These are truly stressful times we live in. Body, mind, heart and spirit are all subjected to the ravages of day-to-day stress. Worries about security, economic difficulties, emotional trauma-stressors like these can take a toll on health and longevity if not addressed in a timely fashion.

To be effective in treating stress, it's important to be specific. With the Maharishi Ayurveda approach, we always try to target the etiological (causal) factors and then bring that area into balance. But we are careful not to create imbalance in other areas that may produce negative side effects.

There are three different manifestations of day-to-day stress from the perspective of Maharishi Ayurveda - mental, emotional, and physical. Each requires different approaches and therapies.

Mental Stress

Mental stress, according to ayurveda, is caused by an overuse or misuse of the mind. For instance, if you perform intense mental work many hours a day, or if you work long hours on the computer, it can cause an imbalance in Prana Vata, the mind-body operator concerned with brain activity, energy and the mind. The first symptom of Prana Vata imbalance is losing the ability to handle day-to-day stress. As the person becomes more stressed, it impacts mental functions such as dhi, dhriti, and smriti-acquisition, retention, and recall. The person's mind becomes hyperactive, yet the person loses the ability to make clear decisions, to think positively, to feel enthusiastic, and even to fall asleep at night.

To address day-to-day mental stress, it is important to begin by managing mental activity. Secondly, you can take measures to pacify Prana Vata, for example, by:

• Favouring Vata-balancing foods, such as sweet, sour, and salty tastes.
• Favouring warm milk and other light dairy products
• Performing a full-body warm oil self-massage everyday

It is important to get plenty of rest, and if you are having trouble falling sleep, avoid stimulants like caffeine and sip on herbal tea instead. Relaxing aromatherapy and meditation can help calm the mind.

Emotional Stress

Emotional stress can be caused by a problem in a relationship, the loss of a relative, or any situation that might hurt the heart. Emotional stress shows up as irritability, depression, and emotional instability. It affects sleep in a different way than mental stress - it can cause you to wake up in the night and not be able to go back to sleep.

Emotional stress disturbs Sadhaka Pitta, the mind-body operator concerned with the emotions and functioning of the heart. To balance emotional stress, you need to favour Pitta-pacifying foods and routine, such as:

• Eating lots of sweet juicy fruits
• Favouring Pitta-pacifying foods such as the sweet, bitter and astringent tastes.
• Drinking a cup of warm milk with cooling rose petal preserve before bed
• Cooking with cooling spices such as cardamom, coriander, cilantro, and mint
• A daily self-massage with a cooling oil such as coconut oil
• Going to bed before 10:00 p.m.

Physical Stress

Physical stress is caused by misuse or overuse of the body, such as exercising too much or working for extended periods at a job that is physically taxing. This can cause a person to experience physical fatigue, along with mental fogginess, difficulty in concentrating, and dullness of the mind.

Excessive physical strain causes three sub-doshas to go out of balance: Shleshaka Kapha, the subdosha concerned with lubrication of the joints and moisture balance in the skin, Vyana Vata, which governs the circulation, nerve impulses and the sense of touch, and Tarpaka Kapha, which governs the neuro humours.

Another reason for physical stress can be too little exercise, which results in a sluggish digestion and the formation of ama, the digestive impurities that clog the channels. In either type of physical fatigue, the process of regenerating cells slows down, and thus the cells themselves become physically tired.

The solution is to balance Vata and to support Kapha to make the body more stable and nurturing, for example, by:

• Getting adequate rest and moderate exercise
• Following a Vata-Kapha pacifying diet
• Performing the full-body warm oil self massage everyday

Certain foods are natural stress busters according to ayurveda. These include walnuts, almonds, coconut, sweet juicy, seasonal fruit such as pears, apples (cooked if possible), milk, and fresh cheeses such as panir or ricotta.

On the other hand, if you build your resilience to stress through natural methods, you can begin to experience stressors more as a challenge or a positive opportunity for growth. If you learn to evoke the 'stay and play' rather than the 'fight or flight' response, you can truly live a stress-free life of self-actualization, and become a 'spiritual being' in human form.

Note: Vata, Pitta and Kapha are the three psycho-physiological ayurvedic principles that govern all the activities of the mind and body. A person enjoys perfect health if these principles are in perfect balance.
 

Candida albicans is a yeast-like fungus that lives in the mouth and throat, the intestinal tract and the genital tract. Normally, the population of candida is in healthy balance with other intestinal flora. However, sometimes its population explodes because of various factors such as an improper diet, bursts of intense stress or ongoing low-grade stress that isn’t managed effectively combined with poor sleep/exercise routines or antibiotics or oral contraceptives—any dietary or lifestyle imbalances that compromise natural immunity can result in the yeast bacteria getting out of control and escaping the bounds of its normal abodes to other parts of the body.

An out-of-control population of the yeast bacteria has been linked to a multitude of seemingly unrelated symptoms, including abdominal bloating and gas, coated tongue, nausea, fatigue, respiratory system imbalance, frequent UTI, genital area infections, skin problems, spaciness and inability to focus and emotional imbalance. If left uncorrected, the different systems of the body become sluggish and ama-clogged, creating an even more favorable environment for the growth of the yeast fungi and setting up a vicious cycle of poor health.

