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| Ayurveda & Arthritis |
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How can Ayurveda Help Arthritis?
 The Ayurveda Retreat arthritis program is conducted under the supervision of our Ayurvedic Consultant and draws on knowledge from Ayurveda, the world's oldest and most complete system of natural health care.
Through its unique assessment of causal imbalances at the basis of a condition and its wide range of time-tested recommendations, Ayurveda provides the most comprehensive natural approach for arthritis available today.
Understanding the Causes of Arthritis
Healthy, flexible joints rely on strong digestion and metabolism. Poor eating habits and weak digestion allow impurities to accumulate, circulate and build up in the joints. This inhibits joint function, mobility and comfort.
Because impurities can develop faster than the body eliminates them, cleansing alone is not enough. The key to preventing a toxic build up is to create healthier cells. The raw material for building healthy joints and bones is nutrient plasma. Plasma flows throughout the body - like the sap in a tree- and delivers vital nutrients. The body uses these nutrients to build tissues, including the joints.
Your program at Ayurveda Retreat is designed to improve digestion and metabolism thereby forming nutrient plasma that is more pure and easy to assimilate. This also helps create proper lubrication of joint tissue and helps impurities flow out, and nutrients flow into, the joint cells.
Ayurvedic medicine assesses and treats the level of the body's inner intelligence that creates and controls the material structure and function of the physiology. The organising principle within the body which controls the level of activation and sensitivity of the nervous system is called Vata.
Anything that aggravates, or overly activates Vata, will increase the sensitivity and experience of pain in the body. Therefore an important component in treating arthritic pain is to balance and stabilise Vata.
In summary, the Ayurvedic approach:
1. Strengthens the metabolic pathways that prevent circulatory channels to joints from becoming blocked by impurities.
2. Strengthens digestion to create nutritional plasma that is pure and easy to assimilate.
3. Improves the lubrication of joints.
4. Balances nervous system function and its sensitivity to pain.
A Natural Treatment Approach to Arthritis
The Ayurvedic Assessment of Balance and Imbalance
During your consultation, our Ayurvedic Consultant will use pulse assessment and other Ayurvedic evaluation tools to determine balance and imbalance in the body's inner intelligence.
This assessment is not an evaluation of the state of cells and tissues but an evaluation of a deeper level of physiological functioning that controls the healing and self-repair mechanisms of the body. Disruptions on this level are the root cause of disorder.
People can have arthritis for different reasons and need different programs to heal the condition. The Ayurvedic Consultant will not be just matching treatments to the condition of arthritis, but will individualise the program to the specific imbalances that are causing arthritis in you. This is the value of the Ayurvedic assessment of balance and imbalance at the start of your program.
The following section describes the classic Ayurvedic approaches used at Ayurveda Retreat to reduce Vata imbalance, to eliminate toxin build up and provide relief from stress, thereby removing the root causes of arthritis.
a) Panchkarma Cleansing Treatments
The treatment program can consist of daily visits to Ayurveda over a 7-14 day period - it is the most important and powerful feature of your Ayurvedic program for arthritis.
The daily three-hour treatment program of massage, heat treatment and mild internal cleansing is the cornerstone of your program at Ayurveda Retreat. The combination of these three treatments received every day creates the ideal internal physical environment for healing joint inflammation
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b) Herbalised Oil Massage
Our Ayurvedic Consultant will choose a specific herbalised oil that is individually prepared for your condition. You will also be instructed in the technique of Ayurvedic massage, which includes using specific strokes over joints, ligaments, muscles and different parts of the body as daily self-massage for even as little as 5 minutes can bring profound benefits.
