Rakesh Sethi, BS, CAHP
Wellness Speaker/ Author/
Ayurvedic Practitioner
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Is Ayurveda and Yoga a Religion or Science?
Every once in a while I come across someone who rejects the scientific medical system of Ayurveda and Yoga on the basis of its origin in India. Their reason- Hindus came up with Ayurveda and Yoga and follow it, and so by following mind-body wellness suggestions from Ayurveda and Yoga will “pollute” other religious believes. If you believe “will pollute” to be absolutely true then that is the truth for you. However, if you would like to know the roots and practice of this science, please read on and then make up your mind.
1. Coming from Sanskrit words, the ‘Ayur’ means life and ‘Veda’ means science. The word Ayurveda means ‘Science of Life’. 
2. The word ‘Yoga’ also comes from Sanskrit and means “to unite”. So what is it uniting? It is a methodology of uniting spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and physical components of you for one single purpose of promoting health, wellness, and peace. Spiritual component is always regarded as pure consciousness. It is your choice to color it with any faith or religion that works for you.
3. Vedic culture practiced this science thousands of years ago even before Hinduism was formed.
For more than 5,000 years this science of life has been practiced in India. Since majority of people in India are Hindus, it is easy to associate this with Hinduism. Incidentally, in India Hindus are NOT required to practice Ayurveda and Yoga. It is a free personal choice of diet and lifestyle for promoting health and wellness.
The practice of Ayurveda and Yoga has been working in disease prevention and healing for thousands of years. This ancient medical system is based on natural scientific laws of nature. Natural laws govern all cycles in nature. Since we are part of nature, they also govern our cycles. If we move with scientific understanding in harmony with those cycles we create and enjoy wellness and if we move against, we create dis-ease and suffer. Free download a Basic Ayurveda mini-course.
The evidence from research in mind-body health connections in modern science is corroborating with the approach of Ayurvedic medical system that takes into account the whole individual’s mind, body, and spirit to build immunity (preventing diseases) and promote wellness. In fact there are many other areas where the conventional medicine discoveries map right on with the Ayurvedic medicine. Example of one such discovery- Are You at Higher Risk for Coronary Heart Disease– New Ways to Check?
Just because the practice of Ayurveda and Yoga originated in India, it is not reserved only for Hindus. The whole world can benefit from it. Similarly, the medical practice discoveries made in the west are not just reserved for Christians. The whole world can benefit from them.
The focus here needs to be on the scientific natural laws. Just like the statements, ‘you reap what you sow, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and law of karma’ are true not because some famous scientist or popular religion says so. It is because the statements represent the same law of nature even though the statements are from different sources. Carefully analyze and you will find natural laws are perennial and hold true on their own merit, regardless of whom or where they originated. Be Well!
“Doing meditation” Image courtesy of Pixtawan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
How to Prevent Heart Disease with Natural Remedies?
We discussed in the last article how you could find out your risk level long before your cholesterol level goes up and this could give you years of jump on prevention. Even if you discover you are at a higher risk of developing a heart disease, it takes years to develop. Prevention with natural remedies can be too late after you are diagnosed with a disease. However, having years of jump on prevention can completely change the course of your life- prolonging your healthy years and quality of life. 
If you discover your body constitution (subscribe below to discover) is of higher to moderate risk for heart disease then consider taking the following steps on how to prevent heart disease build up. Keep in mind the natural remedies only work if you regularly use them in your diet and life style.
• Keep your cholesterol at healthy levels using natural foods. You can get our free Lower Your Cholesterol Naturally e-book that covers this and much more in great detail when you subscribe to our newsletter
• Incorporate Indian Gooseberry, Amla, in your diet with or after your meal. Amla is a sour tasting fruit that reduces inflammation in the body and is an effective natural home remedy for heart disease. Amount should be taken as directed or consulted with Ayurvedic practitioner. 
• Another excellent way to prevent heart disease is use of raw onions. They are in the family of bulbs like garlic and keep the cholesterol levels healthy by oxidizing excess cholesterol. If you are brave, the most effective way is to take one teaspoon of raw onion juice first thing in the morning.
