Invigorate Yourself With This Nourishing Lifestyle

Revitalize your life with Ayurveda. Discover how to invigorate yourself with this nourishing lifestyle.

Invigorate yourself with Ayurveda. Photo by lifelensandlove photography.

Word of the Week: Invigorate

Nourish yourself with how you sleep, move and eat. Rejuvenate your soul by finding your beat.

To all of the caretakers who are busy taking care of other people, this article is for you.

I first learned about Ayurveda in my first yoga teacher training in 2010. Ayurveda is yoga’s sister science and one of the world’s oldest medical systems. "Ayur" means "life" and "veda" means "science."

In Ayurveda, an important measure of your vitality is how you support your ojas, which is one of the three subtle essences in Ayurveda. (The other two subtle essences are prana and tejas.)

Think of ojas as your energy stores that you collect overtime. Ojas is the final product of optimal digestion. It's your vital energy that supports higher states of consciousness and immunity, resiliency and digestion—not only of the food you eat, but also your thoughts, emotions and experiences.

Supporting your ojas through an Ayurveda lifestyle is the best way to invigorate yourself. The state of your ojas reflects how you nourish yourself. Your ojas can be high, low or somewhere in between. Signs of high ojas include signs of vitality, such as skin that glows, eyes that sparkle and clarity of thought.

Depleted ojas can come from overworking, significant stress and sleeping too much or too little. It can show up in a variety of ways, including negativity, dry skin and low energy.

Through daily and seasonal self-care routines customized to your dosha, you can invigorate your life by building ojas. Here are some things you can to do support building ojas:

• Eat according to the season of the year, the season of your life and your mind-body constitution (dosha), which includes maintaining a consistent daily schedule of when you eat.

• Exercise, especially walking in nature.

• Feed your mind with nourishing information.

• Get quality sleep.

• Practice restorative yoga, yoga nidra and bhakti yoga (yoga of devotion).

• Spend a little time in silence every day.

Before you make a decision, ask: Does this support my ojas?

Wish you had a more consistent self-care routine? Get bite-sized self-care tips in your inbox with the Nourish Note newsletter — crafted to simplify your self-care so it fits into your beautifully busy life.