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January. Grail of Ayurveda

Have you ever noticed what impact the waking time has on your day, productivity, energy, and mood? How FOOD pushes you into a certain mood, self-esteem, cheerfulness, and observation, and sometimes it works the other way and acts as a sleeping pill. Have you ever contemplated the reason?

Here is my experience. I do not remember when I heard about Ayurveda first, as it was quite a long time ago. I was a child when I found a book in my home library and read it, however, I did not understand anything. Years after, I started doing yoga, attended yoga festivals; I realized that somewhere in this science lies the «Holy Grail» — obvious yet priceless knowledge that was long forgotten. Perhaps the time has come for me, as the answer came by itself from video bloggers, Vladimir Drevs being one of them.

What did I take from this? I understood the principle «nature equals man». I will explain my thoughts below, and tell you what doshas are, giving a simple table that hangs on the wall in my house to remind me of the universe’s laws. I say right away that there is neither religion nor esoterics, but thousand-year knowledge, coming down to our days. As this science has come down to us through the centuries without losing its relevance, it means that it has stood the test of time and became antifragile, in contrast to the constantly changing methods of traditional medicine.

So, let’s go my friends!

Your day is life in miniature.

Robin Sharma

Ayurveda (from Sanskrit «ayu» and «veda» — «knowledge of life» and «science of life» / «knowledge of life expectancy») is the traditional system of Indian medicine. Ayurveda bases on the connection between mind and body.

Man is like nature. If we consider God as the energy of nature, then everything present in nature also exists in man. All nature’s qualities and manifestations exist in man and show up the same way. Therefore, everything happening around us affects us greatly. Being ignorant to it can be a big mistake, as we are a part of nature, an inherent part of it. Being in balance with nature means being healthy and feeling content. By resenting, we create an imbalance that results in illnesses and premature death.

Ayurveda teaches that everything in nature consists of five elements.

Ether, or space where is everything that exists.

Air is the driving part of all types of energy.

Fire is energy, heat, transforming everything in nature.

Water is a connecting substance that conveys information.

Earth gives structure to everything in nature.

These five elements are present in all three traditions of Tibetan, Indian, and Chinese medicine. Ayurveda combines these five elements into three main elements:

— the element of the wind: Vata,

— the element of fire: Pitta,

— the element of phlegm: Kapha.

All these three elements are called doshas: Vata dosha, Pitta dosha, Kapha dosha. Dosha creates the body, supports and nourishes it, and at the same time, it is what destroys the body. The body is born out of these elements and the body dies from them. If these elements are maintained with balance, then the human body functions for a long time and remains healthy.

There are two types of Ayurvedic constitution: Prakriti and Vikriti.

Prakriti is a set of elements that are formed at birth, the genetic information that is embedded in our DNA (in the Otzhis, in the language of Ayurveda) and determines the main traits of a person such as height, eye color, hair color, tendencies in behavior, nutrition, and professions. Through time and self-development -depending on the environment, climate, upbringing, daily routine, nutrition, or as a consequence of these — the ratio of the elements can change. This can result in imbalance, and a person begins to deviate from Prakriti towards Vikriti — an abnormal state, which leads to illness. That is, the whole reason is a deviation from their individual constitution.

In fact, in order to be healthy and happy, a person just needs to adhere to his or her Prakriti. The tradition of Ayurveda and Tibetan medicine is based on this.

Here’s a simple example to determine your current state. According to these three Doshas, the human body completes its formation at 21 years old for women and at 24 for men. The way you are by this age (if there were no serious injuries or operations): your weight, physique, skin color, energy level, and appetite envisioned to be your perfect condition. Anything less or more is an excess or lack of dosha — something that at this stage destroys the body. Based on this, you can influence this situation, restore balance, and bring the body into a state of harmony and comfort.

Today, we are greatly influenced by the environment; as the modern speed of life, hustle, huge amount of information, all kinds of radiation, stress, poor sleep, smoking, alcohol, food quality, fast food and much more did not exist a hundred years ago.

Doshas influence us constantly as they change every four hours, throughout 24 hours a day. Every four hours, one dosha prevails and affects the general condition. In other words, there are times of vata, pitta and kapha, both during the day and night. Understanding this allows you to choose activities, food, which maintains the dominant energy in and around you at this time.

Why do we need that? You will feel the answer to this question yourself. I will say this: do not blame me, but continue to live the same life, not keeping proper hours, diet, succumbing to laziness, lust, going on about habits and whims — this is living in ignorance, shifting responsibility for the quality of your life to everyone except yourself.

I do not want to overshare the theoretical part.

How do I apply this in my life?

First, I drew this table in A3 format for myself and hung it on the wall.

