Having been a yogi for a number of years now, it is only natural I get exposed to yoga’s syblings, for example meditation, pranayama, and shatkarmas to name a few. But more and more, a certain sister has been trying to win my attention – and I think it finally won: Ayurveda.

As quoted from an ezine article:

Ayurveda and yoga are sister sciences that have been united for thousands of years for the sake of healing body, mind, and consciousness. Generally speaking, Ayurveda deals more with the health of the body, while yoga deals with purifying the mind and consciousness, but in reality they complement and embrace each other.

Ayurveda is a sanskrit word that means “science of life” and deals with the subtle energies of all things – not just living and the non-living, but thoughts, emotions, and actions as well. At the heart of Ayurveda, there are three fundamental and vital energies, or doshas, that regulate the body, govern its proper functioning and determine its unique constitution. They are: vata (air), pitta (fire), and kapha (water).

There are many online quizzes to find out what dosha you are – and I’m not going to lie, they are fun to take – but the results are not meant to be replaced by the assessment of an Ayurvedic specialist. Reasons being include  you may answer the quizzes based on what is going on in your life right now, but these patterns or habits do not necessarily make up your true constitution. Also, things that may not seem to matter to us present day (like past relationships or events in our childhood) may have made its imprint on your cells without you knowing it, and thus influencing your health in some way that an online dosha quiz may not be able to tell you.

After many years of being mildly drawn to Ayurveda, I finally went to see Anita Sharma,  Montreal Ayurvedic specialist for at least 19 years (www.ayurvedamtl.com) because a good friend of mine, Jennifer Horvath, swears by Ayurveda.

Am I ever happy I went.

Every client begins with a consultation with Anita, and the consultation can last anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. You begin by filling out a questionnaire about the doshas, and then Anita comes in and basically spends the remainder of the time assessing you, based on answers to questions she asks, and by taking your pulse, looking at your tongue and your eye.

Within the first few minutes of meeting, she was able to assess that I was deficient in iron and B12 (a result of not eating meat  for three years, four years ago), had a misaligned vertebrae in my cervical spine (from looking at my tongue), and had the premature signs of liver issues due to resentment or anger being harbored there.

After talking further, she gave me names of supplements I should take to balance out my iron and B12, recipes to drinks I should make to give me energy, a list of Ayurvedic services that will help me get back on track, and other do’s and don’ts to optimize my health.

When I left there, I was a bit taken aback, having been overloaded with so much information. But what most caught me by surprise was being deficient in iron and B12. I never would have thought that something I had done a few years ago in order to be more healthy (not eat meat) would actually backfire and I would have to pay for it years later. On top of that, I am a healthy person for the most part – athletic, aware of my body, conscious eater – and I would not have guessed that a “healthy” person would be deficient in anything.

According to Ayurveda, there are six stages to disease and an imbalance of the doshas lies behind all illness. The longer the illnesses are ignored, the more serious they become. Knowing this (from having read  “The Book of Ayurveda” by Judith H. Morrison) made me think “If I am iron and B12 deificient at 28 years old, it would only result in anemia in about a decade, and who knows what else in 20 years.”

All this to say, making the effort to get checked now is worth it. No matter how much you think you may not need it, there is almost always something we are overlooking. We will be thanking ourselves for having done so in our retirement, when we will be strong and healthy well into our 70′s and 80′s.

For info on Anita Sharma visit www.ayurvedamtl.com or call 514-369-3561.

For info on some Ayurvedic services visit www.spazazen.com or call 514-287-1772.