As the world continues to speed up post-pandemic, it can be difficult to find the right balance as we connect with the busier pace of life. Approaching this new direction as the world opens up and even begins to adapt with new mask guidelines in LA and revisions in vaccination education in Tennessee, we find the variants to not only be in COVID-19, but to be in the way local communities are responding to the continued development of this disease.
While the modern world is in flux with concerns about how to organize ourselves again, we find a perfect opportunity to embrace slowing down. Connecting even deeper with ourselves to improve our immunity during a summer of re-socializing (we all are craving a friendly picnic and BBQ, right?) is the best course of action. Returning to the simple principles of health can be a welcome retreat for us to add to a summer that is becoming a little more complicated than we had hoped it would be.
Returning to what may very well be the first human-documented health system is a sound action to take. Nature is calling and sharing its message that the world has changed while we were busy sending texts. Life is waiting for us to return to more natural states of being to relieve the burden that beckons us from the changes in climate. Ayurveda is defined as the study of life and was documented by wise sages from what many agree was about 5,000 years ago in today’s India’s subcontinent. The information written and organized for us is still completely valid and proven to work through thousands of years of observation. Many Western medical doctors are also Ayurvedic Practitioners and continue to share these wisdoms of the natural world so we may embody the study of life in our own lives.
Observing our own body enables us to be our best advocate for our personal health. Returning to these three pillars of health, as defined by Ayurvedic principles can offer an anchor in this continuing landscape of medical confusion. The benefits to returning to these three pillars is to refine our vitality and bolster our immunity. These simples steps are the recognized by Ayurvedic scholars as the path toward a life with meaning and longevity.
During this summer, this can be a fantastic time to incorporate these lessons into your daily life to maintain your summer body and bring vitality to those who you connect with. Building and preserving your health and wellness now is the very best way to support yourself (and others) during this time of change and transition with COVID-19. Check out these 3 Pillars of Health here:
1. Sleep
Rest and digest the nourishment from the day during your sleep hours. Make the most of the evening hours and get to bed between 9 – 10AM. The earlier sleeping schedule preserves the important REM brainwaves and helps you to recharge the cellular structure throughout the body, especially the brain. Preserving this time in your schedule helps your body recharge the body and move into the self-healing capability that every human posesses. Without good sleep habits, vitality is not fully realized.
Sleep is embodied in our entire body’s experience. On a cellular level, allover the body, we are able to recharge and rejuvenate during sleep. The nervous system connects the brain to the rest of our body and this important system for all body functions is particularly in need of recharging during the sleep cycle.
2. Digestion
Paying attention to what and how you eat is the beginning of good digestion. Add the knowledge of food combining and learning more about what agrees with your body and you are on your way to good digestion. Eating until you are 70% full is the key to realizing the potential of absorbing the nutrients and minerals you are ingesting. Overfilling the digestive organs creates stress on the body and can lead to stagnation in these organs. This can result in gas, bloating, burping, weight gain, and poor ability to lose weight.
The addition of sound rest is a critical pillar to digestion. Without good rest, quality digestion isn’t possible. These two pillars of health are critical to robust immunity and the ability to overcome the threat of the range of coronaviruses, including COVID-19. Over time, this can result in a myriad of signs and symptoms of this and other health problems, leading to disease.
Digestion is embodied throughout our body. As we are nourished not only by the food and drink that we eat, our sense organs digest art, music, and the good and bad company of other humans. We find that digestion, while primarily included in our digestive organs, is also deeply impacted by our senses and how we respond to the world around us.
3. Passion
Passion brings richness to our lives and can be realized in a number of ways. The fastest way to develop passion in our adult lives is to develop a relationship with your partner. Bringing deep passion into a relationship enables us to be vulnerable and feel the depths of the human experience. Humans were designed to procreate and continue our lineage. In modern times, we have choices around all of this – who and how many partners we have, IF we choose to have children, and when we choose to incorporate this kind of passion into our lives.
Passion is an extension of self-expression and realizing our personal potentials. As a human, when we realize our passion beyond romance and procreation, we find new limitless bounds of action we can take in our career, art endeavors, physical stamina, and even in helping others and our planet. Through these limitless actions we can take with passion, we find new heights and room for bringing passion into our lives.
Embodied passion lies in our body below the navel. While we may think of matters of the heart to represent passion, this is a space of deep feeling and love. Love is different from passionate expression. The genitourinary organs include our sexual organs, and organs of elimination: the bladder and colon. With this in mind, expressing our creativity in a number of ways ignite these organs and help to balance our sexual hormones, as well as create flow in elimination. As the unnamed sages who wrote the Vedic texts shared, passionate sexual activities foster vitality through balancing of hormones and removing the obstacles of stagnation in the neighboring organs.
Incorporating mindful awareness around each of these pillars can help you realize the feelings of vitality in this moment now. Connecting to the these three secrets and Ayurvedic pillars of health is the first step to creating a lifestyle supportive of optimal health and vitality. Start healing your bit by bit everyday by making shifts to do more sleep, mindful eating, and additions of passion to your day.
