Side Benefits!

Hi everyone! I’m still going strong on this “Ayurveda thing” as most of the people in my life are now calling it. I had another follow up visit with Mary-Alice on Friday, and learned some more practices.

Since I’ve last updated this blog, things have been pretty much status quo. I’ve been taking my herbs pretty diligently, both before eating and once before bed. In general, I feel better; have more energy, and better digestion, which means better, prolonged deeper sleep and better rest over all. The tongue scraper every morning has been a revelation. (If you don’t believe me, just pick up one, they’re very inexpensive ($5-$10) and see for yourself after just one day!)

It was a good thing that my follow-up meeting was last Friday, because I had it in my calendar for the following week. I’d had a pretty difficult and emotional time earlier this week, and having to go another week without the therapeutic benefits of sitting in Mary-Alice’s office, I would’ve back slid a lot further than normal.

I may have shared in an earlier post my ‘food phases’ that I go through. I usually want a certain treat (usually something sweet) every day for several weeks and then I won’t have that item again for months or even years. Some of my food phases have been shrimp, cinnamon rolls (the kind you bake at home!) Oreo cakesters (if you don’t know about this phenomenon, get thee to your local Ralph’s pronto!), apple pie and ice cream, chips and salsa, etc. The current food phase is cinnamon rolls and canned peaches. I’m not pregnant, I swear.

Anyways, my food phases are absolutely dictated by my emotions. If I’m having a great day, that’s a wonderful reason for a batch of cinnamon rolls. If I’ve had an awful, tiring or stressful day, bring on the canned peaches! Drinking that syrup is like a shot in the arm! My roommate had to go and bring home some of that lemonade iced tea from Trader Joe’s as a strong, strong temptation for me. Mary-Alice calls it crack juice. I think she’s right.

So as I was about to spiral backwards after a particularly rough day, I emailed Mary-Alice some random question and she wrote back that we’d speak in detail about it the next morning. What luck! I’d completely gotten the week wrong, and now I would get some positive reinforcements immediately! When I went in for my consultation Mary-Alice let me know that I’d be taking the Agni Churna for the next six months at least. Apparently it takes more than just 2 months on an herb to regulate your digestion and metabolism.

Now I’d like to say a brief word here about the cost of Ayurveda and holistic medicine in general, over traditional Western medicine. I could be paying $100/month for health insurance that is so crappy it doesn’t cover the few things that I’d normally seek medical treatment for such as a prolonged cold or an ob-gyn appt. And it doesn’t cover those big things like needing an ambulance ride or something. So at this point, without shelling out more money, traditional health insurance policies do not serve me. They also don’t serve most of my contemporaries. We can’t afford mega bucks policies and being young and in general good health we just plain don’t need to be at the doctor too often other than routine check ups. So it seems silly to throw the money away on services we barely use. (I wouldn’t make this same argument if I were 35, married with kids, I promise.) So I’ve decided to make an investment in perfect health rather than an investment in potential illness.

New practices: I’m going to start concentrating on having my noontime meal be the largest meal of the day. I’m also focusing on having the serving of food be one offering to myself (remember holding your two hands together, palms up?) and I’m focusing on meditation 5-10 minutes at least once a day. Meditation is something that I naturally started to become interested in when I began practicing yoga earlier this year. I haven’t been able to afford going to the classes regularly, but I bought some DVDs and every now and then I supplement my practice with private instruction once or twice a year. Mary-Alice’s description of meditation, however, was different and more helpful than what I’d heard or experienced before. She said “the goal of meditation is nothing! Nothing at all! Don’t try to see the clouds part and transcend lifetimes in the space of five minutes. The goal of meditation is to quiet the mind. Even trying to force oneself to ‘think of nothing’ is a thought process in and of itself. Instead, focus on your breathing, the slow in and out through the nose, deep breathing will allow your mind to naturally quiet. Thoughts will pop up over and over again. Allow it, and then gently guide your mind back. Before you know it, the time has passed. With practice you will discover how easy it is to get centered and you’ll find yourself needing and wanting to do it several times throughout the day.

Instead of trying to become a master at it though, just try for 10 minutes before bed, every night for a week. That’s some time everyone can carve into their schedule. I find that meditating and sitting quietly for a few minutes before I drive, before I get out of the car to walk into work, before I eat and before I go to bed, has had startling benefits. I’m slower to anger (those of you who know me know what a challenge that can be sometimes!) and I’ve got more patience—I’m more understanding, and that brings more peace BACK to me.

The food addictions are much harder for me to get a handle on right now, than adopting these different Ayurvedic principles, but I am already so many light years away from where I was when I first heard Mary-Alice speak back in October. I’m looking forward to learning and experiencing more of the “Side Benefits” that Mary-Alice introduced me to a couple of weeks ago.

In Western medicine we call something that you feel or experience as a result of medication or behavior, a “side effect” as though it’s something we hope doesn’t happen. You know, like those commercials for medicine we’ve been seeing so heavily for the past five years or so? “Side effects may include upset stomach, heart burn, diarrhea, heart palpitations, stroke, dizziness or headache? Women who are nursing, pregnant or may become pregnant should not…” OY! Who wants to deal with all that when all they’re trying to do is stop a tremor in their leg? Ayurveda doesn’t have any of these “side effects.” But what they do have are SIDE BENEFITS. When I experience something as a result of the herbs, it’s positive, even if on the outside it might seem negative. The nausea I experienced was a sign my herbs were working, and it was eliminated immediately, as I continued the practice. Some other side benefits have been completely positive, like clearer skin, better vision and memory, more successful rest and sleep—and I haven’t had one prescription to achieve any of that. I’ve achieved that with changing my diet and behaviors.

We’ll see where we are in the New Year—I don’t see Mary-Alice again until the 2nd week of January, so we’ll see how I get through all those holiday cookies and New Year’s drinkin’ on my own! Happy Holidays to all of you and thanks for reading this blog and supporting me!