Hope-Murray - Ayurveda For Dummies

Ayurveda For Dummies

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John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
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PO19 8SQ
England
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ISBN 978-1-118-30670-3 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-30667-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-30668-0 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-30669-7 (ebk)

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Introduction

M y search for a medical system that truly encompassed the whole being began when I was 19 years old and studying the biomechanics of the lower limb at podiatry school. A sense of deep unease was growing within me because I realised that a problem in the knee, for example, may be related to the whole of the skeletal structure and not just to the part of the body we were allowed to take care of. Alongside this was the realisation that a disease entity can present a very different picture in people with differing constitutions.

Help arrived for me in 1986 when a doctor came to the hospital to give a talk on Ayurveda, called the mother of all healing systems. Dawn broke for me and shone a light on a system of healing that is so elegant yet so simple in its formation.

Coming from at least 5,000 years of human experience, Ayurveda really is the prima materia (first matter) of all medical modalities. Ayurveda is a system in which the healers have a responsibility to keep themselves well, along with their patients. Encompassing wellness of body, mind and spirit, Ayurveda encourages vitalisation that extends into your every cell.

I hope this book fuels in you the enthusiasm to try Ayurveda for yourself and incorporate it into your daily life, which will benefit and be enhanced by it.

About This Book

Ayurveda For Dummies gives you the tools to comprehend the basic building blocks of Ayurveda. Use it as a basis to progress on the journey to well-being using simple instructions and interventions, which you can implement immediately into your daily routine. I give you tools for recognising problems as early as possible and treating them with both diet and herbs. I provide a lot of general information for maintaining your well-being. Everyone deserves better health.

Conventions Used in This Book

To help you get the most from this book, I follow a few conventions:

Italic is used for emphasis and to highlight new words or terms that I define.

Web addresses may split over two lines if so, ignore the hyphen that links them when youre typing the address into a search engine. If youre reading this on an enabled device, the web addresses are hyperlinked and will take you straight to the site in question.

Bold shows the action part of numbered steps.

What Youre Not to Read

Of course, I hope that youll read the entire book, but in some cases I offer information that you may find interesting but thats not essential to your understanding. Sidebars (shaded boxes of text) are an example of this kind of text and may include anecdotes, history or other titbits that I find juicy but you may not! And when I go deeper into the principles or science of Ayurveda, I use the Technical Stuff icon to let you know youre perfectly welcome to skip that paragraph.

Foolish Assumptions

To generate this book, I made a few assumptions about you:

Youre keen to learn more about Ayurveda but dont know exactly what it is and how to practise it.

Youre very busy and you want a simple, clear understanding of the fundamentals of Ayurveda.

Youve already delved into other types of complimentary therapies and would like to expand your knowledge.

Youre interested in optimising your health and are ready to try a few Ayurvedic suggestions.

How This Book Is Organised

Ive organised Ayurveda For Dummies into six parts. Each part contains a variety of chapters to instruct you further on various aspects of Ayurveda.

Part I: Getting Started with Ayurveda

In this part I explain the belief system and philosophy behind Ayurveda, which can appear quite esoteric at times. Getting to grips with the basics wont take you long and the rewards will be worth it.

You probably want to get cracking straight away with learning your constitution according to Ayurveda from the questionnaire in . This enables you to put the interventions that I list into practise. Armed with this information you can better navigate the rest of the book.

Part II: Living in Harmony with Ayurveda: Promoting Good Health

In this section I take you on a journey to learn how disease develops in your system according to Ayurveda. Completing the questionnaire in this part can determine how healthy your system is. You also look at the health of the senses and how time affects your well-being.