January 15, 2024

Resolve to Cleanse

January 15, 2024/ Alandi Ashram

January is all about resetting and resolving to upgrade our self-care. This January, resolve to do an Ayurvedic spring cleanse. Officially known as panchakarma, an Ayurvedic cleanse helps restore our digestive fire, balance the doshas and remove accumulated toxins. It is believed to improve immunity and support longevity.

Let’s start planning for your panchakarma cleanse while the year is still young. Spring will be here before you know it, and panchakarma takes preparation and planning. First of all, set an appointment with your Ayurvedic practitioner, to get started on the process. They will evaluate your health situation and give specific recommendations to help you prepare for your cleanse. You’ll be given detoxifying herbs to start the cleansing process and a specific, tailored plan for your panchakarma.

Next, evaluate your resources. You’ll need some time off work to do panchakarma. Ideally, plan time off in March or April, although if you are in an academic setting, as a student or faculty, later May after the academic year ends might work better. Think about your budget for panchakarma. There are a range of options, from high end, receiving oil massages, sweat treatments and shirodhara from a professional, to lower end—doing home panchakarma with the support and supervision of your practitioner and their team. At Alandi, we work within your budget to create an effective and affordable plan.

Third, clean up your act. We talked last week about the dangers of ultra-processed foods. In preparation for panchakarma, you’ll want to begin a gradual process of removing them from your diet. Look into your habits as well. Do you smoke or vape tobacco or cannabis? You’ll want to wean off in preparation for panchakarma. How does alcohol factor into your life? Perhaps you’ve embraced Dry January but are looking forward to getting back to your normal level of alcohol consumption as soon as February is here. Perhaps you are a regular drinker, with alcohol being an important part of your social life or coping mechanisms. Prepare for panchakarma by weaning off alcohol—and drugs too if you use them--because you won’t be able to drink or use during or for a significant amount of time after your cleanse. The same applies to microdosing psychedelics and having ketamine or MDMA sessions. Leave that aside until you have completed your pre-cleanse, cleanse and the subsequent rejuvenation process.

Spring may seem far off, but as Shelley famously said, ‘If winter comes, can spring be far behind?’ The daily growing of the light reminds us to grow in strength and vibrancy. How better to do that than with the anticipation of a special time of rest, cleansing and rejuvenation?

Alakananda Ma M.B., B.S. (Lond.) is an Ayurvedic Doctor (NAMA) and graduate of a top London medical school. She is co-founder of Alandi Ayurveda Clinic and Alandi Ayurveda Gurukula in Boulder Colorado, as well as a spiritual mother, teacher, flower essence maker and storyteller. Alakananda is a well known and highly respected practitioner in the Ayurveda community both nationally and internationally.

Enliven your holistic health! Visit Alakananda Ma in Alandi Ashram’s ayurvedic clinic to support the overall rejuvenation of your body, mind, and spirit. In-person and virtual appointments available. Book now!

September 19, 2023

Self-Care for High Blood Pressure

September 19, 2023/ Alandi Ashram

So, the new position paper of the International Society of Hypertension is out. How thrilling—a lifestyle approach to preventing and managing high blood pressure that fits quite nicely into the five areas of self-care that we discussed in last week’s blog. This doesn’t mean you should stop your blood pressure medication. Talk to your doctor about potentially reducing your medicine as you implement lifestyle changes. It depends upon your individual situation.

In terms of diet, the recommendation is to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, less red meat, have more fiber and plant-based foods and reduce salt and sugar. To get more depth on diet, beyond the DASH diet, see my blog High Blood Pressure and the Six Tastes.

We’ll go into exercise more another time, but let’s note here the importance of incidental exercise, like taking the stairs, parking a little further away, bringing in the groceries, doing housework, weeding the garden. The more bursts of physical activity you incorporate into your day, the better. Exercise can be incremental; it doesn’t have to be one big workout.

Where overall lifestyle is concerned, the position paper stresses the importance of a good night’s sleep. The key here is to calm everything down an hour before bedtime. Shut down all the devices; get an alarm clock so you don’t need your smartphone in the bedroom, take time to unwind and sip some chamomile tea.

The next area we look at is habits. If you are concerned about blood pressure, it’s important not to smoke. I know that’s easier said than done, which is why the Ayurvedic texts recommend a gradual approach. The good habits should be adopted gradually and the bad habits abandoned gradually. In our clinic we’ve had a lot of success using our herbal smoking mix. Each week, you can reduce the amount of tobacco and increase the amount of the herbal mix until you are not using tobacco at all.

Alcohol use is also bad for hypertension. The less you drink, the better for your blood pressure. Again, consider a gradual approach until your alcohol consumption is either zero or reduced to half a glass of red wine a week.

Finally comes spiritual resilience. I was amazed to discover that the position paper recommends at least thirty minutes of meditation a day. Doing yoga is also highly recommended for blood pressure control. Of course, there’s much more to meditation and mindfulness than just stress reduction. Meditation is the path to true happiness though befriending our own mind and learning to rest in our true nature despite all outer circumstances. Just begin. Start meditating because it’s good for your health and you will find that a whole new world of meaning and brilliance unfolds for you.

September 12, 2023

Benefits of Ayurvedic Self-Care

September 12, 2023/ Alandi Ashram

Today, let’s look at the benefits of Ayurvedic self-care. With all the busyness and distractions of our daily life, sometimes it can be hard to take care of ourselves. And when we want to improve our health, we may get caught up in the latest thing that’s on TikTok.

How wonderful that the sages of Ayurveda have laid out time-tested practices of dinacharya, daily routines to support our wellbeing, longevity, happiness and contentment!

These are routines that we can put in place in the morning before work or school and in the evenings to prepare for bed. I also like to set aside time on Saturdays for the luxury of extra self-care, pampering myself Ayurvedically.

The Ayurvedic sages explain how to distinguish what is good for us from what is bad for us, what supports a happy life and what leads to more suffering, how to know the difference between enough and too much. A happy and balanced life is the main benefit of dinacharya.

To make a self-care plan, we examine five areas of our lives. How are you doing on diet? Are you munching a power bar in your car on the way to work or sitting down to a warm, nurturing breakfast? Are you grabbing something from Whole Foods on the way home or cooking a delicious supper? Do you eat lunch at your desk or take time to eat mindfully?

How about exercise? Do you plan your daily or weekly exercise or live a mostly sedentary existence? Could you park a little further away or take the stairs instead of the elevator?

