Live healthy the ayurveda way

New Delhi: Twenty-eight-year-old Ankur Suman, a copywriter with an advertising agency and a theatre actor, is finally a relieved man. After putting up with a throbbing migraine pain for years, which used to hamper his passion for theatre, Ankur has eventually found a cure to his problem in ayurveda.

Today, he directs his productions without bothering even once about the migraine, which had threatened to almost ruin his life.

“I didn’t want to get the migraine attack again and again. Every time I would pop a pill, which will not help for long. I didn't want the recurrence every two-three days. So, that's where ayurveda has really helped,” Ankur says.

Ayurveda, a Sanskrit term meaning knowledge of life, is one of the oldest healing traditions, dating back some 5,000 years.

The mainstream medical system focuses on treating the physical body whereas ayurveda is a science, which believes that an individual can be healthy when not just the body but mind and soul are healthy too.

According to ayurveda, the human body is made up of five elements – air, fire, water, earth and void. It is perceived that everything, including people, could be described as various combinations of these five elements.

"These five elements are in fact related to the basic concept of ayurveda that is the three doshas. Referred to as Vata, Pitta, and Kapha, each dosha has its own suite of qualities and when there is an imbalance in these doshas, it results as an illness," Dr Durga Prasad, an ayurveda practitioner, explains.

So the first step to an ayurvedic way of life is recognising your body type and your prominent dosha.

Once the diagnosis is done the treatment in ayurveda is generally given through the panchkarma system meaning five therapies. Panchakarma helps in purification and detoxification while balancing the doshas

“There are toxins accumulating within the body. These toxins produce different diseases, which cannot always be cured by oral medicines. So, the elimination techniques are called panchkarmas,” Dr Prasad says.

To know about your body type, take this simple test to find out what day-to-day practices would help you live a healthy life. Click here