Ayurvedic Remedies and Yoga Practices for Colds and Flue

Since long time I wanted to write something about Ayurveda, the”Science of life”, the system of traditional Indian medicine and sister science of yoga. I haven’t found the right start yet, but an opportunity was offered recently. I hope it’s interesting for you. More to come…

Many people around me in KL suffer from flue these days. And even I, who haven’t been sick for long time, feel a bit going on in my body. I treated myself with Ayurvedic remedies and would like to share what has been working with you.

Ayurvedically  speaking, colds and flue are a disorder of Kapha-Vata – two of the three body constitutions according to Ayurveda . The body builds up an excess of mucus, resulting in familiar symptoms such as  runny nose, cough, and congestion. Ayurvedic remedies for flue aim for relieving the cold symptoms and support recovery by bringing the Kapha-Vata imbalance back to a balanced state. Based on literature and personal experience I’d like to list of helpful remedies:

AYURVEDIC REMEDIES

One excellent remedy is ginger. I like to prepare a ginger-cinnamon-lemongrass tea: Put 1-2 finger size of peeled old ginger, 1 table spoon cinnamon, and 3 stalks punched lemongrass together in a liter of water and boil them for around 10 minutes. Let it cool a bit and add honey for sweetness. Drink this delicious teas several times a day. You can add water and reboil during the day. My wife likes to add a pandan leaf into the tea, something which she learned from her Indian grandmother. Not sure if this an Ayurvedic remedy but it gives a nice flavor to the tea.
Besides, I add young ginger to my food, may it be as ginger juice into a salad dressing or cut in small pieces in a soup or other cooked food.

For productive wet cough I have used the following remedy: Mix 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper powder with 1 teaspoon honey and eat on full stomach. If your voice is hoarse, use ghee (clarified butter) instead of honey.

A sore throat can easily be treated with the following remedy: mix 1/2 teaspoon turmeric and 1/2 teaspoon salt in 1 cup of warm water. Gargle with this mixture morning and evening. A sore throat never lasted longer than 1 or two days when I treated my kids with this remedy. I use to take it whenever I feel something starting to bother me in my throat and I never got a real sore throat since.

A very helpful treatment for a runny nose is to put some liquefied ghee in each nostril in the morning and before sleep. This will lubricate yhe nasal passages and relieve the irritation and sneezing of a cold.

YOGA PRACTICES

Besides, Ayurvedic remedies, different yoga kriya (cleansing) practices have shown to be beneficial.

Kapalabhati breathing helps to burn up the cold. During this practice inhale normally and relax your belly, but exhale forcefully, and repeat several times. To avoid complications, let a qualified yoga instructor teach you in this breathing practice.

Neti nasal wash: Dissolve 1 teaspoon salt (without added fluor!) in 1 liter of warm water. Use a neti pot and wash each nostril 2 times in the morning and before sleep. Add the ghee as nose drops afterwards. If you want to intensify the cleansing of your nose, apply a neti string before doing the nasal wash.

Vigorous exercise should be avoided when you have a cold. However, gentle exercise like surya namasakara (sun salutation) is beneficial. Inverted postures, including shoulder stand and headstand as well as standing forward bends help to prevent nasal drip and help to drain the mucus through the nose.

Vaman dauthi: I have benefited from this advanced krya practice, whenever there was tom much mucus in my system, not only during a cold.

OTHER REMEDIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Vitamin C: Taking some vitamin C, e.g. tablet dissolved in water, will be beneficial.

Hot water: Drinking hot water several times a day is an effective way to remove toxins from your the system and hasten recovery from a cold. At the same time avid all cold drinks or foods.

No dairy products: Strictly avoid dairy products such as yogurt, cheese, and milk, since they will increase mucus in your system.

Be sure to rest: Rest is very important for healing. As much as possible, rest, read, and relax.

I hope the described remedies and practices help you to relieve the symptoms and eliminate the causes of a cold. All works as I have experienced, partly myself or while treating my family and friends. If you are interested in more Ayurvedic remedies, stay tuned or read “The Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home Remedies” by Vasant lad.

Stay healthy or get well soon!