Second, I keep a regular sleeping schedule. Of course, this does not always work, but, in most cases, sleep from 10 p.m. to 6 am replenishes our strength perfectly, as the body produces sleep hormone melatonin from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., and these hours are especially important for the body recovery.

Third, I do not eat until 10 a.m. at all, and my last meal is before 6 p.m. Thus, I start the autophagy process. (For the discovery of this process, the scientist received a Nobel Prize, and many who follow a healthy lifestyle and proper nutrition are now aware of this nutrition system).

Fourth, I start my day with articular gymnastics — this is a minimal set of exercises to wake up the body and start self-cleaning processes. There is also a contrast shower and two glasses of pure water with lemon or turmeric.

Fifth, I replenish my knowledge, listen to lectures, read books, attend yoga festivals, listen to different opinions, and analyze the results of people. Most importantly, I compare the person I feel I am today with the person I was yesterday. I truly feel my body and mind, and, thus, I see the full picture and evaluate the result.

Stay healthy!

February. Meditation

Everybody heard this word. However, does anyone understand the importance and benefits of this regular practice? Meditation is a free tool that you can use anytime, anywhere, and can lengthen your life. A true miracle, isn’t it?

People have used meditation in their lives for thousands of years, with their soul and body benefiting from it, even though they could not justify it scientifically. When I started studying this topic about five years ago, I was also skeptical, to be honest. As I am a woman of action, and I thought that meditation was just sitting around and doing nothing, I did not need it, and that it was only fiction.

Today, however, I have changed my attitude toward meditation radically. Even now, I find meditation difficult, since I still lack enough discipline for it and it is challenging for me to concentrate. After hundreds of failed attempts, I came up with my own meditation formula. More on this is below.

Do today what others do not want,

and tomorrow you will live like others cannot.

Jared Leto

How does meditation slow down the aging process of our body?

Elizabeth Blackburn answered this question when in 2009, at the age of 61, received the Nobel Prize for the discovery of telomeres and the telomerase process.

According to the study, there is a certain «counter», which measures the life of a cell. It is called a telomere and it is a protective formation at the ends of chromosomes, which are shortened with each cell division. In simple words, the longer the telomeres in cells, the greater the potential for health and longevity.

You may find a detailed article on this discovery on the BBC website.

Since then, dozens of scientific studies have been conducted on this topic in the United States, and you can view them on the NCCIH website.

I love listening to motivational videos on YouTube, especially TED. I think you do, too. You can notice most speakers use meditation one way or another in their lives.

There are many types of meditation for all tastes.

For example, concentration, open attention, presence of light, Zen meditation, vipassana, mindfulness meditation, mantra meditation, transcendental meditation, yogic meditation, chakra meditation, trataka, kundalini meditation, kriya yoga, sound meditation (nada yoga), tantra, pranayama, «I» meditation, Taoist meditations, qigong, contemplative prayer, orthodox prayer on a rosary, dynamic meditation.

This is the way to approach meditation.

How do I do it?

First, I get up early, while everyone is asleep, to enjoy the silence and so that no one distracts me from my morning rituals, one of which is meditation. If the weather allows, and it is warm outside, I ride a bike to a park or forest. Nature is always beneficial for the emotional state. I stop in a beautiful place that I like, sit on grass or a tree, and just fall into a trance, looking at one point.

A lake or sea is also perfect when sunlight reflects on small waves. They are like precious stones falling continuously on water, and I can look at it endlessly.

In the evening or before bed, a candle is soothing. Turn off the light, light a candle, and just stare at the fire. Strange, but it is hypnotic. Thoughts may appear, but mostly they are about how beautiful fire is. Eventually, you will remember the phrase «There are three things you can watch forever: fire, water, and other people working…»

You know, I once took a dance class. I learned to dance salsa and tango. While dancing it is impossible to think about anything rather than dancing, and this is phenomenal! It does not matter at all whether you like your partner as a man or not, here the point is that concentration on your movements reaches the maximum level. An hour or two passes unnoticed, like in a dream. It is very close to dynamic meditation. The role of a woman in pair dances is to surrender to the flow, trust the man, and follow his impulses, not reason or logic.

I am sure that everyone has their own method: someone is comfortable sitting in the lotus position, someone is lying down, someone is chanting mantras. The point of the last one is in SINGING itself! Those who sing professionally or just love to sing in karaoke know how everything around disappears and the soul sings during the time a song lasts.

They say the hardest part is rather simple. The same applies to meditation. On the one hand, all you need is to relax. On the other, how can you relax when so many thoughts occupy your mind?

