The modern approach to health and wellness tends to focus on single-system pathologies and treating symptoms rather than causes. If you suffer from an ailment such as allergies, high blood pressure, migraines, a skin condition or chronic fatigue, modern medicine will often run some tests, label your disorder, offer you a pill or a procedure designed for that disorder and send you on your way…only to return when symptoms flare up again. Sometimes modern medicine digs deeper to ask why you are suffering in the first place but evaluating and reversing the root cause of any condition requires time, attention and personalized care that the great majority of modern healthcare systems simply cannot provide.
Ayurveda, as a time-tested holistic approach to health, healing and wellbeing always asks why? And not just why disease or imbalance but why you? What is it about your unique nature that makes you susceptible to the imbalances you experience? What is it about your personal experience in the world that makes you susceptible to disease? How does energy flow not just through you but around you that causes your body, mind or spirit to go out of balance?
The answers to these questions are not just nice things to know about a person, they are paramount to creating the foundation for long-term healing and wellbeing.
Ayurvedic tools of evaluation differ from modern diagnostics in that we do not rely solely on blood tests or formal diagnoses to guide our treatment plan. An Ayurvedic practitioner will use the “Ten Considerations” (Dashavidha Pariksha) when evaluating a patient:
- A person’s constitution (prakruti)
- A person’s imbalances (vikruti)
- The health of the bodily tissues and their channels (dhatu sara and dhatu srotamsi)
- Body build (samhana)
- Body measurements (pramana)
- Integration of the environment (satmya)
- State of mind (sattya)
- Digestive power (aharashakti)
- Endurance and strength (vyayamashakti balyam)
- Age (vyas)
In addition, Ayurveda evaluates geolocation, seasonal affects, sensory experiences, pathologies, past medical history, functional history and diet and lifestyle history. Proper evaluation of each of these aspects increases the likelihood that an Ayurvedic treatment will be effective. At its core, Ayurveda does not thrive on an imbalance/prescription-based model because it skips over this crucial process of evaluation and treatment of the person as opposed to the symptom.
Ayurvedic Causes of Disease
Ayurvedic Causes of Disease take the modern understanding of disease pathogenesis to a deeper level. What I love about the holistic nature of this system is that, once you understand the root causes of imbalance and their connections to your ailments, you can feel empowered to take your health and wellbeing into your own hands because Ayurveda makes healing accessible to you right here, right now.
Ayurveda views three main Causes of Disease, which lead to doshic imbalances and, in turn, to disease.
- The Misuse of the Senses (Astmendryartha Samyoga) – improper use of the senses results in over-stimulation or deficiency of sensory and motor activity, which leads to lifestyle imbalances and eventually disease. This includes everything we see, hear, smell, eat and touch and the frequency or intensity of that experience.
- Crimes Against Wisdom (Prajnaparadha) – the “failure of the intellect”. We intuitively know what nurtures us and can make us healthy and whole but we choose differently because the ego speaks louder than the soul. The ego will lead us to commit these “crimes”, or to seek pleasures (overindulgence in drinking, drugs, food, social media, gaming, binge-watching, unhealthy relationships, etc…) instead of harmony. Ayurveda teaches us to listen to the whispers of the soul to help avoid imbalance and disease.
- Time & Motion (Parinama) – transformation or change. We ignore the cellular, molecular and environmental intelligence of living in rhythm with ourselves and our environment. Motion occurs in the mind and the body; the body can be in motion while the mind is quiet but if the mind is always in motion, whether the body is or not, disease occurs. Ayurveda aims to quiet the mind to keep everything in balance – in harmony. Time can be linear, or static, and biological, or dynamic. We can control biological time – and thereby the aging process – by slowing down the mind. This is the heart of Ayurvedic rejuvenation therapies.
Finally, the Primordial Cause of Disease is forgetting our true nature as spirit. When the ego dominates, we believe we are our body, our mind, our ailments and our stressors. By adopting practices that bring us closer to ourselves, align our senses with our wellbeing, hone our intuition to our needs and slow the mind, we realign with Spirit.
A Modern Lense
If Ayurvedic concepts of disease and healing feel too esoteric to understand, we need to look no further than modern science to see how Ayurvedic wisdom laid much of the foundation for our modern medical understanding of disease pathology. For example, Western views of mindfulness are as a form of awareness that encompasses all forms of sensory experiences such as sights and smells (the Use of the Senses).
When meditative techniques in psychotherapy began to grow among clinicians in the 1960s, studies found that individuals who meditated for 20-30 mins per day showed persistent alpha activity (the “flow” state) with restful reductions in metabolic rate and a state of deep muscle relaxation. In other words, meditation has proven to have persistent and measurable effects that help to reverse the effects of constant stress states including increased heart rate and respiration, tense muscles, over-production of cortisol, and heightened vigilance or “fight-or-flight” syndrome (Time & Motion).
Similarly, telomeres are the protective caps that sit at the end of your chromosomes and play a central role in cell fate, disease and the pace of aging. Shorter telomeres have become associated with a broad range of aging-related diseases, including many forms of cancer, stroke, vascular dementia, cardiovascular disease, obesity, osteoporosis and diabetes. Studies show the factors that damage telomeres include smoking, lack of physical activity, obesity, stress, oxidative stress, among other factors and many of which would be considered Crimes Against Wisdom.
“New” science offers ways to protect telomere length that nod to time-tested Ayurvedic remedies at the foundation of treating root causes and reversing chronic disease:
- eating a diet high in fruits, vegetables and unrefined grains
- moderate exercise (walking 30 minutes a day, six days a week)
- stress reduction (gentle yoga-based stretching, breathing, meditation)
- a supportive community
Ayurvedic science deepens our ability to use these guidelines in a way that works for each unique individual by using the 10 Considerations, a comprehensive holistic evaluation process, and the Ayurvedic Causes of Disease to understand each person’s unique constitution and imbalance needs.
With modern knowledge so deeply connected to the core values of Ayurveda, we see that aligning our senses, grounding into the whispers of the soul, and harmonizing time and motion in the body aren’t just nice things to do in day-to-day life but rather life-saving tools when it comes to health and wellbeing. In this way, Ayurveda provides the knowledge and power to experience transformative and sustainable change.
Article authored by Kirsten Ahern, Founder of Path Wellbeing, Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist (CCA), Integrative Nutrition Health Coach (IIN), E-RYT 200 and RYT 500, Wellbeing Advocate, Human Performance Coach (HPI), Meditation and Mindfulness Coach.
The information contained within this article is for educational purposes only and should not replace the direct advice of a qualified healthcare professional. Always consult a medical or other professional healthcare provider when considering a new health regime