• Use honey as a sweetener. The heating property of honey is excellent in breaking down fat deposits to prevent all kinds of heart disease. Honey rejuvenates and tones up muscles including heart muscles thus improve the circulation. Consume one tablespoonful daily with or after food.
Caution: As always, consult with your physician and work with your Ayurvedic practitioner before implementing changes in your diet and life style. After implementing changes, closely monitor your progress. Be Well!
Subscribe below to discover your body constitution:
Coronary Heart Disease: Are You at Higher Risk- New Ways to Check?
Before diving into new ways to check your coronary heart disease risks, you need to know something amazing about your hard working heart. Your heart is a muscle about the size of your clenched fist and weighs about less than a pound. 
It starts beating even before you are born. In an adult, it beats over 100,000 times per day and pumps over 4000 gallons of blood every day through over 60,000 miles of blood vessels supplying nourishment to every cell in the body. That’s what I call a full day’s work! In return, all your heart demand is also blood which is supplied by coronary arteries. I hope this helps you to realize amazing work of heart and inspires you to keep your coronary pipes whistle clean along with the blood that flows through them.
New Ways to Check Your Risks
Perhaps you are familiar with your lipid numbers in your blood test. Elevated cholesterol level is the main concern for coronary heart disease. Particularly increase in LDL (low-density lipoproteins) bad cholesterol level and or decrease in HDL (high-density lipoproteins) good cholesterol level. HDL is good because it acts like a vacuum cleaner picking up cholesterol deposits from the walls of blood vessels and delivering them 
to liver for flushing them out. However, bad cholesterol LDL is known to create plaque on the arteries walls causing blockage which plays a major role in coronary heart disease. We have been doing tests in this way for a long time.
The new part is if you conduct a more in depth blood test, you find out a level of Apolipoprotein which is found in both HDL and LDL. However, among many different types of Apolipoproteins found in HDL and LDL, it is Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) found in LDL is of main interest to us. ApoE is known to play an important role in coronary heart disease according to study see below (1).
The most interesting part is the genetic variations of ApoE gene. The ApoE gene comes in three types 2, 3, 4. This means having one gene from mom and one from dad, you could have genetic makeup of one of the following pairs: 2/2, 2/3, 2/4, 3/3, 3/4, or 4/4. 
Incidentally the genetic makeup 2/2 showed up in the Ayurvedic body type Vata, the 3/3 genetic makeup showed up in Pitta body type, and the 4/4 genetic makeup showed up in Ayurvedic body type Kapha. Just as Kapha is more susceptible to high cholesterol, diabetes, & heart disease, the person with ApoE 4/4 is also placed at higher risk for diabetes and heart disease. In the study cited below persons with ApoE 3/3 were at less risk than the ApoE 2/2 for heart attack. This also agrees with Ayurvedic assessment as the Vata type body is at increased risk of coronary heart disease because it is more vulnerable to nerves disorders and stress. Here is another instance where ancient Ayurvedic science and modern science are corroborating.
How could you benefit from it? You could find out your risk level long before your cholesterol level goes up and this could give you years of jump on prevention.
So in addition to in depth lipid blood test, you can request the ApoE genotype test plus have your mind-body constitution done by an Ayurvedic practitioner, especially if you have a family history of coronary heart disease. Look for a follow on article on how to prevent heart disease using natural home remedies.
1. Carlos Lahoz and Ernst J. Schaefer, et al, Apolipoprotein E genotype and cardiovascular disease in the Framingham Heart Study Atherosclerosis
How Much Water Should I Drink in a Day?
How much water should I drink a day? Most of us take water for granted. Perhaps this is the reason we do not pay attention to its consumption. Many of you are extremely vigilant of what kind of fat and how much of it you are consuming, what kind of carbohydrates and how much you are taking, and some of you are also measuring how much sodium you are taking in per day. This is excellent and you should.
But remember this that your body is 70% water. A good way to remember is just like earth is 2/3 water and 1/3 land. You can not ignore this. Your body continuously loses water and it needs to be replenished with clean fresh water. Not drinking enough water per day is the root cause of many diseases.
