How to Keep Your Resolutions on Track
Hitting the reset button with Ayurveda, and finding true and total wellness for a lifetime.
It’s the start of a new year and New Years resolutions may still be going strong. But if you’re feeling the motivation wane or you’re getting to a stopping point maybe it’s time to investigate what you truly want to accomplish and the best way to get there.
So many resolutions round out with weight loss or living a healthier life, and we follow the same rules over and over again: aggressive fasting schedules that leave plenty of time for exercise but not rest, green juices and salads, counting calories, stepping on the scale every morning, drinking a gallon of water everyday. Has it worked for you? Have you felt drained or energized?
There may be a host of reasons we feel the need to drop some excess weight. Physically, we might find ourselves with low energy and lethargy. We also might not love the way we look, which brings the mental component into play. We might find ourselves in cycles, unable to keep a consistent routine or schedule. Maybe we’re relying on coffee and protein shakes to make it through the day and stymie the hunger pangs. This is supposed to be the sort of advice that, statistically, works for so many people, right? Would it surprise you to know that some or all of this might be more detrimental to your wellbeing than helpful?
Let’s get real: for some people the advice above might work, but for most it won’t. It doesn’t take into account who you are at the very core. It doesn’t take into account that you’re a unique person with unique needs. I invite you to shift the entire way you think about your body and mind. I invite you to look at who you are at the root and move forward with the understanding that you are unique. I invite you to forget about exercise and diet advice for the masses, forget about programs that have been around for a few years or a few months. I invite you to Ayurveda, a 5,000 year old healing system from India — it’s been around so long because it works!
So where to start? Here are my top 3 tips to hit the reset button utilizing Ayurveda. By following these tips daily and seasonally I’ve been able to remain illness free for over a year, hold a consistent physical composition, and maintain a positive outlook on many aspects of my life.
1. Understand that you are a unique individual and cater only to yourself.
Ayurveda teaches us that we are made up of different ratios of the universal five elements: ether (or space), air, fire, water and earth. There are three doshas that are comprised of the five elements: vata, pitta and kapha. Vata is associated with movement and lightness. Pitta is associated with fire and transformation. Kapha is associated with stability and grounding. Can you already see yourself fitting in among the pieces?
Everyone has a unique makeup of these three doshas. This makeup was determined at birth by a multitude of factors. Once you understand, at the root level, who you are, nothing can stand in your way on the path of comfort, ease and health! Once you understand your breakout of elements and doshas you can bring yourself to balance every single day, intuitively. Everyone has all the elements and doshas within them, just in differing ratios. Let’s explore the doshas more in-depth.
Vata: space and air elements make up this constitution. It gives us our creative, energetic and lofty ideas. Often it gives us the feeling of being cold with dry skin and brittle hair and nails. It may also be associated with constipation and anxiety. To balance vata: keep yourself warm and your head and extremities covered, and drink plenty of hot tea and water. Keep your exercise gentle and cut your caffeine intake or mix in some ghee (clarified butter) and cardamom to take the edge off. Take in plenty of good quality dairy and avoid the wind. Use plenty of oil when cooking and take to oil massages (see below) to keep that skin vibrant.
Pitta: fire and water elements make up this dosha. It gives us our leadership abilities, our organization and the ability to transform. It may leave us feeling overly warm sometimes, and is associated with skin problems like rashes or eczema, and digestive issues like acid reflux, heartburn and diarrhea. To balance pitta: slow down and take a deep breath. Don’t forget to put aside your to do list for a few hours and relax and rest your eyes. Stay cool, calm and collected, even when you feel like anything but with mint tea and lime juice, or cooling breathing exercises. Try to stay away from hot spice and nightshades, and keep heat away from your head and face. Take a cooling slow flow or Yin yoga class instead of the heated variety.
Kapha: water and earth elements make up this constitution. It gives us the ability to be a caregiver, lover, sweet stable human. It may leave us feeling groggy and lethargic, or congested in the sinuses and lungs. To balance kapha: move that beautiful body of yours today by going for a walk or taking in a higher energy Vinyasa yoga class. Keep your meals warm and avoid the grease and excess oils. Take in some tea and avoid dairy. Deep breaths help us focus on opening and clearing out our lungs. Hug a loved one, and let them hug you back, for you are supported just as you support others.
Find comfort each day by beginning to tune into what seems unbalanced within the body and mind. Balance what makes you feel uncomfortable by giving yourself the opposite of an imbalanced dosha. For example, if I feel excessively cold in my hands and feet, and my joints are cracking from too much air in the body I may have a vata imbalance. I would therefore want to keep myself warm, sip warm water throughout the day, and eat plenty of well cooked foods like rice and steamed veggies with plenty of ghee.
