Ayurveda - the healing touch

Ayurveda - the healing touch

To refresh life, surrender to yourself to the healing touch of Ayurveda in Kerala. Kerala’s unique climatic condition and natural abundance of forests, with a treasure of herbs and medicinal plants, make it an ideal place for Ayurvedic rejuvenation. There are numerous approved Ayurveda centres in Kerala that offer Ayurveda treatments and rejuvenation.

Basic Principles of Ayurveda

While Ayurvedic principles can be used to explain the complexity of not only health, but also the world around us, there are several simple basics that become the building blocks for everything else:

• Ayurveda’s fundamental approach to well-being is that you must reach your unique state of balance in your whole being—body, mind, and spirit.
• Ayurveda views the world in light of 3 constitutional principles: vata, pitta, and kapha. These are explained in more detail below.
• The first line of defense in combating imbalances is to remove the cause of the problem. If the trouble-maker is out of the picture, the body starts being able to heal itself. For example, if pollutants are bothering your nasal passages and sinuses, rinse them out with a traditional Ayurvedic remedy, the neti pot.
• If there are any lingering imbalances after removing the inciting cause, then bring balance by using opposites. For example, the Ayurvedic remedy to excess heat is to use something cooling. So for excess heat or acidity in the digestive system, you could use cooling and soothing herbs likeShatavari.
• Always support the digestive fire, so that nutrition can be absorbed and waste materials can be eliminated.

Vata, Pitta, and Kapha: Your Viewing Lenses

Once you put on the lens of Ayurveda and see things in terms of vata, pitta, kapha, and combinations thereof, the whole world comes alive in a new way. Look at the world around you! The doshas take form in endlessly interesting ways.

Vata

Composed of air and space, vata is dry, light, cold, rough, subtle/pervasive, mobile, and clear. As such, vata regulates the principle of movement. Any bodily motion—chewing, swallowing, nerve impulses, breathing, muscle movements, thinking, peristalsis, bowel movements, urination, menstruation—requires balanced vata. When vata is out of balance, any number of these movements may be deleteriously affected.

Pitta

Pitta brings forth the qualities of fire and water. It is sharp, penetrating, hot, light, liquid, mobile, and oily. Pitta’s domain is the principal of transformation. Just as fire transforms anything it touches, pitta is in play any time the body converts or processes something. So pitta oversees digestion, metabolism, temperature maintenance, sensory perception, and comprehension. Imbalanced pitta can lead to sharpness and inflammation in these areas in particular.

Kapha

Kapha, composed of earth and water, is heavy, cold, dull, oily, smooth, dense, soft, static, liquid, cloudy, hard, and gross (in the sense of dense or thick). As kapha governs stability and structure, it forms the substance of the human body, from the skeleton to various organs to the fatty molecules (lipids) that support the body. An excess of kapha leads to an overabundance of density, heaviness, and excess in the body.

Your Unique Constitution

The key to Ayurvedic wellness and healing is the knowledge that health is not a “one size fits all” proposition. One must understand the unique nature of each person and situation, taking into account the individual, the season, the geography, and so on.

Each person has an Ayurvedic constitution that is specific to him or her, and movement away from that constitution creates health imbalances; if such imbalances are not addressed, Ayurveda says that illness may develop. So, the early signs of imbalance serve as a wakeup call to make gentle and natural shifts in behavior to return to balance—such as adjusting diet, modifying daily activities and taking herbal remedies for a time.

Determining your prakriti—your fundamental balanced constitution—requires an assessment of your most natural state. Consider your physical structure as well as mental and emotional tendencies. Remember to think of what is most natural to you, rather than what you’re like when you are stressed or ill. Ayurveda says you can understand your basic nature and tendencies by understanding your balanced state.

Dosha imbalances (your vikruti, or current condition) can manifest in various stages, from a general feeling of “something is not right” all the way to diagnosed illnesses with serious complications. To address this, Ayurveda presents a vast toolbox of treatment modalities to choose from; but whatever the treatment, the goal is to reestablish your natural balance of vata, pitta, and kapha.

To determine your balanced constitution and your current condition, take the free Banyan Botanicals quizzes.

Ayurveda and Remedies

Ayurveda offers a number of ways to balance doshas and find your well-being. The key is to find balance with a wholistic approach—addressing mind, body, and spirit. Ayurvedic remedies draw on a number of modalities:

• Diet modifications
• Lifestyle and Activity adjustments
• Herbal Supplements
• Yoga, Pranayama (Breath Techniques), and Meditation
• Marma (Energetic Pressure Points)
• Cleansing Processes, such as Panchakarma
• And much more!