Volker

Awesome Yoga Weekend Retreat at an Organic Farm: Titi Eco Farm

Raw Kiwi Tart

INGREDIENTS

6 ripe kiwis
For the crust:
80 g almonds, soaked
50 g sunflower kernel, soaked (or more)
80 g pine nuts, soaked (or less)
5 dates (or dried apricots)
1 tbsp. cacao powder (or carob powder)
pinch of salt
For the crème:
1 orange
50 g macadamia nuts, soaked
5 dates (or 5 tsp. raisins)
½  vanilla pod (or 1 tbsp. vanilla essence)
½ coconut, shredded – keep some for decoration

PREPARATION

Soak nuts and kernel overnight.
Blend almonds, sunflower kernel, pine nuts and dates in a blender as fine as possible. Add salt and knead dough well.  Put baking paper in a spring form and press dough into it. Form a 2cm high crust. If you like the crust a bit crunchier put the spring form with the crust for a few hours in a dehydrator.
Peel oranges and mix with the coconut, macadamia nuts and dates until creamy. Add vanilla.
Peel kiwis and cut them in thin slices. Place the kiwi slices and decorate with some shredded coconut.

TIME

Approx. 45 min (without time for soaking)

SOURCE

My friends Pamela and Daniel de Lorenzo

Try this recipe and feel free to leave a comment. More delicious and healthy recipes in the recipe section soon.

A solution for my sweet tooth – Raw Kiwi Tart

I have to admit, I have a sweet tooth, a very sweet tooth. I love to eat sweet deserts and at my best/worst times – the perception is changing – I could it a pint of ice cream, a 200 g bar of chocolate or a role of chocolate biscuits in one batch without any problems. My body somehow coped with the overload of industrial sugar.

I thought drinking Green Smoothies will change my cravings for sweets – see Green Smoothie – The Elixir of Health. It has, a bit, but still not enough. I thought, yoga will help to discipline my mind and to control the conditioned cravings. It has, a bit, but still not enough. Still, I experience this moments where I am overwhelmed to buy processed sweets and get this overdoses of refined, bleached and with residual chemicals contaminated white sugar.

With time I learned that we are programmed to eat sugar to prepare for the next winter or time when not enough food is available. Furthermore, eating sweat – or gat food – is one strategy of the body to neutralize an unhealthy amount of stress hormones, Cortisol among others, in the body. Last but not least we are made addictive to sugar by the food industry that is putting sugar into almost every processed food and is creating by that an addiction – check the food labels. And who has not been “rewarded” by parents or friends with sweets when we have done something good…

Remembering the “satisfaction” I could get from a high sugar load especially in stressful or sad times, I have been going out to restaurants or bars, on the quest for some deserts which could give that “happiness” feeling. The first bit might be tasteful, but soon I realized that almost everything was too sweet, eventually resulting in a feeling of guilt that I ate that unhealthy food again.

What to do?

One day to long ago I saw a post in Facebook with a deliciously looking, mouth-watering kiwi tart. You see a lot of food pictures in Facebook. But this picture was posted by a friend who I know to be a very committed raw foodist. Hence, I contacted him and got the recipe.

I couldn’t wait to prepare the tart, brought the ingredients described or replaced a few of the original ones were not available. My wife wondered what happen with me and her eyes showed an impression somewhere between suspicious, scared and doubtful about what I will present this time.

The preparation was quite easy and after less than an hour only the tart was done. My wife wondered why it could be so fast and doubted that a cake could taste well if I didn’t bake it. But her doubts switched to curiosity when she saw the result.

When we both tasted the tart it was quiet. I was optimistic about the result but it still surprised me. I felt a wonderful and delicious mixture of sweetness, lightness and freshness on my tongue. And here it was, the short moment of “satisfaction” I was looking for before. What a difference to so many other cakes and sweets I have eaten before. My sweet tooth was more than satisfied and at the same time my health-conscious mind was pleased by knowing what the tart was made off 🙂

And my wife too was enjoying this first experimental approach to an alternative healthy art of sweet deserts. I will see what my kids think about it this afternoon. It would be the final approval 😉

No more processed cakes in future, I hope!

Curious for the recipe? Here it is: Raw Kiwi Tart recipe

Is that something for your sweet tooth? Just try it and make your raw kiwi tart 🙂

Please leave a comment. If you are interested in knowing more about healthy and delicious eating, please check my website www.voma.asia/phl and join or book me for one of my workshops.

Have a great day 🙂

Volker

Five minutes to make your day

“How are you?” I asked my neighbour when meeting him this morning in the elevator to the car park. “Ok, not bad.”, his answer, “And how are you?”. “Wonderful! Thank you.” – “Oh, you are a lucky man.”

