Why Ayurveda Is a Crucial New Way of Thinking

This ancient discipline provides time-tested insights to examine ourselves and the world

Ayurveda recognizes the natural world as the means to basic wellness.frank60/Shutterstock

Ayurveda is a profound way of seeing. Many begin by dabbling in ayurveda and then quickly realize how potent it is. While it may be challenging to understand at first, exposure to ayurveda reveals that there’s something special hidden in its strange words.

Ayurveda means “the science of life” in Sanskrit, the classical language of ancient India. But the science of life is more than knowing which herb to use or which food to eat for dinner—it’s a new way of thinking altogether.

Thinking ayurvedically requires using a new set of skills, much like riding a bicycle or speaking a new language. Once you get the hang of it, its mysterious allure quickly moves toward awe.

So, what is ayurveda?

Perhaps as profound as an apple falling on Newton’s head, the science of life is a tool, like Western science, for analyzing your surroundings.

More specifically, ayurveda is a systematic approach to discovering how our bodies interact with the natural world. Broadly speaking, ayurveda is a tool for comparing and contrasting objects in the natural world. It gives you a feel for how two things might interact. Perhaps, the “science of life” in this context refers to the lively way things interact with one another.

Typically, the ayurvedic approach is used for health, but it also has many other quality of life applications. When your friends start arguing after a spicy Mexican dinner, break out the ice cream to cool everyone down. When your little one can’t fall asleep at night, massage her feet with oil for a soothing effect. When you can’t get your brain to perk up and focus, brew some spicy tea.

Ayurveda is an objective method of analysis like science, but based on qualifying individual experiences and patterns in nature instead of quantifying them, as science does.

Instead of summarizing natural events with statistical averages alone, ayurveda can switch between statistical models and highly individualized models for assessment with ease.

It can be used alongside the scientific method in a variety of situations such as recovering from chemotherapy, which requires navigating the highly individualized effects of the treatment. For example, a diet of easy-to-digest foods that takes the person’s body type into account will enable them to rebuild their digestion (and health) more effectively.

Ayurveda recognizes that all of life is a relationship. In breaking down the dynamics of relationships, ayurveda offers a model for interactions that predicts how your body will respond to contact with your environment. In addition to describing interactions, ayurveda helps people describe sensations they’re having and puts their experiences into a context, so they can see how the pieces fit with the whole.

Ayurveda is very easy to learn and use. It makes it possible for individuals to improve their quality of life. It also gives them insight and understanding that increases a sense of well-being and the ability to take care of themselves. These unique advantages of ayurveda make it an especially useful supplement to any health care plan.

How Does Ayurveda Work?

How does ayurveda accomplish all of this? It categorizes the qualities of things. It recognizes that everything is always in flux and that we need to adapt our understanding accordingly.

Ayurveda classifies all substances and experiences by their qualities and how they affect what they come into contact with. It does this through the concepts of biocharacteristics (gunas), elements, and doshas.

A biocharacteristic loosely means an innate property. Ayurveda uses 20 main biocharacteristics, or properties, clinically. These properties describe how a substance will affect the mind and body.

The elements represent the most common states of matter found in nature, and doshas are the main body types or constitutions found in people.

For example, ayurveda would describe a chili pepper as drying, heating, and fiery, as opposed to describing its content in terms of vitamins and chemical makeup.

You'll notice that Western medicine uses nouns when describing disease, medicine, and anatomy. For example, an ulcer is a sore in the intestines. Cancer is abnormal cell growth. The flu is a virus. Western science has spent several hundred years describing things based on their content, since the Enlightenment era. Western science has made extraordinary discoveries by breaking things down into pieces and parts, a technique called reductionism.

Ayurveda, on the other hand, integrates all the pieces and parts into an experience of the whole. It observes and summarizes the relationships of all the pieces and parts interacting.

Both conversations are worth having.