2. Keep the body and mind clean and pure each day to avoid accumulation of disease over time.
Cleansing and detoxifying actions are a huge component to the daily rituals we might choose to incorporate in our routines and even our yoga practice (cleaning oneself prior to meditation is sometimes considered critical). The body, in its natural wisdom, can tell us when we need to clean everything out. This might be something we pick up on intuitively based on how we feel, our energy levels, our skin, the digestive process, even the quality of our sleep. We can learn to tune into these hints, subtle or otherwise, that our body and mind drops for us, and follow it back onto the path of good health. We’re going to discuss three cleansing actions we can begin to keep our body and mind squeaky clean.
Neti is a form of nasal irrigation that clears out sinuses and reduces kapha dosha’s water elements that gives us congestion. Using a specially made neti pot you can pour previously boiled water (cooled to slightly above room temperature) with a mixture of salt (made specifically for neti without anti-caking chemicals found in table salt) through each nostril. This helps clear away environmental junk that accumulates in our nose as it acts as a filter with every breath we take. You might choose to follow this up with nasya, or nose oiling, to lubricate and add another layer of protection to the noise and brain (waiting at least an hour after neti to avoid trapping water in the sinuses).
Start your day with mouth health by scraping the tongue before you brush your teeth. When you wake up observe your tongue and you might notice a layer of white gunk on the surface. This is gunk that your body has cleared out over night. By using a tongue scraper you can remove this from the body, before brushing your teeth and having breakfast, to avoid placing any toxins back into the system. Tongue scraping also helps to stimulate your digestive system first thing in the morning. Follow your mouth cleaning up with warm (not iced) water to rehydrate and wake up the body.
Incorporate self-massage into your daily routine. This is such a beautiful way to get in touch with your physical body while also grounding the mind. Use about a quarter to half a cup of warmed oil and spread it all over the body (this is best done in the bathroom on a towel to avoid slips from oil drips). Work in firm motions over the muscles and joints using long strokes over the legs and arms and circular motions over the torso. Spend time over the belly in clockwise motions (when looking down at your belly button) to follow the digestive tract and help move anything stuck along. Let the oil sit on your skin for a few minutes (5–30 if possible) then take a warm shower, continuing to massage the oil into your skin. Avoid soaping off the oil and wash high traffic areas only. Then gently towel off, leaving some oil on the skin as a protectant and barrier from environmental toxins throughout the day. The best oils for this practice are unroasted sesame for vata and kapha, and sunflower or coconut for pitta.
3. Reset the system and boost digestion overall with a monodiet.
In Ayurveda, digestion is everything. If we aren’t digesting food or our thoughts we aren’t living our highest potential. So after bouts of excessively rich foods or eating too much we can hit the reset button with kitchari.
Kitchari is a complete meal of basmati rice and split mung beans. It’s cooked with plenty of water to improve digestibility and includes a variety of spices that you can adjust to balance your dosha. We can use kitchari as our reset meal three times a day for anywhere between 1–3 days to really build up our digestive fire from any stress we may have placed on it. After a monodiet of kitchari we may find ourselves with more energy, clear skin and eyes, regular elimination and reduced bloat or gassiness.
For a general recipe: combine equal parts split mung bean (split to make beans more digestible) and basmati rice in water with ghee and spices (generally, you could try cumin, salt, pepper, coriander, ginger and turmeric). Bring pot to a boil then cover and reduce heat to simmer for about 30 minutes. You can serve with fresh cilantro or basil.
Be sure to take your meals in a quiet place where you can sit without distraction. This ensures you’re soaking up every benefit and nourishment of what you place in your body, and promises a more effective digestive cycle.
Are you ready to transform your life for good rather than a few months out of the year?
What could you see for your life if you never had to worry about if you were being “healthy” or not? How would each day go if you could live without discomfort or pain? What would you do with all the extra time you had not being sick?
Ayurveda is an incredibly broad system, so don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. If you’re looking for a place to start try a bowl of kitchari or choose one of the cleansing actions described above. Let yourself grow and build slowly to truly incorporate everything described here and more one day at a time — you’re changing your life, and it won’t happen over night but it absolutely will happen! Be patient, be free of pain, and live your life fully with Ayurveda.
Need a little more help getting started with Ayurveda?
- Join Morgan’s free Facebook group “The Wellness Shift” for an abundance of resources on living an Ayurvedic life, recipes to find a lifetime of balance, courses and more.