How often people answer this basic question regarding somebody’s well-being as my neighbor did? Is it that they have so many problems around, that a day “not bad” is already a good day? Are they used to live with problems and can’t see how much positive things happen around every day?

Every of my days is a wonderful day. Because I allow them to be good ones 🙂

Things are happening. We can’t change them. But we can decide how we perceive them and how we react. If they are good or bad, we can decide. If we want to be angry or just stay indifferent, we can decide.

It’s also in our power to decide which things we want to see. Are you a person who is always seeing problems around you? Or are you able to see an abundance of positive things happening in your life?

Take a five minute break and think, visualize or write down what positive things happened today:

• I’m alive, healthy and without pain, as my family is.
• I had a deep relaxing sleep and feel energized.
• I had a place and silence to do my morning yoga practice.
• I had time for the practice since my wife brought our kids to school.
• The traffic was flowing smoothly on the way to my wife’s office.
• I had a good talk with my wife in the car.
• My wife gave me a kiss and a loving smile when I dropped her at her office.
• …

You get the idea? It’s not difficult to find the positive things when you just decide to look out for them.

And observe how you feel after listing all the positive things which already happened today. I felt very positive and grateful. And I felt strong; whatever negative will come next, it can’t affect my good mood since so much positive things already happened! I made my day!

What are you waiting for? Make your day!

Love and light, Volker

Time to continue…

Hello my friends.

Since I posted my last article in this blog, more than a year has passed by and many things happened in my wonderful life. A big part of my dream came true and I formed a family with my beloved wife Mazlina and her three children.

The wedding and the house moving were the “easy parts”. More challenging and exciting has been the adjustment process for all of us: we all had to learn that they are more people in our life who want to be integrated, respected, and listened to.  Also the different cultural background of my Malaysian family and me needed patience to be understood and appreciated. Last but not least, being responsible for a family required a few adjustments in my work.

All these adjustments have been completed and we all are enjoying the family life. Rewards are appearing every day, and may it only a short laughter or a silent “I love you”. I don’t want to miss a single day and am very happy with the development of my life!

I feel that now is the time to continue with my blog and I observe ideas and inspiration are popping up in my mind. Hence, be prepared, new posts following soon.

As always, comments, feedback and suggestions are more than welcome.

Have a wonderful day!

Volker

A dream has come true

In 2006 I had a dream of my future life. In my real life I signed a contract for an interesting job, which also gave me hope to be able to save enough money to make my dream true one day.

4 years ago I quit my corporate carrier to create a new, a different life. A life with time for a family, my friends, my passions and hobbies. A life with time to spend with my wife, to enjoy common hobbies, to share and discuss ideas and thoughts. A life with time to see my kids growing up, to pick them up from school, to teach and educate them. A life with time for my friends and to enjoy life doing my hobbies and living my passions.

3.5 years ago I moved to Malaysia. I had nothing else than my savings and the dream. No job, only a few contacts from previous visits and a white sheet as my calendar. I have rented an apartment and started to fill my empty calendar with what I wanted to do in my life. I went into some wrong directions and made mistakes. Today I’m grateful for these experiences since they helped me to find my path.

Today I live my dream.
I have a wonderful family with my beloved wife and 3 gorgeous kids. When I look into my wife’s eyes I can see nothing than pure love. A hug of her gives more than money can ever buy. Watching my kids is better than cinema or TV. I spend and enjoy time with them every day. And a good night kiss from them makes all troubles forget.
I have a job which let me live my passions which is to share what I have learned and experienced, and what has been beneficial in my life.
Yoga is my path and teaches me to be positive and a good person. It’s my foundation, my balance, my source of peace and my guidance.

I love my life. Life is beautiful. I’m grateful for every minute and offering my thanks to the universe and to my creator.

Live your life today as you love to do it. Or at least, have a dream and do the first step towards living your dream.

Love and light,
Volker

Ayurveda – the Concept of a Healthy Life

Since yoga has done so good to me (see Yoga – How good it does), I soon became interested in it’s sister science, ayurveda. This post will give you some basic understanding what aryuveda is and how I integrated it into my life including a number of experienced very positive results.

Ayurveda means translated “knowledge or science of life” (veda = knowledge, science, ayur = life). It’s a natural approach for creating balance and strengthening the body’s health and healing capabilities. Ayurveda is based on observations of nature and human life, gathered in more than 5000 years. Yet the concept and potential benefits have never been more valuable than now.

