Ayurvedic Treatment Options.

Ayurveda has eight traditional specialities, or branches: surgery, internal medicine, gynecology, pediatrics, ear-nose-throat, psychiatry, toxicology, and geriatrics. Ayurveda uses surgery if there is a need. Ayurveda uses gemstones, crystals, metals, even mantra and sound for the purpose of healing. Marma therapy, pressing points to send energy to the organs and connective tissue, is also used. Ayurveda has a wide scope of practice, including related disciplines such as jyotisha (Vedic astrology), meditation, yoga asanas (yoga), and pranayama (cleansing).

According to Ayurveda, treatment is an action that creates balance among the components of constitution—dosha, dhatu (tissues), and mala (excretas: urine, feces, sweat). Ayurveda starts this action through prevention, which involves attention to maintaining the balance of the constitution. Living a proper, preventive lifestyle involves knowledge of one's unique constitution (prakruti) and of how to maintain its balance in the face of all outer and inner challenges and stresses. Strengthening the organs and tissues and eliminating toxins from the body before they reach the stage of producing symptoms of disease are equally important. The first line of treatment is to remove the cause of the disease. If this is not possible, a basic guideline is to control the doshas at the stage of accumulation by following an anti-doshic regimen.

All Ayurvedic treatment attempts to reestablish the person's unique constitutional balance. As discussed, disease develops when the person's immune function is low and the aggravated doshas settle in a weak area and begin to affect the functions of that system. Treatment of symptoms often makes the patient feel better; however, this does not address the fundamental cause of the illness, and the problem will likely reappear in the same or another form.

Treatments may be applied to the physical, emotional, and spiritual levels. Looking at the emotional level, most people learn in childhood not to express negative emotions (e.g., anger, fear, anxiety, nervousness, jealousy, possessiveness, and greed). As a result, these emotions become repressed and unprocessed. Ayurveda proposes that if these negative emotions remain repressed and are not dealt with, emotional toxins and unhealthy behavioral patterns will accumulate in the system. Ayurveda teaches a technique of dealing with negativity by observation and release. Recognize the emotion as it arises, observe it without judgment, and then release it. This technique helps to transform the unprocessed emotions into processed form. Negative emotions can be dealt with in this way through this awareness of emotion and release of it. Fear, anxiety, and apprehension are associated with vata; anger, hate, and jealousy with pitta; and greed, attachment, and possessiveness with kapha. Each of these three aspects of the body can influence and affect the others. For example, if a person represses fear, the kidneys tend to be disturbed; anger affects the liver; greed and possessiveness settle in the heart and spleen. Therefore, the emotional makeup of the patient is assessed and taken seriously.