What Ayurveda Actually Is (Without the Sanskrit Lesson)
If you’ve ever gone down an Ayurveda rabbit hole on the internet, you may have emerged slightly confused and wondering if you accidentally signed up for a Sanskrit class.
Doshas. Agni. Abhyanga. Ama. Tongue scraping. Oil pulling. A morning routine that apparently begins at 5:00 a.m. because, naturally, the thing every exhausted woman needs is another thing to do before everyone else wakes up.
I love Ayurveda. I also think it can be made far more approachable than the way it’s often presented.
Because underneath all the terminology, Ayurveda is incredibly practical. It gives you a framework for paying attention to your body, noticing patterns, and making choices based on what is actually happening in your life. And for mothers, that can be especially useful.
Because your body is giving you feedback all day long, you just may have gotten very good at ignoring it.
So… what actually is Ayurveda?
Ayurveda is a traditional (ancient) Indian system of health that looks at the relationship between your body, mind, habits, environment, digestion, and the rhythms of your life. It looks at your body as an ecosystem, not a machine.
One of the things I appreciate most about it is that Ayurveda doesn’t assume the same thing will work for everyone. You might feel fantastic after a big breakfast while your friend feels like she needs a nap afterward. You might be someone who can eat dinner at 8 p.m. and sleep like a baby, while your partner eats late and spends half the night staring at the ceiling.
Even within your own life, what works can change.
A routine that felt great two years ago might suddenly feel completely wrong. Had a baby? Kids started school? Work schedule changed? Maybe you’re in a season where you are carrying much more than you were before. And sometimes your body is basically standing there waving a giant flag saying, Hello? We need to talk.
Ayurveda gives you a way to have that conversation.
Your symptoms are giving you information
This is where Ayurveda has always held my attention.
Rather than immediately asking, “What should I take?” or “What’s the perfect diet?” you start with observation.
How is your appetite? Do you wake up hungry, or does food sound terrible until 10 a.m.? What happens after you eat? Do you feel comfortable and energized, or bloated and ready to unbutton your pants?
How are you sleeping? Are you sleeping deeply, or waking up at 2 a.m. with a brain that has apparently decided this is an excellent time to review every awkward conversation you’ve had since 2007?
How is your energy throughout the day? Do you feel steady, or are you running on coffee and adrenaline until 3 p.m. and then wondering why you’re standing in the kitchen eating chocolate chips directly from the bag?
And the question I must always ask… what does your poop look like?? Yes, I can guarantee I will ask this question ;)
These details matter (And no judgment on the chocolate chips or poop details).
They give you clues about what your body may need, and you don’t need to know a single Sanskrit word to start noticing them.
The doshas: the part everyone wants to explain with a chart
You’ve probably heard of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha.
These are the three doshas, and they’re one of the main frameworks Ayurveda uses to understand individual patterns in the body and mind.
I use them as a way of understanding tendencies, habits, qualities. They can give us language for why certain foods, routines, environments, or stressors seem to affect one person differently than another.
But please don’t take the quiz, discover that you’re “Vata” is imbalanced…and then proceed to spend the next six months blaming every inconvenience in your life on Vata.
Your dosha is not your horoscope.It’s not a personality test that tells you who you are foreverrrrrrr (que in sandlot voice).
Your current state matters, too. Your age, your environment, how you stress (yes, it’s a thing), your digestion, your sleep, and the season of life you’re in all play a role.
That’s why I created my Dosha Quiz. It’s a simple place to start if you’re curious about your Ayurvedic constitution and want to understand some of your natural tendencies.
Think of it as information, not a new identity.
You have enough identities already. Mother. Partner. Daughter. Employee. Business owner. Chauffeur. Snack distributor. Keeper of everyone’s passwords.
We don’t need to add “professional Vata” to the list.
Ayurveda has a lot to say about digestion
If you’re new to Ayurveda, digestion is one of the easiest places to see how practical these teachings can be.
Your digestion is giving you feedback constantly, whether you’re paying attention or not. And most of the time, we aren’t… or maybe we were never taught how to.
Bloating after meals. Constipation. Loose stools. Heartburn. Feeling overly full or full after one bite. Cravings. Eating when you’re stressed. Forgetting to eat until you’re suddenly starving. There is a reason I ask about poop!
And then there’s the way many of us actually eat…standing at the kitchen counter…taking three bites before someone calls your name…eating your child’s leftovers because you forgot to make yourself lunch. Answering an email while chewing. Sitting down to dinner while your nervous system is still running at approximately 97 miles per hour.
Does this sound familiar? No wonder our digestive system isn’t always thrilled with us.
This is one reason I created the 72 Hour Digestion Reset Guide. It gives you a simple way to slow things down for a few days, pay attention to your digestion, and make some practical changes without turning your entire life upside down.
