Ayurvedic therapy books

Ordinary people who want to get started recommend Vishant Ryder's "Ayurveda Therapy" first. Those who want to systematically learn the orthodox theory should choose the textbook "Principles of Ayurveda" compiled by the Indian Ministry of Ayurveda. Those who have a certain foundation and want to practice localization can refer to "Comparative Study of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda". Other Internet celebrity books with titles such as "Ayurveda Detoxification" and "7-Day Body Adjustment" can basically be passed directly.

When I first came into contact with Ayurveda three or four years ago, I went through a lot of pitfalls. At that time, I bought whatever I saw on short videos that were popular. There was a book called "The Golden Detoxification Method of Ayurveda" with the image of an Indian "spiritual guru" on the cover. It was so popular at the time that everyone drank 50ml of warm ghee on an empty stomach in the morning, and drinking it for 7 days would eliminate the "toxins" in the intestines. After all the detoxification was done, I stupidly drank it for three days and couldn't even attend class. Later, I consulted a certified Ayurvedic healer and found out that the author of the book had no formal training at all, and directly put detoxification methods suitable only for Kapha body constitution on everyone. People like me, who have high vata and weak intestines, drank ghee to detoxify.

In fact, there are basically two Ayurveda-related books circulating on the market. There is no distinction between higher and lower, but they are suitable for different groups of people. One is the orthodox textbooks native to India, like the "Principles of Ayurveda" I just mentioned. Last year, I asked my Chinese medicine friend who went to India for exchanges to bring the original version. Later, it was also translated into the domestic version. The content is really solid. How detailed is the determination of the three physical constitutions? Even whether you sleep on the left side or the right side, and whether you have body odor when you sweat, can be used as a basis for judgment. The compatibility of herbs and daily routine requirements are all based on the Ayurveda classic "Chaluka Samurai", and there is no private goods at all. The disadvantage is that it is too suitable for the local life scene in India. Eight out of ten recommended daily cooking ingredients are not available in ordinary domestic supermarkets, such as the holy basil juice used to improve the body constitution of the pita, and the daily three-fruit powder. I have purchased it once from an agent before. Putting aside the authenticity, the price is ridiculously expensive, and ordinary people really cannot follow the practice for a long time.

The other category is the improved Ayurveda books in Europe and the United States, such as the one by Ryder just mentioned. He was one of the first doctors in the United States to localize Ayurveda. He knew that what ordinary readers want is to "use it after reading it", so he simplified many complex judgment criteria into 2 There are more than 0 multiple-choice questions, and ordinary people can roughly know their own physical tendencies in 10 minutes. Many ingredients have also been replaced. For example, if there is no Indian ghee, ordinary unsalted butter can be used. If there is no holy basil, fresh perilla can be used instead. It is especially friendly to novices. However, this type of book also has a common problem. In order to sell the book, many authors will tie Ayurveda and the content of mind, body and spirit together. A chapter that is supposed to talk about diet and conditioning suddenly appears with a paragraph about "connecting with your intestinal energy."

I used to have a friend who was a director who stayed up late all night to catch up on movies. She had recurring oral ulcers and was always constipated. She had read a popular Ayurveda book, which said that drinking ginger water in the morning could promote metabolism and dispel colds. After drinking it for less than half a month, three or four ulcers appeared, and she was so painful that she couldn't even eat. Later, I read her the content of Pitta's physical conditioning in Ryder's book. She is a typical pitta who is afraid of heat, gets angry easily, and has a short temper. She can't touch too many spicy and warm things. I asked her to drink half a cup of fresh pear juice with a small amount of honey every morning, and eat more cold bitter vegetables. Within a week, the ulcer disappeared and the constipation was mostly cured. She later threw the Internet celebrity book directly into the trash.

Of course, many people now say that Ayurveda is pseudoscience and related books are IQ taxes. This is not entirely unreasonable. More than 70% of Ayurveda-related books on the market today are originally products with poor information. They either directly copy some classic content and blindly modify it, or they cover weight loss and beauty content in an Ayurveda shell. Some even claim that Ayurveda can cure cancer and diabetes. This is pure fraud. Many professional medical researchers have pointed out that there is no unified quantitative standard for Ayurveda's constitution determination. The test questions given in different books may give completely different results. This is also an objective problem. After all, the different schools of Ayurveda in India have slightly different judgment standards. If you really want to learn more, it is best to find several books of different schools and compare them. Don't stick to the contents of one book.

Speaking of which, the book I read the most now is not a well-known best-seller. When I went to Yunnan to participate in the ethnic medicine forum last year, a teacher who was doing research on Dai medicine printed a booklet called "The Adaptive Practice of Ayurveda in the Southwest Frontier". In the noodles, many commonly used medicinal materials in Ayurveda are directly replaced by local species in southwest China. For example, Sanguobao is replaced by Emblica emblica + Kezi. You can buy it in Yunnan wet markets. The price is more than ten times cheaper than imported Sanguobao powder, and the effect is almost the same. I have a Vata constitution, prone to anxiety, insomnia, and flatulence. I used to drink chamomile + geranium herbal tea according to the method in the imported book. After drinking it for two months, it had no great effect. I followed the method in this booklet and applied moxa plus a small amount of cinnamon powder to my belly button every night. In less than half a month, most of my insomnia problems were cured, and I no longer get bloated.

In fact, there really isn’t much to pay attention to when choosing an Ayurveda book. Don’t buy it just because it has a great reputation. When you pick it up, read a couple of pages. If it starts telling you that it is “a prescription for a thousand people”, “results are effective in 7 days” and “can cure all diseases”, don’t think it is definitely a lie. Really reliable Ayurveda books will tell you repeatedly that no one method is suitable for everyone. After all, the core of this natural therapy that has been passed down for thousands of years is that "everyone is unique." Even the right things to eat and the time to sleep are different. How can there be any universal panacea?