Next, consider your overall lifestyle. Do you live in a rush? Is your leisure time mostly television? Or do you have a daily routine that is mindful and calm?

What about habits? Does your day revolve around that morning coffee, the wine with dinner or the bedtime toke? Are there substances that are getting the better of you and dominating your life?

Finally, how are you supporting your spiritual resilience? Do you have contemplative practices to nourish your soul? Do you take time away from the everyday cares to contemplate the ultimate meaning of life? Do you gather with members of your faith community?

Once you make this kind of self-assessment, it may be easy to see what areas of your life need work. Maybe you’re fantastic at exercising but hooked on coffee. Maybe you’re substance-free but never have time to cook for yourself. You can begin a step-by-step plan to make your life more nurturing and nourishing.

Ayurveda has two main branches, disease management and svasthavritta—health maintenance through daily and seasonal routines. So, you can benefit from an Ayurvedic consultation even if you are not sick. We’ll help you look at your strengths and weaknesses in the five areas of healthy living and work with you to create a plan for a nurturing and supportive daily routine.

August 28, 2023

Six healthy lifestyle habits to support your memory

August 28, 2023/ Alandi Ashram

One thing we Ayurvedic people love is lifestyle medicine. We have three pillars of treatment, diet, lifestyle and herbs. So, imagine how thrilled I was to discover a study published in the BMJ that evaluated lifestyle behaviours to support memory. As some of you may have noticed, memory tends to decline as we age. What’s more, each time we get Covid, it ages our brain by about ten years. All of us, young and old, have good reason to adopt six healthy habits to support memory. In fact, these lifestyle interventions can even reverse memory decline.

Habit number one: Yes, healthy diet is the star memory protector. Make sure you eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds. Elevate your healthy diet with Ayurvedic spices like turmeric, ginger, coriander and fenugreek. Best of all, see your Ayurvedic practitioner and get a nutrition plan tailored to your body type. As we like to say at Alandi, nutritious is delicious. Your colourful plate feeds your body, brain, mind and senses.

Habit number two: Cognitive activity. Use your brain to save your brain. Read complex novels with many characters to remember. I recently got done with Tolstoy’s War and Peace, a real brain workout. Write letters, journal, blog. Do research on the internet. Play chess or card games. Just keep your brain active. As a literature lover, I was thrilled to find that reading a good book is even better for your brain than a brisk walk. But exercise does come in at number three.

Habit number three: Yes, exercise. Your brain won’t stay healthy if all you do is walk to and from your car. Walk, bike, hike, dig your garden, dance, do yoga, swim, play sports. Pick the types of exercise you enjoy. Exercise should be fun. From an Ayurvedic viewpoint, exercise should include fresh air and daylight. It’s also important that your exercise is interesting, because that’s building synapses and supporting mental health as well as providing exercise.

Habit number four: Engage with people. Social contact is crucial for brain health. This is a tricky one, since Covid has limited our social contacts. But talking on the phone or meeting online counts. Here at Alandi, where we maintain a Covid-safe space, we meet outside or mask when we are indoors, but we do try to keep up social contacts. At the moment, it’s going mushroom-hunting with friends.

Habit number five: Here come the Don’ts. Don’t smoke. Smoking is bad for your heart, your lungs and also for your brain.

Habit number six: Don’t drink to excess. Never-drinkers fared the best over the ten years of the study. Next best is to drink very modestly, a half glass of red wine once or twice a week.

You can still enjoy life, because habits one to four are in themselves enjoyable.

Here’s the link to the study: https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj-2022-072691

March 06, 2023

Spring is a time to cleanse

March 06, 2023/ Alandi Ashram

Yesterday, we saw the first crocuses peeking their little purple heads. The robins and finches are singing of the promise of another spring.

As spring comes, we like to clean and clear our homes. According to Ayurveda, spring is also a time to cleanse our bodies. During the winter, kapha has built up. Now it’s starting to liquefy, setting off runny noses and allergy symptoms. We also tend to eat heavier food in winter, and to over-indulge during the holidays. This could lead to āma or toxins accumulating. So now it’s time for a good shake-out, dust off and general cleansing.

In Ayurveda, we use a system called panchakarma, or five cleansing actions. These actions are emesis, purgation, oily enemas, decoction enemas and special nose drops.

We prepare ourselves to do these cleansing actions by first cleaning up and simplifying our diet, and by taking some bitter, blood cleansing and anti-parasitical herbs. Next, we get the excess doshas, vata, pitta and kapha ready to move out. This is done be taking special oils or ghee preparations internally. We also oil our body externally (abhyanga) and follow the oiling process by sweating in a tub, hot shower, sweat tent or sauna.

Once we’re well-prepared, we follow the course of cleansing actions recommended by our Ayurvedic practitioner. During that time, we rest and relax and don’t go to work. After the cleansing actions, we go through a process of gradual reintroduction of foods, known as samsarjana krama. Finally, we take rejuvenative herbs and foods to build our strength back after cleansing.

There are a lot of different ways to undergo panchakarma. At Alandi, we focus on home panchakarma, guiding you through treatments you can do yourself at minimal expense. You can also connect with a professional to receive abhyanga and other oil treatments, such as shirodhara, while doing other parts of your cleanse at home.

If you aren’t able to take time off work for panchakarma, you still need to deal with the buildup of kapha and āma from the winter. In this circumstance, a simplified diet, cleansing herbal formula and some selected oil treatments would be a good course of action. So, see your Ayurvedic professional and get spring off to a good start!

January 02, 2023

Stay Healthy in 2023

January 02, 2023/ Alandi Ashram

Happy New Year, everyone. I was just on medical Twitter enjoying a thread in which doctors of different specialties posted their top health tips. It was intriguing to see the commonalities and how many of the tips were really commonsense. Here’s some Ayurvedic commentary on what I gleaned.

Resolve to eat more fiber in 2023. That came from both a colorectal surgeon and several cardiologists. Protect your heart health and your gut health, prevent colon cancer and lower your blood sugar by eating plenty of fiber. Refined foods are low in fiber, so limit your intake of them. Start your day off the right way with a warm cereal. It could be oatmeal, but if you prefer a savory breakfast, try buckwheat pilaf, quinoa or amaranth. Breakfast can also be a bowl of kichari with carrots in it. The mung beans and carrots provide good fiber.