The most common meditation technique is to feel your breath. It’s as easy as ABC and it works. I also use this method to fall asleep when I have insomnia. It works flawlessly. Let’s take a comfortable position, relax, scan our sensations in the body with our inner gaze. Then we should continue to breathe in our own rhythm, directing all our attention to the breath. Here begins the most difficult part of meditation, the moment we should observe our thoughts. It is important to be just an observer here. You should only think about breathing. As soon as a thought appears in your head, you note it absolutely without judgment, and then direct your attention back to the breath. Thus, you train the attention and mindfulness that will be useful to you in your daily life.

I am pretty sure that we will have a meditation boom in the coming years. After all, we are following the same development path as Western society; only we are a couple of decades late. Meditation will become a mass hobby here, all the newspapers will write about the benefits of meditation, scientists will make one discovery after another, and politicians, celebrities, and athletes will admit on TV that their day does not start without morning meditation. So why don’t we start to benefit from the practice that millions of people around the planet are committed to now?

Drawing a picture is another fine option to relax. Once in Odessa, my friends and I went to a drawing master class in an art workshop. At first, I could not understand how we, not being artists, could draw a real picture in 2—3 hours. We were given canvases, paints, brushes, and we collectively chose one subject for all. The instructor told us what to do step by step, how to mix colors, how to apply an image… You know, when we finished, I felt like those three hours passed in a parallel universe. They seemed to be 10 minutes as this process captures the attention completely, giving full concentration and immersion in the process!

Try it too and I assure you will not regret it.

If you want to use meditation anywhere, anytime, then take the training in transcendental meditation. Its secret is that in any place — for example, in transport, a cafe, on the street, at home, in any conditions, it does not matter whether it is noisy or not — a person can relax and practice meditation.

March. Life-Reconstruction Plan

I was born in March, and this is my favorite month, the beginning of spring, the time of love and fresh starts. Therefore, in this chapter, I will talk about the experience that divided my life into «before» and «after».

In 2015, I underwent personal three-month coaching with Ekaterina Gromakovskaya, and this was an invaluable contribution to my self-development. I have learned how to plan the day, set goals for the year and for life, as well as how to introduce daily rituals, challenges, asceticism, and much more into the daily routine. These practices do not contradict the principle of «here and now» in any way, but on the contrary — they add zest to the every day lived. As a result, each new day becomes intense, resourceful, and productive.

A ritual is any practice that

you perform regularly at a set time and

that you fill with your personal magical meaning

1. Planning

Surely, it is no secret that all successful people schedule their day and their lives. Brian Tracy, world-famous Canadian-American motivational speaker and self-development coach, the author of over eighty books, talks about this in his books and video training.

For half a year, I have been following his recommendations. I started a notebook and every morning, from day to day, I write goals for the year on a new sheet — from 10 to 15 goals, no more. The next day I write again, without looking at the previous entries. Thus, only true goals remain, and the brain finds ways to achieve them independently.

For many years, I have been using the My Time app on my mobile with a simple and user-friendly interface: I write the name of the task, select the time and date, save — and that is it. In the evening, I write tasks for the next day. During the day, when the task is completed, I mark it. Here, I write my daily rituals such as meditation, sports, etc. Below is a screenshot of my application.

Why am I doing this? It saves me time, makes me more disciplined and productive, and reduces my stress levels by making me calm and feeling in control. As a nice bonus, completing tasks activates the production of the «happiness hormones» dopamine and serotonin in my brain.

2. Daily rituals

A ritual is any practice that you perform regularly at a set time and that you fill with your personal magical meaning. Rituals help develop discipline and good habits. However, the main task of the ritual is to fill oneself with love, plunge into a special state of balance and goodness in order to experience this state all day and radiate confidence and love.

I am sure that if you perform the ritual regularly, for 30—90 days, the result will inspire you to go on with this throughout all your life. For example, my morning and evening rituals are meditation, gratitude practice, writing goals for the year, etc. Just imagine how the quality of your life changes if you are in a resourceful state every day. You will attract people as they feel the energy coming from you as a source of light.

In modern world, with its rhythm of life, we are exposed to stress every day, and after the morning rituals, you create an invisible protective aura around you.

In the endless space of the Internet, it is completely useless to try to be better than someone is, it is impossible to be more beautiful or smarter than everyone — there will always be a person smarter and more successful. The only thing we can do is to become the best version of ourselves. Every day we should strive to be better than we were yesterday.

3. Asceticism

Asceticism is a deliberate voluntary deprivation from harmful or unprofitable habits or actions. Even though you feel discomfort, and it is something you resent, but you do it anyway in order for your life to get better, internal energy to accumulate, for the sake of your personal growth, spiritual development, and self-improvement. Nowadays, your attention is the most valuable resource, and everyone wants to get hold of it. Where your attention is, there is your energy and your desires, and where your desires are, there is your money. Asceticism drives you to abstain from unnecessary things and to develop your inner strength.