You'll notice that when ayurveda describes disease, medicine, and anatomy, it uses adjectives. A person catches a “cold.” Herbs are “bitter” or “pungent.” The liver is a “hot” organ.

Ayurveda and Individuality

While Western science categorizes things in a laboratory and isolates them from their environment, ayurveda recognizes that things vary based on context.

Instead of making global statements about a food being healthy or unhealthy, ayurveda matches the properties of the food to an individual in time.

For example, beans may taste sweet to you in the spring and bland in the fall, reflecting your ever-changing relationship with beans according to your body’s seasonal requirements.

Ayurveda employs statistical averages as Western medicine does, but also has a model that accounts for one’s unique relationship to things.

Using biocharacteristics, ayurveda pinpoints qualitatively why a given food can affect an individual differently at different times.

In fall, for example, your body naturally craves rich, heavy food to create an insulating layer of fat to keep you warm in the impending cold weather. Heavier foods such as root veggies, butter, and meats are appetizing. In spring, your body is looking to lighten up, come out of hibernation, and get active again. Your food cravings will naturally shift to reflect this, and lighter proteins such as beans will be appealing.

The Western model is quantitative, favoring measurements and tests to discern the suitability of a given medicine or treatment.

Ayurveda provides a relational model based on perception and insight. It employs both observation and contemplation when considering which treatments will be most suitable for a given person and recognizes the value of intuition. It even offers tools to hone intuitive skills.

Ayurveda values looking at the whole picture when working with clients—diet, lifestyle, interpersonal relationships, environment, and more—recognizing that effective treatment is nuanced and must be fitted to clients individually. Not everyone’s depression or spring cold or heartburn is a result of the same cause, so they can’t all be healed with the same approach.

Examining these relationships between things is paramount in ayurveda. It’s easy to follow a formula, but knowing the person is so much better. And this aspect is a huge part of ayurveda’s popular appeal.

Many people have an aversion to scientific methods that ignore individuality. They don’t want to be treated like a statistic. Statistics are valuable but also insufficient, inhumane, and depersonalizing. So many easy opportunities are missed if you lose the home-court advantage by ignoring the individual.

Insight Without Mysticism

We’re all seeking insight into life’s complexity, and we want to know our world around us. Western science and ayurveda offer two models of perception and discovery. An additional goal of ayurveda is to see the essential nature of a thing, not just its substance, through its unique method of qualitative analysis using biocharacteristics.

This essence helps you to predict the effect of eating or interacting with something.

Ayurveda’s methodology anticipates the pharmacological effects of a substance on your body. Everyone needs medical doctors occasionally, but one’s quality of life comes from daily living. In a health context, ayurveda allows you to easily match a person with what’s good for them in a systematic yet highly individualized way.

Ayurveda recognizes the natural world as the means to basic wellness. It offers a methodical model to approach the natural world as medicine in day-to-day life, which can be used by all.

Ayurveda aims to be accessible to all. Anyone can quickly learn and apply its fundamental concepts, regardless of academic skill level. At its heart, ayurveda is simple. It’s a folk tradition that closely follows the rhythms of nature, and its value has kept its tradition intact for thousands of years.

As excited as you may be about ayurveda, be cautious about romanticizing it. When ayurveda is presented as exotic or mysterious, it could be seen as magical or miraculous instead of the valuable, systematic approach that it is.

Mysticism obscures the value of ayurveda. An individual’s excitement for ayurveda shouldn’t cloud what’s truly valuable in ayurveda: a profound method of analysis. Ayurveda’s value isn’t founded upon mystery, but a systematic approach based on biocharacteristics.

Visit John Immel’s website, JoyfulBelly.com, for ayurvedic nutrition one tasty recipe at a time, and professional, clinically focused, ayurveda training courses. Immel also founded the National Association of Ayurvedic Schools and Colleges, and the American Association of Biocharacteristics Clinicians. Outside the clinic, Immel enjoys his Christian faith and his family of six kids.