“Ayurveda is the mother of all healing systems. It helps people sync with nature & thrive in an ever-changing environment”

~ Jasmine Hemsley, Ayurvedic Practitioner and Nutritionist

Discovering Ayurveda is somewhat like learning a new language. It happens gradually over time with consistent practice. Like any language, the best way to become fluent is by fully immerse ourselves in it. Ayurveda is a language that will speak to your soul and bring you back home. Once learned and put into practice, it will unlock the door to an unprecedented level of health, well-being and vitality.

Once we deeply understand ourselves and our environment, we can make food and lifestyle changes that sustainably transform our health.

Ayurveda is not a quick-fix or one-off treatment plan. It is a healing system. An outlook. A lifestyle. Once you’ve found it, it will be forever by your side and the whole world will become sharper, clearer and more vibrant in colour.

Below are six key differences, twelve key principles and three core pillars to optimal health which will help you more deeply understand the language of Ayurveda. Of course, this just scrapes the surface. But even scraping the surface can change your life.

What Makes Ayurveda Different?

  • Unlike western medicine that identifies and addresses the symptoms, Ayurveda seeks to discover and rebalance the root cause of an issue so that we cannot only heal it today but also prevent it from returning.

  • Ayurveda is extremely personalised. Ask an Ayurvedic Practioneer whether or not something is good for you, and you will almost always hear “it depends.” One man’s elixir is another man’s poison. Ayurveda is about understanding the individual - their environment, their constitution, their history, their digestion - in order to design and develop an effective tailored health plan.

  • If we can naturally become unwell, we can also naturally become well again. Our bodies are absolutely incredible at healing themselves when we give them the space, environment and support they need to do so. Ayurveda calls upon food as medicine above all else, and then also supports this with herbs, body treatments, yoga and lifestyle habits to help individuals reclaim their absolute health and vitality

  • Ayurveda doesn’t treat the mind and body as separate entities. It understands the inextricable relationship between the mind, body, and spirit and helps to establish harmony and alignment between them. Ayurveda treats the body as a whole, and it is this integrated approach that creates a more complete and sustainable picture of health and well-being.

  • Ayurveda has a vast range of herbs and treatments to cure almost any ailment, however the focus of Ayurveda is not on cure. It is on preventing the ailment. Understanding and practicing Ayurveda helps us keep our health in check, and also identify issues before they become big. Through diet, lifestyle and daily routines, we can keep our mind and body in balance and maintain optimal health - gently, naturally and effectively.

  • Yes, Ayurveda is a system of health and healing, however it is also a philosophy and a way of life. Learning Ayurveda feels like putting on a new pair of glasses which helps you see yourself and the world through a new, clearer and empowering lense. Ayurveda helps us to deeply understand our body and the environment, and to make food and lifestyle choices that keep us healthy and thriving

3 PILLARS OF HEALTH

Ayurveda is a vast, deep and layered system of health and healing. Understanding it’s intricacies can take years, if not decades. In saying that, there are a few key pillars that, if understood and practiced, can powerfully support your level of health, healing, immunity + vitality. At Shala, we call these the three pillars of health. Almost every tip, tool, remedy and practice that you find in Ayurveda is ulimately to help you achieve one of these three goals, because together, these three create the foundation for complete health and healing. They are also used throughout every program at Shala to ensure you achieve powerful + sustainable results.

AMA

Ama are the toxins that have accumulated in our body over-time due to a range of factors, both internal and external. According to Ayurveda, Ama is the root cause of all disease. It is a thick, black fluid which clogs our channels, depletes our tissues and restricts the nutrients from being extracted from our food. It can make us feel weak, sluggish, irritable and fatigued. One of the biggest factors leading to a build-up of Ama in our body is improper metabolic functioning due to poor digestion and poor dietary choices. It can also accumulate from improper food pairing, emotional stress, environmental factors and unhealthy lifestyle habits. Trying to build health without first clearing Ama would be like trying to plant a tree in poisonous soil. Nothing will grow. Nothing will flourish. That is why the first step of any health program at Shala will start here - clearning Ama!

