Dinacharya is a Sanskrit word that means, “Following the rhythm of the day.” Like a metronome, what we do consistently every day sets the rhythm for our life, whether we are conscious of it or not. I started studying Ayurveda many years after I completed my first yoga teacher training. I was looking for something that would help me find peace of mind and bring some semblance of balance into my life. That’s when Ayurveda found me. Ayurveda means, “The science of living,” which is a 5,000-year-old science that comes from India and takes its cues from Great Nature. What I discovered was that “balance” looks more like wobbling back and forth and all around rather than poise, or serenity, a fixed point on a spectrum.
What I continue to learn about my own organic nature in relationship to the Universal Nature, is that what I do every day matters. Not the grand gestures but the little things like brushing my teeth twice a day, hydrating first thing in the morning and eliminating my bowels fully (so that I’m not walking around full of sh** all day) meditating for 22 minutes, doing a 10-minute yoga asana practice, journaling for 10 solid minutes every day, and consistently eating three meals a day between the hours of 9 AM and 5 PM and not snacking. We’re talking the brick-and-mortar of “yoga,” of life, of every single day no matter where I am on planet earth. I follow the rhythm of the day, for example, I go to bed when the sun goes down (more or less) and I eat warm foods in Winter, and my whole body becomes more intuitive, resilient, and intelligent. I become more natural. It may seem so simple, but when I fight the urge to go to bed when I feel tired, I create dis-ease in my body, mind, and spirit.
Ayurveda tells us that diseases are generated at the junctions of the season, the moments when one season changes into another. –Dr. Robert Svoboda, Ayurveda for Women: a guide to vitality and health
The teachings of Ayurveda remind us that it is better to engage in daily activities which prevent illness before it occurs. As practitioners of yoga and students of life we are encouraged to live in a way that allows optimum flow of energy/prana/life force.
The Three Pillars of Dinacharya:
- Body—a healthy flow of energy in the body, mind, and spirit allows each human time and space to rest, digest, and reset/rebalance. Drink plenty of water first thing in the morning to have a complete elimination, eat your food in a relaxed manner, with gratitude, sitting down, aim to be in bed before 10 PM to give the digestive system a chance to detox naturally. (Read Dr. Claudia Welch’s book Balance Your Hormones for more on this topic.)
- Mind—as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali states, Yoga Chitta Vrtti Nirodha, “Yoga is the cessation of all self-limiting thoughts, patterns and tendencies within our personal energy field,” Bhavani Silvia Maki.
- Spirit—”A living human being is a body-mind-spirit complex. Each part of you—organs, tissues, skeleton, nervous system, emotions, mind and others—possesses its own form of awareness, and each of these awarenesses relates together,” writes Dr. Svoboda in his book, Ayurveda for Woman, (p. 15). When start to pay attention to our bodies a whole world of awareness opens up. When we start to heed the signs that our bodies give us, we start to trust our own Great Nature.
As with any path of yoga, it’s life-long. Be gentle, go slow, and have faith. Thank you for sharing this journey with me.
If you’re curious about how you might align more fully with nature’s rhythms these are my own favorite resources. Find out more with Banyan Botanicals, Dr. Claudia Welch, and Dr. Robert Svoboda.