked the idea of massaging myself with oil but quickly started to break out from the almond oil. I decided to only use the oil on my feet, arms and legs and that seemed okay. I wasn’t crazy about the tongue scrapping so I stopped doing that when this experiment was over.

I really enjoyed doing deep breathing exercises while driving. It totally calmed me down and gave me something else to focus on besides the other drivers on the road. I also found myself doing breathing exercises randomly throughout my day whenever I found myself in a stressful situation; it almost came automatically.

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Road Rage: Success!

If I were to summarize my experience, I can’t say that I believe the personal care routine reduced my pitta and helped my road rage or stress in any kind of direct way. I do think that it’s a nice way to practice self care as part of a daily routine. I have noticed a difference in my stress management abilities since I have been practicing more asana, pranayama and meditation. I’ve gotten to the point where I look forward to deep breathing and chanting, instead of viewing it as a chore. To summarize how my experiment has affected my road rage specifically, I want to tell a story:

I left class last Tuesday evening and was headed home down Colorado Blvd. I was about ten minutes into my drive when I saw a police car parked in the median monitoring speeds. I immediately panicked and prepared to slam on my breaks when I glanced at my speedometer and saw that I was going the speed limit. This may not sound all that interesting except for the fact that it was 9:30 PM on a Tuesday night and I was practically all alone on the road. Normally, I would be going a good 10-20 mph over the speed limit to rush home as quickly as possible. Instead, I was driving at the exact speed limit…not rushing, just enjoying the drive home!

Suffice it to say, I have no doubt that practicing deep breathing and incorporating meditation into my daily life has impacted my temperament in a huge way. I don’t know about the way that it has affected my dosha in particular, but I do know that I will carry this into my life beyond this experiment and beyond this training program. I’m grateful to have been given this opportunity to discover new healthy ways to relieve stress and become a more peaceful, patient person.

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Pancha Karma Experience

Axis Yoga Teacher Training students have the opportunity to apply their Ayurvedic lessons to their own lives. Many students, like this one, decide to complete the Pancha Karma cleanse to experience its effects on the body, mind and consciousness. While it is not a simple cleanse, students generally have a positive report on their overall experience. This student describes many challenges as well as the benefits ultimately received.

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Pancha Karma Experience: Catalyst

My Ayurveda experiment was to go through a Pancha Karma.  I had decided that I needed to do some sort of cleanse to clear out the results of a stressful move and transition, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into with the Pancha Karma.  A very difficult cleanse for me, I went through a lot of ups and downs on a number of levels.  I came out feeling better, though with an awareness that I’m still just on the path and not at the destination.

I had gone through a lot of stress and change over the past year and my body had been craving a clean up from the abuses that stress had put on it.  I put my house on the market last spring and decided to move east to be closer to family.  Selling my house, downsizing, and preparing to move out of my community with a full Massage Therapy practice in two locations and a part time job coaching gymnastics was quite a bit to shove into a couple of months.  Looking back on it, I can’t even remember what I was regularly eating during that point in time as it was so hectic.  I wanted to cut out the junk intake and nourish my body so that it could recover.  I was also having some aches pains in my lower right abdominal area.  I had a major injury there several years ago and while I know that the psoas was certainly affected by it, I have been unsure if the ileocecal valve had been as well.  The dull ache has been an additional source of stress.  One of my instructors at the massage school I attended is a Naturopathic Doctor and Applied Kinesiologist, he had recommended doing a cleanse cutting out gluten, dairy, sugar, and any crunchy or sharp foods like seeds, nuts, etc. to allow the valve to fully heal up and see if that was really the source of the problem.  I had never done a cleanse before and I felt like being assigned one was probably the push that I needed to go ahead and get started with it.  I wanted to do a general cleanse, the way that translated was that I should do a full Pancha Karma.

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Pancha Karma Experience: Adherence

How strict was I in this cleanse?  I always followed the restriction rules and avoided anything processed, and I had a vegan diet free of coffee and sugar.  There were a few meals that I branched out and had just vegetables or quinoa and vegetables, as there were a number of times I didn’t have access to my home or cooking kitchari.  I drank chai in the mornings that I know had some caffeine in it.  I missed an abhyanga and sweat, and I didn’t take the herbal teas I was supposed to during it, though I did substitute by making some of my own infusions/decoctions from the herbs that I had.  Overall, I stuck pretty close to the cleanse and would be happy to not eat any kitchari for a long, long time.

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Pancha Karma Experience: Reflections

Looking back on this experiment, I’m not sure that I would do it again though I’m glad that I went through it.  I noticed a lot of things while going through this process.  I felt like the ghee really got gunked up in my arteries.  I noticed that when I flossed and some blood came out it was reddish/orange in color with a yellow oily substance surrounding it.  I have never noticed this at any point of my life, year or season, and while the reason given was that  I had too much pitta, I really feel that I just had too much ghee in my circulatory system, especially since overall I was feeling a calming of pitta during that time.  I felt my areas of chronic injury really get aching again.  Luckily I knew to recognize it as a healing crisis and I could tell that it was my body’s way of releasing parts of the injury and my body’s way of retracing it to let it go, though it was fairly painful.  The dull ache was gone in my abdomen and was replaced with a distinct muscular pain in the psoas area.  Though after getting massage work on it, I’m still unsure if it’s a problem with one or both areas.  I had substantial headaches every day, which I’m guessing could have been my withdrawal of sugar, coffee, or who knows what other food item.  My balance was almost non-existent towards the end of the cleanse, I felt malnourished, and really tired.

My emotions were a bit on a roller coaster.  I went out to eat breakfast because I was staying at a lower elevation over the weekend so that I didn’t have to do some much driving.  I ordered oatmeal at a vegan restaurant and they brought me ground up nuts and seeds.  I ate part of it so that I would have something in my stomach but felt like sobbing because I let myself down on the nuts and seeds end.  The sorrow that I felt over eating nuts, was not one that I’m accustomed to.  I had some mornings where I woke up glowing, and some afternoons where I was tired and cranky.  I spent a lot of time alone for a few reasons, one being that I just moved here and don’t know that many people, though a big realization was that doing something like this can be very isolating.  Most social situations were out since I didn’t know if I had the willpower to turn down anything that wasn’t kitchari, water, or herbal tea.  I started going around to social things at the end just to have some company, though it still felt socially awkward to deny people when they would kindly offer me something to eat or drink.

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Pancha Karma Experience: Conclusion

In conclusion, I feel like the Pancha Karma helped to get the stagnant energy within me unstuck, and it got it moving.  Doing this cleanse put me into my body, which includes really feeling all of those chronic injuries again.  I’m trying to be mindful of taking care of them and myself and have been scheduling deep tissue restructural work to clear out some of those patterns of holding.  By not being able to eat in my normal way it gave me a great awareness of what it is I’m putting into my body and a heightened sensitivity to the way that those things affect me immediately and over time.  Another side effect that came about between moving to a quieter space and doing this cleanse is that my body naturally began getting tired and wanting to go to bed around 10 or 10:30 and naturally wanted to wake up to see the sun coming up over the mountains.  I feel that doing this cleanse was not only good for my general physical health, I feel that it really heightened my awareness which makes me want to continue to keep cleansing, of some variety, as a part of my general yearly health routine.

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