Ayurvedic therapy: adjusting wind, fire and water

The core logic of adjusting the three life energies of wind, fire and water (Vata, Pitta and Kapha) in Ayurveda is never to adjust everyone to the so-called "average health standard", but to adjust your acquired energy state , as close as possible to the innate energy ratio you are born with - this is the most practical conclusion I came to after following three Ayurvedic healers of different schools, spending two years in a traditional healing village in Kerala, India, and going through the pitfalls of countless "universal conditioning recipes".

A while ago, a girl born in 1995 came to me to complain. She said that she had read a guide to regulating Vata imbalance on the Internet. She found out that she was constipated, anxious, and had cold hands and feet in winter. So she drank hot ginger tea and ate healing meals with heavy spices every day. As a result, after half a month of drinking, ulcers appeared all over her mouth. She could only fall asleep after lying in bed for half an hour, but now she is not sleepy until three o'clock. Oh yes, this is the most common misunderstanding on the market today: standardizing the imbalance of the three energies and applying the same prescription regardless of individual differences.

What’s interesting is that Ayurveda practitioners from different schools have very different control over the scale of “adjusting energy”. When I first arrived in Kerala, I met a modern reformist healer from North India. After measuring my physical condition, he told me that I had both Vata and Pitta heights. He asked me to completely cut off all cold things, not even touching coconut water at room temperature, and drink hot herbal decoctions three times a day. As a result, after three days of drinking, my nosebleeds started to flow, and I was so irritable that I couldn't sit still. Later, I switched to a local healer who had been working for more than 40 years. He felt my pulse for ten minutes and asked me about my eating habits since I was a child. He immediately relaxed my requirements: from 12 noon to 2 o'clock every day, when pitta energy is at its strongest, I can drink half a cup of fresh coconut water at room temperature, plus 1 gram of melted pure ghee. During the rest of the time, keep it cool. Even the herbal decoction was diluted by half for me. After just one week of this change, my previous problems of heart palpitations and difficulty falling asleep were mostly relieved.

To put it bluntly, the three types of energy are actually Ayurveda’s classification metaphor for the operating status of the human body: wind energy (Vata) is like a courier in your body, which controls all movement, transmission, breathing, blood circulation, pushing of food in the digestive tract, and even the transmission of nerve signals. If it is out of balance, the courier will run too fast - anxiety, diarrhea, joints rattling, a lot of hair loss, or it will be blocked - constipation, flatulence, slow reaction Blunt; Fire energy (Pita) is the boiler room of the home, responsible for digestion, body temperature, and metabolism. If the energy is too high, it will lead to internal heat, ulcers, irritability, and acid reflux; if it is not enough, it will lead to indigestion, cold hands and feet, and lack of energy to do anything; Water energy (Kava) is the cushion in the body, responsible for joint lubrication, energy storage, and emotional stability. If it is too much, it will cause edema, drowsiness, and weight gain after eating a little. If it is too little, it will cause joint pain, dry skin, and emotions that are as stretched as a full bow.

I have seen too many people make blind decisions based on online comparison tables: when they have edema, they think it is kaphado, and they drink red bean and barley water. As a result, people with a strong Vata tendency become more and more dry, and even their private parts become dry and itchy; Oh, by the way, most of the various Ayurvedic physical fitness tests that are popular on the Internet now measure your current imbalance state, not your natural energy ratio. If you really want to find your own innate physical fitness, you have to go back to your physical condition before puberty. For example, when you were a child, were you more afraid of cold/heat than other children? Did you like to run and jump or always prefer to stay still? That is the most accurate reference.

Of course, I am not trying to boast that Ayurveda is magical. The field itself has always been controversial: supporting scholars believe that it is empirical medicine that has been passed down for thousands of years. It essentially advocates individualized lifestyle adjustments. For example, not everyone is suitable for eating light salads and running five kilometers every day. They have to match their own physique. Many small sample clinical studies Research has also confirmed that targeted Pitta diet adjustments can indeed alleviate gastroesophageal reflux and Vata massage conditioning can alleviate anxiety-related insomnia. Opposing views believe that it lacks large-scale evidence-based medical evidence. The safety of many herbal ingredients and the effectiveness of treatments have not been fully verified. Some traditional therapies such as "detox enema" may even bring health risks. My own attitude has always been very clear: if it is an organic disease, first seek medical advice honestly. Ayurveda’s energy adjustment can be used as a supplement at most. If you just have a sub-health state where you can’t find any problems, such as not sleeping well all year round, getting tired easily, and feeling uncomfortable if you don’t eat right, you can try it as a reference.

I have been using it myself for five or six years, and the most useful thing is not the complicated herbal prescriptions, the thousands of herbal oil massages, but also the way I have learned to stop and feel my body: Today, I was outside in the cold wind all afternoon, and I felt that my joints were tight and my mind was wandering and I couldn't calm down. In the evening, I boiled a cup of hot milk and added a spoonful of ghee to soothe the wandering Vata; recently, I have been continuously After eating a few hot pot and barbecue meals, I had blisters on the corners of my mouth and I couldn't help but choke when I talked, so I ate more sweet ripe fruits such as steamed apples and stewed pears to suppress the overheated pita. It had been raining for a week recently, and I couldn't sleep every day. My face was swollen like a steamed bun, so I drank less iced milk tea and iced coffee. After dinner, I went out for half an hour to sweat a little and move the blocked kafa.

There are so many complicated rules. To put it bluntly, you just need to be friends with your body, know when it is hot, cold, dry or wet, and just give it what it needs.