Most highly effective people have recognized that there is a direct correlation between the systems they employ in their life and the results that they receive. While many of them give lip service to eating healthy and sleeping well their health is merely a means to the end of higher productivity leading to larger wealth creation. Superstars such as Arianna Huffington, Tony Robbins and Tim Ferris all have routines that are aligned with their purpose, goals and values.

Ayurveda, the science of medicine born in India, has a similar approach to creating routines and like many of these big players it places special importance on our morning routines. Most time management books state that you are the most productive in the first four hours of the day and recommend a starting by strategizing your day and then spending the morning focused on your biggest priority.

As Ayurveda is translated as the science of life or longevity it is most often seen as a health care system. While this is true, when the Sankrit word for health, “Svastha” is translated its meaning is more similar to “living in accordance with one’s divine purpose.” That probably led to the confusion of Ayurveda being seen as a religion instead of a healthcare system.  So let’s look at the systems Ayurveda employs as pieces of a morning routine that allow for “health.”

Morning Routines
This is just a snapshot of a laundry list of possibilities. I have left out many of the recommendations that are also recommended by the productivity superstars mentioned above.

Meditation- while there are as many ways to do meditation as there are people on the planet the underlying intention of doing meditation early in the morning is to align with your highest purpose. Like the strategic planning utilized by others as part of their morning routine, meditation is a way to become aware and conscious of the thoughts, feelings and sensations in the body that are going to guide your day. I usually recommend to my clients taking some time to write their priorities for the day based on the information they received in meditation. Or they can recite some affirmations so that they can imprint positive thoughts and intentions on their mind.

One thing that makes Ayurveda very unique and sometimes inaccessible for some is that it is not linear, it is circular. It is based on subtle energies, right brain thinking and ritual. The system is basically to tune into the wisdom and guidance that is ever-present and to get out of your own way.

Movement Meditation- After sleep the body will need to come back to life slowly. Yoga, tai chi, dance and other forms of gentle movement to awaken the body can be beneficial. Similar to meditation the practice is focused on identifying your body’s unique state today. As you move your body continue to connect to your unique experience and embrace the embodiment you are facilitating.

Nourishment- While food is a powerful part of the nourishment program another form of nourishment unique to Ayurveda is oil massage. Our skin, the largest organ in the body, is embryonically connected to the nervous system. By doing a self-oil massage we can nourish our mind and body simultaneously. For more information on how to do a self-oil massage visit Banyan Botanicals.

Warm Water- A traditional technique for waking up the digestion and elimination is drinking warm water upon arising. Ayurveda views the human body like a fire. When the digestive fire goes out it no longer ignites the other fires and the body dies. This is why when people die naturally it happens after they stop eating and drinking, because they are no longer feeding their fire. Feeding the fire can also happen on a mental, emotional or spiritual level as well. The foundation of maintaining a health fire is good digestion and that can be facilitated by drinking warm water upon arising.

Ayurveda identifies that each person is unique and by working with an Ayurvedic practitioner you can establish what type of oil to use for your massage or how much warm water to drink or the amount of time you spend in meditation. This is because the goal of the practitioner is to align you with your own source. Like the productivity guru’s implore the most important thing to do is ACT. Incorporate some of these techniques into your life and let your experience guide you.

Next time you are looking through some old photo albums from your parents or their parent’s generation start to notice what people look like. When I was with my parents over the holiday’s I realized there was something odd. I noticed that everyone in the pictures is unusually thin. Men aged 40-45 in the 60’s average weight was 169 pounds, by the year 2000 that was 196, what do you think it is today?1
 
In 2010 over 69 percent of American adults had become overweight or obese.  This phenomenon is not exclusive to the Western world, but a similar trend can be seen worldwide. The trend began in the 70’s and really hit its stride in between 1980 and 2008 as it doubled. Today it is estimated that there are 1.4 billion adults who are overweight and the damage to human health is significant. Obesity related illness kills more people than malnutrition and infectious diseases.  Managing the chronic diseases associated with obesity is expensive. Over the next 20 years the costs of obesity to the global economy are projected to be at least 30 trillion dollars.

