By Mr. Mohamad Yusuf N Shaikh, Founder Kudrati Ayurved Health Center
As per the ancient Ayurvedic texts, strong immunity (or ojas) is the one of the essential most elements for a healthy living of a human being. It protects and sustains the body from all the harmful medical conditions but maintaining ideal levels of ojas or immunity is not that easy and comes from a consistent and balanced healthy lifestyle. Here is a list of five key ayurvedic practices that help in boosting up and maintaining good immunity levels in the human body all year round.
- Getting wise with the food intake
There can be some ingredients that remain similar in every season’s balanced diet but none of the edibles suit the conditions of every season. While cooling crudites and fluids are perfect for the summer; warming, protein-rich elements are the must-have for vata (winter) season. Freshly cooked vegetables are easier for the body to digest and assimilate than the junk foods. Minimize the stress and support easy digestion by consuming lightly cooked food instead of the high-calorie diets. Even replace the habit of munching on snack junks with healthier options like sprouts, fruits salads or soups. Five meals a day with 2 small ones and 3 heavy but healthy ones will power you up with the immunity to bear the heavy brunt of the everyday schedules without many struggles. A balanced diet with proper protein, carbs, fat, minerals and seasonal nutrition can be icing on the cake to maintain good immunity.
2. Maintaining regular workout routines
Urbanisation in the world has gifted us a new disease- Stress. Most of the people who are working in the metropolitan are dealing with this issue. Most people switch to bad habits of smoking and drinking to distress themselves. One of the fruitful habits to avoid stress is regular exercise or yoga and meditation. Physical Workout stimulates chemicals in the brain that helps you to relax and improves your moral. Exercise doesn’t mean you have to buy a gym membership and you can only workout in a gym, simple running and exercise at the home for 30 minutes can be helpful for leading a healthy lifestyle.
3. Managing the stress with meditation therapies
Increasing stress issue amongst urbanites has directly or indirectly pushed the people to get into the bad habits of smoking and drinking to distress themselves. But instead of relieving the stress they further push them in the trench of severe health problems. On the other side, meditation therapies heal the aching stress pain in a healthy way. Several research works across the world have suggested mindfulness meditation as the best therapy to reduce stress thereby enhancing immune as well as cognitive functions of the body. The key areas that are benefitted the most with meditation include attention regulation, body awareness, emotion regulation, and sense of self. Together, these help us to deal with the effects of stress. This brings better awareness in your mind regarding a healthy self and will help you in better deciding the true and healthy needs of your system, whether it includes having scheduled sleep, timely and healthy diets or sitting time at the computer.
- Distancing oneself from the toxins
The heavy pollutants in the environment has already led to a serious pile-up of many toxic bodies inside our system and further piling it up with toxins (from drinking alcohol and smoking) and toxic anti-nutrients (in grains, beans, peanuts, soy and too much of vegetable oils) can lead to immense destruction of the intestinal lining. Instead try going on an alkaline diet with lots of fruits, nuts, legumes and vegetables in it, this will power up the body’s ability to detoxify the preoccupied toxins from the environmental chaos.
- Prioritizing balanced sleep
Ideal sleep routines in terms of Ayurveda includes going to bed early in the night and waking up in the early morning hours before sunrise. This would not just give you immense time to work upon yourself but will also help in stimulating your body’s cleansing systems. Simple body movements before sunrise like a small walk or Pranayam would keep you active all through the day by keeping aside all the lazy, sleepy vibes. Working all day with no or untimely rest routines won’t let the body synthesize the nutrients well even with the best of food getting into it and this would severely hamper the immune. With a hampered immune system you won’t achieve much success in your life due to frequent health issues so it’s advised to better be careful about the same from the beginning instead of regretting later on.