Words: Nidhi Bhanshali
There’s no denying that routines and daily rituals bring a sense of grounding and cadence to our lives. They take us away from the grind and toil of everyday life, and offer us precious moments with our inner self that allow us to show up more for ourselves and thus our life as a whole. Without our daily rituals, many of us would start prioritising everything outside of us, and wouldn’t respect our own boundaries.
THE ROLE OF AYURVEDIC RITUAL
Ayurvedic rituals are more than just practices. They are designed to help you take advantage of the day’s rhythm and guide you toward a more desirable Inner Climate® – this is the ideal state inside the human body that allows life within us and thus our own life to thrive. In fact, ancient Ayurvedic literature is loaded with countless morning rituals that would eat into your afternoon if you were to practice them all. So here I’m going to introduce you to six of my favourite practices, which you can gradually incorporate into your day.
TONGUE SCRAPING
This is one of the few Ayurvedic rituals that doesn’t utilise oil. It takes less than 30 seconds and can stimulate Agni, enhance taste, and help you clear morning gunk from your tongue so you can enjoy a fresh day of digestion and consumption. It is exactly what it sounds like: scraping your tongue. You need a simple U-shaped metal device called a tongue scraper to perform this practice, ideally done after brushing. Just as cooking in the kitchen can leave grease on the ceiling, digestion can leave residue in the digestive tract that accumulates as a thin film on the tongue. Additionally, an idle, closed mouth through the night gathers slime and bacteria that show up as a white coating on your tongue upon waking.
If not scraped out, we end up consuming this film with our breakfast – neither tasty nor healthy. The practice of tongue scraping in the morning gets rid of this unwanted coat in an effective and simple manner.
ABHYANGA
You may have heard of abhyanga oil massage in some form or another. Ayurvedic hair and beauty brands have popularised hair abhyanga or hair oil massage. One of the essential practices of dinacharya, the Ayurvedic daily rituals, abhyanga entails massageing your body with oil, ideally before you jump into the shower. The first benefit of abhyanga is touch: How often do we get touched, or even touch ourselves, amidst the busyness of the modern world? Touch promotes the release of oxytocin, the cuddle hormone that instantly throws the body into the parasympathetic or “rest and digest” mode. More than anything, abhyanga helps you to restore the health of the microbiome that lives on your skin. Like nasya, you will learn more about this and other benefits of abhyanga later in the book.
NIGHTTIME FOOT MASSAGE
Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda both value the soles of the feet for their ability to manipulate and enhance prana, our life force. The feet contain marma points, energy centres where prana is concentrated. By massageing these points, prana can be stimulated and even released when blocked. Foot reflexology in TCM is based on a similar philosophy. Meridians that carry qi and flow through the body and its organs can be accessed through the feet. After the solar productive phase, it is natural for prana to weaken at night. A nightly foot massage sets trapped prana free and regulates it so you can sleep and repair effectively. If you’ve ever experienced a foot massage, you probably know that it is a beneficial practice that relaxes your body and has the ability to promote deep sleep and reduce anxiety as well as nighttime cramps, but you are probably unaware of the more significant impact it can have on your wellness.
ALTERNATE NOSTRIL BREATHING
This daily ritual comes from the philosophy of yoga, but I have taken the liberty to include it here since yoga and Ayurveda are close relatives. Our breath has the ability to regulate and enhance our prana. Just as the two hemispheres of the brain function differently, so our left and right nostrils carry unique pranic energies. The right nostril is believed to carry more solar, warmer energies, and the left nostril carries moister, lunar energies. I am not surprised that the liver, our highly metabolic organ, is located on the right side, and our heart and spleen are on the left. Depending on the time of day and condition of the body and mind, one or the other of the two nostrils may be more active.
