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Alternative Medicine InformationThe Maharishi Writing Natural Medicine Approach to Beauty a
by:
Nancy Lonsdorf M.D.
The Maharishi Writing Approach to Beauty and Skin Care
The Three Pillars of Beauty
Maharishi Writing (MAV), the modern, consciousness-based revival of the ancient Ayurvedic medicine tradition, considers true beauty to be supported by three pillars; Outer Beauty, Inner Beauty and Lasting Beauty. Only by enhancing all three can we attain the balanced state of beamy health that does each of us the most consummated
and beautiful person we can be.
Outer Beauty: Roopam
The outer signs of beauty - your skin, hair and nails - are more than just superficial measures of beauty. They are direct reflections of your overall health. These outer tissues are created by the inner physiological processes involved in digestion, metabolism and proper tissue development. Outer beauty depends more on the strength of your digestion and metabolism, the quality of your diet, and the purity of your blood, than on external cleansers and conditioners you may apply.
General Recommendations for Outer Beauty
As we wish discuss, the key to skin care is matching your diet and skin care routine to the specific skin type you have. Meanwhile, there are several valuable recommendations for lustrous skin, hair and nails that wish be helpful to everyone, regardless of skin type.
1. Diet: Without adequate nourishment, your albuminoid
layer thins and a kind of wasting takes place. Over time, your skin can shrivel up like a plant without water from lack of nourishment. To support your skin plump and glowing:
A. Eat fresh, whole organic foods that are freshly prepared.
Avoid packaged, canned, frozen, processed foods and leftovers. These foods have little biological process value and as well they are often poorly digestible
which creates impurities that localize in the skin. The ensuant buildup of toxins causes irritation and blocks circulation depriving the skin of further nourishment and natural cleansing processes.
B. Favor skin alimental foods.
1. Bowery green vegetables contain vitamins, minerals (especially iron and calcium) and are high in inhibitor
properties. They nourish the skin and protect it from premature aging.
2. Sweet juicy fruits like grapes, melons, pears, plums and cooked apples at breakfast are fantabulous for the skin in all but everyone.
3. Eat a wide variety of grains over several meals and try mixed grain servings at breakfast and lunch. Add amaranth, quinoa, cous cous, millet and barley to the wheat and rice you already eat.
4. Favor light, easy to digest proteins like legume soups (especially yellow split golden gram dhal), whole milk, paneer (cheese ready-made from boiling milk, adding lemon and straining solids) and lassi (diluted yogurt and spice drinks).
5. Oils like drawn butter
(clarified butter) and organic, extra virgin olive oil should be enclosed
in the diet as they lubricate, nourish and create lustre in the skin.
6. Use spices like turmeric, cumin, coriander, and black pepper to improve digestion, nourish the skin and cleanse it of impurities.
7. Avoid microwaving and boiling your vegetables. They lose as more as 85% of their inhibitor
content once
baked in this way. Steaming and sautéing are best.
Caring for outer beauty through noesis of skin type
Besides these general recommendations the key to Outer Beauty is to understand the difference in skin types so you can gain the maximum benefit from your personal skin care regimen. MAV identifies three several skin types based on which of the three main metabolic principles (doshas)- present in everyone, but to several degrees- is most dominant in your body.
Vata Skin
* Description: Vata is composed of the elements of air and space. If you have a vata skin type, your skin wish be dry, thin, fine pored, delicate and cool to the touch. Once
balanced, it glows with a delicate lightness and refinement that is elegant and attractive. Once
vata skin is imbalanced, it wish be prone to excessive condition and may even as be rough and flaky.
* Potential problems: The greatest beauty challenge for vata skin is its predisposition to symptoms of early aging. Your skin may tend to develop wrinkles earlier than most due to its tendency to condition and thinness. If your digestion is not in balance, your skin can begin to look dull and grayish, even as in your 20’s and 30’s. In addition, your skin may have a tendency for disorders such as dry disease of the skin and skin fungus. Mental stress, such as worry, fear and lack of sleep, has a powerful draining effect on vata skin deed it looking tired and lifeless.
