Lifestyle Tips for Healthy People and Patients In Ayurveda

By Dr Renita D’Souza
Ayurveda has mentioned appropriate healthy lifestyle to preserve health and fast recovery from disease condition thus improving the quality and span of life. Today lets explore healthy lifestyle in different disease conditions.

Word meaning

Healthy lifestyle in Ayurveda is called pathya vihara which gives physical health, peace and calm mental status with happy social life.
Pathya – Wholesome
Vihara – Regimen

Treatment in Ayurveda is complete when healthy lifestyle and diet is followed along with medicines.
Read – Importance Of Diet (Pathya) For Specific Diseases

General rule for selecting the diet and regimen for good health is by adapting that diet and regimen with opposite quality to that of ones constitution. The normal individual possessing good health should be accustomed to diet consisting of all tastes in appropriate quantity.
Read – Six Tastes Of Ayurveda: Qualities, Benefits, Therapeutic Action (Shad Rasa)

Daily healthy habits

Factors involved in healthy life style (Hita vihara) –
Hita is that which is good concerned to oneself and others. Hita vihara is adapting such a lifestyle that benefits oneself as well as others. It includes not only our daily activity but also involves good personal and social attitude.

Daily healthy lifestyle –
This includes few regimens that has to be adapted as daily routine.

• Wake up at early morning
• Attend natural urges
• Brush teeth and remove coating over the tongue
• Sip water
• Exercise – Mild exercise is done with empty stomach
• Intake healthy diet
• Follow diet rules
• Drinking warm water
• Do not suppress the natural urges.
  (Suppression Of Natural Urges, Symptoms And Treatment)
• Oil massage is done before morning or evening bath for empty stomach
• Avoid taking food, sleeping, studying, walking for long distance, indulging in intercourse during evening time.
• Food taken at night should be of lesser quantity than the food taken in the afternoon and should be easy for digestion.
• Avoid sleeping soon after food instead sit comfortably till heaviness settles down then walk hundred steps.
• Sleep on comfortable bed turning to the left side with pleasant mind offering prayers to God.

Read – Dinacharya – Importance Of Healthy Daily Regimen As Per Ayurveda

Seasonal healthy adaptations

Seasonal healthy lifestyle – 
This includes healthy regimen and diet that should be adapted in particular seasons.

Mental health care

Healthy regimen for mental health
Code of conduct – Sadvritta In Ayurveda – Code Of Conduct For Healthy Life
Achara Rasayana – Behavioral Therapy For Calm Mind And Long Life
Meditation

Factors responsible for disease free condition.(Cha. Sha 2/46, 47)

• Following beneficial diet and regimen.
• One who is aware of his action
• Generosity, charitable
• One who is impartial
• Trustworthy
• Forgiving
• Respect for elders and wise people
• Excellent, delightful thoughts, speech and action.
• Endurance
• Obedience
• Endowed with good knowledge
• Who observes spiritual acts
• Who practice meditation.

Unhealthy habits, lifestyle

Unwholesome regimen

• Not observing rules of daily regimen, seasonal regimen and code of conduct
• Excessive exercise, exposure to sun, wind, travelling, exhaustion
• Day sleep
• Keeping awake late night
• Loud speech
• mithyayoga of sense organs
• Smoking
• Drinking alcohol
• Drinking excess of cold drinks
• Intake of refrigerated food items
• Suppressing natural urges
• Violating diet rules
  Read – Eating Etiquette: Healthy Eating Rules

Habits/changes recommended diseasewise

Appropriate lifestyle to be adapted in disease condition.
Fever

• One should take complete rest, wait for recovery
• Avoid intake of incompatible food and that which is difficult to digest, spicy and unwholesome food.
• Avoid excess exercise, travelling, exposure to wind, sunlight.
• Ayurveda restricts having bath during fever.
• Avoid excess anger, grief, fear etc as this causes imbalance in pitta and vata dosha.
  Read – Ayurveda Lifestyle and Diet For Fever

Gastritis
Avoid –

• Day sleep soon after food
• Taking bath soon after food
• Sitz bath done soon after food
• Keeping awake at night
• Skipping meals
• Drinking water while hungry
• Suppressing urges
• Food which is stale, acidic, sour, incompatible. Example – alcohol, tomato, tamarind, chilly, spices, pickle, horsegram, sesame etc
• Pitta provoking factor such as anger, exposure to heat and fire, smoking, tobacco
  Read – What Is The Right Time To Sleep? How To Plan Your Sleep?

