Ayurvedic Medicine - What is Alternative Medicine?

In Boston, a 39-year-old woman with extensive cancer in her lymph nodes and 12 different sites in her bones consulted a well-known Ayurvedic doctor because her chemotherapy sessions left her without energy, her blood count was consistently low, and her chances of survival was only 1%. The physician prescribed a long-term Ayurvedic regime that included meditation, revised diet and sleep patterns, massage, herb preparations, yoga routines, and even exposure to certain sounds and aromas. After several years of treatment, her cancer went into complete remission, her general health was good, and her blood chemistry returned to the normal range, according to Craig Lambert in his article, “The Chopra Prescriptions,” published in the September-October 1989 issue of Harvard Magazine .

This woman's case is far from an isolated one. While Westerners might consider her treatment to be “alternative,” Ayurvedic medicine has been practiced in India for more than 6,000 years. In Sanskrit, “Ayurveda” means the “science of life and longevity.” The Aruyvedic approach treats the person, not just the disease, so each treatment is highly individualized. It is based on the premise that health is a state of “balance” among the body's systems—physical, emotional, and spiritual. Illness is seen as a state of imbalance.

Ayurvedic medicine has been popularized in the West by Dr. Deepak Chopra, whose best-selling books, Perfect Health and Ageless Body/Timeless Mind, describe how it works. According to Chopra, “the guiding principle of Ayurveda is that the mind exerts the deepest influence on the body, and freedom from sickness depends upon contacting our own awareness, bringing it into balance, and then extending that balance to the body. This state of balanced awareness … creates a higher state of health.”

Ayurvedic medicine stresses a holistic approach to health. It defines disease as the result of climatic extremes, bacterial attack, nutritional deviance, and stress as well as other forms of emotional imbalance. Optimal health is achieved by cultivating mental and physical habits that are conducive to physical and spiritual well-being, and treatment often includes hatha yoga, diet, and developing positive attitudes.