Most people have an idea of what to do in order to get a peaceful night’s rest, but for one reason or another they still find themselves tossing and turning. Their mind won’t quit – it won’t shut off.

We all know that lack of sleep can cause many significant health issues and increase stress levels. And yet, for about 50% of the nation’s population, getting a good night’s sleep is harder than mining for diamonds in Africa!

In Ayurveda, sleep is one of the three pillars of health. In order for our bodies to have perfect health and well being, we need to have time to relax and rejuvenate ourselves. With the intention of decreasing stress and reducing its effect on our bodies, here are some simple tips for falling asleep that have helped my clients and myself tremendously.

Lavender Essential Oil

Put a drop of highly therapeutic lavender essential oil [LINK: previous post on essential oils] on the bottom of each foot and massage it in to your skin. Use your finger to rub it in about 8-10 times. The oil will be absorbed into the body very quickly, and you can use the remaining oil on your shoulders. This will help to cool the winds of the mind and move into a relaxed state.

Make Your Diet A Routine

Eat three cooked meals a day, preferably at the same time of day. This will help the mind fall into a normal routine or pattern to decrease feelings of chaos and unpredictability. As much as you can, keep things stable and regular.

Choose A Bedtime

Ideally, go to bed by 10 pm and wake up by 6 am to set a predictable pattern for the mind. Use the lavender oil on your body about 15 minutes before you’re ready for lights out to relax your body.

Remove Electronics

Turn off the television and any electronic equipment in your room! The electromagnetic energy and radiation that comes from these devices keep your mind alert, especially if your cell phone makes a sound every time you receive a message. Ideally, turn off the TV at least 15 minutes before you go to bed and keep all electronics away from the area where you sleep.

Drink Warm Milk

Make a nice, warm, yummy drink to help relax your body: warm 4-6 oz. milk and put a pinch of nutmeg in it. Allow the nutmeg to be absorbed and enjoy. If you’re lactose intolerant, this recipe still works great with other kinds of milk (coconut, almond, soy, etc.).

Nutmeg is a natural sleep inducer because it allows melatonin to release naturally, but be careful not to add too much as it can be harmful to the body.

Diffuse Essential Oil

A diffuser is a container that you fill with water and a couple drops of essential oil. It works similar to a mister or vaporizer to add essential oils into the atmosphere, and is a lovely way to help your body relax. Let it be part of your 15-minute ritual before you go to bed.

Meditation

Try a 5-minute meditation to calm the mind. It doesn’t have to be formal, it can be as simple as laying in bed with the lights off and giving gratitude for the things that happened during the day.

When thoughts come up, repeat the word “calm” to yourself. Say, “I am calm, I am at peace, I am relaxed and I’m being restored.” Repeat this phrase and allow the rambling thoughts to disappear. Eventually you’ll fall off into slumber and have a great night’s sleep.

Are you ready to create more relaxation and peace in your life? Visit www.FreeGiftsFromRochele.com to discover the best ways to promote health and vitality for your body type.

In Ayurveda, we understand that there is a need to create inner calm without diminishing our alertness and awareness of our surroundings. Herbal remedies are a great way to support this naturally without creating brain fog (which is often a side effect of pharmaceutical drugs).

When herbs are ingested, your body receives the natural medicine right from the plant. Pharmaceutical drugs are also created from flora, only the drug companies extract the natural medicine from the plant and tinker with the chemical composition in ways that can have harmful side effects.

Scientific research has shown that utilizing herbs can reduce stress and anxiety as well as create a sense of calm and heightened alertness. They allow us to build up Ojas, the essence that helps keep our immune system strong.

There are several herbs that I like to call the “worry-free” or “stress-free” herbs because they enhance the power of mental processing. The herbs I’m about to talk about have a special nature: they relax the anxiety in the mind, bring us a sense of awakening and enlightenment, and help us to feel connected with Mother Nature in a natural, nourishing way.

Jatamansi, Greater Galangal and Ashwagandha

These herbs help enhance the mind’s overall ability to fight stress. They’re thought of as the cleansing herbs because they clean out the toxins of the mind and help open up the gap for understanding and awareness.

Between stress and calmness is a gap where our intelligence resides. We always want to tap into this intelligence to heighten our level of clarity and enlightenment.

How to Use Them

I suggest making a tea with these three herbs. You can combine all three of them together, or use the one at a time.

Place ½ – 1 tsp herbs into a tea steeper with boiling water. Allow the tea to sit about 3-5 minutes. The longer you let it steep, the stronger and more effective it will be.

You can use natural sweeteners like agave nectar, but the tea will be delicious without any sweetening as well. Sip on the tea and watch what happens with your mind: you will find yourself becoming more clear, focused, stress-free and anxiety-free.

How to Buy Them

Often these herbs are already formulated in tea bags, but you can also get them in capsules at different health food stores.  The capsules are basically the dried herbs that is crushed and put in the gel caps.

I recommend purchasing the best quality, organic, non-GMO herbs online from Banyan Botanicals or Mountain Rose Herbs. Sometimes these herbs are imported so you’ll have to wait a little longer; often there may be a wait for Jatamansi and Ashwagandha because they are such potent and powerful medicines. You can also contact me for help in purchasing the products.

If you’re ready to improve your health in a meaningful and natural way, visit www.FreeGiftsFromRochele.com for some easy and free ways to enhance your well-being.

