Ayurvedic medicine, often simply called Ayurveda, is one of the world’s oldest whole-body healing modalities. Its roots stretch back over 3,000 years to India, and today, it is enjoying a worldwide resurgence among those seeking a more balanced, integrative approach to personal health. Rooted in nature and focused on prevention, Ayurveda emphasizes balance between the mind, body and spirit. One’s unique constitution should guide every aspect of health in Ayurvedic medicine.
What Is Ayurvedic Medicine?
Ayurveda, a word derived from the ancient Sanskrit terms “ayur” (life) and “veda” (science or knowledge), literally means “the science of life.” Rather than treating symptoms alone, Ayurveda focuses on holistic healing and disease prevention by actively maintaining balance in the mind, body and spirit of a person.
Central to Ayurvedic thought is the belief that health means much more than the absence of disease. Instead, it emerges from the continuous harmony of the mind, body, and spirit with the environment. When harmony is disrupted by stress, poor diet, trauma or other root causes, these imbalances can lead to illness. Hence, Ayurveda views the causes of disease from a root-cause perspective and offers lifestyle, dietary, and sometimes herbal medicine to counteract these imbalances.
Importantly, Ayurveda is not promoted as a replacement for Western medicine, especially in acute or emergency cases. Rather, it can be used alongside conventional treatments to bolster well-being, hasten recovery, and prevent relapse through lifestyle and dietary adjustments. If surgery or pharmaceutical medications are required, these are to be accepted as part of one’s healing journey.
What Are the Five Elements of Ayurveda?
At the very heart of Ayurveda lies a unique understanding of universal building blocks. According to ancient Ayurvedic wisdom, everything in the cosmos—including the human body and mind—is composed of five basic elements or “pancha mahabhutas”:
- Space or Ether (Akasha): Represents emptiness, expansiveness, and the container for all things.
- Air (Vayu): Symbolizes movement, lightness, and the principle of mobility.
- Fire (Tejas): Characterizes transformation, heat, energy, and metabolism.
- Water (Aapah): Signifies liquidity, cohesiveness, and flow.
- Earth (Prithvi): Embodies stability, strength, and structure.
These five elements do not exist in isolation; instead, they intermingle in various proportions to give rise to everything in nature, including every tissue, organ, and cellular process in the body. Ayurveda views illness as a disturbance or imbalance in the natural proportion of these elements, usually triggered by lifestyle or environmental factors. For example, the fluid in your eyes or your blood is considered a manifestation of the water element. Your bones embody earth, while your body temperature and digestion are ruled by fire. Air is behind all movement—breath, blood flow, nerve impulses—while empty spaces in your body (mouth, nostrils, abdomen, chest) reflect the element of space.
What Are the Three Main Doshas of Ayurveda?
Ayurveda further synthesizes the five elements to form three primary energies of the mind and body known as “doshas.” These are combinations of two elements each, and together they explain each peron’s unique mind-body constitution and health tendencies. Most people have two prominent doshas, with one typically dominating, but all three are present in unique proportions preset at birth. Environmental factors, stress, diet, and lifestyle can tip the delicate balance, making dosha management central to Ayurvedic wellness. The three doshas are:
Vata (Space + Air)
Vata, representative of movement, governs all bodily functions related to motion. This includes breathing, heartbeat, muscle contractions, nerve impulses, and elimination. In personality, people with a dominant Vata dosha tend to be creative, energetic, and lively, but when unbalanced can become anxious, scattered, or suffer from dry skin and constipation. An imbalanced Vata may manifest as fear, anxiety, restlessness, digestive disorders, or joint pain.
Pitta (Fire + Water)
Pitta regulates transformation and metabolism; think digestion, absorption, temperature, and thought-processing. Pitta types are often intense, sharp-witted, determined, and passionate, but out of balance can be irritable, angry, and prone to inflammatory conditions such as heartburn or skin rashes. An imbalanced Pitta tends to show up as anger, jealousy, inflammatory issues, ulcers, or excessive sweating.
Kapha (Earth + Water)
Kapha provides structure and stability, both physically and emotionally. This dosha is responsible for growth, lubrication of joints, strength, and immunity. Kapha-predominant individuals are often calm, loving, and strong but may struggle with lethargy, congestion, weight gain, or depression when unbalanced. An imbalanced Kapha can manifest in sluggishness, greed, swelling, sinus issues, or attachment.
What Is an Ayurvedic Medicine Appointment Like?
An Ayurvedic consultation is distinct from a visit to a conventional Western doctor. Rather than focusing exclusively on symptoms, Ayurvedic practitioners begin with a detailed assessment of one’s overall constitution and seek out underlying patterns of imbalance. Key aspects of a typical appointment include:
- Personal Interview: The practitioner will ask questions about one’s medical history, daily routine, diet, digestion, energy levels, mental health, and other lifestyle habits.