According to Ayurveda the nature is based on 5 elements, earth, water, wind, fire and space. Everything in nature is made out of this elements, the human being as well. The function of the human body is governed by three natural principals – so called doshas – which are based on the five elements. The three doshas are vata, pitta and kapha. All three doshas work together in a human being and control all of the body’s function. However, the individual mind/body type of a human being is determined by the natural predominance of one or more of these three doshas in the body. So governs for example pitta bodily functions concerned with heat, metabolism and energy production. People with predominant dosha pitta are normally very active, tend to be of high temper, can easliy digest food, are very analytical and tend to feel more comfortable in a colder environment. Behavior is analyzed for its influence on the dosha. For example, exercising in the sun can aggrevate pitta.

As the body, all our food is a combination of the five elements. Each food is evaluated for its strength and balance of the doshas. Is a food with high activity given to a human with the same predominant dosha, it creates an imbalance in the body system, which may result in disease. The same effect can be used to heal a disease by giving the right foot for creating balance in the body. For example, hut pungent spices have strong pita activity and fruits and salads help to balance excessive pitta.

More about the background of Ayurveda, about how to determine your dosha, about properties of food and ayurvedic remedies can be read in numerous publications in the internet or literature (see References and Reading List. Or you do it as my fiancee and me have done it recently, visit a ayurvedic doctor and request an profound introduction, analysis and individual diatery recommendation.

So far the basic theory. The first time I was introduced to Ayurveda during a yoga retreat with my teacher Paul Dallaghan, I quickly got confused by the complexity of different elements, doshas and combinations, tastes, how all this is present in our food and how all this is impacting the human being. On top food is changing the characteristic depending on its preparation and has a different impact depending at what time of the day or in which combinations it is eaten. The topic was very interesting and the opportunities to maintain stable health or healing diseases at its origin were very logical and promissing. However, I felt overwhelmed and lost. What dosha combination am I and what shall I eat and when???

Fortunately Paul made a very good comment at the end of the retreat. He pointed out that what ever we eat, observation of ourselves is important. Being more aware and more tuned inwards we have the great chance not only to learn but also to experience how we are and which impact food has on us. If we listen into ourselves, nature will guide us what is good for us. The body will indicate what food is needed and in which moment by giving a natural craving. Hence choosing the food after holding in for a while to understand the body’s signals, and only then eating or drinking the food with full attention, will help us to apply principles of ayurveda without being an expert.

I’m predominant pitta (fire element) with some vata (wind element) beside. Since several years I have eliminated respective integrated certain food based on ayurvedic principles to reduce my internal fire, to balance my doshas and strengthen my health. It helped me to feel well in a warm climate as in Malaysia which is not ideal for pitta people. Cooling food and cooling breathing techniques have helped me to control my temper and my emotions in general. By regular practice of observing my inner self I have become more sensitive for the sutle signals of my body. And I can say all that does good to me – for sure one major reason that I am generally in a happy mood and without any health issues since almost 4 years!

It was easy to incorporate for example salads, coconut, watermelon and fruits as example for cooling food or to eliminate meat as an example for heating food. However, eliminating some of my favorites, such as hard cheese, garlic, ginger, and red chili hasn’t been easy at all. Here another teaching of yoga helps me a lot: to be moderate in my actions and to have an open mind. Over the time, I have more or less reduced or substituted these and other loved foods by alternatives – do you know asafoetida? 🙂 And the experienced benefits help me to motivate myself and to continue on my journey.

If you are an open minded person and looking for an option to take better care of you, why not trying a consultation from an ayurvedic doctor. You can’t loose anything, but the potential benefits are amazing.

Have you tried Ayurveda yet? If yes, which results have you experienced? Please kindly leave a comment below.

Have a balanced day and some healthy food 🙂
Volker

Yoga – How good it does!

It was shortly after I moved to Shanghai that I was introduced to yoga. I had heard about Yoga before during my time in Germany and had a friend who was teaching yoga. However, it felt like being something too esoteric for me, too unreal for a German engineer. Later, when arriving in Asia it appeared to be the right time to explore further what yoga is.

There were two major reasons why I started with yoga. Firstly, I was looking for a physical exercise in Shanghai as a balance for sitting too much in an office. I always have done physical exercises in my life and I didn’t feel well the first weeks without a regular physical activity. Secondly, I had a stressful year or two behind me and a challenging job in a new environment ahead, so that I felt I need something to balance my mind and to be effective to relax, something I can use to disconnect my mind from work or any kind of stress and unhappiness.