True healing does not come from outside ourselves. Although many of us think that our health trials and tribulations will come to a grand closure once we find the perfect health care provider in my experience this is a myth, an urban legend. As we are dynamic, ever changing individuals a health care provider can assist us in finding a baseline and helping us to prioritize our efforts so that we get the most for the time and energy that we devote towards healing, but they cannot be there every step of the way. So what are we to do?
Listen. Each one of us has the potential and ability to listen in. To clearly hear the signs, signals and indications that our body is constantly providing for us. So what are we listening to? Many of us did not get an owner’s manual when we were born and Ayurveda has long since provided a framework that can be used as an owner’s manual so that we can have a language that allows us to develop physiological awareness, perception and attention. It is the cultivation of listening in that allows the symptoms that are unique to us to rise out of the noisy crowd and give us a clear message. When the message is clear then we can easily reply.

Our ability to digest complex carbohydrates in the form of bread and pasta depends strongly on our hormones. The primary hormone involved in digesting carbohydrates is insulin. When minimal insulin is released when we are eating carbs then we easily take the sugar that is in the blood from the food ewe have eaten and bring it into the cells. If insulin levels are high it often means that the cells are not absorbing insulin which is called insulin resistance.

The presence of insulin in the blood may decrease the body’s ability to digest fat and lead to weight gain. This is the theory espoused by the Atkins diet and has been gaining in popularity as more people become paleo. In addition to minimal insulin release it is also important that the blood sugar does not stay consistently high. When the body does not secrete a lot of insulin on a regular basis than this is very possible. When there is minimal insulin resistance and quick and efficient blood sugar clearance then the body is set up to uptake glycogen. Glycogen is a stored sugar in the form of carbohydrate in the muscle tissue and liver. It has been popular with endurance athletes in the form of carb loading for a long time. This also relates to our ability to utilize the sugar in the blood.

When our liver and muscle tissue are not chronically exposed to high levels of insulin from eating excess carbohydrates then we easily store glycogen in these tissues. If however we develop insulin resistance from chronically high insulin levels then we store glycogen as fat. This again is the main reason that many people lose weight initially when following a low carb diet. When the body becomes more sensitive to insulin then you will not have the sugar in the blood to be stored as fat and it can use carbs as energy. The solution is not necessary avoiding all grains, but instead is developing your body’s ability to be sensitive to and to assimilate sugar.

Ayurvedic herbs have a long history of being used for weight loss and improving blood sugar. My favorites for improving the body’s insulin sensitivity are:

1.  Cinnamon – This herb derived from cinnamon bark has many varieties depending on where it is grown but all of them show an effect on managing blood sugar after eating grains, pasta or bread. Some varieties have been shown to increase your body’s ability to digest complex carbohydrates by 10 times.
2. Barberry- Barberry contains a chemical constituent called berberine that is found in many other herbs. Barberry has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity by affecting the signaling between insulin and the receptors on the cells and the tissues. This improved receptor activation improves the cells and tissues ability to uptake sugar in the blood so that it does not end up stored in the fat.
3. Honne- This less common tree bark has been used in Ayurveda to improve the pancreases ability to produce insulin. This improvement in insulin production has been identified to reduce blood sugar levels by 21% after a high carbohydrate meal was consumed.
4. Fenugreek- Fenugreek is a seed used as a common cooking spice in Ayurveda. Similar to barberry it is able to improve the absorption of glycogen into the muscle cells so that it can be used as fuel instead of being stored as fat.

 As with most Ayurvedic herbs they work best in combination. Ayurvedic herbalism employs an sophisticated system of tastes in order to personalize formulas to minimize their side effects. The best way to take these herbs is to eat them before your meal.

