Ayurveda’s Holistic Approach to Menopausal Wellness
A 4-Week Online Retreat
Our on-demand programs are great introductions to the healing power of Ayurveda. Discover the Ayurvedic Daily Routine, overcome insomnia, and more—whenever, wherever!
Try this at home: Hold out a glass of water. What do you notice?
You will find the longer you hold it, the heavier the glass feels, though really the weight of the glass has remained unchanged. Your arm may begin to hurt and even start shaking until it feels like you are about to drop the glass.
Now, what would happen if someone began to pour more water into the glass? You are likely to spill the water and drop the glass.
This is how chronic stress works on our mind-body complex.
In our day-to-day life, we accumulate stress almost constantly—relationships, work, traffic, phones, and more! When you are stressed and have spread yourself too thin, the tiniest issues are enough to trigger you, causing the stress to spill out in the form of anger and negative reactions that not only hurt your loved ones, but can also impact your relationships and credibility at the workplace or in social situations. These momentary “spills” can cause not only cause long-term damage to our personal and professional relations, but just make the stress and anxiety worse.!
Chronic stress not only wreaks havoc on your mental health, but, more importantly, it is a key risk-factor for various inflammatory disorders, heart conditions, digestive disorders, compromised immunity, high blood pressure, high sugar, and sleep problems. Additionally, it leads to an imbalance of doshas and accumulation of toxins in the system, paving the way for illnesses to show up in the body.
While it is important to understand how to manage stress and stressful situations, sometimes what we really need is to take time out to tend to ourselves—get rid of the ubiquitous stress, empty ourselves out. In essence, purposely pour the water out of the glass.
It is worthwhile to give ourselves a few days off, away from the chaos of the city life, drudgery and deadlines, and allow ourselves to sink into an oasis of peace and healing. How do we do that? A detox!
Ayurvedic principles state that all the processes in our body are governed by the three doshas: vata, pitta, and kapha. A delicate balance of the three doshas helps maintain good health. Ailments manifest when one or more of the doshas lose their delicate balance over time. Vitiated pitta dosha is likely to make you feel angry, restless, and irritable. Aggravated vata dosha can make you feel confused, nervous, and agitated. And when kapha dosha is out of balance, you may feel stuck, entangled, and possessive.
Ancient Ayurvedic therapies of Panchakarma are designed to deep cleanse your body from all the accumulated toxins and bring the tridoshas to equilibrium.
Panchakarma Cleanse and Detox at Shankara Ayurveda Wellness integrates delicious Ayurvedic food, a variety of spa treatments that includes relaxing massages and invigorating therapies, yoga, and meditation sessions to make real magic happen.
A Panchakarma cleanse does not just relieve you of the physical symptoms of stress, but can also ease your mental worries, anxiety, and depression. Here, the healing is nourishing, deep, and reinvigorating.
The course of treatments and therapies are tailored to your unique body constitution. The very first step of the process is an analysis by an Ayurveda specialist who uses ancient time-tested diagnostic methods like Nadi Pariksha, pulse diagnosis, and physical examination. Daily consultation with the specialist is a part of the panchakarma treatment and the herbs and medications to be used in the therapies are recommended based on the overall analysis of your state of physical and mental health.
Panchakarma is known to have a profound effect not only on physical well-being but mental well-being. Ridding the body and mind of any toxins and getting the tri-doshas into balance brings a sense of wellness, clarity, and calm.
Dust on the surface of the mirror does not let you see your reflection clearly. Similarly, stress can keep you from seeing your real Self. Anger, jealousy, hatred, and fear are all distorted versions of love—your one true nature. We need to “dust off” the surface of our minds—unburden ourselves of accumulated stress, anxiety, and negativity—in order to be able to see our actual selves. A Silence Retreat is a place to do just that. It is a meaningful break from all the worldly hullabaloo of relationship and work obligations, stressors, and responsibilities. A silent retreat is an opportunity to become still and timeless; a place where you can meet your soul.
With nourishing and sattvic food, fun activities, yoga, meditation, and knowledge sessions, the Art of Living Retreat Center’s signature Silent Retreat is an all-in-one vacation not only on a physical level, but also for your mind. A few days where you can let go of all your efforts and just relax. It is cleansing—a retreat to remove the millions of impressions stored in the mind that shape your thoughts and behaviors, often without your knowledge. You get to tour the mill of your mind and these impressions with gentle loving awareness. No only do your stress levels drop to a negative, but you also get to be an astonishing witness to the wonder that is YOU!
Very often, it is a real struggle to catch that break in our given environment. And, you may be in desperate need of a change of place, where your mind and body can feel relaxed and revived, unperturbed by the pulls of worldly demands. A well-planned vacation in the lap of nature with the healthiest food, personalized therapies that cleanse and detoxify your body, and an environment that nourishes your soul, can definitely bring you the deep distilled comfort you have been seeking. More than a standard vacation, what you need is time to relax and rejuvenate—a holiday you get home from and feel energized and replenished. Not depleted and need more time off to recover from. Those can be great vacations—don’t get us wrong, but in today’s world every day can feel like a ride at the Great Escape.
In our Wellness Escapes or Restore & Revive Retreats, you can lose yourself in the serenity of the mountains or maybe find yourself during a yoga or meditation class. Nourishing whole-foods meals will fill you up with contentment, and Ayurvedic body treatments melt away the cares of the world.
No matter where you choose to go, spending down-time focused on self-care and reflection is the best gift you could give yourself, your mental-health, and your well-being.