Number Base Systems

Number Base Systems

Decimal(10)	Binary(2)	Ternary(3)	Octal(8)	Hexadecimal(16)
0	0	0	0	0
1	1	1	1	1
2	10	2	2	2
3	11	10	3	3
4	100	11	4	4
5	101	12	5	5
6	110	20	6	6
7	111	21	7	7
8	1000	22	10	8
9	1001	100	11	9
10	1010	101	12	A
11	1011	102	13	B
12	1100	110	14	C
13	1101	111	15	D
14	1110	112	16	E
15	1111	120	17	F
16	10000	121	20	10
17	10001	122	21	11
18	10010	200	22	12
19	10011	201	23	13
20	10100	202	24	14

Each digit can only count up to the value of one less than the base. In hexadecimal, the letters A - F are used to represent the digits 10 - 15, so they would only use one character.

IS AN APPLE A FRUIT OR VEGETABLE?

An apple is both a fruit and a vegetable. By definition, a vegetable is any plant whose fruit, seeds, roots, tubers, bulbs, stems, leaves, or flower parts are used as food, as the tomato, bean, beet, potato, onion, asparagus, spinach, or cauliflower. And a fruit is defined as, the developed ovary of a seed plant with its contents and accessory parts, as the pea pod, nut, tomato, or pineapple.

Thus, apples, pea pods, and tomatoes are both a fruit and a vegetable. However, onions, potatoes, and beets, are just vegetables.

The Science Behind What Makes a Woman Fall in Love With You

If you’ve ever been in love, then you know that it’s a remarkable process. The science behind it is even more fascinating. Knowing what makes love happen is an interesting study in neuroscience, biochemistry and psychology. And while there’s much more going on here than science alone, understanding the underlying mechanics of love is incredibly interesting and useful for enhancing our social and romantic lives

The Role of Chemicals in Love

Love isn’t just a bunch of chemicals, but brain chemistry plays an important role in why we feel the way we feel about other people. And when we feel good things, there’s usually a lot of dopamine involved. Dopamine is the chemical the brain releases when people — women or men — experience any kind of pleasure, including love. Dopamine also increases the amount of testosterone the body produces. The increased testosterone is why people sweat when they’re around someone they’re in love with, and why people have a higher sex drives when love is new.

When women fall in love, their bodies also produces norepinephrine and phenylethylamine. These increase focus while creating a sense of euphoria. That’s why women often become focused on one man to the exclusion of other things when they’re falling in love. It’s why everyone, men and women, feels extra alert waiting for a text message, or why people have trouble sleeping or even thinking about anyone else.

Last, but certainly not least, is oxytocin. Oxytocin is released at various points, including during cuddling and sex. Women produce way more of it than men. (Men don’t produce it during orgasm, instead getting a rush of dopamine, which is why they’re we’re less likely to fall in love with someone just because we had sex.) Oxytocin breaks down emotional barriers, making people feel comfortable and getting them to “drop their guard.” Oxytocin is what creates that sense of attachment we feel to another person when we’re falling in love. When they’re not around, you’re not producing as much, and so you want more. That’s why we can sometimes feel “addicted” to the person we’re dating.

Dopamine, testosterone , oxytocin, norepinephrine and phenylethylamine all work together to create a feedback loop of love. Sexual pleasure and romantic attachment release the same bundle of chemicals. These chemicals make you give greater attention to their source, while also pushing you to seek out more of the same chemicals. Love (and sex, for that matter) work on the brain much like a drug.

But even if you knew how to get all her chemicals flowing in the right way, that still wouldn’t be enough to “make” her fall in love with you. Because love isn’t just chemicals. It’s also a function of personal history and preferences.

Psychology Trumps Chemicals

A big reason why you can’t just use knowledge of brain chemistry to get a girl to fall in love is that not every woman responds to the same chemical mix in the same way. Psychologists call these “attachment styles,” and even if you release the precisely correct mixture of brain chemicals, her attachment style might veto any connection you’re making with her. Whereas the hard sciences (biology and chemistry) tell you that you can engage in certain actions, release certain chemicals and get certain effects, the soft sciences (psychology) say that something much more personal and nuanced is going on.

You’re probably aware of attachment styles, even if you didn’t know they were called that. For example, have you ever been really hitting it off with a girl gone on a couple of dates, but then she just disappears? Or have you ever had a casual fling that suddenly turns serious? Those are examples of two different attachment styles. The exact same actions (a couple of dates where the two of you hit it off) lead to two wildly different results (one runs and one clings).

