6 Ways to Boost Your Immune System with Ayurveda
Updated: Oct 11
It's time to enhance your immune system using Ayurveda. Discover the Ayurvedic herbs and techniques that can assist you in improving your health and shielding you from harmful pathogens.
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6 Ways to Boost Your Immune System with Ayurveda
With the Pitta season winding down and the Vata season approaching, our bodies react to the shifting environment. During seasonal transitions, the doshas become more susceptible to imbalance. As autumn begins, common challenges such as sniffles, allergies, sinus and respiratory congestion, sleep, and anxiety issues arise, putting pressure on our immune systems.
With a history spanning 5,000 years, Ayurveda has existed for almost as long as the changing seasons and their associated imbalances. In this article, we will explore some proven Ayurvedic immunity boosters and six Ayurvedic tips on how to incorporate them into your daily routine.
Why We Need Ayurvedic Immunity Boosters
Modern society often leaves us feeling disconnected from the rhythms of nature, but we’re still impacted by our physical and energetic environments. The Pitta qualities pronounced in summer, shifting into Vata qualities of autumn, can be particularly stressful on our respiratory and immune systems.
· Changing Environments: Moving from an intensely hot Pitta summer to the slow; subtle shift of early Vata season, can feel almost like a shock to the systems. Paired with an increase in pollen and other airborne irritants, these seasonal changes can aggravate our allergies, lungs, and sinuses.
· Change of Pace: We tend to be animated by hot, sunny days, and as we begin to transition into early autumn, we settle back into our routines. Some of us welcome this and others of us weep at the thought. In either case, it’s time to recognize and align with the change of pace to maintain balance.
· Change in Diet: We need to adjust our food as medicine program to maintain or regain dosha balance. For some, a clearing out of accumulated heat, Pitta is needed and for others preparing for the cooler, drier qualities of autumn is necessary, and for others, both are needed.
If you don't have children or children attending school, you can still be exposed to germs from your colleagues, social events, and everyday activities. Enhance your immunity naturally with Ayurveda. Interested in learning how Ayurveda can help strengthen your immune system? Keep reading!
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Two Simple Steps for a Stronger Immune System:
1. Balance your doshas
2. Strengthen the defenses of our immune system to prevent those bugs from bypassing our protective barriers.
Let's aim to minimize the use of antibiotics and over-the-counter medications whenever we can, and focus on reducing the effects of daily stressors to stay healthy and strengthen the immune system. Use our free daily guided practices to reduce stress and anxiety and increase calm and focus.
Current Clients: Book your seasonal/follow up session now and we’ll focus on an immune bolstering and dosha balancing plan curated just for you.
What are the Best Ayurvedic Immunity Boosters?
According to Ayurveda, one of the best ways to maintain balance during seasonal changes is to practice ritucharya – modifying our routines to complement our environments.
Herbal remedies, nasya treatment, and Ayurvedic consultations are the place to start.
Herbal Remedies for Immunity
The ancient, classical Ayurvedic texts define immunity as bala, (strength), as the body’s ability to prevent disease and maintain homeostasis.
Chaywanprash: A revered Ayurvedic supplement, Chaywanprash is made from a highly-concentrated blend of nutrient rich herbs, spices, minerals, and vitamin C. It can be consumed daily to strengthen the immune system and balance the doshas.
Pippali: An ancient herbal remedy, Pippali has been used for centuries to reduce respiratory inflammation and irritation and remove phlegm deposits from the airways.
Turmeric: Curcumin, a compound found in turmeric, helps flush toxins and decreases inflammation in the lungs and air passages. Turmeric may also make the body more resilient to infection.
Ginger: Another potent anti-inflammatory herb, ginger strengthens agni - the digestive fire - which is often needed after holiday eating, a long winter, and as the spring winds (Vata) arrive which may blow out the fire.
Astragalus: This flowering plant has been used for centuries to stimulate the immune system and make the body more resilient to physical, environmental, emotional stressors .
Ashwagandha: Ashwagandha has anti-inflammatory properties that can help strengthen immunity post-illness. It is also believed to improve brain function and reduce anxiety, depression, mental fog, and supports healthy adrenal function.
Please note: Saumya Ayurveda does not recommend using herbs as if they were over the counter or prescribed pharmaceuticals. An experienced Certified Ayurvedic Practitioner will create you a custom herbal formula, special nasya, and customized Ayurveda plan to support the whole you.
Herbs are not Ayurvedic because it comes from India. Nor it is correct for you because it is organic. Herbs become Ayurvedic when used as part your customized Ayurveda plan which is carefully tailored for your constitution. An herb that is balancing to one person for a concern, may be imbalancing to another.
Herbs aren’t the only Ayurvedic immunity boosters . Turn your meals into medicine. Reduce ama (toxins) and balance your agni (digestive fire) by eating according to your dosha
Here’s 6 Ayurveda Lifestyle Tips to Bolster Immunity
1. Focus on food as medicine to create incredible gut health. This includes whole, unprocessed foods which means food that looks like nature grew it, not food stuff from a bag, box, or tray.