Resolve to eat less meat and more vegetables in 2023. According to the CDC, one person dies every 34 seconds from cardiovascular disease in the US. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women alike. So, prick up your ears when cardiologists suggest this resolution. Try Meatless Monday, Friday Fish, any strategy that will reduce the amount of red meat you consume. Make meat the side dish and vegetables and legumes the main items. And as I often say, eat a rainbow every day. To make it easy, you’ll find loads of great vegetarian recipes on our website.

Resolve to exercise moderately and consistently in 2023. Cardiologists emphasized moderate and consistent exercise for heart health, such as a daily brisk walk. Orthopedic surgeons pointed out that exercise is vital if you have osteoarthritis. Often people buy a gym membership in January, but by February they don’t go any more. From an Ayurvedic standpoint, walking is best, because it provides three essential aspects of self-care, vyayama or exercise, atapa seva or sunlight and maruta seva or fresh air. And especially if you have musculoskeletal problems, yoga or similar forms of stretching are essential. Exercise is not supposed to be torture. In fact, it should be fun. I really enjoy my walks and my dance class too!

Resolve to drink less alcohol in 2023. If you’re having more than two drinks a week, try Sober January for a reset. According to Ayurveda, alcohol can be beneficial if consumed very moderately and mindfully, accompanied by good food and in a cheerful sate of mind. But alcohol also has all the characteristics of a poison, so only drink a little and avoid strong liquor. And never, never drive when under the influence.

Resolve not to get COVID in 2023. Every time you get COVID, it weakens your immune system, making you more susceptible to new COVID variants, as well as to other viruses, bacteria and fungi. Every time you get COVID, it increases your chances of heart attack, stroke, Parkinson’s, dementia, erectile dysfunction, male infertility and many more chronic illnesses. With immune-evasive new sub-variants coming your way, wear an N95, ventilate and avoid crowds.

Resolve to have more fun in 2023. Sit down, relax and enjoy your meals. Sit down, relax and have a nice cup of tulsi tea or rooibos chai with the one you love. Listen to the birds. Play with your cat. Bask in the winter sun. Read a good book. Learn to play an instrument. Enjoy life’s simple pleasures, it’s good for your health!

Have a happy and healthy 2023!

December 12, 2022

Self-care for respiratory infections

December 12, 2022/ Alandi Ashram

With the tripledemic of COVID, RSV and flu happening all over the country, many patients have been reaching out for support during respiratory infections. So, I thought it would be helpful to let you know some basic self-care tips.

First up: Rest. In our first surgery lecture in medical school, it was impressed upon us that, “Rest is the first principle of healing.” This applies not only to surgical problems, but to infections as well. Stay at home, keep your germs to yourself and rest. A mild COVID case can turn nasty really fast. So can RSV. And if you have influenza A, most likely you can’t get out of bed anyway.

Second: Fast. If you have a fever, it’s important to fast. If the fever is high, as in flu, only take teas. You can have fresh ginger tea, or ginger, lemon and honey, or tulsi tea. You could also make any of the teas listed in our blog Herbal Teas for Flu. These teas will be equally good for other viruses. But if you are pregnant, it is better not to take any herbal home remedies without specific advice from your practitioner.

If you have a low-grade fever, you can also take broths like mung bean broth, vegetable broth or chicken broth.

If you have an infection with no fever and a low appetite, take soups.

Third: Test. It’s helpful to know what you are dealing with by getting tested for RSV, flu and COVID. Here’s how to do a COVID rapid test correctly. Note that the instructions on the test kit are not adequate to the current situation. First, look at the expiration date on your test kit. Then, if it’s not expired, proceed as follows: You need to swab your mouth and nose. Do not eat or drink for at least 30 minutes before collecting your sample. Blow your nose before the test. Swab your inner cheeks, at the level of upper and lower molars, and your lower gums, turning the swab a few times. Swab under your tongue. Swab the back of your throat and your tonsils. Then swab both nostrils.

The expiration for your COVID test may have been extended, Check here https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-covid-19-and-medical-devices/home-otc-covid-19-diagnostic-tests#list

Get your new free COVID tests https://www.covid.gov/tests

Fourth: Breaking your fast. Once your fever is down and appetite returns, break your fast with mung bean soup or barley soup with ginger, cinnamon, cumin, fennel, turmeric and a little black pepper. Gradually make thicker soups with more things like carrots and rice, until you feel ready for a nice bowl of kichari. Return to your daily activities slowly and with awareness of your energy level.

And again, please keep your germs to yourself. You don’t want to be part of a chain of transmission that ends up with a child in PICU on a ventilator—and that’s happening a lot this winter. Stay home, keep to yourself, wear a mask. Get well and stay well.

November 12, 2022

What's Your Agni Type?

November 12, 2022/ Alandi Ashram

These last couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about agni, your digestive fire. We’ve given the basic agni rules and talked about how to do proper food combining. Today, we’ll dive a bit deeper and talk about the different types of agni.

Unlike prakriti, your Ayurvedic constitution, your agni type isn’t fixed, but can vary from time to time. Let’s look at the four kinds of agni.

For the lucky ones, maybe you enjoy samagni—balanced digestive fire. You have normal appetite, normal digestion, good elimination and balanced metabolism. Your immunity is good, your energy is high, you’re in tip top health. Your weight is steady, your mind is balanced and you’re full of enthusiasm. That should ideally be each and every one of us. But if you are prone to health concerns, maybe you are experiencing one of three types of imbalanced agni.

If you are noticing erratic appetite, constipation, gas, bloating, aches and pains and anxiety, you might be affected by vishamagni—irregular digestive fire. This agni type is a common situation for vatas, although other can also get vishamagni, especially at the change of season or after an accident, illness, surgery or stressful experience. One moment you’re hungry and the next you’re not. You can eat potatoes one day and the next you can’t, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. Everything is irregular.

On the other hand, you might have a very strong appetite and get hungry three or more times a day. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have samagni—maybe you have tikshnagni—sharp digestive fire. You might get irritable if your meal is delayed, suffer from hypoglycaemia, have acid indigestion, loose stools and a tendency to rashes and acne. Your appetite is too sharp and is a reflection of imbalanced pitta. Your friend samagni has a good appetite as well, but he is fine if he has to wait to eat, he won’t get dizzy or irritable.