Bleeding disorders

• Avoid hot, spicy, sour, salty, alkaline, penetrating food like chilly, spices, alcohol, pickle etc
• Exposure to hot sun, fire is strictly prohibited as it causes imbalance in pitta dosha which further vitiate blood.
• Over exertion, physical exercise, excess walking or travelling
• Avoid mental stress, grief, anger
  Read – How To Analyse Effects Of Exercise On Health? Ayurvedic View

Anemia

• Avoid excessive physical exertion, day sleep, exposure to sun
• Overuse of sour, saline, spicy food vitiates blood tissue causing paleness
• Alcohol, smoking should be avoided
• Avoid incompatible, fermented food.

Dyspnea and Asthma
Avoid –

• Suppression of natural urges
• Starving
• Intake of dry, heavy foods which is difficult to digest. Example – curd, milk, banana, butter, black gram, fish, dry fish, meat of animals from marshy place like buffalo meat etc, oily, fried, refrigerated items, ice creams
• Cool residence, exposure to cold wind, morning dew, polluted air, smoke, hot sun and air.
• Excess physical exertions, carrying heavy loads
• Walking on long distance
  Read – Chronic Asthma Causes, Diet, Natural Remedies

Indigestion
Avoid –

• Excess drinking of water, irregular diet
• Suppression urges
• Day sleep and keeping awake at night
• Intake of food before digestion of previous diet, taking food with aversion
• Mental factors like jealousy, fear, anger, frustration, greedy, grief, depression etc all these factors alters the digestive strength to such extent that food even taken in proper quantity or quality will not be properly broken down into absorbable components.
• Having bath, sitz bath, oil massage etc

Anorexia – Loss of taste
Avoid –

• Taking disliked food
• Suppressing hunger, urge to drink water, urge of belching and urge to weep.
• Mental factors like greed, jealous, depression, fear, grief etc

Vomiting
Avoid –

• Excess intake of liquid diet
• Oily, saline and disliked food
• Taking food in hurry, untimely, in excess quantity and that not accustomed  to ones constitution.
• Excess physical exertion, fear, anxiety

Diarrhoea
Avoid –

• Consumption of food which is difficult to digest, excess liquids, oily, dry, hot, cold and wrong diets. Example – meat, banana,milk, sweets etc
• Taking food before digestion of previously taken food, irregular food habits
• Swimming while withholding natural urges (Ma. Ni)
• Grief, stress, fear, anxiety etc . Ayurveda mentions diarrhea caused by grief as the separate type of diarrhea.
• Excess physical exertion, exercise, exposure to sun, smoke, oil massage.
  Read – Prevention And Lifestyle Tips For Dysentery and Diarrhoea

Shoola / Abdominal colic pain (Ma . Ni)
Pain due to vata dosha
Avoid –

• Indulging in excessive physical exercise, travelling, exposure to trauma
• Drinking cold water excessively or taking any refrigerated food items
• Suppressing natural urges
• Fasting
• Excessive laughing and talking
• Keeping awake at night
• Excessive use of horsegram, greengram, peas, dry vegetables, incompatible food, dry meat, germinated pulses.
• Excess stress, grief, depression etc
  Read –Effect of Stress, Anxiety on Stomach And Intestines: Remedies

Pain due to pitta dosha
Avoid –

• Use of alkalies, penetrating, hot and burning food items, oil, beans, sesame oil cakes, horsegram soup, pungent – sour wines, raw, uncooked or semicooked food.
• Anger, exposure to sun, physical exertion etc

Pain due to kapha dosha
Avoid –

• Use of meat of animals living in cold climate, aquatic animals, kilata (preparation of buttermilk), sugarcane, milk products, blackgram soup etc

