It is not at all difficult to follow an Ayurvedic lifestyle as it is made to sound or the impression it carries because of the ancient scriptures and other heavy sounding phrases attached to it. On the contrary, Ayurvedic lifestyle is the simplest, most simplified, and the purest form of life-style one can lead. Give yourself some time, and before that understand the concept clearly.
Getting Started
Starting an Ayurvedic lifestyle is about starting a new journey; a journey of self-discovery, becoming aware of your surroundings, connecting with your inner self, and mindfulness. When this begins to happen you automatically notice improvement in your overall well-being along & spiritual growth.
Understanding & Implementing Principles of Dosha:
It is important to understand that according to Ayurveda every individual has a different mind-body constitution. When you understand your body type it is easier to adapt your habits according to your dosha type and thereby optimize your vitality and wellbeing.
Identifying foods and flavours that influence or suit your mind, body, and mood is the first step. You can also consult an Ayurvedic doctor who will help you to understand your body vis-à-vis dosha type. Once this happens and you are eating a balanced diet, everything else begins to fall in fall in place, You sleep better, you manage pain and anger better, you wake up feeling rested, and can find time to do most chores through the day (including meditation)without getting stressed.
Meditation
Next you have to work on cultivating the habit of meditation. Learn it under good guidance or from an experienced tutor. Between the one who meditates and who teaches meditation, go for the latter. Meditation is a practice that will help you to attain health, inner balance, and fulfilment because it connects mind-body and soul that as per Ayurveda is the true definition of health.
To put it to actual practice, try waking up 30 minutes earlier, for some of you things might fall in place easily while for some it may take months. Go for it! Family support is also an important aspect and you should tell them how they should respect your meditation time and maintain quiet for 30 minutes.
Emotional Awareness
When you are two weeks past your meditation routine, you’ll gradually show signs of being aware of your emotions, your reactions to stress; and that’s when you will start paying attention to the way you react to various triggers and situations in your day to day life. Meditation also helps you to decipher between important and unimportant matters which improves your ability to trash the unimportant and not waste time and energy over worrying about things less important or that are now going to affect your life directly.
If you are learning meditation from the right tutor he’ll teach you to ask the right and relevant questions to yourself the moment a negative emotion strikes, like anxiety. Meditation will teach you to recognize it by being more aware of it and its consequences and you will learn to find answers to basic and common questions like “why am I feeling anxious? What is the need that is not fulfilled which is making me feel like this? ” By now you will also know that every negative emotion is the result of an unmet need. Meditation will start by recognizing where these emotions come from and asking those important questions to yourself and make peace with present.
Sleep Better:
Meditation will help you sleep better, indirectly may be for some of you. To fix your wake-up time you will also need to fix your sleeping time and this will set many things in order, like your eating time, family time, TV time and so on. Ayurveda will thus set you in tune with daily life. When you rest properly your muscles will get rested (including brains) and pains will be managed better which in turn will help you sleep sounder and better and you will wake up feeling fresh and rested mentioned earlier.
The next step is get into the habit of giving yourself a daily massage as it improves circulation, nourishes skin, and awakens body’s inner pharmacy, besides calming the mind. With one good five minutes of massage you can help so many stress-related symptoms to disappear without any obvious effort. You should also include practice of aromatherapy. There is a lot of hidden power in the sense of smell and relates directly to memories and emotions in your brain. It’s the best and surest way to calm your mind or improve your health, focus and feel positive and motivated.
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