Effective Pain Management in Ayurveda: Treatments for Pain Relief

Do you suffer from chronic pain? If you do, then you’re not alone. According to the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), about 1.5 billion people suffer from chronic pain worldwide.

Thankfully, there are many treatments available for chronic pain related to the back, knees, neck, and rheumatoid arthritis.

If you’re like millions of people tired of relying on prescription medication, there are alternatives. You should consider trying Ayurveda. Pain management in Ayurveda focuses on a holistic approach to healing the body.

To learn more about Ayurvedic treatment for body pain, continue reading.

What Is Ayurveda?

Ayurveda is a form of holistic medicine created over 5,000 years ago in India.

Ayurvedic medicine runs on the belief that the body, mind, and spirit balance impacts the health and wellness of a person.

To treat illness, Ayurveda focuses on a person’s five elements of air, fire, earth, space, and water, which make up three energies known as doshas.

The doshas include Kapha dosha (water and earth), Pitta dosha (fire and water), and Vata dosha (space and air). Although each person has doshas, the combination of energies is different for everyone.

Achieving Pain Management in Ayurveda

Since Ayurveda focuses on balancing the body, mind, and spirit, specific treatments produce far-reaching results.

Incorporating lifestyle changes, Panchakarma, herbs, Ayurvedic massage, diet, and stress management helps relieve pain.

If you’re unsure about how to use Ayurvedic treatments to manage your pain, please continue reading.

Lifestyle Changes

Many of us are conditioned to working, eating, sleeping, repeat, day in, and day out. Eventually, burning yourself out will catch up to you. Through making the necessary lifestyle changes, your body and mind can become balanced.

Journaling, spending time in nature, changing your diet, exercising, resting more, and getting massages are some of the ways you can alter your lifestyle.

If you decide to participate in Panchakarma, all of these activities will be done during the program.

Panchakarma

Panchakarma is the detoxification process of removing accumulated waste from the body and mind. Pancha is a Sanskrit word meaning “five,” and “karma” means action.

The program lasts for either 7, 14 or 21 days and includes five classical elements of treatment, Basti (herbal enemas), Nasya (nasal irrigation), Vamana (therapeutic vomiting), Virechana (purgation), and Raktamokshana (bloodletting).

Due to the nature of some of these practices, modernized versions are substituted for bloodletting and therapeutic vomiting.

Instead, the Panchakarma process now utilizes laxatives, special diet, steam baths, enemas, herbal oil massages, and nasal irrigation to assist the body and mind of purging unwanted toxins.

Once the removal of impurities, you will practice yoga, meditation, continue eating a specialized diet, journaling, exercising, and spending time in nature.

The benefits of Panchakarma include:

• Cleansing the body and mind
• Improves digestion
• Increases deep relaxation
• Strengthens the immune system
• Enhances energy, vitality, mental clarity
• Reduces body aches and pains

Panchakarma is best performed two times a year to help the body remain balanced.

Diet Changes

Ayurveda uses diet as a means to heal the body. What you eat does impact how you feel. When our eating habits are unhealthy, our bodies and mind follow suit.

Ayurvedic medicine encourages us to eat nourishing, warm, moist, and mildly spicy foods.

As the body improves, more alteration might occur in the diet, or the person could continue eating this way.

A well-balanced diet is essential for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. After the body is in harmony again, keep up those eating habits.

To ensure the incorporation of an Ayurvedic diet into your life, it’s essential to decrease or eliminate processed food, meats, dairy, alcohol, and other foods that conflict with your dominant dosha.

Adhering to the six Ayurvedic eating principles will take time. Those principles include:

• Eat six tastes (Rasas)
• Eat mindfully and concentrate
• Eat slowly to enjoy the food
• Eat quickly enough so that the meal does not get cold
• Eat after your previous meal is digested

Following the six principles will aid your digestion and improve your wellness, which will positively impact your body’s pain.

Ayurvedic Herbs

Using herbs in your foods is both delicious and beneficial. For example, both ginger and turmeric help alleviate inflammation and reduce pain.

Ginger soothes the pain of muscles and speeds up recovery from overexertion during exercise.

Turmeric’s popularity is high thanks to its use in recipes. Turmeric’s benefits include relieving inflammation, treatment of stomach ulcers, indigestion, and psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and pain management of the knees.

Ayurveda Massage

A massage manipulates the muscles by applying the hands to back, neck, arms, hands, fingers, feet, toes, etc. Massages treat pain, reduce muscle stiffness, increase circulation, and relax the body.

The use of herbal oils allows for deeper penetration of the muscles and greater relaxation. Mahanarayana oil is perfect for soothing sore muscles, reducing anxiety, arthritis, headaches, inflammation, and stress.

Karpooradi oil also treats muscle cramps, arthritic pain, inflammation, body stiffness, and improves blood circulation. While Sahacharadi oil reduces lower back pain, radiating pain in the legs, and stiffness in the thighs.

Kottamchukadi oil relieves the pain of sprains, sciatica, tennis elbow, and bursitis. Dhanwantharam oil is used during pregnancy and post-delivery massages to reduce fatigue, pain, and boost energy.

Whether you’re receiving Ayurvedic treatment, getting an Ayurveda oil massage is the perfect way to pamper yourself.

Stress Management

By following the recommendations of your Ayurvedic doctor, you’ll realign your body, mind, and spirit. Through the elimination of waste, using Ayurvedic eating habits, spending more time away from technology and more in nature, you’ll begin feeling and living better.

Receiving Treatment

Pain management treatment is given on an individual basis. Your practitioner will gather information about your medical history, current conditions, previous treatments, and more.

The type of treatment received is based on what is best for your doshas. Just because something worked for one person does not guarantee it’s right for you.

Be opened-minded during your appointment and discuss possible remedies.

Schedule a Consultation

Now that you understand pain management in Ayurveda, consider using it for treatment. You deserve to live a full life and battling chronic pain conflicts with just that.

If you’re ready to begin your wellness journey, please contact Ayurherbs Ayurvedic Clinic  today to book an appointment.

• June 22, 2020
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