If you have been following my writings on prevention, you know I often mention the main root cause of a disease lies in our minds. If you do not regularly “flush” toxic thoughts, stress, and stagnant weight on your mind, your mind will become a cesspool for giving birth to diseases. And ultimately the diseases manifest in your physical body. The same principle applies to water. If you do not flush your body with enough clean fresh water every day, dehydration and toxic levels increase. This compromises the function of many organs in nutrition absorption and discarding waste, and subsequently giving birth to some disease.
So how much water should I drink a day? A good rule of thumb is in this simple formula:
Divide your body weight in pounds by 2 and take the number you get for drinking that many ounces in a day. 
For example, if you are 150 pounds & dividing it by 2 gives you 75. You should be drinking at least 75 ounces of water in a day.
While it is important to know how much water you should drink in day, equally important is to know the right time for drinking that water. Plus, almost never drink ice water. Drinking water at the right times throughout the day maximizes its effectiveness on your body. So based on your weight select the amount from:
• 10-16 oz. of lukewarm water after waking up; it helps refresh and activate internal organs
• 8 -10 oz. of warm water 30 minutes before a meal; it facilitates digestion
• 10-16 oz. of room temperature water 45-60 min. after each meal; it helps the flow in GI tract
• 8-10 oz. of water before going to bed; it reduces risk of stroke or heart attack
So how much water should I drink a day is just as or perhaps even more important than watching how much fat, carbohydrates, or other things you take in a day.
Health Conscious: Are You Born with This or Not?
Body’s natural state is health and it inherently gravitates towards health. No one doctor can give you health from outside. The outside sources can only help to remove diseases. Once the disease is removed, body restores itself to its natural state, health.
I think when it comes to health most people are health conscious and have an inkling of what is right choice and what is wrong. Then why is it that people often take the wrong choice? Okay I will accept in some cases people do not know but what about most people who hear and see many times what they ought to be eating and doing. Still they do not follow the advice, and knowing very well, take wrong decisions and land themselves a disease. What happened to their health consciousness?
Sense objects, in this case food, can have enormous power over one’s mind, even when the mind is healthy. And if one is going through depression, this power is even more gripping. Mind gets carried away by the senses; sight, smell, and taste of food. And the next thing you know is that outside elements have grab hold of your senses; as a consequence senses control your mind, and influence your decisions affecting your inner wellbeing.
The irony is your inner self is equipped with health consciousness and intellect, remarkable tools, to take decisions. However, yet your mind continues to take decisions without consulting with your health consciousness and intellect. You need to change the direction of taking your decisions.
Let the health consciousness guide your intellect to take a decision for inner wellbeing while the intellect keeps your mind under its strict control so it would not to be taken for a ride by the outside (sense objects). This is the right direction in taking decisions. Health consciousness, this “natural intelligence” resides within us. You are born with it! No one thing or person can “install” the natural intelligence from outside. Just because you don’t access it, it doesn’t mean you do not have it. You already have it in you, but it is dormant. It needs to be awakened.
You just need someone or something to awaken your consciousness to make you health conscious. This someone or something becomes the enabler for awakening the consciousness. It could be a person or perhaps even this article. You just need to find your own “enabler”.
You cannot lead your life by taking decisions at the surface level, namely under the influence of sense objects, and depending on external quick fixes, for example diet pills. You must take control of your life by taking decisions from the “depth” of your being. Stop taking decisions at the “surface” level. When consciousness, intellect, and mind are in agreement, lasting wellness dwells there. Isn’t it time you awaken your consciousness to become health conscious? Be Well!
How to Implement an Excellent Employee Wellness Program?
Profits and Corporate Consciousness
Today rising health care costs present a challenge for both employees and corporations. Here is an opportunity where corporations can take a lead in providing employee wellness program that not only helps employees to be productive, live healthier & better quality of life, but also put a dent in the corporate health care premiums. Frankly for a corporation to pickup this challenge is a display of consciousness that goes beyond measuring just tangible profits.
