Tag Archives: ayurveda

Motivational Monday!

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Happy Monday readers!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend. I had a good one, the highlight being a women’s reproductive health intensive with the incredible Dr. Sarita Shrestha. She was the first female Ayurvedic physician in her native Nepal and is one of the most brilliant, intuitive and beautiful people I have ever met. I’ll tell you, a weekend of being with her and I am feeling oh so excited to start having some babies! Ok, not quite yet but reproductive and post-partum health is definitely my passion.

Here are some awesome goodies from the web:

These agua frescas from A Beautiful Mess look super delicious and perfect for summer, especially that cantaloupe and thyme recipe!

Charlie Glickman wrote a lovely piece on thanking your partner. I am definitely trying to remember to do this more often as everyone wants to feel appreciated and loved, right?

The brilliant Katie over at Chocolate Covered Katie created these homemade (and healthier) chocolate crunch bars and oh wow, do they look amazing!

DIY Natural posted a simple recipe for homemade windshield washing fluid, which is awesome since store-bought fluids are highly toxic and gross.

And I will leave you with a beautiful quote from Chickasaw author Linda Hogan:

“Walking, I am listening to a deeper way.

Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me.

Be still, they say. Watch and listen.

You are the result of the love of thousands.”

[magical illustration from Cribas]

Radiant Practice #3: Get Great Sleep!

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This practice comes from a lesson learned just a few weeks ago. I had been out at a fascinating workshop for school on Theta healing (which I hope to learn more about and give you an update later) and got home pretty late. By the time I got back, it was at least 10:30 (which, on a school or work night is pretty darn late to us!) and my husband was waiting for the clothes to be finished in the dryer. Since we hadn’t seen each other all day, we wanted to catch up and chat. Once it was finally time to go to bed, I remembered that we needed to change the sheets.

Full disclosure: I kinda have a thing about changing the sheets. Although we only switch them once a week, if a week and a day passes and those same ol’ dirty things are still on the bed, I go into freakout mode.

Of course, midnight isn’t the best time to put my foot down about this kind of thing, but I cannot be logical when it comes to our sleeping quarters. On top of it all, we don’t ever stay up that late anymore (save the strange occasional night where I go all out, stay up until the wee hours of the morning and then promise myself to never do it again). We don’t function when we are sleep deprived. And so the seemingly small task of changing the sheets turned into a silly and overdrawn argument. My partner and I hardly ever fight, so even a stupid little spat like this one threw me for a loop. I had a hard time falling asleep and woke up cranky, exhausted and feeling bad about the way the midnight sheet change went down.

So folks, the moral of the story is: GET GREAT SLEEP! Forget good sleep, get amazing, incredible, mind-blowing and life-changing slumber. Out of all the things you can do for your body, it is truly is one of the most important.

Ayurveda has three pillars of health. The second pillar (food comes first, of course) is nidra, or sleep. Sleep plays a crucial role in processing and assimilating not only physical substances (such as food, drink, medicines, etc.) but emotional and mental stuff as well (thoughts, feelings, memories, trauma, and so on.) When we sleep, our bodies are able to devote all of their attention to regeneration and repair, allowing us to wake up feeling better and stronger than when our heads hit the pillow the night before.
The problem is, you need A LOT of sleep. In Ayurveda we say that “there is no antidote for not enough sleep”. You can’t take a pill or do some exercise to make up for only getting five hours and honestly, if you aren’t giving your body the time to rebuild itself, all the spirulina in the world can’t save you.

So how much sleep is enough sleep? It depends but Ayurvedically, vata people need the most sleep, pittas need a moderate amount and kapha folks need the least. Of course, this doesn’t take into consideration what kind of imbalance a person might be going through, the season, the cycle of their life, etc. It is safe to say that eight hours of sleep a night is a great target for everyone. An Ayurvedic sleep schedule would be a bedtime of no later than 10pm and waking up at least at 6am. If you can’t get to sleep by ten, please please please get to bed before midnight! Multiple studies have been done proving that the actual quality of sleep after midnight is significantly lower than sleep before then. One of the most beneficial practices you can get into the hang out is picking a bedtime and sticking with it. Ayurveda is all about consistency, so establishing a routine for when and how you will be resting will pacify vata (which almost everyone had too much of these days) and allow your body to recharge its batteries.

[adorable lino-cut print from Katie Muth]

Radiant Practice #1: Daily Heart Time

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Hello there dear friends! Hope your week has been lovely. Things have been good around here and this time, the cleanse seems to be flying by (which I think is a good sign, since the first 21-day detox I did a few years ago seemed to last forever!)

I wanted to introduce you to a new series round here called “radiant practices”. I am delving further into ritual, routine and lifestyle in both my studies as well as my personal life and thought I would start sharing some practices with you that can make you feel more radiant inside and out!

Radiant Practice #1: Daily Heart Time

We are all so busy with our lives, there doesn’t ever seem to be enough time to get it all done. I know that the first thing that usually suffers is our own time for growth, rest and relaxation. Throughout my very busy last few years, I have realized just how important it is to make that time a priority. Everyday. No excuses, no procrastinations, just scheduling it in as if it were a super important meeting.

So why is this kind of time so important? We spend so much of our day doing other people’s work. Giving our energy to others, working for someone else, listening to the problems of our friends or partners, etc. And while being of service is important, we can’t do our best out in the world (let alone sustain that energy in the long-term) if we don’t put ourselves first sometimes.

Especially since we are all so busy and stressed, it is essential to do something that makes your heart happy. Of course, this will look different for everyone. Someone might use this time to go on an aggressive bike ride while another might use it to nap with their kitty. The point is, find something that truly makes your heart happy and go for it! It doesn’t have to be a huge deal, but make sure you are consistent and schedule it in pen, not pencil!

Personally, this cleanse has heightened my intuition big time. It has been a really amazing experience, just being able to hear the voices and guidance from myself even more than usual and I am trying to make the most of that. Last night, I had a powerful sense of urgency surge through me and I knew what I needed to make my heart-happy practice: read A Course in Miracles. It has been sitting on my shelf for quite some time and although I have been wanting to read it, now I know the time has come. So until I am done, my heart-happy practice will be 30 minutes of reading ACIM everyday. It doesn’t matter if I am stressed, busy or burnt out. Giving myself the time to do something spiritually fulfilling refuels my inner self and allows me to be more present and productive out in the world.

So I ask you, dear readers: what will your heart-happy practice be?

[medicine image from The Wastetime Post]