Western Meets Eastern: Patients

I would like to open this paper by stating that entering the discipline of yoga is evoking a fundamental shift in my point of view.  The things I am learning are deeply confirming of beliefs I have held for as long as I can remember, and yet new at the same time. I truly appreciate the Ayurvedic portion of this program. I have worked as an RN and as a Nurse Midwife for almost all of my working life, and while Western medicine certainly has its place, it has not escaped my notice that it is a modality which never seems to prevent illness, it simply tries to clean up after the fact in fundamentally flawed ways. Of course, not all illness occurs because of lifestyle, and there are illnesses and injuries which Western medicine is rightly suited to address. The ten factors in Health and Illness discussed in The Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home Remedies is information enough to prevent most lifestyle induced disease on its own, however, simply and powerfully. I am finding that when my patients complain of anxiety, depression, back pain and fatigue – all common complaints among pregnant women, if I begin to question them along the lines of the ten factors listed in AHR I can usually identify simple dietary, sleep, exercise, and relationship factors which can be altered to address their ailments. Of course, some patients are far more open to this approach than others.