Ayurveda

 This is a transcription from Mark's Ancient Wisdom from Modern Health Podcast.
Original PODCAST Available Here (Scroll to Episode #46) 

Mark Bunn: (MB)
Welcome to an absolutely fascinating chat about gut health with one of the world's leading researchers and scientists on this whole area; Dr. Keith Wallace. If you're like me, 30 years ago you probably never spoke the term “gut health”. Today, gut health is spoken about everywhere. Keith is one of the world's premier researchers and scientists in the area of physiology and consciousness. He was the first scientist to show a fourth state of human consciousness in his doctoral dissertation at UCLA.

After being the founding president of the Maharishi International University in Iowa, he's the chair and professor of the Department of Physiology and Health. He also supervises all the PhD programs in physiology at the University. For about the last 50 years, he has traveled the world speaking on all things Maharishi Ayurvedic science, consciousness, and what we're going to talk about a bit today; Ayurvedic medicine.

In addition, he's written and published many books. I remember the first book I ever read of Keith’s, almost 30 years ago, The Physiology of Consciousness; was one of the best books I've ever read. More recent books include Dharma Parenting, Total Brain Coaching, The Coherence Code, and what we're going to talk about today, his book; Gut Crisis.

Microbiome & Gut bacteria

That idea I touched on earlier was when you were a boy and when I was a boy growing up, we'd never heard of these terms: gut health, probiotics, sauerkraut or kefir. If someone had said the word “lactobacillus”, I would have thought it was an Eastern European soccer player. Today you can't go anywhere without someone being gluten free or dairy free, etc. What's your take on this? How have we gone so quickly, within 20 or 30 years, from almost never talking about it to now it being absolutely everywhere?

This is a transcription from Mark's Ancient Wisdom from Modern Health Podcast.
As such it won't read like the written word & pls excuse any typo's or strange translations!
Original PODCAST Available Here (Scroll down to Episode #32) 

One day a father and son go camping. They set up their camp, pitch their tent and get out their sleeping bags. During the night the young boy wakes up and he looks up to the sky and sees all the stars. He wakes his dad up. He says, "Dad, dad, look! what can you see?" And the dad says, "Oh, wow son, yes. I can see Taurus and Sagittarius and Scorpio. Amazing, isn't it? What do you see, son?" The son says, "Well, someone’s bloody-well stolen our tent, Dad.”

So this story, funny or not, is representative of many of us in life today. Some people are very, very interested in the cosmic counterparts. The planets, the stars and possibly even what influence they have on our life; for others, not so much. In our scientific age, particularly in recent times, we have distanced ourselves from the ancient understanding that the planets, in particular, have a significant influence on our life. Or at least that is the theory.

So the question is, would you like to know in advance that at some point in your life you're going to have certain health challenges; prostate, bones, blood, energy levels, fatigue?

Would you like to know in advance that maybe finances are going to be very tough? Or certain other times in your life where it's going to be great to start new relationships, or get married? Or to start a new business or a family? Would you like to get more support of nature so things flow better in your life and you don't have so many obstacles or delays or barriers?

These questions are pertinent because this is really what the science of astrology is all about.

This is a transcription from Mark's Ancient Wisdom from Modern Health Podcast.
Please excuse any typos. Original PODCAST Available Here (Scroll down to Episode #28)

Ding, ding, ding. Welcome to the Battle Royale of the Year 2020! In fact, maybe the battle of the decade, possibly even the century!

In the blue corner: The Heavyweight Champion of the World over the last hundred-plus years and backed by the meat industry; it is the carnivores - the meat-eaters! Let’s hear a round of applause.

In the red corner: An Up-and-Comer, growing in stature over the last few years, backed by Gwyneth Paltrow (I’m not sure that’s a good thing) Arnold Schwarzenegger and many other celebrities around the world; drum roll please – vegan.

That’s right, we are on the doorstep of a huge battle. Many debates are raging around the world between meat eaters, vegans and vegetarians. Well, the question of course, is who is correct? Should we eat meat? Shouldn’t we eat meat? Should we eat dairy? Shouldn’t we eat dairy?