2. Make sure you’re getting quality sleep each night to keep cortisol levels under control.
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3. Managing stress is the foundation of a strong immune system. Make time to manage stress—use our popular 11-minute guided practices as anchors to your morning and evening routines. When you manage your stress levels, you stimulate immune cell function.
Ayurvedic Morning Routine | 6 Rituals for a Calm and Centered Day 10 Ayurvedic Evening Rituals for a Calming Night
4. Daily walks are a simple and manageable way to decompress, reduce stress levels, and increase mental health. So simple and available to us all the time.
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5. Practice Garshana, Ayurvedic dry brushing. Caring for our lymphatic system takes a couple minutes each day—talk about a high return on your investment.
6. Nasya…aka nose oil drops. The benefits are many and include: increased focus and concentration, improved breathing, improved mental wellbeing, and better sleep. We offer several kinds of nasya formulations and during your follow up/seasonal consultation, I'll recommend the ideal one for you for this time of year.
Saumya clients LOVE our nasya oils!
“The nasya drops are keeping me healthy! So far, no allergy symptoms this spring and I did not catch the cold my husband had!” -Anonymous, Wisconsin
“Your nasya oil really had a strong, positive effect on my life. My mind was racing, and I have been highly stressed for a long time. I did the nasya and suddenly all went quiet. I felt like meditating. Your nasya oil really calmed the mind.” - S.L, USA
There is a saying, "The mind is more in the body, than the body is in the mind." The Saumya 3 step meditation process shifts us from fight-flight-freeze mode, to rest-restore-relax mode. Give it a try for forty days and observe the changes. The more grounded and relaxed we are, the smoother life flows.
"The breath is the connection between the mind and body, so by training the breath, we become calm, focused, and grounded, we slow down the aging process by decreasing stress. These practices are so simple and easy to have as part of our daily life. We actually feel and look younger."
- Veena, Saumya Ayurveda
1. Learn Diaphragmatic Breathing and Change Your Life. When we re-learn to breath diaphragmatically, we move from the flight-fight-freeze mode, to rest, restore, relaxation mode from where we want and need to live.
2. Daily Guided Practices: 11 minutes in the morning and in the evening, as anchors of your daily Ayurveda routine.
3. Ayurveda Daily Routines: Ayurvedic Morning Routine | 6 Rituals for a Calm and Centered Day
"Choose a couple of practices from the routines that provide you with the greatest support. Perform them while applying our two minute meditation technique and your mundane tasks, just transformed into a mellifluous meditation. This is meditation applied to daily life."
- Veena, Saumya Ayurveda
“Veena was able to help me regain my energy in just a few months and I’m feeling like my “young” self again! I love the food plan she designed for me, and all the supporting practices (am/pm routines, breathing techniques, herbs, and spice mixes) are so enjoyable to incorporate into my day. I highly recommend Saumya Ayurveda if you want to feel better and have more vitality.”
-Molly Rossini, Minnesota
"Working with Veena was so helpful for me on my healing journey. She is very knowledgeable and works with you from a compassionate perspective. If she suggests a certain practice or change to routine, she makes sure it is doable for you without adding more stress.
I was new to Ayurveda and now it’s part of my daily life and I’m very grateful. I'm more balanced and the health issues I was having are now resolved or improving. I highly recommend working with Veena."
-Elizabeth Albers, Grand Rapids, Minnesota
"Veena has brought energy and vitality back into my life. She is a skilled practitioner and someone whose recommendations."
- Sarah Ladd, New Hampshire
“I've been working with Veena since 2010. She has helped my overall health improve in many ways. We addressed my health concerns using food, oils, spices, lifestyle and herbs that best support me. I used to have chronic sinus infections and in the first year of her care, I didn't have one.
She also works with my emotional health. My anxiety has decreased significantly and I'm almost completely free of it! Emotional ups and downs are gone.
Veena teaches you what to eat and drink to maintain balance from one season to the next. I'm amazed that learning what foods to eat, which teas to drink, and the herbal treatments helped mental health as well and my physical body. I highly recommend seeing Veena if you are looking for better physical and emotional health.” –M.B. Minnesota
6 Ways to Boost Your Immune System with Ayurveda
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We all want to be heard, understood, and cared for as whole beings, not a set of isolated symptoms. True health is more than the absence of disease, which is why Western medicine so often leaves us feeling hopeless and unseen.
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MEET VEENA: YOUR AYURVEDIC GUIDE
Veena is a Certified Ayurvedic Practitioner and meditation teacher, and monk.
She is President Emeritus and teaching faculty of the Meditation Center.
Veena fell in love with the traditional medicine used in her family’s home, learning herbal remedies at her grandmother's knee.
An experienced Certified Ayurvedic Practitioner, Veena’s deep, intuitive knowledge of Ayurveda empowers her clients to reclaim their fullest, most vibrant lives –mentally, physically, and spiritually.
Veena individualizes treatment plans to each person, rather than offering a one-size-fits-all approach, so it fits your life and becomes woven in your lifestyle, naturally.
Learn more about Veena's work and book your FREE discovery call today.