Ayurveda: 5 simple ways to get started

Designed to help you live a healthier and fuller life, Ayurveda aims at balancing the body. The system is ultra-sophisticated, with a preventative, long term, holistic and integrative approach to a person’s wellbeing. That makes it relevant for anyone interested in optimal health.

Once you deep-dive into Ayurveda, it can easily become overwhelming because it’s pretty complex. However, Ayurveda offers some powerful wisdom, a lot of which is super simple to incorporate and may offer you drastic benefits. Get started with just a few of the suggestions below.

1. AVOID ICE WATER! DRINK WARM WATER

Avoid cold, from-the-fridge beverages like ice-cold water, cold beer or iced coffees. They effectively halt your digestion and take away your energy, especially right before or after a meal. Instead, try drinking room-temperature or warm water only.

2. MAKE LUNCH THE BIGGEST MEAL OF THE DAY

We’ve all heard the saying: “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper”. However, this popular approach to meal parting is incompatible with Ayurveda. Instead, Ayurveda suggests we make lunch the biggest meal of the day (because that’s the time of day when our digestion is at its strongest,) and we think of breakfast as easing into the day while dinner as easing into the night’s sleep – making it important to keep those meals light! See our 30-minute recipes

3. SCRAPE YOUR TONGUE, FIRST THING IN THE MORNING

During our sleep, our body eliminates toxins that accumulate on our tongue. If we don’t scrape our tongue first thing, we ingest back all toxins the minute we have something to drink. Read Best tongue scrapers: benefits, how to use and reviews

4. SLEEP BETWEEN 10PM-6AM

Those are the best times to sleep. Go to bed before the second boost of energy that we all have around 10pm. Read: How to finally sleep better

5. EAT A DIET THAT SUITS YOUR OWN MIND-BODY TYPE (DOSHA)

Digestion is at the cornerstone of feeling like our best self because when digestion is good, we make good blood and are able to feed our organs properly. Plus our mood and mind are at their highest potential. Having said that, without even knowing it, we often eat foods that are not suited to our unique Mind & Body Type. Take Yoom’s Mind & Body Type quiz to understand what foods suit you best. Take the Mind-Body Type Quiz