The amazing benefits for our mental health, physical health, happiness & more.

The best healing sanctuary in the world is all about forest bathing.

Mother nature at her best, is what we're talking about today.

Science is now backing up the ancient wisdom of Ayurvedic medicine, about the importance of human beings being connected to Mother Nature. 

Do you sun gaze or at least connect to the early morning sun as a daily practice? Are you aware of the incredible mental, physical, emotional and spiritual benefits of such a daily ritual?

While many of us know about high-performers morning habits such as making their bed, planning their day and exercising, connecting with early morning sunlight is not so well know.

As understood by most ancient cultures, the master regulator of all our internal health and performance cycles is the cycle of the sun. Most advanced traditional cultures throughout time have started their day greeting the sun through an ancient ritual called ‘sun gazing’. (Others, as in India along the Ganges river, do things like Yoga 'sun salutes' while facing East as the sun rises).

*This is a REPOST of the blog from August 13, 2012

Did you scrape your tongue this morning?

Good news. Another ancient health practice has recently been accepted and promoted by modern experts

Have you been to buy a toothbrush lately, and noticed many companies marketing a tongue cleaner on the back of their brushes? Promoted as a way to rid yourself of bacteria that accumulates on the surface of your tongue, they actually have a lot of merit.

The following are specific guidelines from Ayurveda/Ayurvedic medicine re diet according to what's known as the doshas. If you are not familiar with the doshas or this system, first read Mark's article on the Ayurvedic doshas & Knowing your Individual Body-Type

The following are specific guidelines from Ayurveda/Ayurvedic medicine re diet according to what's known as the doshas. If you are not familiar with the doshas or this system, first read Mark's article on the Ayurvedic doshas & Knowing your Individual Body-Type

The following are specific guidelines from Ayurveda/Ayurvedic medicine re diet according to what's known as the doshas. If you are not familiar with the doshas or this system, first read Mark's article on the Ayurvedic doshas & Knowing your Individual Body-Type

Favour foods that are: COOL, OILY, HEAVY, SWEET, BITTER, ASTRINGENT 

Reduce(but don’t avoid) foods that are: HOT, DRY, LIGHT, PUNGENT, SOUR, SALTY

Specific recommendations.

The following are specific guidelines from Ayurveda/Ayurvedic medicine re diet according to what's known as the doshas. If you are not familiar with the doshas or this system, first read Mark's article on the Ayurvedic doshas & Knowing your Individual Body-Type

Note; This diet may be too heavy, if the digestive fire is weak/irregular. In this case, reduce the ‘heavier’ foods – i.e. follow a ‘light’ vata pacifying diet.

Favour foods that are: WARM, OILY, HEAVY, SWEET, SOUR, SALTY

Reduce(but don’t avoid) foods that are: COLD, DRY, LIGHT, PUNGENT, BITTER, ASTRINGENT

Some specific recommendations:

This simple tip (written here for winter, but applicable to some degree year round) is one of the simplest, yet most profound things you can do to protect yourself from getting sick (colds & flu's etc), to prevent that 'heavy/depressed' winter feeling & helping avoid those extra kilograms that always seem to enjoy making themselves at home at this time of year.

If so, ​before you commit to surgery or other more invasive procedures, you may like to try these natural Ayurvedic remedies. ​

You might have heard me talk a lot over the years about the Ayurvedic concept of oral hygiene.

I've discussed the problems associated with using commercial mouthwashes , and how in Ayurvedic medicine it is being prescribed for thousands of years to combine this with daily tongue scraping for keeping the mouth truly clean and the teeth and gums strong and healthy.

Well now I think you're ready for the full version. It's called 'oil pulling' and not only cleans the mouth, and keeps one's teeth and gums in tip-top health, it is said to help purify the entire body and optimize the functioning of our entire physiology.

Ayurveda comes from the ancient Vedic tradition of India¹, where it has been practised for more than 6,000 years. It is recognised by the World Health Organisation as the world’s oldest continuous system of Natural health-care. In its sanskrit roots, ‘veda’, means ‘pure knowledge’ or science, and ‘ayus’ means ‘life’. So Ayurveda is understood as ‘the total knowledge or science of life’. Ayurveda is both a time-tested science, having a recorded history of thousands of years as well as containing a history of highly evolved, healthy and long-lived individuals.

