Natural Anxiety Remedies: How To Manage Anxiety With Ayurveda

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How can pranayama, food as medicine, and systematic guided practices soothe anxiety? It’s time to shift from chronic flight-fight and reclaim our calm.

Many people struggle with feelings of anxiety. In the United States alone, there are more than 40 million people affected by anxiety disorders. Natural anxiety remedies, such as Ayurvedic practices, can be an excellent way to calm anxiety and maintain your health. Herbal remedies, diaphragmatic breathing, pranayama, and Ayurvedic lifestyle choices are powerful, simple tools that work.

It’s common for people to experience anxiety symptoms because of a Vata imbalance. When Vata is out of balance, it’s typical to be plagued by restless thoughts, worries, constipation, and dry skin. These practices can help you to restore balance and ground Vata dosha.

Choose Calming Foods as a Natural Remedy to Anxiety

It’s important to maintain a balance between your body in mind, which is why you’ll want to be careful about what you eat. Eating the right kinds of foods can help to calm Vata dosha, which can reduce feeling anxious. You should try to eat warm, moist, cooked, well-spiced foods whenever possible; soups and stews are excellent choices. Using herbs like dill, cardamom, black pepper, and cumin can also be beneficial. Try to minimize your intake of white sugar. Instead, try natural sweeteners, such as maple syrup or honey.

Try an Ayurvedic Cleanse to Reduce Anxiety and Rejuvenate

Ayurvedic cleansing can help to clear your body of toxins and balance your doshas. Not only can a cleanse help you to manage your anxiety more effectively, but it can benefit you in other ways as well. Cleansing can help you to sleep at night and have more energy throughout the day. Saumya Ayurveda can work with you to create a cleansing program for your needs and lifestyle. After you’ve completed a cleanse, you’ll feel revitalized, and you’ll find that it’s easier to stay calm even in the face of stress.

Focus on Your Breathing to Shift from Anxious Flight-Fight and Reclaim Your Calm

Breathing exercises can calm your body and help you to relax, even when your anxiety feels overwhelming. Pranayama, the practice of controlled breathing exercises, can help to calm and balance your energy. Pranayama allows you to adapt your breathing according to your doshas.

1. Learn diaphragmatic breathing and change your life by learning to create and carry a sense of calm throughout your day. Breathing links us both to the mind and the body. And the more we pay attention to breathing by way of a gentle awareness, the more we can relax and find our mind concentrated.
2. Make daily use of our free guided practices.

Once diaphragmatic breathing is established as a habit, then alternate nostril breathing follows. Pranayama practices should not be attempted until diaphragmatic breathing is a well-established habit.

Alternate nostril breathing is one of the most effective pranayama exercises to relieve anxiety. This exercise can restore Vata’s balance and put your body and mind at ease.

Method:

1. Bring the right hand to the nose, fold the index finger and the middle finger so the right thumb can be used to close the right nostril, and the ring finger can be used to close the left nostril (Vishnu mudra). Alternatively, you may place the index and middle fingers on the bridge of the nose between the eyes.

2. Close the passive nostril and exhale completely through the active nostril.

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3. At the end of the exhalation, close the active nostril and inhale through the passive nostril slowly and completely. Inhalation and exhalation should be of equal duration.

4. Repeat this cycle of exhalation with the active nostril and inhalation with the passive nostril two more times.

5. At the end of the third inhalation with the passive nostril, exhale completely through the same nostril keeping the active nostril closed with the finger.

6. At the end of the exhalation, close the passive nostril and inhale through the active nostril.

7. Repeat two more times the cycle of exhalation through the passive nostril and inhalation through the active nostril.

8. TO SUM UP:

• Exhale Active
• Inhale Passive
• Exhale Active
• Inhale Passive
• Exhale Active
• Inhale Passive
• Exhale Passive
• Inhale Active
• Exhale Passive
• Inhale Active
• Exhale Passive
• Inhale Active

9. Return your hand to your thigh and exhale and inhale through both nostrils evenly for three complete breaths. This completes ONE cycle or a round of the Nadi shodhanam practice. It is customary to do three cycles or rounds of practice.

Note: When practicing three rounds in one sitting, the second of the three rounds begin with the opposite nostril, and the pattern of alternation is, therefore, the reverse of rounds one and three. The third round is exactly the same as the first round.

With natural anxiety remedies like these Ayurvedic practices, herbs, and food as medicine, you can balance the doshas and create and carry calm with you.