A good corporate consciousness strikes a balance between tangible and intangible profits. Having gone through a decades of measuring and improving quality, growth, and productivity, corporations must also pay keen attention to an employee “wellness & happiness index” along with customer satisfaction index.
Key Factors in Successful Implementation of an excellent Employee Wellness Program
The following factors are common and critical to all corporations for a successful implementation:
- Even if corporation with good conscious takes a lead on providing an employee wellness program, the difficulty is to first have employees voluntarily participate in the program and then apply it in their lives. The old habits and attitudes take some incentive and time to change. However, if employees see their top management participating and serious about investing in everyone’s well being, there is increased probability of employees engaging and shifting their health attitudes. And shifting health attitudes is the key to the success of the employee wellness program.
- Another key to success is to choose a wellness program that generates buzz, excitement, and engages employees. It offers more individual based recommendations as oppose to one-size-fit-all. Employees need to know how this program works and why it will work for them. The studies, statistics, and other numbers are boring and not very engaging.
- Lastly, the employee wellness program should include follow on “refreshers”. The refresher gives an opportunity to employees to refresh the concepts learnt in the initial meeting, take away some new ideas, and ask follow on questions on their individual plans. This reinforces and encourages employees to stay with the plan.
- (Other factors like number of employees, multiple locations, and multiple shifts which are unique to a corporation and must be considered separately in each situation)
I agree this is not a short term plan. But profits in the long run are multifold. Corporate consciousness invokes the employees’ consciousness creating a different employer-employee relationship where one values the association with the other for more than just a profit number or a paycheck. Such corporations (with consciousness) cultivate both employee and customer loyalty.
Aside from savings in health care premiums, I know these intangible profits are difficult to measure. What value would you place on retaining talent in the company longer with lower employee turnover? What value would you place on positive image of the company in social media? Especially today in a fast developing social media, a picture of corporate consciousness, good or bad, goes viral online in a matter of minutes, hours, or just a few days. You decide.
Supporting Services/products from True Wellness Group:
Rakesh Sethi recently published “Health + Happiness = Wellness” book to revolutionize how one should approach disease prevention. Invite Speaker Rakesh Sethi on company events to inspire employees to participate in their wellness. Wellness workshops or breakout sessions offer individualized approach to employees to develop their unique path to wellness.
Surviving Bad Economic Times with Growing Spiritual Awareness
Setting “Speed” Limit
Bad economic cycle is just a nature’s way of telling us that we need to lighten up on our material quest. It is great to be on a material quest and enjoy it. I am not implying you need to end it. I am only suggesting that nature is prompting us to set limits on this quest, if we had not already done so. It is not possible to go through life continually accelerating. You have to know your limit and then learn to cruise. In the same way when you enter a freeway you accelerate but then after reaching a speed limit, you cruise. Becoming aware of this fact is a start of spiritual growth to help you with surviving bad economic times.
Learning How to Cruise
No doubt surviving bad economic times can create tremendous anxiety and mental agitation. So besides learning to cruise, it would be even better to grasp how to cruise light. Time is here to drop off excess weight (material or desires for more) and only keep the necessities on your journey. With this action alone, you will immediately lower the level of anxiety and mental agitation. This awareness shapes your spiritual growth. However, I feel the biggest growth is yet to come with the following awareness.
Discovering Real Self
In these bad economic times it is normal to feel down but not out. It is true, what changes in nature outside affects nature inside of us. That is the nature’s law. The question is- has the nature outside of us changed due to bad economy? The fact is, good or bad economy, nature is NOT affected by it. Wouldn’t you agree the sun, the moon, the earth, & the seasons, etc. will continue on their rhythmic cycle without missing a beat? This means nature inside of us is also not affected. Think about it! When you gain or lose wealth, you don’t say you gained or lost yourself.
So discover your real self. It is beyond any wealth.
So go out and feel the smooth touch of the air playing with your skin, soak up the warmth of first ray of sun falling on your face, enjoy the coolness of the water flowing through your body, get pleasure from the sounds of chirping birds, experience the ground below bare feet on the wet grass, and you will start to connect and know your real self is part of this. Cultivate this awareness.
