What is Ayurveda?  

HEALTH & SICKNESS:

Health or sickness depends on the presence or absence of a balanced state of the total body matrix including the balance between its different constituents. Both the intrinsic and extrinsic factors can cause disturbance in the natural equilibrium giving rise to disease. This loss of equilibrium can happen by dietary indiscrimination, undesirable habits or non-observance of rules of healthy living. Seasonal abnormalities, improper exercise or erratic application of sense organs and incompatible actions of the body and mind can also result in creating disturbance of the existing normal balance. The treatment consists of restoring the balance of disturbed body-mind matrix through regulating diet, correcting life-routine and behavior, administration of drugs and resorting to preventive Panchkarma and Rasayana therapy.

DIAGNOSIS:

In Ayurveda diagnosis is always done of the patient as a whole. The physician takes a careful note of the patient’s internal physiological characteristics and mental disposition. He also studies such other factors as the affected bodily tissues, humours, the site at which the disease is located, patient’s resistance and vitality, his daily routine, dietary habits, the gravity of clinical conditions, condition of digestion and details of personal social, economic and environmental situation of the patient. The diagnosis also involves general physical, pulse, urine, feces, tongue, eyes, skin, ear, tactile and auditory examinations.

TREATMENT:

The basic therapeutic approach is, ‘that alone is the right treatment which makes for health and he alone is the best doctor who frees one from disease’. This sums up the principal objects of Ayurveda, i.e. maintenance and promotion of health, prevention of disease and cure of sickness.

Treatment of the disease consists in avoiding causative factors responsible for disequilibrium of the body matrix or of any of its constituent parts through the use of Panchakarma procedures, medicines, suitable diet, activity and regimen for restoring the balance and strengthening the body mechanisms to prevent or minimize future occurrence of the disease.

MEDICATION - Sources of Ayurveda Medicines:

Ayurveda is gentle and effective system of medicine. The remedies are prepared from natural substances to precise standards and work by stimulating the body's own healing power. The Materia Medica of Ayurveda consists of an extremely rich armamentarium of natural drugs, derived from the plants , minerals, animals and marine sources. These drugs are used singly or in simple combinations or as compounds also otherwise referred as polypharmaceuticals. The forms in which these are used are varied like extracted juices, decoctions, infusions, distillates, powders, tablets, pills, confections, syrups, fermented liquids, medicated oil, bhasmas (resultant of incineration) and many more. Materia Medica of any medical system by nature is very technical and complex.

Absolutely safe and non-toxic:

The special method of preparation of all the Ayurvedic medicines render them absolute free from any toxic substance in it. The medicines thus are absolutely safe and free from any side effects.
It works!
It has been the day-to-day experience of thousands of Ayurvedists world-over, for last 5000 years, that Ayurveda medicines, being natural forms, works! This ancient paradigm has withstood the test of time and continued to this day to be a successful approach to healthcare, because it is based on principles which are as old as life itself and are intimately tied to the way in which nature functions everywhere in creation.

PANCHAKARMA
Panchakarma is Ayurveda’s primary purification and detoxification treatment. The 5 therapeutic means of eliminating toxins from the body are Vamana(emesis through herbs), Virechana(purgation through herbs), Nasya(nasal administration of oils), Basti(medicated enemas) and Raktamokshana(Blood letting). This series of five therapies help remove deep rooted stress and illness causing toxins from the body while balancing the doshas (energies that govern all biological functions) and beneficial for maintaining and improving physical and mental health.

WHY SHOULD AYURVEDA BE THE CHOICE OF THERAPY?

Ayurveda is highly scientific, logical, safe, quick and extremely effective method of healing. It offers long lasting to permanent cure, treating the disease from its roots, for most of the ailments. Ayurveda is the most rational science with respect to its concepts of health, disease and cure. Ayurveda does not treat superficially by just driving away the symptoms but heals the patient from within. Undoubtedly, Ayurveda was the medicine of past and is of the future.

Ayurveda: Holistic Medicine:
The concept of disease in Ayurveda is that disease is a total affection of mind and body, the disturbance of the whole organism. Individual organs are not the cause of illness but disturbance at the inner level (disturbance of the life force, the vital energy of the body) is the cause of illness. Therefore Ayurveda does not believe in giving different medicines for different afflicted parts of body but rather give constitutional remedy after detoxification, which will cover the disturbance of the whole person. Ayurveda treats the patient as a whole and not just the disease. Medical philosophy is coming more and more to the conclusion that the mere treatment of symptoms and organs can only help temporarily and that it is the healing power of the body as whole that has to be enhanced. Ayurveda believes in holistic, totalistic and individualistic approach.

