Ten Ayurveda Habits To Live Gracefully

Inspired from Cate Stillmans book -Thrive.

We can not want change (of our experience of life) and stay the same!

Our personality, that we are so attached to, is really just a bunch of habits. When we change our habits, or rather introduce ones that flow with the rhythms of Nature rather than against them, old habits that no longer support us change and fall away…

Don’t try to do them all at once, but find one you can do and slowly bring it into your daily routine…when it’s a habit, something that now gets done without deciding to, then introduce another. Each habit supports the following one…

I teach these as an overview in a three hour workshop. Or as a 10 week course with a class (1.5-2hrs) each week. Contact me to teach them at your yoga centre or to a small group of friends or business.

1. Early lighter dinner

• Move towards sunset (6pm) dinner.
• Favour soups, stews and salads- 1 pot meals.
• Don’t snack, drink hot or warm water between meals.
• Notice how you feel you the morning after.

2. Early to bed

• Listen to body fatigue signals and obey.
• Baths in winter, walks in summer.
• Oil and warm your feet before bed.
• Reflect and be grateful.

3. Start the day right

• Wake up early.
• scrape tongue.
• urinate, Lime/lemon warm water ..
• bowel, if not, drink more.
• Move… exercise, yoga, shake….
• Eat well…stewed apples, porridge. Green shake. Coffee after if needed.

4. Breath and Bodywork

• Stretch- yoga..
• Move – exercise and breath thru the nose exclusively.
• Sit and breath- seek a good teacher.

5. What should I eat?

• ‘Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much’. (Michael Pollan).
• Good for you, good for everyone you know and good for everyone you do not know! This is good nourishment.
• Yoga of the Kitchen  Cooking Series of video (to be released soon).

6. How to eat

• Be hungry. It is the best sauce!.
• Chew your food.
• Nutrient rich breakfast.
• Larger Satisfying lunch
• Small lighter dinner,…. soup or porridge.
• Eat local seasonal foods.
• Gentle walk, or rest, after a bigger meal.

7. Stop and be still (between activities).

(and at beginning and end of day if possible)

• Take a deep breath and let it out with a sigh… 1-3 times thru out the day.
• Sit and reflect on the day for a few minutes before bed.
• Meditate. www.vedicmeditation.eu

8. Self massage.

• Quick oil as part of shower…
• 20 minute massage once or twice a week.
• Brisk rub of the whole body- with hands, cotton or silk glove, or brush.

9. Come to your senses

• Pay attention and care for your five senses.
• Scrape your tongue.
• Palm the eyes, blink, roll and figure 8’s
• Oil or rinse the nostrils .
• Coconut oil in the mouth 10-15 minutes (oil pulling).
• Oil the ears…..garlic oil for infections.

10. Living with ease and joy

• Learning to act from trust in Life (Nature).
• Just maybe ‘everything is just as it should be, at this moment’.