NASYA
The nose is often overlooked in its potential to create inner balance. The only time our nostrils usually get attention is when they are blocked. But the nose is the gateway to the brain, bypassing the blood–brain barrier. This means that anything that enters the nose has direct access to the brain, and scientists are now studying the nose as a route for effective drug delivery to the brain. Just like many other current scientific discoveries, Ayurvedic science articulated this 5,000 years ago in a very specific statement: Nasa hi Siraso dwaram, meaning “The nose is the only gateway to the brain.”
So, the time-tested and safe practice of nasya, or applying drops of herbal nasal oil to the nostrils every single day, nourishes your brain. Ayurveda believes that nasya’s benefits extend beyond brain health, memory, and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease, to promoting healthy sinuses and hair, reduction in headaches and allergies, and rebuilding of the microbiome in the ENT passages. You only need a bottle of Anu Taila nasya and 20 seconds of your day. Anu Taila is a unique herbal oil with specific herbs that target the health of this area of the body. However, if Anu Taila is unavailable where you live, start with plain sesame oil or look for another nasya oil. For now, get mentally comfortable with the idea of putting drops of oil up your nose; it’s more comforting than you can imagine.
OIL SWISHING
Oil swishing is therapy for your oral health. Simply swishing coconut oil or sesame oil in your mouth for 5 to 10 minutes each day after tongue scraping can save you thousands of dollars at the dentist. While the scientific jury has still not given again helps replenish the mouth’s environment, ensuring that pathogens, bacteria, and bad breath don’t stand a chance. It can also help to whiten teeth and strengthen jaw muscles.
Oil swishing is therapy for your oral health. Simply swishing coconut oil or sesame oil in your mouth for 5 to 10 minutes each day after tongue scraping can save you thousands of dollars at the dentist. While the scientific jury has still not given again helps replenish the mouth’s environment, ensuring that pathogens, bacteria, and bad breath don’t stand a chance. It can also help to whiten teeth and strengthen jaw muscles.
grown up eating fresh foods according to Ayurvedic principles her entire life, it seemed unreasonable to her that she now had to deal with her new health status. She went from one doctor to another, but no one had an answer for her. She was prescribed steroids and immunosuppressants. A friend referred her to a kinesiologist for her aches and pains, and she agreed to go but without any expectation of help. She was shocked, as the skillful kinesiologist asked her about her gum health and whether she had had any treatment in recent years. It turned out that a root canal that went bad had remained unidentified, infecting her blood, and causing severe inflammation in her body: the root cause of her condition. Addy did what was required to fix the broken root canal and fully recovered from her condition. Addy’s story proves that gum health affects your overall body and caring for them is more important than we think.
The practice of alternate nostril breathing regulates prana by balancing solar and lunar and bringing you back to homeostasis – warm and moist. If you were to practice alternate nostril breathing, you would notice that it instantly brings calm and grounds you in the present moment. Moreover, regular practice can help with anxiety, ailments, hormonal imbalance, sleep, and moods.
Until my early teens, I was a feisty, hot, and dry individual. You’d think that electricity flowed through my body at a high, irregular speed. Shortly after my 15th birthday, my father suggested that I go for a 10-day silent Vipassana retreat, and that changed my life. During the first three days of Vipassana, I was asked to notice my breath in a non-judgmental manner during the 13-hour meditation days. As hard as this was, I noticed something peculiar. My right solar nostril was significantly more active, especially in the hot afternoons, and more so when I felt aggravated or impatient.
As the days progressed, breath awareness became a part of me, and I carried it even beyond the meditations. When I slept well, the left lunar nostril got a chance to shine, and if I were awoken by a nightmare, I would be back to the solar right. Over time, I have learned to use my breath as a clue to what is happening in my mind and body. At the same time, alternate nostril breathing has allowed me to take advantage of both – the right and the left, the warm and the moist.
These six rituals are enough and fairly easy to incorporate into our modern day lives. I want you to think of these rituals as more than just prescriptions by an Ayurvedic doctor.
© Inner Climate – is the ideal state inside the human body that allows life within us and thus our own life to thrive.
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