Ayurvedic healers recommend a holistic approach to restoring balance that includes diet, lifestyle recommendations and herbs and spices. It takes patience, discipline and a full commitment to one’s health to restore balance and stay in balance, but the results are well worth the effort.

If you are pregnant or lactating, or experiencing mental, emotional or physical symptoms, it is best to consult a physician who can recommend an individual program for balance after an assessment. Here are some suggestions for restoring balance:

Dietary dos and don’ts:

First, what you should stay away from:

1. Avoid sweet, heavy, cold foods. Sugars create an environment that facilitates the growth of yeast bacteria. Sweet, heavy, cold foods overtax an already weakened digestive system and create mote internal toxins. Fruit juices and very sweet fruits such as grapes should also be avoided.

    

2. Avoid leftovers. Even if refrigerated, leftovers are conducive to growth of mold and bacteria, and they are harder to digest than fresh foods, prepared fresh and eaten immediately.

    

3. Avoid caffeine, nicotine, alcohol and carbonated beverages.

    

4. Avoid processed and junk foods and refined flours. Reduce white rice.

    

5. Avoid yeasted breads and pastas, aged cheeses, mushrooms and peanuts.

    

6. Avoid fermented foods such as vinegar and products that contain fermented foods as ingredients.

Here are guidelines for what you should include in your daily diet:

1. Eat plenty of vegetables. Include small portions of bitter and pungent vegetables such as bitter greens, bitter gourd, tender fenugreek sprouts and daikon radish in combination with tridoshic vegetables such as zucchini, loki squash, asparagus, carrot, green beans and tender greens. Avoid or minimize nightshades, which tend to clog the channels of the body, except for small amounts of cayenne if you can tolerate it, used in combination with other spices and herbs. Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and Brussels sprouts in small quantities, chopped small and cooked with digestion-enhancing spices are also helpful. Ayurvedic healers recommend briefly steam-cooking vegetables, covered, rather than eating them raw, to improve digestibility.

    

2. Start the day with the hot lemon treatment. Squeeze the juice of a medium-sized lemon into a cup of hot water and drink it first thing in the morning. The acidic nature and antibacterial properties of lemon help discourage yeast proliferation, and the hot drink helps regularity, which is crucial to keep the digestive system free of toxin build-up.

    

3. A blend of equal parts of lemon juice and olive oil can be used as a dressing on vegetables for enhanced digestion and support for the liver. About a tablespoon of a blend of fresh ginger juice, lemon and a little rock salt taken a half-hour before a meal aids digestion.

    

4. Fresh fruit can be healthy sources of the sweet taste. Once balance is restored, one helping of dosha-appropriate fruit can be eaten during the day. Fruits that contain an element of the bitter, such as grapefruit or papaya, are excellent choices. Pomegranate helps enhance digestion. Avoid melons and extremely sweet fruit such as grapes.

    

5. Whole grains and small dhals (beans) offer sustenance and fiber. Reduce the intake of white rice. Choose instead from oats and oatmeal, buckwheat, quinoa, amaranth, barley and rye. Whole-wheat flatbreads, especially with some psyllium added to the dough, enhance the elimination of wastes from the digestive tract. Mung dhal is easier to digest than larger beans, especially when cooked with herbs and spices, while being nutritious. Try khicharee, a one-dish meal made with mung dhal, vegetables and either brown rice or cracked wheat.

    

6. Drink a tall glass of digestive lassi each day at lunch. Digestive lassi is made by blending fresh plain yogurt (with active cultures) with pure water and digestion-enhancing herbs and spices. Ayurvedic healers highly recommend lassi as a way of replenishing healthy intestinal flora without clogging the channels of the body. Try fresh ginger root, rock salt, dry-roasted and ground cumin, fresh cilantro and organic rosehips in a blend of 40% yogurt and 60% pure water. Lassi and/or yogurt should not be consumed after sundown.

    

7. Cook with spices that enhance digestion and fight toxins. Turmeric, black pepper, dried ginger, cumin, cinnamon and fenugreek are good choices. Spices should be eaten cooked, not raw. Either sauté them in a small amount of ghee or olive oil and add to dishes or add during the last 10 minutes of the cooking process. Black pepper, when eaten cooked, is a bio-availability enhancer.

    

8. Cook some dishes in small amounts of coconut oil or a blend of coconut oil and ghee or olive oil. Coconut oil has antibacterial and anti-fungal properties.

    

9. Drink lots of warm water. Regular intake of warm water through the day can help flush toxins out regularly through the urine and perspiration and make it difficult for harmful bacteria or yeast to sit around and breed.

Ayurvedic healers recommend really paying attention to what specific foods do for your body and making dietary choices that help the most for you as an individual. A wide variety of healthy food choices is available and you can pick the ones that you enjoy and that work for your physiology. Keeping a food journal may be helpful, to help track what you are eating and to hone in on the foods that work the best for you. To stick to healthy eating patterns, your diet has to be enjoyable and appealing.