Āyurveda is holistic medical system that comes from India. It has the same roots as yoga and many forms of meditation, outlined in ancient texts called The Vedas, written about at least 4,000 years ago. In Sanskrit, the word ayus means ‘life’ and veda means ‘knowledge’. Āyurveda is about using the knowledge of (your) life, of every part of yourself and your sensory experience, to help you manage inputs like diet, movement (exercise), environment, behavior, and relationships with awareness, to cultivate longevity, vitality, radiance, and luminosity while simultaneously preventing physiological or psychological imbalance. If imbalance does arise, Ayurveda offers a diagnostic system to identify the source of the disease as well as a treatment plan inclusive of herbal remedy, bodywork, dietary and lifestyle protocol to return you to a state of health.
Known as a vidya, or living science, Āyurveda is very much a science of Nature, meaning the science itself is evolving as Nature evolves while still being subject to fundamental natural laws. Your organism is in sympathetic resonance with the natural world within which you operate; adopting nature’s cyclical rhythms into your life is the precept of the practices taught by the Vedic sciences.
According to Āyurveda, the body/mind (gifts given to you…!) are interfaces which allow you to live in continual interaction with the environment that is the basis of your existence. Action taken to cultivate cooperation between mind and body and the environment yields the symptoms of health that lay the foundation for true happiness and longevity.
As preventative well-care, Āyurveda is behavioral medicine at its finest, making it a science of personal responsibility — one which trains you first intellectually, then intuitively, to make intelligent decisions. Intelligent decisions are the ones that create the internal conditions for the symptoms of health to arise within you. Āyurveda’s offers a simple approach, without being simplistic; its teachings are the ultimate, practical ‘users manual’ for how to make decisions that result in efficiency, flow, and ease in your life.
The Sanskrit word for health is svasthya; it means
self-dependence: one’s own stand to protect life
self-abiding: relying on one's own exertion; confident
being in one's natural state; uninjured, at ease
a sound state of the body and mind
sv(w)a
self 〰️innate, natural, inherent, particular, belonging to one self
stha
state or place 〰️ established, to stand, do well, live
Āyurveda aims to restore your natural state, your balance (homeostasis), so you may be free of mental and physical afflictions. What you choose to do with your health is up to you.