Finally, especially if you are kapha, you might suffer from mandagni—low digestive fire. Your appetite is poor, you’re not hungry for breakfast, your digestion is sluggish and your stomach feels heavy. Maybe you get sleepy after meals. Sometimes food seems to make you mucusy. It’s also frustrating because your pitta friend eats three square meals a day and doesn’t put on weight, whereas it seems as if you gain weight just by thinking about food. Yes, that’s mandagni!

Next week, we’ll begin looking at how to remedy the different agni types and get back to the joys of samagni.

October 31, 2022

Agni: Caring for Your Digestive Fire

October 31, 2022/ Alandi Ashram

Today, let’s talk about a key aspect of Ayurveda, agni, your digestive fire and how to care for it. As the ancient Ayurvedic text, Charak Samhita says,

Life-span, complexion, strength, health, enthusiasm, corpulence, lustre, immunity, energy, heat processes and vital breath--all these depend on agni. One dies if this fire is extinguished, lives long free from disorders if it is functioning properly, gets ill if it is deranged, hence agni is the root cause of all.

Obviously, if agni is that important, we need to take care of it properly. Here are some basic Do’s and Don’ts in caring for your digestive fire.

Eat food at room temperature or slightly above
Allow three hours between meals to allow digestion to be complete before adding new food to the system
Don’t drink and eat at the same time. Drink a half hour before or two hours after eating.
Use proper food combining.
Relax after eating to allow for proper digestion.
Don’t eat and then sleep—wait two hours.
Don’t eat and then exercise—wait two hours.
Don’t eat and then meditate—Leave one hour.
·Follow the diet appropriate to your constitution and the season.

Next time, we’ll go into a little more depth on the concept of proper food combining.

September 19, 2022

Changing tastes with the seasons: Autumn

September 19, 2022/ Alandi Ashram

Along with dinacharya, daily routines, ritucharya or seasonal routines are key components of Ayurvedic selfcare. In both daily and seasonal routines, the Ayurvedic texts advise proper use of the six tastes. (If you’re new to Ayurveda, and not familiar with the six tastes, please watch our video Ayurveda Basics 2: The Six Tastes )

In dinacharya, we make use of the tastes most appropriate for our prakriti or body type, while in ritucharya, we adjust the tastes in our diet for the changing seasons.

Whereas we are accustomed to a four seasons model, the Ayurvedic texts consider six seasons, each made up of two lunar months. Since there are six seasons on this model, each one of them relates to one of the six tastes.

We’re now just entering sharad, the beautiful autumn season. At this time, the salty taste is predominant. All summer long, we’ve been experiencing heat. Now autumn is here, it’s time to clear out the pitta that has built up all summer long. It’s this heat buildup that makes the Indian summer weather so uncomfortable. (An Indian summer is a period of unseasonably warm, dry weather that sometimes occurs in autumn in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, typically after the killing frost).

So during the autumn, we need to make use of the pitta-soothing tastes, bitter, sweet and astringent. Ask your Ayurvedic doctor about getting some Tikta Ghee, a medicinal ghee with bitter herbs that is recommended at this season. Enjoy bitter gourds at this season. Try eggplant sabji with bitter melon for a seasonal recipe.

Enjoy our liver cleanse sabji , combining the seasonal sweetness of carrots and beets with bitter greens.

Winter squash bring a wonderful combination of sweet and astringent tastes. Enjoy squash yam sabji, a fall recipe that soothes both vata and pitta, or sunchoke butternut mash .

Sweet potatoes are another vegetable that soothe vata and pitta with their sweetness, so enjoy them baked or in sweet potato puree .

Relish the sweet taste in the fruits of autumn—apples, pears and plums.

Eat well in this season of abundant harvest and cool your pitta down!

September 12, 2022

Navigating the change of seasons

September 12, 2022/ Alandi Ashram

It’s that time of year. Before we know it, blooming sunflowers will give way to autumn leaves and a hard freeze will bring an end to the summer garden. Warm blankets will be needed again, and we’ll go from sweating to shivering. The days are getting shorter and vata is in for a shock, with the sudden ending of hot days. To make matters worse, the weather swings from hot to cold and back again.

The time of seasonal change is one where our immune systems are more vulnerable, and we can easily catch a cold, or the latest coronavirus variant. And with the onset of fall, vata aches and pains start to flare up, along with anxiety and restless sleep. The change of seasons is a tricky time, since change provokes vata, and none is more tricky than the change from summer to fall.

During this transitional time, we should slowly phase out our summer regimens and gradually introduce those for autumn. Begin to cut back on salads and introduce warm soups. Gradually move away from summer cooling drinks to fresh ginger tea and warm spiced milks. Start to shift from coconut oil to sesame oil for your massages. On hot days, continue your summer oils, teas and herbs, but start to use your fall ones on cooler days. If your self-care routines fell apart during your summer travels, gradually ease back into a regular routine.

One of the most important routines to reintroduce at this time is your weekly oil massage and ginger-baking soda tub sweat. This will help ground and calm vata and strengthen your immune system during the change of seasons. In fact, if you are vata, see if you can do your oil massage and sweat more than once a week.

This is also an ideal time to visit your Ayurvedic doctor, so you can get set up with appropriate herbs to meet the challenges of fall and winter. And it’s also a great time to start preparing for a panchakarma cleanse, to help ensure good health and immunity all winter long. Your Ayurvedic doctor will help you plan the most suitable panchakarma for your needs.

As we can see, current weather patterns are far exceeding the normal seasonal variability. Next time, we’ll talk about how Ayurveda views extreme weather.

August 28, 2022

Support Your Child's Eyesight

August 28, 2022/ Alandi Ashram

It was my violin teacher who noticed that I was shortsighted. He reported to my parents that I was craning my neck to read music. This led to a visit to the eye doctor, a pair of pink-framed NHS glasses and a lot of teasing about “four-eyes.” But now I could read music and see the leaves on the trees.

My Dad was very careful about protecting our eyes, providing angle-poise lamps for reading. I’m sure my myopia was genetic, as it is for many children. But in a world of screens, we are seeing an epidemic of myopia in children. Although being shortsighted and needing glasses may not seem to be such a bad thing, myopia can lead to serious eye conditions later in life, including glaucoma, cataracts, and retinal detachment.

If your child or grandchild is blinking a lot, rubbing their eyes or complaining of headaches, it’s important to take them for an eye test. Wearing glasses when needed will help protect their eyesight.