GET THE 72 HOUR DIGESTION RESET GUIDE →
And just to be clear, I am very much in favor of Ayurveda that works in a normal kitchen. If a wellness practice requires six specialty ingredients, three hours of prep, and a child who miraculously doesn’t need anything from you for 45 minutes, I’m going to need some convincing.
And then there’s sleep
This is one of the things I hear from women all the time: they are completely exhausted by the end of the day, but when they finally get into bed, their brains seem to have other plans. You know the scene: the kids are finally asleep, the kitchen is (mostly) clean, you’ve answered the last text, and you crawl into bed thinking, Thank God, I can finally turn my brain off. Except your brain apparently wants to party and somehow, 45 minutes later, you’re still wide awake.
This is that tired but wired feeling I talk about so often. Your body is asking for rest, but your nervous system is still in go-mode. After spending the entire day responding to everyone else’s needs, making decisions, solving problems, remembering things, and keeping the wheels on the bus (because who makes them go round and round?), it can be surprisingly difficult to expect your body to suddenly switch into sleep mode the moment your head hits the pillow.
And for many women, especially mothers, bedtime is the first quiet moment of the day, which means all of the thoughts you didn’t have time to think about at 10 a.m. suddenly show up at 10 p.m. Very (in)convenient.
Ayurveda has always paid close attention to the rhythms of the day and the way our habits, environment, stimulation, and daily pace can affect rest. I love this because it gives us something practical to work with. You don’t need to turn your bedroom into an Ayurvedic spa, buy 12 new products, or develop a 45-minute Instagram-worthy nighttime ritual. Sometimes it starts with giving yourself a little more transition between doing everything and going to sleep.
That’s exactly why I created Tired But Wired, a short, free audio you can use for small tidbits on how to create a more sustainable rhythm. It’s something you can reach for when you’re exhausted, but your mind is still running, and you need a little support. Because honestly, I have yet to meet a mother who has a mysterious extra 45 minutes just sitting around waiting to be filled with another wellness practice.
Ayurveda also looks at the season you’re in
This is probably one of my favorite pieces of Ayurveda because it makes so much sense when you look at your actual life. Your health doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You’re affected by the weather, your schedule, your sleep, what you’re eating, how much you’re doing, and what’s happening around you. You’re also not the same person in July that you are in January. Your appetite might change, your energy might shift, you may spend more or less time outside, and suddenly the foods you were craving a few months ago sound completely unappealing.
Your needs change alongside all of the continuous life changes. Because what’s the saying? The only constant in life is change? Yeah, that one.
This is where I think Ayurveda offers something really useful: a reason to pay attention to the season you’re actually living in instead of forcing yourself to keep doing whatever worked in a completely different chapter. Maybe the morning routine you loved last year no longer fits your mornings. Maybe you’re realizing you need more sleep than you’ve been allowing yourself. Maybe your digestion is happier with simpler, warmer meals. Maybe your evenings need to be quieter because by 8 p.m. your brain has had quite enough stimulation, thank you very much.
And sometimes the biggest clue is simply that the way you’ve been living doesn’t feel good anymore.
You don’t need an Ayurvedic lifestyle
I’ll say something that may annoy the social media wellness culture: I don’t think most people need another lifestyle. Most of us already have plenty going on. What we need are tools that actually work within the life we’re living, including the messy mornings, late dinners, work deadlines, school pickups, and nights when you realize you’ve been holding your pee for three hours because apparently nobody can find the missing shoe without you.
Ayurveda can be incredibly detailed if you want to go deeper. There are herbs, treatments, daily practices, seasonal routines, food guidelines, and an entire body of traditional knowledge to explore. I love that depth, and there is a lot there to learn. But you don’t have to take on all of it to benefit from Ayurveda.
That’s where Ayurveda becomes useful to me. It gives you a different set of questions to work with instead of handing you another rigid list of rules. What is my body telling me? What has changed? What happens when I make this small adjustment? Those questions can take you surprisingly far.
And honestly, I think that’s a much more interesting way to approach your health than constantly looking for the next thing you’re supposed to be doing. Ayurveda gives you permission to experiment, pay attention, and figure out what makes sense for the body and life you actually have.
So where should you start?
If Ayurveda is new to you, you don't need to read five books or learn a glossary of Sanskrit terms before you can use it.
Start with curiosity.If you want to understand your natural Ayurvedic tendencies, take my Dosha Quiz:
If your digestion has been feeling off and you want a simple place to begin, download my 72 Hour Digestion Reset Guide:
GET THE 72 HOUR DIGESTION RESET GUIDE →
And if you’re exhausted but finding yourself wide awake when your head finally hits the pillow, try Tired But Wired:
LISTEN TO THE FREE Tired But Wired AUDIO →
You can learn the Sanskrit later (or probably not).
For now, start with the thing I think Ayurveda has always done particularly well: paying attention to the body you actually live in.
Until next time,
Adriana