The motion of massage creates heat and friction that enhance circulation and help cleanse the areas of chemical impurities that could be aggravating and hyper-sensitising nerve and joint tissues. The various herbs that have been boiled into a base oil, and the oil itself, are specifically chosen for their Vata balancing influence. The oil allows the herbs to deeply penetrate the tissue beds, thereby balancing tissues in the affected areas.
c) Diet, Nutrition and Digestion
Arthritis can be created by, and aggravated through, improper diet. Some foods can make Vata highly active, thereby increasing sensitivity to pain and aggravating arthritis symptoms.
Consultations with our Ayurvedic Consultant, along with daily educational meetings, will help you understand which foods are the most clogging and obstructing to circulation and which are the hardest to digest. These foods have the potential to create toxins (undigested food not only clogs the channels in the body but actually becomes toxic) and need to be avoided. You will also learn which foods can easily be digested, creating micronutrients that are then assimilated into the tissues, to rebuild their strength and balance.
Just as important as what you eat is how well you digest, metabolise and eliminate food. Our Ayurvedic Consultant will also provide programs to improve digestion, metabolism and elimination to build a strong foundation for your healing process.
Ayurveda Retreat cooking classes will provide you with knowledge of how to prepare foods in ways that create maximum nourishment for the body and that prevent incomplete digestion and clogging of circulation.
In summary, improper nutrition can create and aggravate arthritis, but proper nutrition can go a long way to curing and preventing it.
d) Stress Management and Improved Mental and Emotional Function
It is well documented that arthritis is often worsened by heightened stress, anxiety and mental fatigue. There are hormonal changes and other biochemical responses to stress that can aggravate the nervous system, and the inflammatory response. The sleep disturbance that is often created by arthritis symptoms increases fatigue, which increases one's susceptibility to stress, which in turn aggravates the arthritis condition. A downward spiral is created.
You also have the option of learning how to meditate. Meditation has a wealth of scientific research verifying its effect on reducing many of the mental and stress factors influencing arthritis. Research shows it creates virtually the opposite physiological response that stress does and helps the body recover more quickly from stressful stimuli.
e) Lifestyle and Daily Routine
One of the most important factors for balancing Vata and maintaining stability in the nervous system is to have a lifestyle that does not disrupt natural bodily rhythms. When we eat, sleep and exercise in constantly fluctuating and disturbing patterns, the body loses its natural balancing cycles and cannot cleanse or heal itself as effectively. Therefore, regularity in our daily routine can be extremely effective in reducing the Vata imbalances at the basis of arthritis.
Our Ayurvedic Consultant will review your daily routine and provide information you need to create a daily schedule that will actually increase balance in your nervous system and aid in healing your body.
f) Ayurvedic Herbs and Reduction in Free Radicals
During your consultation, our Ayurvedic Consultant will select the appropriate herbal formulas for aiding the healing process, strengthening digestion and helping the body purify itself of toxins and free radicals.
Free radicals are highly irritating to the physiology and their presence creates and worsens many disorders, including arthritis. When appropriate, our Ayurvedic Consultant recommends Ayurveda herbs that research has shown to be powerful anti-oxidants (1000 times more powerful than vitamin C or E) and free radical scavengers. These herbs can also have a holistic influence of balancing and nourishing the entire physiology.
g) Exercise and Flexibility Education.
Stretching exercise is known to have a positive effect on many chronic conditions. We offer Yoga classes to teach you a simple but profound set of postures that can be practiced daily to create a healthy flexibility throughout the body. We also instruct you in individualised Yoga breathing practices that create a state of restful alertness in mind and body.
Summary
Ayurveda can help with the prevention and symptoms of Arthritis.
The Ayurveda Retreat program provides the most comprehensive
approach in natural health care to remove the imbalances at
the basis of arthritis.
Research shows it creates virtually the opposite physiological response that stress does and helps the body recover more quickly from stressful stimuli.
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Opening hours : Monday – Friday 9.00am – 8.00pm | Saturday 9.00am – 6.00pm | Sunday 10.30am – 4.30pm.
32 Friar Street, Reading, RG1 1DX, England. Email: info@ayurveda-retreat.co.uk |
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