Connecting to Real Self
Such an awareness will help you realize you are more than a just your mental self. You see when you only relate with your mental self, you suffer the agitations. However, when you relate to your real self, calmness comes over you and you live as a witness to all the drama around you (as outlined in the “Movie” example) You didn’t bring any material wealth with you when you were born and nor will you take any with you when you die. The material wealth was never yours and could never define or affect your real self.
Surviving bad economic times requires mental tenacity and can be the test of your perseverance. Let these times be the opportunity for you to discover your real self. In turn let this awareness of your spiritual being become the strength to your mental self in bad economic or in any turbulent times. Be Well!
If you enjoyed this article, you will find this new book very useful. Click to read the Introduction.
New Book:
Cruising Through Turbulence: An Inspirational Guide for Your Wealth and Wellbeing in Difficult Economic Times and Beyond
By Rakesh Sethi, BS, CAHP
How Do You Improve Memory and Keep It Sharp?
As we age something strange happens to the best of us. You walk into a room looking for an item and forget why you came there. Or another interesting thing happens we start to work on a chore A but along the way we find something else needs attention so we start to work on that, chore B. While working on chore B we realize another chore C that was left unfinished and immediately get on that. Some of us may even start chore D and E as well. My point is- are we losing our memory, sharpness, and focus? Or are we just carrying too much on our mind? While the latter of course makes the matter worse but how do you improve memory and stop it from getting worse. To that fact, Ayurvedic medical science shows us there is something else at play here.
As we age, “Air” (Vata) energy increases in us. Just as air moves from one place to another and cannot stay still in place, our mind takes on the same quality of air. We move from one chore to another and cannot stay focused on one chore and would like to finish all the chores at the same time. But this only explains our behavior. What about our focus and memory?
Do we lose our memory and focus as we age? Short answer, no! However, wrong diet, drugs, alcohol, and sedentary life style can penalize our sharpness and memory over the years. You can turn this around and improve your memory by taking few simple steps.
How Do You Improve Memory? Take the Following Corrective Actions:
• Reduce or remove high saturated fat from your diet
• Include green leafy vegetables, broccoli, avocado, and root vegetables in your diet
• Consume 1-2 tablespoon of vegetable oil (change varieties) per day
• Get 6-7 hours of sleep at night and must also manage fatigue efficiently to improve his memory. Fatigue is caused by a myriad of factors, not just physical activity or long working hours. For example, excessive coffee consumption or increased sugar intake can also exacerbate the symptoms of fatigue in the long-term because the body becomes dependent on short bursts of energy.
• Take B12, D, & E vitamin supplements
Great “Divine” Herb
Gotu kola or Bacopa, also known as Brahmi (a great divine herb) strengthen memory and sharpness. In several studies, this herb has shown impressive results in treating mental and nerve diseases. Take as directed or consult with an Ayurvedic practitioner.
Now there are no reasons for you NOT to improve your memory as you age, and have a sharp memory and focus in your mature years. However, you will need to prepare and take supportive and preventive actions now to improve and maintain your memory for benefits in later years. Also see Aging Gracefully. Be Well!
Natural Remedies for Premature Ejaculation Treatment
After posting my last article on How Often to Have Sex to Stay Healthy, I received requests if I could make recommendation on premature ejaculation treatment. This is perhaps the most common and stressful predicament experienced by men in the bedroom. It is a mental letdown, especially for men, when they cannot control and delay ejaculation to a desirable time. Premature ejaculation treatment can be all natural. Unlike erectile dysfunction where one can take a pill just before the intercourse, one has to be mentally prepared to stick with a long term (matter of 4-6 weeks) treatment strategy.
Causes:
The most common cause of premature ejaculation is excitement, anxiety, fear, or stress. As you can tell all of them are related to the mind, emotions, and nerves. However, wrong lifestyle with alcohol and drugs can further worsen the problem. A shift in mental attitudes is a must and will require patience. The following treatment recommendation will provide physiological support while you concurrently work on your psychological.
