During cold and flu season, hospitals and doctors’ offices are overrun with patients. No one wants to spend the holidays sneezing and coughing, but the unfortunate reality is that winter brings sickness.
While seeking treatment for your illness can be helpful, the best practice is to build your immunity naturally so you can support natural immune resilience before you ever feel symptoms. Following Ayurvedic practices can encourage immune system balance.
How Does Ayurveda Help with Immunity?
Ayurveda’s approach to immunity is known as vyadhi-kshamatva, which translates to “self-avoidance of disease.” Ayurveda is not about treating the symptoms of illness; instead, it focuses on healing the root cause.
Ayurveda takes a holistic approach to your body. This encompasses everything from your daily routine and diet to even your thoughts and emotions. Ayurveda follows the concept of the mind-body connection: everything is intertwined, and focusing on one aspect will result in only partial success.
Ayurveda and Ojas
Ayurveda teaches that immunity is connected to our body’s ojas, or the essence that gives our bodies strength and vigor. Our ojas is affected by both physical and mental factors, such as our stress levels and lifestyle choices. There are times when it is especially vulnerable, including a time of a major life transition or cold and flu season.
Because our immune system is directly tied to our ojas, Ayurveda encourages addressing everything that can affect our ojas to support immunity.
Ayurveda also follows the belief that our bodies are innately intelligent, and with the proper support, we can help remind our bodies how to self-regulate and boost immunity even when our ojas is threatened.
The Ayurvedic Approach to Building Immunity
The Ayurvedic approach to building immunity is both comprehensive and simple. This back-to-basics approach can help our body boost immunity naturally and effectively.
Improve Your Diet
The food you put into your body significantly impacts your immunity. Ayurvedic healers recommend following a diet rich in whole foods and low in refined sugars and stimulants like coffee and alcohol. Some excellent options are nuts, fruits, and vegetables rich in vitamins, zinc, manganese, and antioxidants.
A few types of foods are particularly helpful for our ojas, including dates, almonds, and saffron. Certain dairy products like milk and ghee, or clarified butter, are also said to boost our ojas.
Some people following Ayurvedic practices want to create harmony by balancing their body’s energy sources, or doshas. Every person has a unique combination of energy in their body based on the five elements: earth, water, space, air, and fire. Many Ayurvedic Vaidyas recommend balancing one of the body’s doshas through a specific diet. Following a vata-balancing, pitta-balancing, or kapha-balancing diet can be a highly effective method for fortifying your body’s immune response.
Prioritize Sleep
Whether you’ve followed Ayurvedic medicine your whole life or have just discovered its benefits, you likely know that getting sufficient sleep is vital to supporting your immune system. Sleep helps our bodies rest, repair, and fight off illnesses. In contrast, sleep deprivation can have a devastating impact on our body’s ability to ward off sickness and our mind’s ability to have clear, positive thoughts for healing.
Ayurvedic practitioners recommend that you not only aim for eight hours of sleep every night, but that you go to bed and wake up around the same time each day. Following this routine is essential for helping your ojas and promoting physical and mental health.
Make Exercise a Habit
Ayurveda teaches that exercise stimulates your body’s agni, which translates to “fire” and affects digestion and metabolism. Exercise also encourages detoxification and helps with relaxation and sleep.
According to Ayurveda, every body is different and requires a different kind of exercise in terms of type, intensity, and duration. An Ayurvedic online consultation can be beneficial in helping you understand the best exercise routine for your body.
Regardless of your exercise routine, try to do it outdoors. Exposure to nature and vitamin D helps encourage immune resilience.
Practice Mindfulness Exercises
Ayurveda emphasizes the mind-body connection. Caring for your mental state to improve immunity is just as important as caring for your physical state.
Ayurvedic practices encourage a range of mindfulness exercises. Each is based on stimulating prana, the body’s life force. Introducing prana restores vitality, releases tension, and encourages vitality.
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Yoga: Encourages fluidity through the body, releases mental and physical tension, and helps balance the body’s doshas
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Meditation: Establishes mindful awareness, calms the nervous system, and decreases stress
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Pranayama: Helps you learn different breathing techniques to improve respiratory and cardiovascular health, enhance quality sleep, and relieve stress
Use Herbal Support
For thousands of years, Ayurvedic practitioners have recognized the immense power of herbs in aiding the body’s ojas and boosting the immune system. Several herbs in the Ayurvedic tradition have different cleansing, healing, and strengthening properties, which you can use to your advantage when cold and flu season comes around.
Ayushakti has a range of herbal blends and supplements to help naturally enhance your body’s immune system. Each Ayurvedic herbal supplement contains powerful herbs to encourage immunity and promote overall physical health.
Consult with an Ayurvedic Vaidya
Because everyone’s physical and mental makeup is a little different, you may find that your immune system dramatically benefits from booking a consultation with an Ayurvedic Vaidya. Ayushakti Vaidyas are highly trained and experienced in Ayurvedic medicine. With a strong Siddh Veda lineage and over 37 years of experience, Ayushakti Vaidyas are well-versed in methods for supporting natural immune resilience. Consulting with one can help you find the best herbal blends, diet, and routines for your physiology.
The Ayurvedic Path to Wellness
The holistic approach that Ayurveda takes to encourage immune system balance has stood the test of time. For thousands of years, Ayurveda has helped people around the world improve their immune response and find peace, fulfillment, and holistic wellness.
In the midst of the dreaded cold and flu season, you can follow Ayurveda’s recommendations to help strengthen your immune system during the holidays.