So how can we prevent children developing myopia in the first place, or limit the extent of myopia in children who have a genetic tendency to it? In Ayurveda, we like to recommend fresh air and sunlight to prevent or mitigate health conditions. This applies to children’s eyesight as well. As a child I was a famous bookworm—I even dressed up as a bookworm for a fancy dress parade. But my elders were always chasing me outside to play in the garden and climb the apple tree. And they were right. Children need a minimum of an hour a day of outdoor playtime to protect their eyes.

When your child is indoors, reading, writing or using the computer, be sure that the lighting in the room is really good, to prevent eyestrain. The eyes are governed by pitta. And the pitta in your eyes has not evolved to deal with screens. The very best way to protect your child’s eyesight is to limit screen time. Keep your children under five away from screens and limit screen time for older children.

Herbs like licorice root, chrysanthemum and rose are beneficial for the pitta in the eyes. A lavender eye pillow can also help calm the eyes. But daylight, going outdoors and running around, limiting close work and cutting back on screen time are by far the most important ways to protect the pitta in the eyes and provide a lifetime of good eyesight.

August 08, 2022

Late Summer Tips: Changing Tastes with The Seasons

August 08, 2022/ Alandi Ashram

In dinacharya, we make use of the tastes most appropriate for our prakriti or body type, while in ritucharya, we adjust the tastes in our diet for the changing seasons.

We’re now in Varsha, the rainy season, as we’ve noticed with the recent floods and storms. The sour taste predominates in this season. During this time, the summer heat gradually dies down. It’s also a vata-provoking time, hot and sunny one moment, cold and rainy the next. You don’t quite know what to wear or how many blankets to have on your bed. So, we’re advised to make use of the vata-soothing tastes, sweet, sour and salty. How can we make use of these tastes and enjoy the abundance of late summer produce?

Peaches! I’m buying a couple of pounds of delicious Palisade peaches each week, savouring their amazing combination of sweet and sour tastes. As well as relishing fresh peaches, you could enjoy peach cobbler, peach crumble, peach salsa, or our delicious Peach Chutney recipe …endless possibilities for the tastes of the season.

And how about vine-ripened tomatoes from your garden? They too bring the sweet and sour taste, whether eaten fresh in salad, or as tomato chutney or tomato sauce. You could also try our Tomato Lauki Sabji, created by one of our former students.

Eggplant is another seasonal vegetable that brings a touch of the sour taste. Combine eggplant with tomatoes in our Persian Tomato and Eggplant Stew.

Sweet peppers are another seasonal vegetable that bring a nice sweetness, especially when roasted. Try our vegan stuffed zucchini, which features banana peppers in the stuffing. http://ayurveda.alandiashram.org/ayurvedic-recipes/vegan-stuffed-zucchinistuffed-marrow.

Enjoy salt with your corn on the cob, and with your sauteed zucchinis or steamed green beans.

Keep your vata calm with regular routines, as well as with the sweet, sour and salty tastes. Enjoy the special bounty of this season!

June 13, 2022

Summer Tips: Changing Tastes with the Seasons

June 13, 2022/ Alandi Ashram

In dinacharya, we make use of the tastes most appropriate for our prakriti or body type, while in ritucharya, we adjust the tastes in our diet for the changing seasons.

We’re now in grīshma ritu, the summer season. At this time, the pitta-provoking pungent taste is predominant, and our strength is at its lowest. It’s best to limit the three tastes that provoke pitta—pungent, sour and salty. Cue gelato—the sweet taste is ideal for this season. Not that we should live on desserts; this is a good time to enjoy summer fruits like mango, cherries, apricots and peaches, as long as they are well-ripened and not too sour. Strawberries are in season but can be a bit on the sour side. I like my strawberries the English way, with cream, to modify the sour taste.

Milk is a good summer food. Enjoy mangoes with saffron milk, or have warm milk with a delicious spoonful of rose petal jam.

Vegetables like summer squash, zucchini, asparagus, carrots and beets are fresh and tender in summer and offer a mildly sweet taste. Enjoy them with kichari, risotto, pilaf and similar dishes that also offer a mildly sweet taste.

But as summer is the best season for desserts, try some of the seasonal desserts on our website like Vegan Strawberry Blancmange , Mango Stew , Vegan Flourless Chocolate Cake with raspberries, and our Vedic-Mexican nervine drink, Soma horchata.

During the summer heat, be sure to drink plenty of water and summer teas like rehydration tea, or Gypsy Tea.

Stay cool and enjoy the summer!

May 23, 2022

Obstacles to Refreshing Sleep

May 23, 2022/ Alandi Ashram

Last week we discussed some tips for sound sleep and today I’d like to mention a few key obstacles to refreshing sleep. This is not an exhaustive list—just a few key points.

Of course, there are issues related to sleep itself that can prevent us getting refreshing sleep. Things like sleep apnea and snoring can cause fatigue and excess daytime sleepiness. So, if your partner hears you making funny noises in the night—which might be signs of sleep apnea—or if you find you are falling asleep watching television or reading, it might be a good idea to get a sleep study.

But there are many reasons why we can’t sleep, or don’t sleep well, that are actually not sleep-related. An important one is pain. Pain can prevent us getting a good night’s sleep. If it’s an acute pain, like a toothache, obviously we need to get it taken care of right away. But a lot of us have chronic musculoskeletal pain that stops us falling asleep or wakes us in the night. In that event, taking sleeping pills or sleep herbs isn’t the solution. The pain itself has to be addressed. See a physical therapist or yoga therapist and check with your Ayurvedic Practitioner about herbs, oils and salves to alleviate your pain so you can sleep better.

Stress and anxiety can interfere with sleep. And in this event, again, it’s more important to address the source than to take things to make you go to sleep. If the problem can be solved, make efforts to solve it. If your life is too stressful, remember that sleep is vital to health and wellbeing, so you would be well advised to make some changes so your life will be a little easier. If it’s a problem that doesn’t seem to have a solution; then it’s important to learn to live with it a bit more comfortably by using stress reduction techniques such as yoga, relaxation and mindfulness. There’s also great value in the biblical saying, ‘Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.’ It’s important to reconcile with those we love and to avoid going to bed angry.

Sometimes the anxiety that keeps us from sleep isn’t about things that are current, but comes from previous traumatic events. Perhaps there was a time in our life when it wasn’t safe to sleep. If trauma is keeping us from restful sleep, again, we need to get to the root cause. Therapy is vital in this situation and can be supported by the stress reduction techniques we mentioned just now. Your Ayurvedic Practitioner can also help with herbs that reduce anxiety and help calm the nervous system.

