Ayurveda Stress Management Techniques

(Disclaimer: Before I start writing about the techniques in which Ayurveda can help in de-stressing yourself, here is the disclaimer – The techniques presented here are only for educational purpose and not for the treatment. Please follow the prescription of a professional Ayurvedic practitioner to go ahead with any of the techniques mentioned in this hub.)

What is Ayurveda?

Please check the introductory hub on Ayurveda and its Fundamentals here.

Now, coming to the ways in which Ayurveda can help you in getting rid of stress. It is truly said that stress is the root cause of almost every disease and ailment. With growing demands in our day to day lives regarding our personal, professional, financial securities and emotional dealings, stress has become an unwanted companion to our bodies, minds and souls. This has created almost 90% of physical and psychological problems we face, ranging from smaller ones like headache, asthma, to bigger ones like migraine and even cancer.

Ayurveda works on identifying a particular problem, followed by the design of an appropriate and exclusive solution or remedy to that problem. Ayurvedic approach and healing focuses on balancing all the etiological factors that had lead to the problem, and these factors can range from the most casual ones like imbalance in daily diet and sleep routine, to more crucial ones like an unfortunate event that had caused the problem.

Stress in our daily lives can manifest in three separate areas, and they all need different and specific therapies for the healing:

Ayurveda states that, the mental stress is an outcome of mind overwork, or can be caused by misusing your thoughts and mind powers. A simple example of mental stress is - if a person is spending around 17-18 hours of time in doing some work, or sits for longer hours in front of the computer or television, gets inappropriate sleep, and remains in constant stream of thoughts, then it causes an imbalance in the “Vata” bio-energy of the body. “Vata” as explained here, basically takes care of the energies related to brain and mind activities. Following are the symptoms of Vata-imbalance:

The effected person loses his capability to handle day-to-day strains and work pressure. With increase in stress, the affected person’s mental activities like ability of learning (“dhi”), holding (“dhriti”) and recalling (“smriti”) tend to reduce. The person becomes more confused and slowly loses his decisiveness, positive mind frame, enthusiasm and even normal sleep.

The best way to deal with stresses of our everyday lives is to start organizing and taking care of our mental activities. Ayurveda suggests the healing to balance and stimulate the “Vata” by:

• Following the ayurvedic diet that can help in balancing the “Vata”, which consists of foods with sweet, salty and sour tastes.
• Intake of warm milk and other dairy products.
• Daily application of warm oil on entire body through self-massage
• Additional aromatherapy treatment and meditation technique to get peace of mind.

In addition to above mentioned dietary and body treatment techniques, the person is also advised to take good amount of rest. If he is suffering from insomnia, he must avoid caffeine products, and should replace his drinks with herbal tea.

According to Ayurveda, emotional stress is caused by the imbalance in the “Pitta” bio-energy of the human body. This energy is responsible to take care of the mind and heart activities related to emotions.

A person can suffer from emotional stress owing to some issues in his relationships, personal loss, or from getting hurt by some incident. The person suffering from emotional stress is prone to show irritable behavior, tends to go into depression more and is quite unstable when it comes to normal reactions to any specific situation. Of course, he can get insomniac as well, similar to the effects of mental stress. Ayurveda suggests following techniques to balance the “Pitta” bio-energy:

• Include loads of sweet juicy fruits in your diet like grapes, water melon, grapefruit etc.
• Include the diet that can pacify and stimulate “Pitta” bio-energy. These foods taste bitter, sweet and astringent.
• Before going to bed, have a glass of warm milk with cooling rose petal preserve (Gulab jal).
• Include more of cooling spices like coriander, cardamom, mint and cilantro while cooking meals.
• Try to go to the bed early, which can be before 10 at night

Ayurveda can work as an excellent career opportunity. You can check out the following institutes for details in ayurveda courses:

Ayurveda School

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