November is the time of year when many are beginning to make travel plans, whether it is for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s, or simply planning a January escape from snow and cold weather. Traveling during the late fall and winter has its challenges. When we travel at any time of the year, Vata dosha can…

According to Ayurveda, good digestion is the key to good health. When one’s digestion has been compromised, a light diet is often recommended to help to get out digestive “fire” back to strength. Recently someone expressed concern about adopting this light diet. His concern was that he did not want to lose weight or increase…

Psoriasis is a complex disorder involving both the skin and the joints, which are governed by Pitta and Vata, respectively. While only an Ayurvedic pulse assessment can uncover an individual’s specific situation, imbalances of both Pitta and Vata are usually involved with psoriasis. The end of summer and beginning of fall can be a time…

You can eat right, exercise regularly, take vitamins and herbal supplements, even meditate to get rid of stress—but in our modern industrial age, this still may not be enough to stay healthy. More and more, research suggests that reducing environmental toxins is a necessity. Hazardous industrial chemicals absorbed by the body have been linked to…

Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition that affects an estimated 10 million people, mostly women, in the United States alone. It is characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain, concentration issues, fatigue, sleep problems and mood swings. The severity of the symptoms varies from person to person. The problem is not that people who suffer from fibromyalgia are more…

In recent years, modern science has come up with the term “bioenhancer”. This refers to”newly” discovered compounds that are supposed to mark a “new chapter in medical science.” What is a bioenhancer? By definition, bioenhances are substances that increase the “bioavailability and bioefficacy” of other substances. Peririne, (a compound naturally occurring in black pepper) along…

Menopause occurs when the ovaries stop producing large amounts of estrogen and progesterone, two hormones intimately involved with the menstrual cycle. Modern medicine tends to view this process as an unhealthy state of deficiency. This is because certain diseases have been shown to be related to the lack of hormones in a woman’s body. For…

One of the traditional recommendations of Ayurveda is to drink water from a copper cup. According to the ancient science, water stored in a copper vessel has the ability to balance all the three doshas (Vata, Kapha and Pitta). Ideally water should stay in the copper container for at least eight hours. Ayurveda recommends starting…

For the US and other mid-latitude countries north of the equator, the sun’s rays in the summer months hit the Earth at a steeper angle than in the winter. Because the sun’s rays at this time are not as spread out, they hit the earth more directly. Therefore the environment absorbs more of the sun’s…