In the same vein, mental illnesses such as depression and bipolar can cause sleep disorder. Here, the message is the same: address the root cause of the sleep problem by pacifying the doshas, taking nervine herbs and if necessary, getting appropriate medication.

Chronic illnesses like ME/CFIDS and Long COVID are important causes of insomnia, circadian rhythm disorder and unrefreshing sleep. Once again, as well as practicing sleep hygiene by following the tips we mentioned last week, it’s important to seek out an Ayurvedic professional to get a comprehensive plan to address these serious and debilitating conditions, which are typically poorly treated or dismissed by the medical establishment.

A final tip; we need darkness and quiet for sleep. If necessary, invest in blackout curtains, which also have a soundproofing effect. And remember, sleeping with the light on is injurious to your health.

Next time, we’ll look at some home remedies to promote sound sleep.

May 16, 2022

Tips for Sound Sleep

May 16, 2022/ Alandi Ashram

As Shakespeare says: “Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.”

A good night’s sleep is one of the prerequisites of a happy and healthy life, yet it evades many of us.

To get a good night’s sleep, you need to plan your evening with sleep in mind. First of all, set a bedtime. Of course, early is ideal. As the proverb goes, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” If you’re staying up after midnight, your whole diurnal rhythm will be thrown off. My Nanny used to say, “You’re turning night into day.”

But while a 9:30 bedtime is wonderful, the most important thing is to make a regular bedtime, between 9pm and 11:30pm. And if it’s on the late side, gradually work to make it earlier.

Now you have a bedtime, orient your evening around the main event, sleep. One thing I’ve learned as I’ve grown older is not to work after work. Gone are the days when I would be preparing tomorrow’s class until midnight. Once my workday is over, it’s time for leisure, watering the garden, exercise, meditation, and supper. Have your main meal in the middle of the day and a lighter meal like soup or kichari in the evening. Enjoy your evening, allowing things to wind down gradually.

As a pitta, I find that it’s absolutely essential to have a quiet hour before bed. I try to have the kitchen all wrapped up by an hour before bedtime. Then that final hour is devoted to winding down. I might have a stroll or write in my journal or read. The last thing we do before lights out is to sit together and read a spiritual book aloud. It’s a grownup version of the bedtime stories I enjoyed as a child. During my quiet hour, I also sip a soothing tea. Chamomile is a tradition in my family, and we like to carry on that tradition. If you have a problem with having to get up in the night to urinate, just have a half cup of tea.

Since I’m lucky enough to have a bedroom that is not multi-purpose, I keep all work-related items out of the bedroom. It’s a place I go for dressing, relaxing, reading, hanging out with my beloved or my cat and most of all, for sleeping. But if your space is more restricted, try to keep a corner of your room that is dedicated to sleep.

Get off the phone by 9:30 pm—earlier if 9:30 is actually bedtime. Get off all screens too, by at least an hour before bed. Take the TV out of the bedroom. Keep all screens and devices out of the bedroom. If your phone is your alarm, get a normal alarm clock instead.

Set up your bedroom to support sound sleep. The head of your bed should point South, for deeper sleep or East for spiritual dreams. It’s important that the head of your bed does not point North.

Last thing before going to sleep, oil the soles of your feet. This calms your vata and grounds your energy, helping you to fall asleep easily. You can put on bed socks or wipe off any excess oil with a tissue, so your sheets don’t get oily.

Repeat some mantras or prayers quietly to yourself as you drift off into a deep and contemplative sleep. The Healing Mantra is a great one to fall asleep with. Send love and healing to all beings and allow yourself to surrender your worries and concerns and rest in the arms of the Divine.

Sleep well, dear friends, and wake refreshed!

March 07, 2022

Spring Tips—Changing Tastes As The Seasons Change

March 07, 2022/ Alandi Ashram

Today, let’s talk about some spring tips.

In dinacharya, we make use of the tastes most appropriate for our prakriti or body type, while in ritucharya, we adjust the tastes in our diet for the changing seasons.

We’re now in Vasanta, the spring season. At this time, the astringent taste is predominant. It’s a season when all the kapha that built up in winter starts to liquefy, giving us mud season in the environment and phlegm season in the body. We see coughs, lingering colds and allergies at this time. So now we need to move away from our heavier winter diet with sweet, sour and salty tastes. It’s time for a kapha-soothing diet predominant in the bitter, pungent and astringent tastes. Enter bitter greens, bitter melon, burdock root, sprouts and spicy achar (pickles).

A few days of kitchari fast is great for a spring cleanse, but make sure to include bitter vegetables in your kitchari. Try Kitchari with Burdock and Winter Squash. Burdock root has the bitter and astringent tastes recommended for the spring season, but it also has some sweetness because of its content of prebiotic inulin. It is a good blood purifier and liver tonic and is used in our pharmacy because of its anticancer and lymph cleansing actions. You could also try Kitchari for Kidney Health, which features astringent adzuki beans as well as burdock root.

If you haven’t yet tried bitter melon, also known as bitter gourd, pick some up at your local Indian or Asian market. Bitter gourd balances blood sugar, cleanses the blood, and helps get rid of the excess kapha that plagues us at this time of year. Try Bengali-Style Bitter Gourd Dal, which is quite easy to make. It also features lauki, another vegetable your local Indian grocery will have. Lauki adds the astringent taste, making this a perfect spring dish.

You could also try a Kashmiri dish; Okra and Bitter Gourd Sabji. Both of these vegetables are antidiabetic and balance blood sugar.

Bitter greens are in season now; so enjoy plenty of turnip greens, mustard greens, kale and collard. Offering the bitter, astringent and pungent tastes, mustard greens are ideal for the season and so is daikon. Enjoy a simple Nepali recipe made with daikon and either the daikon tops or mustard greens. Blackeye peas, like other legumes, provide the astringent taste, so you could also try Mustard Greens and Blackeye Pea Soup.

Salads made with tender spring greens are another way to enjoy the astringent taste. You can also sprout mung beans or fenugreek seeds to add a vibrant touch of astringency to your meals.

Ginger is our favourite source of the kapha-soothing pungent taste. Start your day with fresh ginger tea for vata or pitta, dry ginger tea for kapha. Season your spring recipes with plenty of ginger. You can also make turmeric pickle, which combines the benefits of ginger, turmeric and fenugreek.

