HeyMonicaB: A Blooming Resource on Ayurveda

Monica Bloom started HeyMonicaB as a little Ayurvedic blog as a resource for us Americans. Ayurveda is easy to understand once you know the basics, but if it’s not presented in a simple manner, it can sometimes sound like jibberish. Below is an overview of the science, then feel free to delve into the rest of HeyMonicaB, which has loads of practical Ayurvedic information for you. Here we go….!

Ayurveda (eye-yer-VAY-duh) is a 5,000 year old Indian holistic healing science that literally translates to “knowledge of life.” Frankly, it’s brilliant and I don’t know why it’s taken us this long to rediscover it. Ayuveda focuses on achieving balance and optimum health of the whole individual including the physical body, the mind, and the spirit. Through nutrition, yoga/exercise, meditation, pranayama, and herbs, Ayurveda uses all five senses as a vehicle to bring the body back to it’s balanced state.

What’s super cool about Ayurveda is that it focuses on treating the individual not the disease. The goal is not to use “quick fix” tactics to cure the disease, but it is to uncover the root cause and teach us how to prevent getting disease in the first place. So, Ayurveda really looks at you and all the elements in your life that may be throwing you off balance.

“It depends,” is Ayurveda’s foundation and it all depends on YOU. You, meaning your individuality, your unique make up. This unique make up consists of 3 energies called doshas which are made up of the 5 great elements (ether, air, fire, water, earth). Simply, when doshas are out of balance, we get disease. So depending on what dosha(s) are most dominant in your body, that will determine how you maintain your health.

For example, three people in a room may have a headache. Ibuprofen will cure the sensation of their headaches, but it won’t cure the cause. When the ibuprofen wears off, the headache will most likely come back. Not only that, but all 3 people could be having headaches for different reasons. It could be dehydration, stress, sinus congestion, constipation (yes that causes headache), and the list goes on. Ibuprofen is simply treating the feeling of the headache – it is not treating you. Ya get it?! There is a difference. When we get to the root of the cause and treat the individual, that is true health care.

Going back to the “big picture,” Ayurveda looks at ALL aspects of our life, not just our body. It takes into consideration physical, mental, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, behavioral, environmental, nutritional, familial, social, etc., factors that affect us daily. This is unique to Aurveda in that it looks at everything that is happening in your world to find out what might be throwing you of balance. And thank goodness for that because a lot of us might be thinking, “Whew, I thought it was me.” Not necessarily. Woohoo!

This has barely scratched the surface of Ayurveda, but it gives an overview. As HeyMonicaB grows, this ancient science will slowly unravel so you can use all of it’s wonderful healing tools

*You can start by following the pages underneath “Ayurveda: An Overview.” That will give you a nice foundation so that the rest of the posts make sense.