Often we think about boosting our immune system during cold and flu season, but throughout the entire year things come up that can throw us off-kilter and create havoc to our system and energy levels.

Last week, I talked about Ojas and Ama and explored how food choice can affect toxin-levels in our bodies. Today, I’m going to share a few more strategies that I use with my clients to help them stay healthy and energized 365 days a year.

Spices

In Ayurveda, we use a lot of herbs in natural medicine and cooking, and spices play a very important role in assisting our bodies to absorb the intelligence that we eat. When you add spices to your cooked vegetables, grains and legumes, the food can more quickly convert into the essence of Ojas that helps naturally build our immune system and increase our energy. Try some of these spices the next time you’re whipping up a meal:

Turmeric

This spice has an immune modulating effect. It is a detoxifier and enhances the intelligence of the immune cells. Turmeric is really delicious and is often found in East Indian cooking.

Cumin

Often found in Latin dishes, this spice burns away the Ama in the digestive tract. It has a great smell and tastes wonderful.

Black Pepper

This spice clears tissue channels so the essence of the Ojas travel deeper into the body and build a healthy and stable foundation for good health.

All three of these spices are great for any dosha type.

Fruit

The main goal in eating fruit is to keep your bowel cleansed and free of undigested foods that can create Ama. Organic, tree-ripened fruit is the best option. If you don’t have access to fresh fruit, frozen is next best, but be careful to avoid canned fruit. It’s dead, it’s dead, it’s dead.

Apples contain antioxidants, and insoluble and soluble fiber which helps cleanse the bowel. They are also sweet and juicy. Whoever said that an apple a day keeps the doctor away was really tapping into some higher intelligence.

Pears, peaches, plums, sweet pineapples and mango are some fruits that transform quickly into the essence of Ojas. Pomegranate seed juice or chutney keeps the body in balance as well.

I love having some papaya after a big meal to satisfy my sweet tooth without adding excess fat in the middle of my waist.

Essential Oils

Essential oils are a really powerful way to support the immune system. If you’re newer to essential oils and would like to find out how you can use them and where to find them, there is more information HERE [LINK: previous essential oils post].

Peppermint Essential Oil

naturally supports the respiratory system and is awakening and energy enhancing. It gently increases the essence of Ojas in the body.

Lemon Essential Oil

helps to naturally jumpstart the liver into detoxification mode and push Ama out of the body. It’s great at assisting the body in absorbing the nutrients from our food without over-taxing the system (it’s also really great for naturally increasing energy levels).
If you do all these things, in no time you will be digesting your food in a much more healthy and productive manner! Did you love all this information, and want to go a little deeper? Visit http://www.FreeGiftsFromRochele.com for more tips

Often we think about boosting our immune system during cold and flu season, but throughout the entire year things come up that can throw us off-kilter and create havoc to our system and energy levels. Today I’d like to share some strategies that I use with my clients to help them stay healthy and energized 365 days a year.

Ojas, Ama and Toxins

In Ayurveda, we refer to the essences that help keep our immune system strong as Ojas. When we eat healthy, nourishing, organic, non-GMO food, the nutrients are absorbed in our body and the end product of those wonderful essences creates Ojas. This then helps us complete our digestion and create radiant skin and good health, as well as instilling a sense of happiness and well-being.

If the food we eat is full of pesticides, or if we don’t eat the right food for our body type, we can build up Ama, which are toxins. The goal is to always try to keep your body as free from Ama as possible because it’s so debilitating and can cause illness.

The term “toxins” in Ayurveda doesn’t only refer to chemicals like pesticides. It also refers to toxins we take in through our environment, things that we see and hear. This might look like a violent television show or music with aggressive or sexually explicit lyrics. Toxins, or Ama, are anything that assaults our sense of wellness and balance.

When our system is under attack or working very hard, our bodies become fertile ground for illness. The goal is to keep the seeds of disease from sprouting in the first place by maintaining low levels of Ama and high levels of Ojas.

Food Choice

One of the most basic and important things to look at in building Ojas is food choice. It is optimal to choose intelligent, immune-boosting types of food that are easy to digest. When I say “intelligent,” I mean fresh vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and lite, fresh, organic, non-GMO dairy products.

When you choose foods that are unaltered by genetic modification and pesticides, you give your body a great foundation to absorb the nutrients. These foods help us wake up the intelligent nature of our bodies and create Ojas.

The foods to stay away from are processed, canned, frozen or packaged goods. They are the hardest to digest and create Ama in our digestive tract since they are so difficult to break down. When food stays in our colon, it petrifies and can be harmful to our immune system and deplete our energy.

Preservatives, pesticides and GMO’s deplete foods of their intelligence. When we consume them, they deplete our intelligence on a cellular level and set us up for illness and disease.

Cooking

When cooking, it’s important to be mindful of how long different foods need to be cooked. Steaming vegetables can make them more easily digestible for the body, but when they start to lose their natural color they’ve been cooked for too long. Overcooking reduces the immune-producing part of the food, depleting it of important vitamins and minerals.

Meat does need to be cooked to a certain temperature in order to kill harmful bacteria, but it should also be eaten in moderation, as it can be difficult for some body types to digest.

Stay tuned! Next week, I’m going to talk about how cooking with spices, eating certain fruits, and essential oils can all help boost the immune system.

In the meantime, if you want to take a more personal look at boosting immunity for your body type, click here for some great starting tips.