Some special foods recommended at this season include roasted meat, barley, and crystallized honey You can mix honey into your hot water in the morning. And as mangoes come into season, enjoy mango juice seasoned with cardamon.

As you switch over from a heavy winter diet predominant in the vata-soothing tastes, sweet, sour and salty, to a lighter, kapha-soothing spring diet, be careful not to change too suddenly. Take a couple of weeks for a gradual diet transition or you might get indigestion, especially as you add back salads and sprouts.

January 30, 2022

Sex after Sixty: Part 2, Men

January 30, 2022/ Alandi Ashram

Today, on the run up to Valentine’s Day, our topic is Sex after Sixty. I thought that was a catchy title. But as we’ve mentioned before, changes in our sexuality often begin in midlife. So, we could actually title this ‘sex after fifty.’ This topic is worthy of a book, but for now, this is the second of two short articles. Last week we had a focus on women, this week on men.

Some time in their forties, many men may begin to notice changes in sexual functioning. It may become harder to get and keep an erection. Erections may not happen spontaneously and may require more physical stimulation. By your fifties, morning erections may become infrequent and libido may not be as strong as it used to be. And once you get into your sixties and seventies, it may be quite difficult to get an erection at all, and sexual desire may be low. For most, though by no means all, men in this age group, morning erections are now a thing of the past.

Several factors may contribute to this decline in sexual functioning. For good erections, you need a good penile blood supply, a well-functioning parasympathetic nervous system and good levels of testosterone. Being overweight or obese, especially if you have a big belly, plays a part in diminishing sexual functioning. There is a cascade of hormonal alterations that accompany obesity, including lowered testosterone. Lowered penile blood flow is also seen in obesity, for a variety of complex reasons. If you have diabetes, neuropathy may contribute to erectile dysfunction, and there may also be damage to the small blood vessels that supply your penis.

But the sexual changes of age are not all about gloom and doom, nor is erectile dysfunction inevitable. Celebrate your new ability to slow down, to be receptive, to take the time to make sure your partner is pleasured. Sex after sixty is certainly quite different from sex at twenty-five, but there is much to appreciate in your greater maturity.

Here are five ways you can support your sexual functioning in your elder years.

First, because your sexual functioning is complex and involves a healthy vascular system and good neuroendocrine health, it’s crucial to make sure you have a healthy lifestyle. Having a good exercise plan is vital, both while you are still working and after retirement. Include a variety of different types of exercise—walking, hiking, biking, dancing, yoga, Chi Gung, as well as any sports you like to play. Exercise is supposed to be enjoyable, not a punishment! And for your hormonal balance, you also need good sleep and some times of relaxation throughout the day. Make sure you have a heart-healthy diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds and olive oil. By including Ayurvedic foods like kichari in your diet, you get the benefit of special herbs like turmeric, cumin and cinnamon to support the health of your blood vessels and hormones.

Secondly, you can’t take sex for granted the way you could when you were young. Take the time to explore and enquire, learning more about the full richness of erotic life that you might have missed out on in your youthful eagerness. There are many great resources but I’ll mention a couple of books: The Multi-Orgasmic Man: Sexual Secrets Every Man Should Know, and The Art of Sexual Ecstasy: The path of sacred sexuality for western lovers by Margo Anand.

Thirdly, sex is an art, and just like any other art, it requires practice. Just as you need to practice scales to play music, you need a daily practice to support your sexual functioning. If you have a sedentary job or lifestyle, your PC muscles may be weak. Be sure to do thirty Kegels a day to maintain PC muscle strength, which helps you have control over your orgasm. And add the Taoist exercise Male Deer to your daily sexual energy practice as well. By delving into the books I’ve suggested, you’ll learn other practices you can add on a daily or weekly basis.

Fourthly, be mindful of your prostate health. By now you may have noticed lower urinary tract symptoms such as getting up at night to urinate, urinating more frequently than you used to, or having to rush to the toilet. These are typically symptoms of an enlarged prostate, which is usually benign but can sometimes be cancerous. Be sure to see a doctor to look into lower urinary tract symptoms and make sure there is nothing of concern. You can also see an Ayurvedic doctor for herbs to support prostate health. On a self-care basis, your Kegel exercises and Male Deer are beneficial for your prostate. To take it a step further, we recommend a weekly prostate massage with castor oil. Using a rubber glove or latex finger cot, lubricate around your anus with castor oil, then insert your gloved finger into your anus, reach up to where you feel the smooth bulge of your prostate, and massage it gently with castor oil.

Fifth, safe sex is still important, even when you are older. STIs are a significant problem among the elderly population. If you are dating or change partners, you need to use a condom to protect yourself and your partner from sexually transmitted diseases such as genital herpes, chlamydia, gonorrhea, genital warts, hepatitis B, syphilis, and HIV. It may seem intimidating to use a condom when you have concerns about your erection, but it is still essential. Maintain stimulation while rolling on the condom, or make it a part of foreplay, by asking your partner to help you.

An Ayurvedic doctor may be very helpful if you have concerns about sexual functioning. There is a whole branch of Ayurveda, vajikarana, devoted to supporting the sexual health and potency of older men. Next week, we’ll take a peek at those teachings, discussing special aphrodisiac foods that can help boost your libido and improve your sexual functioning.

January 24, 2022

Sex after Sixty: Part 1, Women

January 24, 2022/ Alandi Ashram

This topic is worthy of a book, but for now we’ll do two short articles, this week with a focus on women and next week on men.

While it’s not an absolute rule, many women begin to notice issues with libido and sexuality from menopause on. A number of factors contribute to this. First, general health. If there are problems with low thyroid, blood sugar issues, poor sleep, stress, or lack of energy, this may well lead to low libido. Weight gain may make a woman unsure of her attractiveness, while back or hip problems may complicate the choice of sexual position. Second, of course, menopause itself, and its accompanying hormonal changes, have a dramatic effect on libido and sexual functioning. There may be partner issues as well. Your partner may be having their own concerns with libido and sexual functioning, leading to a falling away of sexual contact. Or you may not have a partner, leading to sporadic sexual encounters, which further complicates things.

