For those of you unfamiliar with Ayurvedic medicine, here is a small intro:
Ayurveda is made up of two Sanskrit words: Ayu which means life and Veda which means the knowledge of. To know about life is Ayurveda. However, to fully comprehend the vast s cope of Ayurveda let us first define “Ayu” or life. According to the ancient Ayurvedic scholar Charaka, “ayu” is comprised of four essential parts. The combination of mind, body, senses and the soul.
Ayurveda is a wholistic system of medicine from India that uses a constitutional model. Its aim is to provide guidance regarding food and lifestyle so that healthy people can stay healthy and folks with health challenges can improve their health.
There are several aspects to Ayurveda that are quite unique:
– Its recommendations will often be different for each person regarding which foods and which lifestyle they should follow in order to be completely healthy. This is due to it’s use of a constitutional model.
– Everything in Ayurveda is validated by observation, inquiry, direct examination and knowledge derived from the ancient texts.
– It understands that there are energetic forces that influence nature and human beings. These forces are called the doshas (vata, pitta, kapha).
– Because Ayurveda sees a strong connection between the mind and the body, a huge amount of information is available regarding this relationship.
I stick pretty closely to an Ayurvedic lifestyle and diet as I find it’s what suits my body the best. I am certainly not a Western medicine girl. I was brought up this way and when I look at how healthy and full of energy my parents are compared to lots of people their age this confirms it for me. I have had some Ayurvedic treatments in India and nothing compares.
In my quest for health and keeping a balance in my lifestyle I came across the great site Dosha Guru… I did their online quiz and I get weekly tips from them via email which are really interesting and informative. Now, I am a real coffee lover. I love to indulge in coffee and I take my time every morning when getting ready to sit down with my tea or coffee and flick through a magazine or browse the latest posts on my favourite blogs. The thing is, according to my dosha, vata, too much coffee causes me to go out of balance. It makes me jittery and I don’t feel grounded, when I have too much of course. So when I came across the Ayurvedic roast by Dosha Guru I knew I had to have it. I have it every morning and I feel a great boost and not like I am running on nervous energy like I often am with coffee. What’s more, this mix is healthy. As stated on their website: “Ayurvedic Roast is made with all organic ingredients, starting with fresh roasted barley, chicory root, and rye. On top of these healthy grains, we add our own unique herbal combination which has been used for centuries in the ancient tradition of Ayurveda: Ashwagandha, Shatavari, and Brahmi”. These three herbs make for a dynamo mix and it’s a great start to your day.
I brew it in my Italian stovetop and sometimes put in some cardamom pods in there too as it’s one of my favourite spices. I’m a latté girl so I boil up a cloud of milk to have with it too. Bliss!
Afternoon Coffee
ohlalalivia 