Chances are that you have trouble managing your cravings. If you are not hungry then it is unlikely that you will have cravings. Sometimes because of emotions, anxiety or boredom cravings can arise, but one strategy for alleviating cravings is to keep yourself feeling nourished. The more nourished that you feel the more able you are to avoid the cravings.

• Eat until you are satisfied.
  • Not all meals are created equal, just as not all calories are not created equal.  It is important to leave the table feeling full and satisfied. This does not mean to overeat, but to choose meal options that include all six tastes and are at least 75% vegetables. By following these basic guidelines you will be more able to create meal options that feed you in a different way. The volume of water contained in vegetables make for a low calorie meal helping you to feel satiated with without worrying about extra weight.
• Digest fat
  • Fat is becoming one of the most important macronutrients after a decade of low fat diets that don’t work. For example many Eskimos can have one meal every few days and feel satiated until the next meal. Our ability to digest fats will allow us to feel fuller longer. This depends on the health of the gall bladder. If the gall bladder and liver are healthy then increasing your intake of meat, nuts, avocado, olive oil and other healthy oils. By choosing this in conjunction with a high volume of vegetables then you will support the body’s ability to find its optimal weight.
• Choose foods that are assimilated over time
  • Many of the foods I have mentioned so far can assist in delaying or eliminating cravings because they are nutrient dense. The more nutrient density in the food the more time it takes to assimilate the nutrients. Other foods that can be beneficial in addition to healthy fats, vegetables, non starchy grains and wild game meats.
    

All of these strategies are simple. Yet, simple interventions are often the most effective. Try them as experience is the best teacher.

Cleansing has always been an important part of health, not just for humans, but for all animals. These days we are exposed to many man-made substances that our bodies are not accustomed too and so more frequent cleansing may be necessary. Here are a few of my favorite reasons to cleanse:

1. Everything we put in our body is either appropriate or inappropriate for our goals of health. Cleansing cleans out the body’s aqueducts and allows us to access our bodies innate wisdom.
2. Cleansing has been utilized by every ancient tradition including Egyptian, Indian, Persian and Greek in order to facilitate healing.
3. Your ability to maintain discipline and receive the results of cleansing improves with each cleanse that you do. It builds a neural network in your brain allowing healthy choices to be the norm.
4. When you clear out all the clutter you become more sensitive to the subtle and profound messages that your body is sending you all the time.
5. Cleansing trains your body to extract the maximum amount of nutrition from you food so you can minimize your consumption of resources.
6. Cleansing brings you closer to your true nature as Spirit and allows you to access your super consciousness and have deep realizations.
7. Brain fog can be eliminated through cleansing leaving you mentally clear and sharp.
8. With the enhanced clarity from cleansing you will see your purpose more clearly and opportunities will knock loudly on your door.
9. People will notice your glowing skin, optimal weight and balanced energy.
10. The more you cleanse the more you will be used to functioning at a high level and will experience longer periods of health and well-being.
11. Cleansing foods support the proliferation of beneficial bacteria and restore biological terrain.
12. Bad bacteria, yeasts and parasites starve during cleanses making them easier to eliminate.
13. Decreasing the amount of bad bacteria increases your energy levels as you no longer have to work to neutralize and filter their metabolic excretions.
14. When you are clean and clear within you will be more prone to let go of clutter in your home, work and car.
15. Your quality of life improves as toxins in your fat cells and blood are no longer creating stress on your body.
16. A cleanse will make you feel better which can make you feel happier.

 
A cleanse is a way of loving your body. When you take care of your body and show it love and support then it rewards you with energy and vitality. Share the love with your body now.

Having been teaching and sharing wellness since 2002 I have learned a lot. Time after time while offering many of my gifts I have been told that I look at least 10-20 years younger than I actually am. Many people owe my youth to the many practices that I have employed since taking that first yoga class when I was 16 years old, but I’m not so sure. Recently there has been a lot of research into cold shock proteins and I believe this may have a lot to do with my youthful appearance.

