What is Ayurveda? A Beginners Guide

So, you’ve found this blog post and I’m guessing you might have heard of Ayurveda before, but you’re not exactly sure what it is all about.

Look no further! You’ve arrived in the right place. This article is going to walk you through everything you need to know on the basics of Ayurveda!

You’ll figure out not only what Ayurveda is, but also how it can impact your wellbeing for the better and how you can start incorporating it easily into your life right away.

So, What Exactly IS Ayurveda?

So, what is Ayurveda anyways? Ayurveda is an ancient medical system, originating in India over 5,000 years ago. It is considered to be one of, if not the, oldest medical system in the world. Ayurveda is thought to have influenced many other medical philosophies including Traditional Chinese Medicine and Greek Medicine.

The word Ayurveda translates as ‘The Science of Life’ and offers a holistic framework for caring for your physical and emotional wellbeing. It primarily focuses on preventative measures by using diet, lifestyle and herbs to maintain health. 

Many people come to Ayurveda through Yoga. The two are considered to be ‘sister sciences’ and were both developed during the Vedic Period in India. While Ayurveda and Yoga are both very in-depth fields, very broadly it can be said that Ayurveda supports the health of the physical body while Yoga is primarily focused on the mind. Of course, the two overlap quite a bit!

It’s important to note that Ayurveda does not replace your normal medical care, but you might find that the more you implement Ayurveda into your daily life, the less you have to visit the doctor’s office for everyday common ailments. That was 110% my own experience when I first started, and what prompted me to go on to study Ayurveda formally.

How Ayurveda Can Change Your Life

It sounds like a big claim to say that Ayurveda can change your life. But whether big or small, I truly believe there is something for everyone in Ayurveda that can better your life. How? Ayurveda offers an easy to understand and practical framework you can implement to support your wellbeing.

I know from my experience, I was the type of person who tried EVERYTHING (and I mean everything) under the sun to feel well. The result was me trying diet after diet, nothing working and becoming more and more miserable with every failed attempt. My own health was suffering, both mentally and physically, and I knew something had to change. 

When I was introduced to Ayurveda, I was pretty skeptical. I had literally never heard of it before and had no experience with any natural approaches to health. Regardless, I was at the point where I was willing to try anything so I borrowed my first book about Ayurveda from the library and after just the first few chapters, it felt like everything just seemed to ‘click’ into place. 

I must say that while Ayurveda is simple, it does require time and effort to implement, so there are no magic solutions or quick fixes. Ayurveda requires a lifestyle change and a mindset change, but even some of the most basic changes can yield great results.

While this is not an exhaustive list, from my own personal experience and from working with clients over the years, Ayurveda can be very helpful in the following areas:

• Stress & anxiety
• Low mood
• Poor eating habits
• Lack of motivation/enthusiasm
• Digestive ailments
• Regulating menstrual cycle
• Skin issues
• Weight Loss
• Much much more….

Ayurveda for Beginners

Diet (ahara)

When you hear the word ‘diet’ it’s easy to assume some sort of restriction is involved, or it’s some type of plan that you follow for 6 weeks and then it is done. In Ayurveda, the diet couldn’t be further from that.

Ayurveda has a unique approach to eating guidelines. It does not focus on calories, macronutrients and micronutrients. Instead, it is more focused on:

1. Is the food appropriate for the person (your ‘dosha’) and the time of year (season)?

Ayurveda is highly personalised. The ‘right’ diet for you may be totally different for me. Most Ayurveda books and websites offer some sort of a ‘food list’ that shares what foods are best for each dosha and for each season. There is a lot of value in these lists as they offer a guideline to help keep you ‘in balance’ throughout the fluctuations of life.

However, please do not fall into the trap of thinking there are ‘good foods’ and ‘bad foods’ in Ayurveda – that is not the case! You don’t have to completely eliminate one list of food and only eat another. These lists should be used as a reference point, but not a set of hard and fast rules. 

The main focus is to have three regular meals per day, made from whole food ingredients, that are cooked well and may have some digestive herbs and spices included. It’s also not the case that you need to follow a vegetarian diet or that all of the food is very traditional. The principles of an Ayurvedic diet can be used no matter what your eating preferences or requirements are.

2. Can this person actually digest the food?

Of all the systems in your body, Ayurveda places the most emphasis on your digestive system. Why? When you can properly digest your food, it is efficiently broken down, absorbed and assimilated throughout the body, fuelling all other tissues and systems. Makes sense, huh?

When digestion is weak, you may be struggling to extract the nutrients even from a very healthy diet. In Ayurveda, weak digestion overtime is actually considered the root cause of so many major diseases. So in Ayurveda, you can have the ‘perfect’ meal on your plate, but that is not as important as if you can actually digest it! (See more under Agni & Ama).

It’s also key to think about not just WHAT you eat, but HOW you eat. Grabbing a meal on the go, eating lunch at your desk and dinner in front of the TV can actually affect your ability to digest your meal as when you are in ‘go go go’ mode, blood flows away from digestive organs and into your limbs. So sitting down and taking time to eat each meal is also recommended in Ayurveda.