AGNI

Agni is your digestive fire and in Ayurveda, agni is everything! Think about the processing system on your computer. If it is healthy and strong, it doesn’t matter how many tabs you have open or how many apps you’re downloading, your computer is still functioning with energy and speed. But what if it is weak? Even opening one more tab or downloading one more app might lead everything to crash! Our body is the same. When our agni, or processing system is healthy, we can eat almost whatever we’d like without issues. I’m not suggesting you do that, but it helps us understand the power and importance of agni! Additionally, our agni processes more than just food. It determines how we digest our emotional , mental and physical experiences and therefore also shapes our emotional, mental and spiritual health. When we look after our agni, our agni looks after us!

DOSHAS

The doshas are often the thing that draw people to Ayurveda. While the Doshas are extremely important and foundational, they are also often misunderstood. What ‘Dosha’ you are is not nearly as important as understanding what dosha is flowing through you right now, what dosha is the season, what dosha is the food you’re eating, what dosha is the activity you’re doing - and how do all of these things interact? Doshas are energies, and energies consitenly move and flow. The key to balancing your dosha is understanding the ebbs and flow of your system, your cycle and your environment and then pairing that with the most appropriate foods and habits. This is an empowering and rewarding ongoing process which you will learn how to master. When you can delicately tune your doshas, you create balance. And when you create balance, you create health.

CHANNELS OF HEALING

So how do we clear Ama, strengthen Agni and balance the doshas? At Shala, we have a holistic approach that included four main channels to ensure deep and complete healing. These include food, lifestyle, emotions and the environment. All four need to be addressed for total healing and complete health. We use a hybrid of co-created food plans, lifestyle design, emotional release and reframing as well as creating an intentional and supportive environment to support you in becoming and embracing your highest, healthiest and happiest self. The main thing is that you will not only be guided on how to heal your current health challenges and achieve your current health goals, but you will also be equipped withe the necessarily tools and practices to live and lead an Ayurvedically-inspired life that provides you with with the abundance of health, energy and vitality that you seek.

Diving Even Deeper With 12 Key

Principles of Ayurveda

Nature and The Seasons

We are a microcosm of the universe. The universe operates in rhythms. Think about the ocean, the sun, the moon and the seasons. And so do our bodies. The more closely we can align our bodies with the rhythms of nature, the more healthy and wholesome we will feel. When we go against these rhythms, we feel the ill-effects of being ‘out of sync’ which creates imbalances in our mind and body that negatively effect our health. Ayurveda reminds us that we are one, and that being in-sync and flowing with nature and the seasons is one of the most powerful channels to find peace, flow, beauty and radiant health.

The Twenty Gunas

Everything is made up of different qualities which Ayurveda categorises into ten pairs, leading to twenty qualities - or Gunas - in total. These gunas, such as hot or cold, smooth or rough, can guide our choices and help us identify what our body needs. Ayurveda works on the principle that if we expose ourselves to more of the qualities that are causing an ailment, the ailment will get worse. Only an opposite quality can heal it and bring it back to balance. As is said in Ayurveda, “like attracts like, and opposite creates balance”. Although simple and logical, it is an effective and powerful principle which is often overlooked.

The Dhatus and The Srotas

There are seven dhatus, or tissues, that make up our body - plasma, blood, muscle, fat, bone and reproductive. There are also sixteen channels, or srotas, that carry food and nutrients to those deep layers of the body. Using food, herbs, lifestyle and body treatments, Ayurveda shows us how to nourish the deepest tissues of our body and unblock any of the channels that may be prohibiting nutrients to reach where they need to go. Additionally, most diseases are linked to one primary dhatu, and by treating that dhatu and the associated imbalances, we can restore balance and health.

Balance

If there was one word to represent health in Ayurveda, it would likely be ‘balance’. When the energies in our body are balanced and our mind, body and spirit are aligned, we are at ease. Ease is the opposite of dis-ease, and what keeps us steady. There is no quick-fix solution for balance. It happens in the small choices we make every-day; the food we eat, the activities we do, and the healthy habits and rituals that we practice, known as ‘Dinacharya’. The beautiful thing about balance is it doesn’t prohibit us from anything. It just guides us towards that space beyond ‘too little’ and before ‘too much’, where we can find stability and flow.