This culture tends to promote and increase the Ayurvedic dosha of Vata. Vata is known as being extremely inventive, intuitive and intelligent. So why is it that these days the aspects of Vata that are more common are lack of focus, poor memory and inability to concentrate. That is because our lives our so full it can be hard to keep the mobile aspect of vata in balance. This is where healthy and seasonally appropriate routines come in. By having routines in place we can leverage the power of vata and get access to its inventive and idealistic nature. The four routines below will assist you in this endeavor. Vata tends to bite off more than they can chew and get overwhelmed so don’t fall into that trap. Implement these one week at a time or wait until you have success with one routine until you shift your energy to initiating and maintaining another one.

It has always been a conundrum to me that athletes and people with type A personalities are Pitta types because these are the types of people that are the most susceptible to inflammation which would compromise their athletic performance and cognitive function. Not necessarily from the increased demands that they put on their bodies and minds on a daily basis, but because of their tendency to respond to imbalance through inflammation. This is the cornerstone of imbalanced pitta and let’s look at how this inflammatory response often occurs.

I have some time off from school and I am spending it on a biodynamic farm in Southern Oregon. It is so peaceful and quiet here. In deep contrast to my life in Oakland.

I have noticed that I believe all the hard work and rushing will have the eventual goal of landing me permanently in the environment that I am experiencing this week on the farm. The quiet, the community, the peace. Yet, even with so much unscheduled time I still wake up in the morning with a sense of haste.

We are a culture of causes. Always looking for a reason a diagnosis, someone to blame for everything and anything that has ever occurred in our lives. Although some things are quite random in the case of many conditions we can trace them back to a primary cause. Take the following symptoms for example

• Environmental allergies
• Sensitives to certain foods or smells
• Eczema or acne
• Anxiety and depression
• Gas, bloating and constipation

When you read that list do you think that the root cause could be the same thing?

Within the realm of Ayurveda there are three gunas or qualities that define the universe. These qualities can be considered to be the perspective that we bring to the events in our life. This perspective colors all our activities and leads us towards outcomes and behaviors that may be appropriate and beneficial or self-destructive. By understanding the three gunas we can choose to bring in more of the perspective or mindset that allows us to achieve our goals. The three gunas are:

1. Sattva – Mature mindset
2. Rajas- Growth mindset
3. Tamas- Fixed mindset

Being a health care provider since 2006 I have seen a lot of changes every year as a new pivotal study is published and everyone rushes to be a part of the newest fad diet. During all of this I have continued to prescribe diets based on peoples constitution (vitality, digestive strength, mindset, etc and imbalance. This structure is not a reproducible and cannot be called a diet because it is uniquely tailored to the individual. However I have found some interesting data to support this.

We have all been there. In a state of panic or obsessive worry that we just can’t seem to break free of. It affects our relationships, our ability to function and our motivation for life. So what can be done? In Ayurveda anxiety is considered to be a Vata condition. This is because the Vata dosha is governed by the space element and space resides in the ear. When you are anxious your internal voice won’t stop its monologue. It is said that worry is in the ear, not in the eye. This condition is often the result of cortical rigidity. Which takes place when the limbic system and emotional brain have lost the capacity to respond flexibly to changing circumstances. This makes us worry and obsess, because we are trying to stop change from happening. As all of us know that is impossible so better to cultivate the emotional responsiveness and re-establish our cortical plasticity. Some ways to do this are:

I admit it. I am subject to the same tendencies as everyone. Yesterday I ate a half a block of goat cheese. Why didn’t I stop when I knew it was enough? Because I didn’t employ my strategy for stopping. Willpower by itself is rarely enough unless you are from India and have been meditating since you were 2. Gandhi and Eknath Easwaren seemed to have more willpower than the average person, but they also had powerful motivation and probably some deeper insight that fed their willpower. For the rest of us relying on willpower probably won’t work. In order to get control of your eating habits there must be an upstream, in the stream and downstream approach. I call this the Stream strategy.

