No matter your age, there are things you can do to look and feel younger, healthier, happier. You hold the future of your health in your own hands. The wonderful thing about Ayurvedic healing is that it teaches you how to rejuvenate your mind and body naturally, so you feel young at any age.
Try these easy tips from The Council of Maharishi AyurVeda Physicians to look and feel your youthful best.
Ayurveda, Diet & Rejuvenation
In Ayurveda, diet plays a key role in any wellness regimen. Even relatively small, painless changes in your diet can make a big difference in the way you feel. No matter your age, your diet can influence your lifespan if you start listening to your body’s true nutrition needs.
Eat for your dosha type
The first step in determining which foods will make you feel your best is discovering your unique dosha type (or mind-body type, also known as your Ayurvedic constitution). Don’t know your dosha type? Take our easy dosha quiz and find out! You can also book an Ayurvedic wellness check-in with one of our Ayurvedic experts.
During your Ayurvedic consultation you will learn some helpful nutritional guidelines. The aim of these dietary tips is to help you return to your state of natural balance: good health. Once you arrive at, and maintain, that state of balance, your health will benefit on every level: physical, mental, and emotional. Learn the 10 Basic Principles of the Ayurvedic Diet.
Discover the goodness of ghee
Some basic Ayurvedic nutrition guidelines work well for everyone, regardless of dosha type. Cooking with ghee, for instance. Ghee (clarified butter—butter with all the milk solids removed) is a time-honored Ayurvedic kitchen staple. This versatile oil is a wonderful alternative to hydrogenated oils, which can clog arteries and promote free-radical damage.
In Ayurveda, ghee is considered an effective "carrier" that helps send the lipid-soluble benefits of herbs and spices throughout the body. It is sattvic— meaning that it nurtures the emotions and the spirit while providing nourishment to the body.
Make friends with herbs and spices
Shredded iceberg lettuce and French fries may be a convenient daily option for lunch, but if your diet incorporates few or no herbs and spices, you're missing something. Not only in taste, but also nutrition-wise. Nature has endowed the earth with a staggering variety of aromatic, colorful, and delicious ingredients that support healthy digestion.
- Cumin helps digestion
- Freshly crushed black pepper helps you assimilate nutrients
- Cilantro and coriander cool the digestion
If you’ve never used these star spices before, our precise, dosha-wise spice blends make Ayurvedic cooking easy. Sprinkle our delicious, aromatic Vata, Pitta and Kapha churnas into your soups, stews, stir-fries, and sautés for a hit of digestion-boosting flavor.
If you are an erratic eater, reset your mealtimes
Eating lunch at about the same time each day helps regulate your digestion and makes you feel more energetic and youthful. Nature has designed human hunger to peak at noon—when the sun is at its peak in the sky, Pitta dosha predominates in your mind and body, and your agni (digestive fire) is at its strongest. In that same way, diminish at dinnertime. Listen to nature, and you'll add life to your years.
Join the resistance movement
The commonly held view is that age generally brings with it a lower resistance and weakened natural immunity. But the good news is that lowered immunity need not be inevitable as you move through life.#
Ease into activity
Beat back time with one of many powerful weapons: regular exercise. Easy-paced walking or simple, no-stress yoga asanas can work wonders for you—they rev up circulation, help flush out unwanted toxins from the body, and help balance your doshas.
If you have been sedentary for a while, be careful not to over-exert yourself in the beginning. Exercise only as much as feels comfortable—even if you are fairly active—using only about half of your total energy levels at any time. From the perspective of Ayurveda, exercise should energize you, not exhaust you. You should feel more vital and alive after exercise—not ready to collapse.
Work out, don't max out
For some of us, it’s hard to draw the line between working out and maxing out. That’s why we’ve put together a special Ayurvedic self-care program for athletes called the Sports & Fitness System. If you can’t resist a marathon gym session multiple times each week, this self-care system will help you maximize your workouts with less effort.
Get Glowing
What's the biggest giveaway of a person's age? As people age, they collect more Vata — and Vata is a dry dosha, which means skin loses moisture and begins to wrinkle and sag.
Fortunately, it’s easy to keep your skin glowing naturally well into your mature years. Here’s how:
- Drink water several times a day to help your body flush out toxins and keep your skin moisturized.
- Sleep at least eight hours each night and wake up on time so your body feels rested, your eyes stay bright, and your mind feels active.
- Eat foods that suit your personal doshic combination and imbalances.
- Maintain good hygiene.
Give yourself an all-body warm oil massage (abhyanga) every morning before your daily bath. Add to this some nourishment from herbs, and you can support your skin in staying naturally supple, healthy and radiant. Check out our skin-rejuvenating formulas.
Rethink your attitude: try mediation and gratitude
Midlife can make some people feel the journey downhill has begun. But Ayurveda encourages a positive and optimistic outlook at every stage of life. Nursing a negative self-image is a pragya aparadh, or what is known in Ayurveda as a “mistake of the intellect.”
Instead, Ayurveda recommends embracing your body as it is—at every age and stage. Try cultivating a kind, compassionate attitude toward yourself. Be grateful for your body, the life it has lived, and the exciting opportunities and adventures that still lie ahead.
Practice gratitude. And make time each day for naturally relaxing and rejuvenating practices like the Transcendental Meditation® technique. A 2023 study found that regular practice of the TM technique may help with stress-related burnout for those working in high-stress environments.[1]
Learn more about how to reset and realign your body’s inner clock with Ayurveda. Watch our Rest, Digest & Invest in Yourself Webinar.
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0265046
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