The Five Elements

The five elements - Space, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth - are the building blocks of all of life. They are in our environment, they are in our food, they are in all of nature, and of course, they are in our bodies. Achieving balance between these five elements is the key to optimal health. Too much or too little of these elements can lead to illness. Therefore, understanding these elements and where they exist - both within you and outside of you - can help you identify what you have, what you’re lacking, and make the food and lifestyle adjustments that will keep you strong, healthy and at your best.

The Five Senses

In Ayurveda, health is not just determined by what goes into our mouth. It is also shaped by what we hear, what we see, what we smell and what we touch. Taking care of our five senses and what we allow them to consume is a vital part of our health and well-being. In ayurveda, there are many practices, such as Abhyanga and Nasya, that help cleanse and nourish the senses. The choices we make regarding what we consume through all of our senses determines the quality of our thoughts, emotions and overall health and we can therefore use our five senses to rebalance, restore and improve our well-being.

Agni and Ama

In Ayurveda, we are not what we eat. We are what we digest. Someone could eat the most nutrient-dense food, but if their ‘agni’ - digestive system - is weak, they won’t be able to extract any of the goodness. Furthermore, if they have a high level of ‘ama’ - toxins - in their body, the nutrients won’t be able to reach their deepest tissues. In order to reap the powerful benefits of our beautiful food, we need to minimise toxins and maximise our digestion. Without doing this, even nectar can become poison. On the other hand, once our toxins are cleared and our digestion is strong, our bodies can transform even poison into nectar.

Individualisation

Ask an Ayurvedic practitioner if a food is good for you, or what exercise you should be doing or what lifestyle practices you should start, and you’ll likely get the same response. ‘It depends’. Ayurveda sees each person as an individual. It uses a broad and deep range of diagnostic tools that goes far beyond current symptoms to also include tongue analysis, pulse analysis, physical observation, health history, voice or speech indicators and urine and faecal samples. It recognises that no two people are the same, and therefore no two lifestyles or treatment plans should be the same. People are unique, and their health is too.

The Three Doshas

The five elements are categorised into three energies known as Doshas. These are Vata - space and air, Pitta - fire and water, and Kapha - earth and water. Each individual has a unique combination of these doshas and keeping them in balance is what creates and sustains our well-being. Of course, sometimes they will become out of balance based on the seasons, our lifestyle, our food choices and our stress levels. The simplest and most powerful key to health is being able to quickly and effectively identify when this happens, and make the necessary adjustments. This skill is nothing short of life-changing.

The Three Energetic Forces

Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas are the three energies that circle through life. Rajas is kinetic energy and represents birth, Sattva is potential energy and signfies maintence, and Tamas is inertia, and represents destruction. We cannot avoid or deny any of them, nor do we want to. Though the key is to focus on a diet and lifestyle that is dominated by ‘Sattva’, and does not overdo it on ‘Rajas’, which can lead to agitation and anxiety, or Tamas, which can lead to legarthy and stagnation. Choosing food and activity that prioritises ‘sattva’ helps to keep us healthy, balances, calm and clear.

Food As Medicine

Ayurveda sees food as the greatest gift and healer to our mind and our body. Choosing, preparing and enjoying food according to the seasons, our body type and our environment can be the most simple and powerful path to health. Once you learn the language of Ayurveda, choosing food that will help you maintain balance and optimise well-being becomes simple and intuitive. In addition to what we eat, is how we eat it. Enjoying meals with the right mindset, at the right times, with the right speed and in the right environment will determine how well we can digest that food and benefit from it’s goodness.

Interconnectedness

Ayurveda sees health as the balance within and alignment between mind, body and spirit. These three areas are all interconnected, so being ill in one area affects the others, just like improving health in one area affects the others. too. Ayurveda acknowledges how the body reflects the mind and sees unresolved emotion as a major driver of toxins and disease. Most Ayurvedic practices and treatments work on all three layers - mind, body and spirit. The goal is to identify disharmony early, so that balance can be restored before disease even emerges and we can consistently maintain the health and vitality we long for.

“Ayurveda gave language to what I already knew to be true

and helped me remember what I had forgotten”

~ Marc Halpern, President of The California College of Ayurveda