My first yoga class gave me much more than I expected. I remember that I was walking to the studio and reacted quite emotionally on any car crossing my way when I tried to cross the street at a zebra crossing. I felt angry and an urge to kick the car or to do something else to release my tension. In that first yoga class I was lucky to have a teacher who spent 30 min with just letting us breathe, lying, sitting and standing, experiencing different areas of the body we breathe into, while counting the length of each inhale and exhale. Sun salutations with the rhythm of the breath were following, and a few basic standing poses and a relaxation pose were completing the class. I felt very relaxed! When I was walking home I encountered again the situation of crossing cars at zebra crossings as on my way to the studio. But surprisingly for me I just stepped back and let the car pass, indifferent and accepting the situation, without any emotions. Wow, what an effect of the yoga class to my mental state! This was an unexpected and intensive experience which gave me the confirmation that I found the right thing and that I want to continue with it.

In the following years I was fortunate to meet a number of very good teachers who inspired me and guided me through different aspects of yoga. I was taught very early in the importance of breath and the value of focussing on fundamental basics rather than approaching fancy postures. Later I was introduced in more detail to the aspects and benefits of pranayama (breathing practice) and to the therapeutic approach of yoga. But the maybe most important result for me has been the start of a journey into myself, towards what I am.

Besides learning about asanas – the physical practice on the mat -, I increasingly became interested in the philosophy behind yoga. I discovered how I could transfer my experiences made during the physical practice on the mat into my life outside the mat. Both studies of the asanas, pranayama and the philosophy helped me to raise my awareness for myself, my body, my thoughts, my emotions, and my actions. I learned to put myself into an observing mode in order to become aware of myself from outside. How much I could learn about me by that!

Selected literature – see reading list – helped me to understand better what I could observe and experience inside me. I became more aware why I have done things I have done, what has been triggering certain emotions and actions and how to influence or control them. I started to become more aware of my environment, how people behave and interact and what could be the cause for that. Both together have helped me to understand better the interaction between my environment and me. And I got a better understanding of what is really important for me and what I want in my life.

The consequences of increasing awareness and understanding have been tremendous and are described in other posts before: Life-Work Balance. I decided to change my life and have started to design and live a life full of happiness and love. I made conscious choices based on my needs and not based on other’s expectations. And I think I have never felt happier and more in peace with myself and my environment before than I do now!

My yoga practice has since long become something different than in the beginning. It has more and more evolved into a spiritual practice where asanas and pranayama are tools to help me to proceed on my journey. Practicing and experiencing has helped me to increase awareness and to get light into my life. I can feel daily the benefits of my practice and I’m excited of my experiences and my life, sometimes impatiently waiting what is coming next. In these moments I hold in for a moment and remember that life happens in the now not in the future. But this is another topic I’ll address in a different post soon…

When I started with yoga in form of asanas, someone told me: “If you practice yoga 1 or 2 times per week, your situation will stabilize without changes to the worth or the better. If you practice 3 or 4 times per week, clear changes will become quickly apparent. If you practice, 5 or more times a week, your whole life will change.” How true this statement has been proven to be in my case…!

Have you tried yoga yet? What are you waiting for? Don’t be afraid of the potential positive consequences 😉

Have a wonderful day, have an enjoyable happy life!

Volker

Popeye Salad

Spinach, sprouts and seeds – that’s where Popeye gets the energy from. Easy to sprout are mung beans. Tahini and orange gives the salad a tasteful combination of bitterness and sweetness.

Ingredients

For the salad:
1 bunch (2 C) spinach, finely chopped
1 C different sprouts: in the salad shown in the pictures I have chosen mung bean, quinoa and pea sprouts, alternatives are alfalfa, buckwheat or sunflower sprouts.
1 red capsicum, chopped
1 orange, chopped
For the dressing:
3 T tahini (white)
1 T sesame oil
2 T fresh orange juice (or 1T and 1T lime juice)
1/4 C parsley, finely chopped
1 t cumin
¼ t cayenne

Preparation

Sprout the chosen seeds. Add to other ingredients.
Blend the tahini with the oil, parsley and spices. Pour over the salad, followed by the juice and mix both in.

Time

Approx. 20 min (without sprouting)

Source

This is a variation of a recipe in Gabriel Cousens: “Rainbow Green Life-Food Cuisine”