Ayurveda: Ideal for Infants and Children:
Most of the children ailments like Cold, Cough, Fever, Vomiting, Diarrhea, Dysentery, Colic, Tonsillitis, Bronchitis, Asthma, Measles, Chickenpox, Mumps, Dentition problems, etc., could be very effectively and quickly treated with Ayurveda without producing any side effects whatsoever. Unlike antibiotics and other such medicines, Ayurvedic remedies do not hamper digestion, or lower body's resistance. Neither do they cause any allergies nor cause any damage even if taken over a long period. Besides, Ayurveda is effective also in temperament and behavioral problems seen commonly in children like irritability, obstinacy, temper-tantrums, fears, phobias, destructiveness; and thumb- sucking, nail biting, bed-wetting; as well as in mentally & physically backward children.

Ayurveda: Better substitute to Antibiotics...
Ayurveda is an effective alternate to antibiotics in infectious diseases, producing no toxic side effects and bringing about rapid recovery. Ayurveda has definite treatment for most of the infectious disease such as Sinusitis, Tonsillitis, Bronchitis, Pneumonia, Tuberculosis, Meningitis, Otitis media (pus from ear), Gastroenteritis (vomiting-diarrhea), Dysentery, Urinary Infections, etc.

Ayurveda offers wonder treatment for Viral infections:
Viral infections such as common cold, influenza, measles, Chickenpox, mumps, viral hepatitis (jaundice), viral meningitis etc. are very well treated with Ayurveda. Allopathic system has no curative treatment for viral diseases except infusing antibiotics under the pretext of preventing secondary bacterial infection.

Ayurveda: Offers even Surgery
Ayurveda does not recommend resorting to the knife at the first instance. It advocates simple parasurgical measures like blood-letting, application of warm and cold poultices of drugs, cauterization with alkalies and fire. These are best suited to persons unfit for surgery, and for non-emergency diseases. Many a time these act as supplements to surgery, help to avoid surgery and even complementary to it.

Ayurveda expounds the concepts and skill in surgery from ancient times. Infact, Susruta the founder of Ayurvedic School of Surgery is rightly called as ‘Father of Surgery’. All surgical techniques such as incising, excising, scraping, puncturing, probing, extracting, draining and suturing are carried out even today. Surgical treatments for difficult diseases like Haemorrhoids, fistula-in-ano is offered. A unique method of treating rectal fistula by plugging it with a thread processed with vegetable alkalies (ksarasutra) has been found very satisfactory by modern surgeons and is becoming popular in western countries.

Ayurveda: Answer to Allergic diseases
In modern life infections have diminished and various allergic disorders have grown rampant. Ayurveda offers very effective treatment in all allergic diseases such as various skin diseases like Urticaria, Eczema, Contact Dermatitis, as well as gives unbelievably miraculous results in Asthmatic Bronchitis.

Ayurveda: Excellent for Psychosomatic ailments
The psychosomatic disorders like Migraine, Asthma, Acidity, Peptic ulcer, Allergy, Ulcerative colitis, etc. are successfully treated with Ayurveda. Ayurveda has long recognized the psychological origin of somatic (body) symptoms. Ayurveda always examines patient's mental make-up in all cases and remedies are given acting at the level of mind and body together, thus eradicating the disease.
Perhaps no other system of medicine has such a superb approach of tackling the mind-body disorders with definite therapeutic agents. Ayurvedic remedies are capable of influencing the state of mind. They can specifically act to alleviate emotional disturbance such as excessive anxiety, irritability, insecurity, obsessive traits, undue jealousy, suspicion (paranoid) fears, depression, neurosis etc. By relieving the emotions such as above, Ayurvedic remedies bring about harmonious state of health. Thus homoeopathy demonstrates the possibility of the highest goal of medicine, the therapy for the person rather than for the disease alone.

Ayurvedic remedies can cure mental & emotional disturbed states.

Ayurvedic Opinion: A must...
In this scientific era of health consciousness, the time has come that for the treatment of any disease, which does not respond to any particular line of treatment, one must take a Ayurvedic opinion immediately. Often patients lose their early time going to one specialist to another helplessly, without permanent relief, and approach Ayurveda only when other medicines fail.

Ayurveda: Not a last Resort
To obtain the best results and full benefits of Ayurvedic science, one should resort to Ayurveda in the early phase of sickness. Because of ignorance and lack of awareness in general public about the usefulness of Ayurveda in all kinds of diseases ranging from Cold to Cancer, many patients approach Ayurveda late. By this time the disease process advances to an incurable stage and Ayurveda can offer little then, to the otherwise curable disorders. However timely given Ayurvedic treatment could be a blessing to the ailing humanity.

Ayurveda: A complete system of medicine:
Ayurveda is not limited to certain diseases but is universally applicable to the way of life. It is time, when people must be made fully aware of the benefits and the scope of Ayurveda in everyday life and various day-to-day diseases. Ayurveda should be more and more made available to the benefit of people aiming at promotion of positive health, prevention of diseases and cure for the ailing, as it can positively help 90% of the diseases we have today.

   What is Ayurveda?