Treating Premature Ejaculation with Natural Remedies
For natural remedies to be effective, make sure to remove any external life style causes like stress, alcohol, or drugs. In addition, practice to keep your mind calm in present by clipping the worries or fear from the past and anxieties of the future. Along with practicing self control, the natural diet and herbs will treat premature ejaculation in 4 to 6 weeks. Assuming you are healthy in all other areas, then be patient and stick to the following regimen:
- Take out excess saturated fat and add 1 table spoon of ghee in your diet
- Remove all “hot” chili-spices from your diet
- Take 500mg of Nutmeg for the first 3-4 days. Take it with warm whole milk. Nutmeg has calming and sedating effect. Increase the dosage in steps up to 1000mg per day. Cut back the dosage, if you start to feel the sedated effects. Continue this for 4-6 weeks
- Take Vital Man as directed. You can take this for 3 months and longer if you feel good with it. For additional overall health support, add Amrit Nectar and take as directed.
- Add alternate nostril breathing yoga exercise in to your exercise routine (form a routine if you don’t have one). Also practice meditation (read its true purpose)
The above steps will bring about slow but steady progress. Keep in mind premature ejaculation treatment is best by patiently staying with a course for some time. Be Well!
How Often to Have Sex to Stay healthy & Age Gracefully?
How often is it healthy to have sex? Is it beneficial to have more or less often? What is sex? The act of sex connects two beings physically, emotionally, and spiritually. However, if sex is reduced to just a physical act between two beings, its subtle underlying benefits diminish significantly. Human beings like physical touch, emotional engagement, and even spiritual connection. Sex is the only act during which two human experience oneness of all physical, emotional, and spiritual beings. Each being for those brief moments cease to exist by itself. During these moments, is it a human being having a spiritual experience or a spiritual being having a human. You decide. But either way sex plays an important role in our health and aging gracefully. Health and wellness is promoted from the most subtle spiritual levels to gross physical levels of our being.
What Constitutes Sex?
Sex between a loving couple is an intimate expression of love. Sex is often mostly associated to having “hot and steamy” intercourse. This is due to our culture creating such an image about sex. While at times a couple will have such enjoyable moments but the sex is not just restricted to that. In fact, if you live with such expectations, you could be in for a big disappointment. Especially as you age, the sex drive you had at the age of 30 will not be the same at the age of 60. However, the inherent drive for being intimate to give, and to receive love and affection is just the same. It is up to two people to decide how they would like to express their love and sex can take many forms. So continuously redefining your sexual intimacy can not only bring you pleasure but it is also good for your health and aging gracefully.
How Often to Have Sex?
This of course is a very personal preference. However, ancient medical system- Ayurveda offers some general guidance here. For a healthy person, it is based on how much sexual tissue a person can afford to lose in a particular time of the year (or season). Our body’s nature inside behaves according to the natural cycle outside. (however, our mind- that’s a different story) So follow the guidance below:
- In the fall/winter, body is in the fast “build & store” mode to deal with winter. If you lose sexual tissue, it is replenished quickly. So in the fall/winter you can enjoy sex once per day.
- In the spring, body is slowly relinquishing fat stored during winter to become light for summer. If you lose sexual tissue, it is replenished slowly. So in the spring you can enjoy sex twice per week.
- In the summer, body naturally wants to eat and stay light. If you lose sexual tissue, it takes a lot longer to replenish the tissue. So in the summer you can enjoy sex twice per month.
Note: Diet should be modified to match the seasonal requirements. Also age and other personal health conditions should be considered in forming your sexual habits. Going against the natural cycle means depleting your sexual tissues. The consequences of living with depleted sexual tissues is decreased immunity, infertility, and decreased energy. This in turn will make you susceptible to diseases, loss of health, and speedup aging.
When we follow the rules of how often to have sex, sex is not only a pleasurable activity that supports aging gracefully but also promotes health and wellness from the most subtle spiritual levels to gross physical levels of our being.
Health Tip: Use Amrit herbal formula to rejuvenate and build all tissues, including reproductive. Both men and women can take this as directed.
“Young Man Kissing his lovers neck” Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
