Benefits of Ayurveda
Dr. Arul Susan
Deputy Chief Physician
The Nattika Ayurveda Beach Resort
Every science was born out of the ardent search for ways to improve the quality of Life. This search can be traced back to the origin of mankind! Man found out many new techniques and developed new technologies to aid for the sake of well-being. These tools have improved the quality of life and also significantly helped us to reduce our physical workload. Apart from these advancements in terms of technologies happening mainly in the West, there was a parallel development in the field of Healthcare in the ancient Indian subcontinent. Today we have a refined version of this great healthcare civilization – Ayurveda!
This great “Science of Life” is not just some hundreds of years’ old. It’s believed to have started evolving more than 5000 years back. The oldest fully available textbook on Ayurveda, The Charak Samhita was written around 3000 years ago. Thus, from its origin, to the documentation of Charak Samhita, there exists a gap of 2000 years. During those times, the only prevalent medical system in the Indian subcontinent was primitive Ayurveda. It was the continuous research and the trials conducted on extremely large populations, which culminated in the formation of the great Medical Literature of Charak Samhita!
Presently, there isn’t any other contemporary medical system which has such an enormous research backup of 3000 years! This is the reason behind the trust and reliability that attracts people from the whole world to The Ayurvedic path of Life.
When a question arises about the long term benefits of a drug or a therapy, there aren’t many options in the contemporary medical systems that have a research backup of more than two generations; but Ayurveda has! The therapeutic measures followed in Ayurveda are generations old and are in practice for thousands of years. Continuous modifications and refinements led to a flawless version which is presently being practiced in various parts of the world. It may seem a little odd when you hear the phrase that Ayurveda has no side effects. The reality is that throughout these long years of continuous research and modifications, we were able to develop protocols which suit everyone.
When Ayurveda describes Life, it considers the whole person. The concept that Health is not just physical well-being, was well understood by the ancient Ayurvedic practitioners. They took Physical, Mental and Social well-being into consideration while describing the Ayurvedic lifestyle. The beauty of Ayurveda is that there’s every description of step by step routine activities and instructions on how to live each day!