Inner strength enables you to do something worthwhile. It makes you able to generate ideas, launch them into life and get feedback. This energy fills you and pushes you towards realizing your dreams. It seems that you receive it simply «from nowhere» — only thanks to your inner fire. Otherwise, apathy, laziness, ignorance of what to do next, how to live and in which direction to go, awaits you. Inner strength brings clarity and confidence. It fills with joy and desire to live, you want to move, you want to create and realize yourself.

With asceticism, you generate and accumulate this inner fire you were not aware even. When you abstain, your psyche hardens; when you fast, you burn up future unfavorable events, clean your bad karma. According to the teachings of Ayurveda, asceticism burns away bad karma, and you become the master of your destiny — no more and no less.

An example of austerity: refusal from sugar and white flour, from smoking, fast food, foul language, and television.

I recommend you starting the next month by setting goals

for the month, establishing asceticism practices for yourself,

doing morning rituals, choosing a challenge and

practicing them the best you can for the next 30 days.

4. Challenge

Challenge is a self-provocation to achieve a result or goal. Let us just say it is the opposite of asceticism, the point here is to do and not refrain from doing. It is better to limit the challenge in time so that you calculate the amount of energy required to achieve the goal, make a plan and set a course for the result. If there is no set period, there will always be a reason to start tomorrow, not today.

From the archive of my challenges: I cycled 2018 km in 2018 (it took me 4 months, the video is on my Facebook page), went hungry for 14 and 28 days, took an AFF course and received a skydiver certificate, listened to two courses of English and many more.

The path to the goal is of the most importance here, as it is, in fact, full of colors, overcomes and drive, and the moment of achievement is just a very quick flash of delight, after which you may have a minute of regret that it is an end. Have you ever felt this?

I had training in Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), and even there, goal setting and rigorous measures are included in the curriculum because it strengthens neural circuits, increases our capabilities, resulting in Universe giving us the resources we want.

I recommend you starting the next month by setting goals for the month, establishing asceticism practices for yourself, doing morning rituals, choosing a challenge, and practicing them the best you can for the next 30 days.

And most importantly — do it with pleasure, enjoy the process!

Practical Advice

Planning

First, install the time-management app on your smartphone; there are a lot of them — for example, My time, Motivateo, Evernote. You can use the paper version. I really love beautiful creative notebooks for planning or teaching.

Every evening, I schedule plans for the next day: appointments, events, doctor visits, important events, and friends’ birthdays. During the day, I add new plan items, if any. It is very convenient: as it takes only a couple of minutes a day, but calms the brain.

The secret of success is to declare your

goal to a large audience, make a bet, make a plan and add friends’ support.

Rituals

Everyone is unique and has his\her own preferences and anchors. I know a woman who treats a cup of coffee early in the morning, while the children and husband are sleeping, as a special ritual of unity with herself and her soul. For others, it may be running, yoga, dancing, meditation, walking the dog, reading — whatever gives YOU pleasure, because this is your time for yourself and your desires only.

Your rituals can replace each other over time, and some will stay with you for life.

No time?

Eliminate temptations — these are parasites that steal your time: TV, advertising, «only 10 minutes» in social media, meaningless chat on the phone, talking to unnecessary people, smoking, coffee breaks — you can spend this time on things that are more valuable.

I have seen mothers and fathers in the park doing long jogging with a stroller. Women who used their child as additional weight when doing squats or push-ups.

There is always a solution for any task.

Challenge.

How to motivate yourself and keep it up until the end?

It all depends on your goal, how much it ignites you. However, support is also important. The goal should be only yours, and not imposed by someone, this is important.

Example: «I want to lose 10 kg before the New Year.» It is obvious, boring, and therefore, not motivating. To make it better you can paraphrase, for example, «I want to run a 42 km marathon.» I assure you will definitely lose weight while preparing, and even more — you will improve your health, and get a medal.

In June 2018, I was coaching with Ekaterina Gromakovskaya, and one day we had a Skype call and she gave me the task to go live and record a short video. I really was not into it, I tried to come up with excuses, but after the «magic push», I got on my bike and went for a drive. It was 6—7 a.m., and it was a workday. I chose a location with a beautiful view of the city, turned on the camera and went live on Facebook. I said «Good morning, friends!», I did not know what else could I share, and then it broke out by itself: «I decided to ride 2018 km by the end of the year on a bicycle». After that, I quickly drove back, took a shower and went to work.