Spencer Steele, MD, offers Practical Ayurveda to Achieve Control of Your Health.

Ayurveda, the ancient Vedic healing art, is most commonly explained in terms of doshas, principles which regulate the life processes of every organism. Disease results when one or more of these doshas (meaning "fault or "imperfection"), increases beyond healthful levels and hinders the normal functions of the body. What is usually not mentioned in most books about Ayurveda is the primary role of prana, the life energy, in maintaining health.

Pure prana is nectar for the life processes of the organism, but when prana interacts with the body it is altered, and the doshas result. In order for one's physiology to be balanced, the body's interaction with prana must be optimized. People become susceptible to disease when they develop constrictions or blockages to the flow of energy through the body. These constrictions, however, almost always begin in the mind, not the body. How, then, can these psychological blockages be removed?

Modern psychiatry tends to view illness in terms of biochemical reactions, as if the body were nothing more than a sophisticated bag of salts. According to that persepective, all we have to do is throw the right pill into our body and everything will be fine. The problem is that in practical terms this approach simply doesn't cure any mental illness because psychiatric medicines don't open the blockages that caused the body's imbalance in the first place.

Luckily, the advances in psychology over the past century, when combined with the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda, can yield remarkable tools to heal, and even cure, mental and physical disease.

When emotionally overwhelming life events occur, there is a tendency to sequester these unpleasant feelings and thoughts behind a wall of amnesia. To keep these unpleasant sensations out of consciousness requires an expenditure of life energy. Using one's energy to maintain this sequestration means that other life functions that require this very same life energy will come up short. One's energy becomes drained, and imbalances grow.

This life-energy drain is often significant, especially if there is a lot of emotional pain that has been walled off, and there is a corresponding bodily constriction somewhere in the body relating to each walled-off area. When we open up these mental and physical constrictions, we have more life energy available for normal, healthy living. The previously restricted life energy is once again available to the body and mind.

One who is experienced in dealing with these energetic blockages can often tell where the blockages are by simple observation. One's demeanor and actions reveal the sources of illness. Since most people aren't very consciously aware of their blockages, as they begin to experience the release and healthy flow of previously bound energy, a momentum toward wellness is created that usually grows stronger over time.

While this can be accomplished in a purely psychological framework, a combined physical/psychological approach generally offers a more objective route to healing and preferably should be integrated into the healing process. By learning these principles and applying them to one's own condition, one can become one's own best healer.