Not long ago I read that the average mother these days gets about 20 minutes to herself a day. (Seeing my sister with her 3 girls, I can hear her shouting, like I’m guessing you might be, “20 minutes, oh I wish!”)

As a mum these days (you not me!), it is an unbelievably difficult challenge to do what you desire for your kids, your family, your work, before you even get a moment to think about yourself. Equally, as they say, “Our greatest wealth is our health”. While nearly every mum will say that healthy kids is their number one priority, it’s also logical, though not necessarily easy, that looking after your own health is the absolute first step in looking after your family’s health.

"Abhyanga" - the Ayurvedic old massage has been recommended for thousands of years as part of the daily routine for maintaining overall health and well-being.

According to the ancient Ayurvedic texts, regularly performing the oil massage (traditionally done daily) does the following,

If you haven’t made the switch already, I want to remind you, that’s it’s the ideal time to switch from drinking cold/room temperature water, to our good old warm/hot water.

 Did you hear about the study showing a low-fat diet in later life and following such a regimen for nearly a decade DOES NOT have a significant impact on reducing the overall risk of breast cancer, colorectal cancer or heart disease?

This is according to a Women’s Health Initiative study that involved nearly 50,000 postmenopausal women across the U.S.A.

Note: This study doesn’t mean a lower fat diet is not helpful, just that it wasn’t shown to be ‘significantly’ helpful.

Now high or low fat diets is not my point here. For interest sake, a low to moderate fat intake is generally best for most people. In reality though, different people (body types if you like), should have different intakes of fat.

* It’s actually very healthy for certain people (like me!), to have relatively high fat intakes (yes, send expletives and profanities my way now…I’m off for an ice-cream, hmmmm!.

Big in the media at present (being ‘cold & sore throat’ season), is the virtues of adding honey to hot drinks. I think Boost Juice, even have a lemon; honey ‘hottie’…which I assume is a hot tea.

Do you ever do that?

Honey is certainly in many respects an extremely powerful medicine – antibacterial, anti-oxidant, anti-viral etc. It can be great for colds*, clearing sinuses/congestion etc etc. However, you should ‘NEVER ADD HONEY TO ‘BOILING WATER’.!!!

Did you scrape your tongue this morning?

Good news. Another ancient health practice has recently been accepted and promoted by modern experts

Have you been to buy a toothbrush lately, and noticed many companies marketing a tongue cleaner on the back of their brushes? Promoted as a way to rid yourself of bacteria that accumulates on the surface of your tongue, they actually have a lot of merit.

Which direction does your desk face? Do you think your work performance is affected by whether you are facing North, South, East or West? It does.

Fascinating cutting-edge research in the field of neuroscience, shows how facing a certain direction is critical for integrated brain functioning and maximum mental performance.

New International Best-Selling book just out featuring 16 of Australia’s leading health and well-being experts (oh … and me! They needed 16 and were one expert short!

Further Book & Purchasing Info Here

Ayurvedic Cold Water Evils – Mark speaking at the Melbourne Convention Centre on the problems of drinking cold water re; Constipation, Weight Gain, Arthritis … and why Asians (Chinese) always drink warm or hot water/tea

The evening meal – a key to super energy, good sleep and weight loss … or to sickness and suffering

Food that we do not digest by the time we go to bed sows the seeds of sickness and disease.

If there was a pill that could give us up to 50% more energy, significantly reduce our risk of chronic disease and almost guarantee a healthy weight for the rest of our life, many people would probably pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars for it. Ironically, 90 – 95% of us (Westerners) do something each and every day that, if changed, could deliver all the above benefits and more. It doesn’t take any more time out of one’s day, actually saves money, and is a hallmark of the healthiest, longest living people throughout time. It is the most basic, simple, yet rarely followed wisdom of ‘eating light at night’.

Video of Mark in Port Dougles speaking on Riding Nature’s Rhtyhm and Maximising Personal Performance through the Daily Cycles