Lifestyle (vihara)

Ayurveda strongly encourages following daily routines (dinacharya) and seasonal routines (ritucharya). Ayurveda is closely connected with nature, and suggests that when we follow the rhythms of nature – waking and sleeping at certain times, eating at the same time each day, adjusting with the seasons etc – lasting health is achievable.

On a basic level, everyone should be following a morning routine of some sort to set them up for the day ahead and bedtime routines are also important to ensure deep sleep. Seasonal routines encourage you to change these daily routines and the foods you eat as the temperatures shift. For example, you don’t wear a wooly hat in summer or walk barefoot in winter so you wouldn’t eat a hot stew in summer or a raw salad in winter.

Much of the Ayurvedic lifestyle is what you might call ‘common sense.’ But you know what they say – ‘common sense is not so common anymore’! Modern life has caused us to ‘forget’ what we intuitively know, and Ayurveda is all about going back to basics. It also offers a number of very specific self-care practices to have you feeling your best each day.

Herbs (ashudhi)

You might have noticed that herbs come after diet and lifestyle on this list, and for good reason. Many come to Ayurveda looking for a quick fix and think an Ayurveda herb or supplement can replace their medicine or supplements. This is not the case.

Ayurveda does not offer a ‘pill for every ill’ mentality. Instead, herbs actually start in the kitchen! Yep, you heard me, some of those herbs and spices you can pick up inexpensively and easily in your supermarket actually have medicinal properties and have been traditionally used in Ayurveda for millennia.

Ayurveda does of course offer a whole wealth of herbal pharmacology and many herbs are incredibly supportive on your health journey when used appropriately. Here’s the thing – no herb or supplement will outweigh a bad diet and lifestyle. They support the process, but in my opinion, diet & lifestyle contribute about 85% of importance in wellbeing, and herbs about 15%.

Key Principles of Ayurveda

Doshas

The doshas – Vata, Pitta, and Kapha – are one of the core concepts in Ayurveda. But what exactly are they? One of many ways to describe the doshas is that they are biological energies that govern physiological and psychological activity. If you don’t know your dosha, go take my free (2 minute) dosha quiz now!

The doshas aren’t something you can see or touch, but more of a framework that was developed to understand individual differences in the body and how to group symptoms together. Ayurveda, afterall, had to find ways to understand the inner workings of the body before the days of ultrasounds, MRIs and X-rays. 

There are three doshas in Ayurveda – Vata, Pitta & Kapha. Much like everyone has a unique fingerprint, each person has a unique combination of these doshas that determines their constitution or body type (prakruti). A person’s doshas will determine their physical and mental make up.

Throughout life, diet choices, stress, travel, illness and other stressors cause the doshas to go ‘out of whack’ so to speak and cause imbalance (vikruti). When a dosha is out of balance, symptoms start to appear. I like to think of the doshas as a car engine light – you don’t really know it’s there until a problem appears!

When I first came to Ayurveda, the doshas were entirely new to me. I had never heard of a concept like this before so if you are brand new, give it a little time! Soon it will start to make sense and you can gain a whole new perspective on why you are the way you are, and how to care for your unique body type!

Agni

Agni is the term given to your ‘digestive fire’ in Ayurveda! Remember a little earlier when we talked about how digestion is the central cog in the wheel? Enter Agni! Agni is a general term used in Ayurveda that is used to describe someone’s ability to digest foods, their metabolic strength and sharpness of mind.

There are actually 40 different types of agni (I know!) but for most, there is one in particular that is especially important called jathara agni which is your central digestive fire in your stomach (it somewhat equates to your hydrochloric acid in western medicine). There are many diet, lifestyle and herbal choices that either strengthen or weaken your agni.

Long story short, agni is pretty much considered to be THE most critical factor in your overall health in Ayurveda, even more so than the doshas! So the next time you think digestion is gross or boring, think again!

Ama

Ama is the term given in Ayurveda for general metabolic waste products that accumulate in the body. When agni is not working well and food goes undigested, it sort of rots and ferments (yuck, I know!) in the gut and produces ama. This ama can start to accumulate when the channels of elimination aren’t clear (say if you are constipated).

Ama is often identified by a white coating on the tongue and is characterised by feeling heavy, sluggish, having brain fog, bad breath and a number of other minor issues. Mental ama, which can accumulate as a result of emotional trauma or unprocessed emotions, can affect concentration levels, energy levels and enthusiasm.

Everyone has some level of ama and Ayurveda offers ways to keep levels at a minimum. Ama is actually regarded as the root cause of many major diseases in Ayurveda. Left to fester and proliferate over the years, it can lead to more serious chronic diseases. This is why digestion is such a critical piece of the puzzle.

How to Start Incorporating Ayurveda TODAY!

So now you have a general sense of Ayurveda – what it is, how it can help you change your life, and a little background information on what it’s all about. You might be thinking, this is great but how does this actually help me, where do I even start?

The best place to start is just by incorporating one thing into your daily life at a time. I strongly recommend getting started with my Ultimate Guide to an Ayurvedic Morning Routine!