There are four different attachment styles. One of these is completely toxic, two can be problematic and the fourth is just right. We might even react with one attachment style for one person and a different attachment style for another. But for the most part, an attachment style is just that — a kind of reaction to whomever we find ourselves interested in. Once you understand the attraction styles, I’m willing to bet your past relationships will start making a lot more sense to you. They are:

• Secure: This is where you want to land. A secure person is basically OK relying on other people and have others rely on them. They’re equally comfortable being on their own. Thus, a girl who has a secure attachment style isn’t going to hang outside of your apartment every day, trying to get a couple seconds of your time. Nor is she going to avoid you when things start getting hot and heavy. She’s going to see you when the both of you free time. While she might want more time, she won’t resort to inappropriate or manipulative ways of getting your attention.
• Anxious: Girls with an anxious attachment style tend to have lower self-esteem and be less secure in themselves. The anxious girl isn’t opposed to intimacy, but wants way more of it than is appropriate for the relationship. If you’ve ever dated a girl who treated you as a super serious, exclusive item not long after the two of you started dating, you are familiar with this attachment style. She might not fall in love with you, but she will become more and more obsessed.
• Dismissive: The dismissive girl doesn’t want a relationship, because she prefers being on her own. Thus, when she gets a sense of attachment or strong romantic attraction, her natural inclination is to pull away and retreat into her shell. She might have feelings for you, but more importantly, she doesn’t want to have feelings for you, so she does everything she can to shut those feelings out. While you might be able to win her over, your energies are probably better spent on someone who is more open to falling in love.
• Fearful: Fearful people generally have experienced some kind of trauma or abuse (big or small) in childhood that makes them not just unwilling, but afraid to form attachments with others. They see themselves as unworthy of your affection and interest. What’s more, they might question your motives in being attracted to them. Fearful folks have to do the work on their own to become emotionally strong and healthy enough to be in relationships. You can’t fix them, and you’re not going to get anything but hurt in the process.

Note that the two attachment styles in the middle — anxious and dismissive — can be elements of a secure person’s attachment style. For example, a girl can be secure but slightly more clingy than most, or she might value her independence while being able to form attachments and relationships with others. The fearful attachment style is far more explicitly toxic. Why would you want someone to fall in love with you who wonders if you’re tricking or trying to take advantage of them? The first three can all fall in love with you, while the fourth will always keep you at arm’s length.

No matter how much a woman’s chemistry might be telling her to fall in love with you, her personality, expressed through her attachment style, might be too much to overcome. That is where psychology trumps chemicals.

What the Science of Girls Falling in Love Says You Should Do

Knowing about chemicals and attachment styles alone isn’t going to get a woman to fall in love with you. Knowing how love works, however, can increase the chances of finding the right woman for you and creating a meaningful bond in a way that’s healthy and satisfying for both of you.

The simple act of touching and cuddling can make the two of you feel closer. Knowing what your chemicals are telling you to do unconsciously can help your conscious, rational mind to accelerate or put on the brakes as needed. Understanding her attachment style can help you give her what she needs in a relationship, or decide to find someone else if your attachment styles don’t match.
The science of what makes girls fall in love isn’t a magic spell or a Jedi mind trick. It’s the simple act of paying attention to habits, behaviors and preferences with an eye toward the role science plays in affairs of the heart. You can’t hack into her brain and make her fall in love with you, but you can use your knowledge of how the brain works to nurture and deepen attraction that’s already there. Given enough time and the right compatability, that attraction can blossom into love — in all its strange, unique, exciting complexity.

HOW TO EAT PASSION FRUIT

1

Consider the texture of the passion fruit's skin. You want to pick ones that are slightly wrinkled and a deep purple color--these are the ones that have ripened the most and will be the sweetest. It is good to remember that while you may want to buy clean passion fruits, it really doesn’t matter as you only eat the flesh (or inside) of the fruit. The softer the shell, the more ripe the fruit will be.

2

Shake the passion fruit. You should grab a passion fruit and shake it. If you feel a lot of liquid or pressure in there, that means there are a lot of seeds and liquid (meaning a lot of deliciousness to eat.) Compare them with the others to see which one has the most flesh.^[2]

3

Smell the passion fruit. You can also determine the flavor if you smell the fruit. If you can smell a lot of tropical aromas then it will taste good. If you can't smell anything, it'll probably either be too sour and or tasteless.