 
These days asking someone “How are you?” basically means hello. As a clinician the questions I ask are more than how are you, but I consistently find the same thing. Someone will say that they basically feel OK. Nothing serious is holding them back and that they are doing fine. After some further interrogation it becomes clear that feeling OK includes fatigue, poor sleep, bad skin and bloating. That doesn’t sound “fine” to me, but many of us have learned to put up with a certain amount of stress and discomfort. What if I was to tell you that this is not necessary? That you no longer need to sweep things under the rug and you can remove 80% of your symptoms if you were supported to complete five things. Sounds too good to be true? I have seen it work time and time again and I encourage you to make a commitment to incorporating these five things into your life and see the results.

Your diet is math. It is simple like math if you add this then it will equal this. Of course depending on what you are adding to. Meaning that your unique bio identity is what you are adding or subtracting from through the foods that you eat. Just like with math you can go too far in either direction. At first it may be necessary to subtract certain foods from your diet that have been linked to inflammation, but if you diet becomes too simple or too homogenous then it may be time to add some new kinds of foods in.

I know that the title of this article sounds a little farfetched. Stress is a natural part of life, but I have been hearing a lot of talk from my clients lately about gaining weight easily, feeling tired, weak, stress and anxious. Most of them are calling it adrenal fatigue. Which by all accounts is the result of their adrenal glands being worn out from the stress of modern life. There is a huge supplement industry that is growing up around this theory and plenty of marketing materials to support it.

The adrenal glands are small lumps that sit on top of our kidneys. There primary function is to secrete various hormones including the most popular hormonal response to stress, cortisol. These days who hasn’t heard about cortisol? It is true that the adrenal glands can stop working. In an autoimmune condition called Addison’s disease the immune system destroys the adrenal glands. The public is led to believe that adrenal fatigue is a mild version of Addison’s disease that is caused by stress.

Chai is becoming a popular substitute for coffee because it helps people get going in the morning without as much caffeine. Chai is a traditional Indian drink and it has a lot of healing properties. Many people depend on stimulants to get going in the morning. Like everything in Ayurveda we must assess whether it is appropriate or inappropriate and coffee may not be appropriate for most people. Try this morning tea cocktail instead of coffee in order to reduce your dependency on stimulants.

This tea may seem reminiscent of Bulletproof Coffee, and it is.  They serve similar purposes and it is for this reason that I named it 16 Carat Chai. It is also similar to Tim Ferris’s Titanium Tea.

In locations where there are four seasons every season has unique characteristics that define it. Spring is characterized by cool, wet, variable qualities. Summer in most places is primarily hot, dry and intense. Fall brings about the qualities of cool, windy, dry and variable weather patterns. Winter is characteristically cold, wet and steady. Each of these characteristic qualities affects our physiology and affects the growth of certain plants and the animals that consume them. For example in the Spring the stored food like nuts and seeds that were used during the winter are all gone and there is less availability of food. What is available are primarily spring greens and roots that tend to cleanse the blood, lymph and heal the kidneys. Examples of these kinds of herbal foods are dandelion greens and chickweed. These herbal foods are perfect for gently cleansing the body of the heaviness and rich foods that predominate in the winter. If the diet is not adjusted to honor this natural cycle then the heavy food can bio accumulate in the body leading to conditions such as obesity, heart disease and cancer. That is why aligning with these rhythms can prevent the accumulation of wastes caused by eating too much of one kind of food until the body can no longer adapt and it becomes aggravated thus leading to disease.

If my hard core Ayurvedic friends knew I was a fan of the smoothie bowl they would probably disown me and call the Ama police. If you are not familiar with the ama police they are the Ayurvedic individuals committed to serve and protect your digestion from mis-digestion. I wish there was a similar community for miscommunication, but that is another topic. The basics of a smoothie bowl is to turn a smoothie into a meal and if you are have every enjoyed one this Ayurvedic tips can help keep your digestion strong while enjoying your smoothie bowl.