Burning sensation
Avoid –

• Exposure to sun, fire, dust etc
• consumption of alcohol, honey, asafoetida, garlic, pungent food items, saline, sour taste food, alkaline etc
• Other pitta  aggravating factor such as anger, smoking, suppressing urge of thirst etc
  Read – Burning Sensation – Ayurvedic Understanding And Treatment

Ascites / Udararoga
Avoid –

• Excessive drinking of water alone
• Excessive physical exercise, walking for long distance, day sleep, travelling etc
• Consumption of aquatic meat, meat of animals living in marshy places, vegetables, preparations of sesame, hot, saline, sour, burning, heavy food. Examples – crab, frawns, fish, cheese, snacks, baked food, pickle etc.
  Read – Ascites: Ayurvedic Treatment, Remedies, Medicines

Piles
Avoid –

• Sitting on uneven, hard seat for long time
• Excessive physical exercise, day sleep, night vigils, travelling, riding vehicles etc
• Excessive straining, suppressing urge to pass bowel, forcibly trying to evacuate bowel without urge to pass.
•  Spicy, dry, saline, sour, heavy, burning food. Example – mustard oil, pickle, spices, meat, jaggery, curd, potato, sweet potato, chilly, snacks, baked food.

Follow –

• Consume fresh butter milk, warm water, dry grapes, ripe banana, yam, gooseberry, wheat, snake gourd, jowar, goat’s milk, orange, pomegranate, ghee etc
• Sitz bath

Rheumatism
Avoid –

• Day sleep, night vigils, suppressing natural urges
• Morning climate, cold wind
• Consuming food before digestion,
• Taking food in excess quantity, heavy or oily food during indigestion
  Read – Rheumatoid arthritis diet – food to avoid

Diabetes

• Avoid day sleep, smoking
• Do not suppress the urge of micturition
• Follow regular exercises, walking
• Avoid sedentary habits, consuming oily food, ghee, jaggery, alcohol, vinegar, sugarcane, curd, meat of animals living in marshy places etc
  Read – Exercise and diabetes treatment

Obesity

Avoid –

• Day sleep, sitting idle, Sedentary habits, over eating
• Oil massage
• Taking kapha increasing diet. Example – sweets, milk, fish, potato, butter, ghee, tubers, wheat etc
  Read – Weight Loss, Weight Gain Treatment, Sleep

Reserch – World Health Organisation have found evidence to show the impact of lifestyle in improving  health. (A)

Three factors to focus for complete health

Dr JV Hebbar 

Three main areas of focus for perfect health are – 
Mind 
Internal organs and 
Muscles, bones, ligaments and tendons

1. Mind – 

Eat the right amount of food, eat healthy, have a watch on mind, how it is behaving, what it is consuming, what it is thinking, how it is reacting to different situations. Correct / fine tune your thoughts every day. 
Having a few hours screen-time free slots every day 
Mind – Qualities, Functions, Doshas As Per Ayurveda

Meditation By Watching Mind: Stages, Method, Benefits

Cluttered Mind – Get Rid Of The Big Hurdle Between You And Success

Do You Concentrate On Improving Concentration? 14 Easy Techniques

2. Internal organs
Healthy diet that includes all six tastes – sweet, sour, salt, bitter, pungent and astringent 
Variety of fruits and vegetables in diet 
Ayurvedic seasonal detox therapy – Panchakarma therapies
Eating and drinking only when thirsty 
Freshly prepared meals served hot 
Avoiding bad foods, wrong food combinations 
Sleeping well 
Being aware of different food and medicinal chemicals that enter our body 
Fasting and detox medicines and drinks from time to time 

4. Muscles, bones, ligaments and tendons 
Oil massage and sweating treatment at least once a week or for 1-2 weeks every six months in an Ayurvedic hospital
Abhyanga Ayurvedic Massage: How To Do? Benefits, Oil Choices 
Healthy amount of exercise 
Stretching, Yoga, Pranayama, sports, walking, jogging

Overall, it is ideal to spend 2 weeks a year in an Ayurveda hospital, to heal and energize your organs, bones, muscles and mind.