General information
Ayurveda is a 5,000 year old tradition of healing that comes from India. The word is a Sanskrit word that literally translates to "the science or wisdom of Life".
The Vedic texts date back to 3,000 BC and are tangible evidence that medicine did exist in ancient times and that it was quite advanced. The first "plastic" surgeries are written about as well as other branches of medicine.
What makes Ayurveda unique?
Ayurveda respects the "uniqueness" of each individual. The first thing that an Ayurvedic Practitioner will do is determine your mind and body constitution or prakriti because that will determine the path the treatment will take. Ayurveda believes that no two people are the same even if they have the same constitution. Both patients might have the same ailment but the treatment would be delivered in a different way or maybe a completely different treatment would be called for.
Ayurveda considers all the levels of the individual.
That means that in Ayurveda we consider the Mind, the Body and the Spirit of an individual. Many times a disease can be in the mind as well as the body and Ayurveda recognizes this as they determine the constitution of an individual. Many times an illness will culminate in the mind and the mind is such a powerful thing that the illness will eventually manifest in the body and that is called disease. Disease is the absence of "ease". Ease is a healthy place to be, everyone wants to be at ease.
Ayurveda offers natural ways of treating diseases and promoting health.
Because Ayurveda considers the Mind, the Body and the Spirit of an individual, it focuses on a natural way of being. All things on this planet have varying degrees of the 5 elements which are space, air, fire, water and earth. Even our bodies are made up of these 5 elements and that is why nature resonates so well with our bodies. That is also the reason that synthetic drugs lose their effectiveness after time, it is because they do not have those 5 elements and without that they cannot be truly effective in creating health, in many cases they just help with the symptoms and even at times will mask them, however that is not a cure.
Ayurveda emphasizes prevention.
Ayurveda believes that we have the tools to prevent disease and many of them are inside of us. Our bodies are marvelous machines that act as a pharmacy, we have the ability to stay in a state of health just by being conscious of what we eat, our environment, what we see, hear, taste and touch. All of those things contribute to our health but they can also diminish our health as well. It is natural for humans to be in a state of health, disease is not natural and it is definitely not comfortable and it is very preventable.
Ayurveda is cost-effective.
Ayurveda is cost-effective. The miracle of nature does not have a price tag on it. How much is a life worth? In modern medicine they say it is worth $50,000 a year and I wonder how they arrived at that number when many medical treatments cost more than that in a month. I think that life is PRICELESS and so does Ayurveda. If we treat our self right by proper nutrition, exercise, positive thinking and paying attention to what we see, touch, taste, hear, smell and feel then we will be in perfect health. There are no injections in Ayurveda so medications are all natural, directly from nature and delivered in natural ways. Food and herbs are natural, cost-effective and have a great impact on your health.