Yet it’s by no means all gloom and doom. As an older woman, you have had time to mature sexually, to overcome shyness and inhibitions and to heal from sexual trauma. In many ways, your sixties could be your sexual prime, with no concerns about pregnancy or fertility, and with deeper levels of self-knowledge. And if you are in a long-term marriage or partnership, you’ve had time to mature together. Sex after sixty can unfold in wonderful ways in the context of a loving life-partnership. That being said, it’s important in a long-term relationship to avoid sameness and staleness in your sexual life by continuing to explore and develop. But that is a topic for another day!

Because libido problems may result from general health issues, it’s important to see an Ayurvedic Doctor for a pulse check and to get recommendations for your overall health, as well as getting a checkup with your doctor. If chronic stress is depleting you, look at how you can reorganize your life to allow more time for rest, relaxation and self-care. Meanwhile, here are a few tips for working with your sexuality during menopause and your post-menopausal years.

First, you can’t take your readiness for sexual activity for granted the way you could when you were twenty-five. This is especially true if you don’t have a regular sexual partner, or if you and your partner are only sexually active sporadically. ‘Use it or lose it’ is a great motto. If you aren’t having a weekly sexual encounter, you need to be sure to do weekly practices on your own. Your PC muscles will become lax and your vagina thinned and contracted if you don’t stay in practice. As we’ve mentioned before, do thirty Kegels a day to keep your PC muscles in shape. This will help with other post-menopausal issues like stress incontinence as well. And have a regular practice of cultivating your sexual energy. I generally like to recommend the Jade Egg practices as taught by Saida Desilets. You can purchase her ‘Jade Egg Essentials,’ which includes the egg itself, a book that explains how to use the Egg and a CD that talks you through the practice. (I’m not getting commission on this; just sharing something I have found helpful.) One could do Jade Egg daily, but twice a week is a good minimum. This practice will help to keep your vagina supple and improve the blood supply to your yoni.

If you want to continue having vaginal sex with a male partner, it’s helpful to use a penis-sized object vaginally on a weekly basis. Of course, that could be a vibrator or a dildo. But why not use something that has inherent healing properties and is full of antioxidants? In the Taoist White Tigress tradition of sexual health, a cucumber yoni cleanse is performed weekly to maintain a clean, fresh-smelling yoni and healthy vaginal microbiome. The part of the cucumber to be inserted vaginally is peeled to allow the healing juices to seep into the vagina, while the lower part is left unpeeled to serve as a handle.

Vaginal dryness is a major issue for most post-menopausal women. It’s important to nourish the vagina to help encourage the needed juiciness. This can be done by applying a medicated ghee, Shatavari Ghee, vaginally each night. You can also eat a teaspoon of Shatavari Ghee each day, to support libido and sexual functioning. Another product that can help vaginal lubrication is Bezwecken DHEA Ovals, which are inserted twice a week. Be sure to use the plain DHEA ovals that are estrogen and progesterone-free. One could use the DHEA ovals twice a week and Shatavari ghee the rest of the time. Shatavari ghee is also a good sexual lubricant.

If you don’t have a long-term partner and are dating, it’s important to practice safe sex. This means that, even though pregnancy is no longer a concern, a condom is still needed. Your thinner vaginal wall means that you are more susceptible to contracting STIs such as gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia and HIV. Of course, don’t use shatavari ghee or any oil-based lubricant with a latex condom.

In a subsequent article, we’ll talk about aphrodisiac foods that can help boost your libido. For now, remember that a good lifestyle, healthy, balanced diet, good sleep and sufficient exercise are as important for your sexual health as for your overall longevity.

I hope this helps you to enjoy your elder years as a special type of sexual prime.

December 05, 2021

Winter Tips—changing tastes as the seasons change

December 05, 2021/ Alandi Ashram

In dinacharya, we make use of the tastes most appropriate for our prakriti or body type, while in ritucharya, we adjust the tastes in our diet for the changing seasons.

We’re now in Hemanta, the cold season, which just started with the new moon, a couple of days ago. Hemanta is paired with Shishira, the season of snow, to make up the four-month winter season. So, between now and March, we’ll be dealing with winter routines. This is the time of year when people have the maximum strength and their digestion is also at its strongest.

The sweet taste is predominant in Hemanta. It’s a time when the elements of earth and water predominate. Pitta dosha, which has been building up throughout the hot time of year, finally calms down, but vata tends to get disturbed. This is a time when it’s important to focus on the vata-soothing tastes, sweet, sour and salty. As we mentioned in our previous piece, we can also increase our oil intake at this time. Switch from cooling drinks to warm beverages like tulsi tea, fresh ginger tea, lemon balm tea and saffron milk. You can make kichari with added sweet potatoes or winter squash for the sweet taste, have mung dal seasoned with lemon for a touch of sourness, enjoy fruit chutneys, with their sweet and sour tastes. Have desserts such as carrot halvah, sweet potato khir and almond and rice dessert with pomegranate seeds. Since wheat is recommended at this time, bake an apple pie or apple crumble or celebrate with a warming lasagna.

In the second half of winter, Shishira, the snowy season, the bitter taste becomes predominant. Instead of the darkening days of Hemanta, we see the days lengthening in the Northern hemisphere, as the sun embarks on its northerly journey. It’s time to double down on our heavier winter diet with sweet, sour and salty tastes. This is the time to relish winter citrus fruits like orange, blood orange, kumquat, clementine and tangerine, all of which offer a blend of sweet and sour tastes ideal for the season, along with immune-boosting vitamin C. Make nurturing root vegetable soups with beets and carrots, both rich in the sweet taste. Use warming herbs and spices like bay leaves, garlic, rosemary and cinnamon.

In shishira, we also want to add in some special foods for this season. Sesame is recommended at this time of year, so it’s a good time to enjoy sesame treats. Ayurveda highly recommends garlic as a winter tonic—in fact there is a whole chapter in one of the texts, Kashyapa Samhita, explaining how to do a special rejuvenative practice that involves eating huge amounts of garlic and sipping medicinal wines. In our current lifestyles, I don’t recommend garlic in massive amounts, but it’s definitely a good winter food. You could add garlic-ginger paste as a seasoning or try some garlic chutney. If you have winter aches and pains or are not sleeping well, try garlic milk at bedtime. Mix 1 cup milk, ¼ cup water and 1 clove chopped garlic, and boil down to 1 cup.

And ginger, known as the universal medicine, is also a great thing to increase in the depths of winter. Start your day with a warming cup of ginger tea or tulsi-ginger tea.

While many of us may dislike winter or prefer other seasons that are warmer, each season has its own beauty and unique enjoyments. I hope these tips help you have a great winter!