Panchakarma

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How can Panchakarma help you?

Panchakarma lead by a qualified Ayurvedi Practitioner can:

  • Eliminate toxins and toxic conditions from your body and mind
  • Restore your constitutional balance to improve health and wellness
  • Strengthen your immune system and help you become more resistant to illness
  • Reverse the negative effects of stress on your body and mind thereby slowing the aging process
  • Enhance your self-reliance, strength, energy, vitality, and mental clarity
  • Bring about deep relaxation and a sense of well-being (The Ayurveda Institute)
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Overview

 An Ayurvedic Panchakarma or PK is a cleansing, detoxing, and rejuvenating program with long-lasting health benefits. Panchakarma in Sanskrit means ‘five actions’ which are treatments that are integral to the ayurvedic process of purifying the body, mind and consciousness.

The three main phases of a Panchakarma are:

  1. Preparation where the body and mind are prepared with various cleansing treatments to help dislodge deep-seated toxins in the body and make them ready for elimination
  2. Detox/Cleansing with the five cleansing treatment methods used to detoxify the body (tailored to your specific needs)
  3. Post-Cleansing Diet protocols specifically designed for you needs that help you enhance and rejuvenate

A Panchakarma program today will usually include the following:

  • Herbal oil massages
  • Steam baths
  • Cleansing enemas
  • Nasal administration
  • Gentle laxatives (senna)
  • Specialized diet (One World Ayurveda)

According to Ayurveda, our natural state is one of health, happiness and an inner sense of well-being. Health is defined as the body being clear of toxins, the mind is at peace, emotions are calm and happy, wastes are efficiently eliminated, and organs are functioning normally. In a busy, stressful and toxic world, our physical and mental systems accumulate toxins causing deterioration in bodily functioning. This eventually weakens our systems, which opens the door for chronic, degenerative, and non-specific diseases to develop. These can evolve into serious specific diseases, ultimately damaging your health and wellness.

Panchakarma can help by reversing these negative effects of daily living. It can restore your natural state of health and wellness by cleansing your body of toxins, bringing balance into your system, and improving bodily function. It can also help you sustain this process by making positive changes in lifestyle.

The Panchakarma therapeutic process appears quite simple in its application. However, its effects are powerful and long-lasting. Panchakarma is a unique, natural, holistic, health-giving series of therapeutic treatments that cleanse the body’s deep tissues of toxins, open the subtle channels, bring life-enhancing energy thereby increasing vitality, inner peace, confidence, and well-being.

A Panchakarma program is custom-tailored to your current state of health, wellness, and constitution. It is the starting point to pro-actively manage and improve your own health and wellness. Personal attention is given to each client’s specific needs.

A basic Panchakarma program includes:

  • A complete Ayurvedic assessment including a pulse evaluation
  • A customized herbal protocol
  • Daily Ayurvedic treatments that may include: Abhyanga (a two-person synchronized oil massage), Swedana (individual herbalized sweat therapy), Shirodhara (pouring of warm oil to the forehead), and Udhulana (herbalized dusting of the body)
  • A chromo (color) therapy session
  • Special Yoga classes that assist in eliminating toxins and doshas, and have a therapeutic and restorative effect on the system
  • Daily check-ins with your Panchakarma Consultant to during the program to monitor your cleansing process
  • A special therapeutic diet of kitchari and herbal teas provided daily (preferably 100% organic)
  • Lifestyle and diet recommendations specific to each individual
  • A supportive environment that provides space for true contemplation and self-healing
  • Recommendations for herbal rasayanas (rejuvenatives) for you to take after panchakarma
  • Post-panchakarma health and wellness program for healthy diet, exercise, and lifestyle practices (The Ayurveda Institute)

Panchakarma eliminates accumulated impurities from the mind-body physiology; it is essentially a detoxification program. Pancha in Sanskrit means “five,” and karma means “action” and refers to five different purifying and rejuvenating procedures in Ayurveda. When it was initially designed thousands of years ago, there weren’t as many causes for unhealthy accumulations in the body, but it was still necessary to create this sophisticated Panchakarma detox program. Today, as improper diet, stress, and environmental hazards abound, Panchakarma can be of great help.

A Panchakarma program takes place over the course of several days, allowing plenty of time and space to rest and process the experience. Each step in the program is purposeful and is meant to ultimately restore your body’s innate healing ability. Your body knows how to cleanse itself quite efficiently and is well-equipped to remove waste through various channels such as:

  • Sweat glands
  • Blood vessels
  • Urinary tract
  • Intestines

Since your body has its own detoxification system, what’s the purpose of Panchakarma? Think of a car that is well-maintained and how long it can be kept running. Give it good oil and the attention it needs, and it will reward you with many good years. Ignore your car and its parts start to wear out and overall functioning is less than optimal. While you are more complex than a car, the same concept applies. Sometimes your body and mind need a little help. You need all your parts to be running smoothly to feel healthy and energized. In order to do so, a little conscious effort is needed.

Panchakarma helps to gently clear the channels of removal in the body so that everything runs smoothly and efficiently, like a well-oiled machine. In the process, your mental and emotional bodies go through their own cleansing process as well. The mind and body are intricately connected according to Ayurveda. What you do to one affects the other. For example, when you feel stress you will always feel it somewhere in your body. Or, when you have a good workout, your mind feels light and clear. (Chopra)

Explore the Research

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