- Physical Examination: Examination isn’t limited to looking at visible symptoms. It often includes checking the pulse, tongue, skin, eyes, nails, and even the way a person speaks. Each of these provides clues to doshic imbalances. For example, the condition of one’s tongue may reveal issues with digestion or toxicity.
- Assessment of Dosha Balance: By combining the above tools with information about a person’s sleep, stress, and emotional patterns, the practitioner will determine one’s current doshic’s state and how it compares to one’s natural constitution.
The process is holistic and highly individualized. No two Ayurvedic appointments are quite the same, as recommendations are uniquely tailored to each person’s current mind-body makeup and life circumstances.
What Are Possible Ayurvedic Medicine Protocols?
After determining one’s doshic balance and health goals, an Ayurvedic practitioner may recommend a comprehensive protocol drawing from multiple aspects of this ancient tradition:
Dietary Adjustments
The Ayurvedic diet is one of the cornerstones of treatment. The practitioner will likely guide a patient to eat foods that balance rather than aggravate the dominant dosha(s). For example:
- Vata: Emphasizes warm, moist, grounding foods like cooked grains and root vegetables, avoiding excess cold, raw, or dry foods.
- Pitta: Focuses on cool or neutral foods and avoiding hot, spicy, sour, or fried foods.
- Kapha: Recommends light, spicy, and astringent foods—limiting heaviness, sweetness, or oily fare.
Additionally, Ayurveda encourages meals to be enjoyed slowly and mindfully, incorporating all six tastes (sweet, salty, sour, pungent, bitter, astringent) in each meal.
Herbal Remedies
The use of herbal medicine tailored to each person’s unique dosha and health goals is common. These may be provided as teas, powders, tinctures, or oils.
Lifestyle Therapies
A patient might be prescribed daily routines that include waking early in the day, gentle exercise, specific breathing practices, oil massages, or meditation to foster balance.
Detoxification (Panchakarma)
In cases of significant toxicity or chronic illness, Ayurvedic practitioners might recommend cleansing protocols that support detoxification. Panchakarma spas are becoming more mainstream in Western culture.
Mindfulness and Meditation
Given Ayurveda’s emphasis on mind-body health, recommendations frequently include reflective practices such as meditation, mindfulness, yoga or pranayama (a type of breathwork) to manage stress and support emotional health.
What Kinds of Conditions Can Ayurvedic Medicine Best Help with?
Ayurveda’s principles are not a substitute for urgent or emergency treatment. If you need immediate medical attention or have a severe condition, seek emergency care. Otherwise, Ayurvedic medicine can be used to manage chronic conditions such as:
- Bloating
- Constipation
- IBS
- Indigestion
- Stress
- Anxiety
- Chronic fatigue
- Immune dysregulation
- Eczema
- Psoriasis
In Conclusion
Ayurvedic medicine offers a time-honored, holistic approach to wellness that reveres individuality and emphasizes prevention, balance, and self-awareness. Through the foundational concepts of the five elements and three doshas, Ayurveda provides a nuanced map for understanding a person’s unique constitution and living in harmony within the world. Whether a patient is seeking support for a chronic issue, looking to boost general healt, or merely curious about what ancient wisdom can offer for everyday life, Ayurveda helps patients to explore the profound connection between body, mind, and spirit—and to embrace the science of life, uniquely tailored to each person.
About Maria Rickert Hong CHHC
Maria Rickert Hong is a Co-Founder of, and the Education and Media Director for, Documenting Hope.
She is a former sell-side Wall Street equity research analyst who covered the oil services sector at Salomon Smith Barney and Lehman Brothers under Institutional Investor #1 ranked analysts.
Later, she covered the gaming, lodging & leisure sector at Jefferies & Co. and Calyon Securities. She quit working on Wall Street when her first son was born.
Prior to working on Wall Street, she was a marketing specialist for Halliburton in New Orleans, where she also received her MBA in Finance & Strategy from Tulane University.
She is the author of the bestselling book Almost Autism: Recovering Children from Sensory Processing Disorder and the co-author of Brain Under Attack: A Resource for Parents and Caregivers of Children with PANS, PANDAS, and Autoimmune Encephalitis. She is a co-author of Reversal of Autism Symptoms among Dizygotic Twins through a Personalized Lifestyle and Environmental Modification Approach: A Case Report and Review of the Literature, J. Pers. Med. 2024, 14(6), 641.
Maria is also a Certified Holistic Health Counselor. Her work can be found on DocumentingHope.com, Healing.DocumentingHope.com, Conference.DocumentingHope.com and MariaRickertHong.com
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