* Recommendations for care
With a little knowledge, you can preserve and protect the delicate beauty of your vata type skin. Since your skin does not contain more moisture, preventing it from drying is the major consideration. Eat a warm, fulsome diet (ghee and olive oil are best) and favor sour, salty and sweet tastes (naturally sweet like fruits, not refined sugar) as they balance vata. Avoid drying foods like crackers. Drink 6-8 glasses of warm (not cold for vata types!) water throughout the day and eat plenty of sweet, juicy fruits. Going to bed early (before 10 PM) is really soothing to vata and wish have a hugely positive influence on your skin. Avoid cleansing products that dry the skin (like alcohol-based cleansers) and perform Ayurvedic oil massage to your whole body (abhyanga) in the morning before you shower.
Pitta Skin.
* Description: Tyrannid
dosha is composed of the elements of fire and water. If you have a tyrannid
skin type your skin is fair, soft, warm and of medium thickness. Once
balanced, your skin has a beautiful, slightly rosy or golden glow, as if light from within. Your hair typically is fine and straight, and is commonly red, sandy or blonde in color. Your complexion tends toward the pink or reddish, and there is often a copious figure of freckles or moles.
* Potential problems: Among the many a beauty challenges of tyrannid
skin types is your tendency to develop rashes, rosacea, acne, liver spots or pigment disorders. Because of the large proportion of the fire element in your constitution, your skin does not tolerate heat or sun really well. Of all the three skin types, tyrannid
skin has the least tolerance for the sun, is photosensitive, and most likely to accumulate sun damage over the years. Tyrannid
skin is aggravated by emotional stress, especially suppressed anger, frustration, or resentment.
* Recommendations for care
Avoid excessive sunlight, tanning treatments and extremely
heating therapies like facial or whole body steams. Avoid hot, spicy foods and favor astringent, bitter and sweet foods which balance pitta. (Again, naturally sweet, not chocolate and refined sugar!) Sweet juicy fruits (especially melons and pears), baked greens and rose floral leaf
preserves are especially good. Drinking plenty of water helps wash impurities from sensitive tyrannid
skin. Reduce external or internal contact with synthetic chemicals, to which your skin is especially prone to react, even as in a delayed fashion after years of on the face of it quiet
use. Avoid skin products that are abrasive, heating or contain artificial colors or preservatives. Most commercial make-up brands should be avoided in favor of strictly 100% natural ingredient cosmetics. And be sure to get your emotional stress under control through plenty of outdoor exercise, yoga and meditation.
Kapha Skin.
* Description: Kapha dosha is composed of the elements of earth and water. If you have a kapha skin type your skin is thick, oily, soft and cool to the touch. Your complexion is a glowing ceramic ware
whitish color, like the moon, and hair characteristically thick, wavy, oily and dark. Kapha skin types, with their more generous albuminoid
and connective tissue, are fortunate to develop wrinkles more later in life than vata or tyrannid
types.
*Potential problems If your skin becomes imbalanced, it can show up as enlarged pores, to a fault oily skin, dampish types of eczema, blackheads, disease of the skin or pimples, and water retention. Kapha skin is as well more prone to flora infections.
* Recommendations for care
Kapha skin is more prone to impeding and necessarily more cleansing than different skin types. Be careful to avoid greasy, impeding creams. Likewise, avoid heavy, hard to digest foods like cooked
foods, fatty meats, cheeses and rich desserts. Eat more light, easy to digest, astringent, bitter and pungent (well-spiced) foods as they balance kapha. Olive oil is the better cook oil and a little ginger and lime juice can be taken before meals to increase your characteristically sluggish biological process
fire. Take warm baths often and use gentle cleansers to open the skin pores. Avoid deed bound
and try to get several exercise every day to increase circulation and help purify the skin through the sweating process.
Inner Beauty: Gunam.
Happy, positive, loving, caring individuals have a special beauty that is far more than skin deep. Conversely we all experience the quick and harmful effect on our skin from fatigue and stress.
Inner beauty is authentic beauty, not the kind that shows on a made-up face, but the kind that shines through from your soul, your consciousness or inner state of being. Inner beauty comes from a mind and heart that are in harmony, not at odds with each other, deed emotional confusion, loss of confidence, stress and worry. Inner peace is the foundation of outer beauty.
Maintain your self-confidence and a warm, adoring personality by paying attention to your fashion and daily routine and effective management of stress (I extremely
recommend the TM technique for its scientifically-verified benefits on mental and physical health and reduced aging.) You wish as well be healthier and feel better through the day if you eat your main meal at high noon and do a habit of going to bed early (by 10 PM is ideal.)
Remember, kindness, friendliness and sincerity naturally attract folk to you. On the different hand, being high-strung or tense does folk want to walk the different way, regardless of your facial structure, body weight, or different outer signs we associate with attractiveness.
Lasting Beauty: Yayastyag
In order to slow the aging process and gain lasting beauty there are two additional key considerations on the far side
those already discussed,
1. Eliminate toxins and free radicals in the body: The main deteriorating effects of aging move as toxins and impurities (called ama in Ayurveda) accumulate throughout the body. These toxins may begin as free radicals in the body, or over time may become alter into free radicals, all of which contribute to premature aging in the body. For lasting health and beauty it is essential to avoid and neutralize free radicals, to prevent impurities of all kinds from accumulating and to move out those that have already become lodged in the body.
The most powerful cleansing medical aid
in Maharishi Writing is "panchakarma" therapy, a series of natural treatments ideally performed double
yearly, that involves 5-7 days in a row of massage, heat treatments and mild flavouring enemas. Writing emphasizes the importance of undergoing this cleansing program once or double
a year to prevent impurities from accumulating, localizing and hardening in the tissues. Simply as we change the oil in our cars on a regular basis
for best
performance and lifespan, Writing recommends that we cleanse the “sludge” from our tissues on a regular basis through panchakarma treatments.
Best of all, panchakarma treatments are luxurious, blissful, and do you feel (and look) all rejuvenated in just a few days time. I have had many a a patient who told me that friends asked them after if they had gotten a facelift, they looked so fresh and youthful!
Other free radical busters include: reducing mental stress, consumption inhibitor
foods like bowery green vegetables, sweet, juicy fruits and cook on a daily basis with antioxidant, detoxifying spices like turmeric and coriander.
2. Add rejuvenative techniques to daily living:
The daily activities of life in the modern earth consistently
wear us down and speed up the aging process. Writing maintains it is crucial to practice daily rejuvenative regimens to counteract the disagreeable wear and tear of everyday life. According to Writing the most important rejuvenative routines for your life are:
a) Going to bed by 10:00 PM. This simple habit is one of the most powerful techniques for health and longevity, according to MAV.
b) Meditate daily. Any meditation that does not involve concentration (which has been shown to increase anxiety) can be really helpful. I extremely
recommend the twice-daily deep rest and enlivenment of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique, whose benefits have been verified by over 700 publicised research studies.
c) Eat organic, whole fresh food that is freshly prepared. There is an Ayurvedic saying: "Without proper diet. medicine is of no use. With proper diet, medicine is of no need." Be sure to avoid those leftovers, processed and microwaved foods for better nutrition and vitality.
d) Perform Ayurvedic oil massage in the morning (abhyanga). Morning oil massage purifies the entire body, reduces anxiety and stress, helps prevent and heal injuries and supports circulation. It is especially helpful in creating a beamy complexion and keeping your skin youthful. Research shows it may as well help prevent skin cancers.
e) Practice yoga asanas. Maintaining flexibility and circulation is key to health.
f) Practice pranayama (yoga breathing) techniques. Pranayama enlivens the mind and body. Ideally practice the following sequence double
a day. Asanas, pranayama and meditation.
Summary
Everyone's unique beauty shines forth once
they have beamy health and personal happiness. Beauty is a side effect of a balanced, consummated
life. Supreme personal beauty is available to everyone who is willing to take more control of their health in their day-to-day life through time-tested principles of natural living.
For most of us, beauty is not a gift but a choice. Every woman can be radiantly beautiful just by beginning to lead a healthier life. You wish be rewarded by the glowing effects you wish see in your mirror each day and the powerful, bliss-producing effect your special beauty has on everyone in your life.
Simply about the Author
Nancy Lonsdorf M.D. received her M.D. from Johns Hopkins and did her postgraduate training at Stanford. She is presently
the Medical Director of The Raj Writing Health Center in Religious writing City Iowa
http://www.ayurveda-ayurvedic.com
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