Episode Description
In this episode I’m joined by Dr Kanchan, an Ayurvedic doctor trained in India, to explore a radically different way of understanding health, not only as something we fix when it breaks, but as a lifelong relationship between body, mind, senses, environment, and meaning.
This is a conversation about prevention rather than crisis, and about what becomes possible when health is understood as a living, relational process rather than a purely medical one.
Topics include:
- Ayurveda is described as a “science of life,” concerned with the whole arc of living - from conception to death - not just the treatment of disease
- Health is understood as balance within the body, the mind, and the environment, while illness is a sign that something has fallen out of sync
- Western allopathic medicine and Ayurveda are not in conflict; they serve different purposes, with acute medicine vital in emergencies and Ayurveda focused on prevention and long-term wellbeing
- The body is seen as intelligent, with healing emerging when the right conditions are restored rather than imposed from outside
- Ayurveda treats people as individuals, not categories, taking into account constitution, diet, climate, place, habits, and family patterns
- The five elements and three doshas are not rigid “types,” but ways of understanding movement, digestion, transformation, and stability within a person
- Ayurveda is framed as a life science rather than only a medical science, with protecting the health of the healthy as its first priority
- Humans are not placed above nature but understood as part of it, with personal health inseparable from the health of the living world
- The senses are described as powerful gateways shaping the mind, with overuse, underuse, or misuse contributing to imbalance and anxiety
- Daily and seasonal rhythms — how we eat, rest, move, and attend — are presented as foundations for mental steadiness and resilience
- Purpose and inner alignment matter, with illness sometimes arising when actions drift away from a person’s deeper values or moral compass
- The invitation is not to adopt another system wholesale, but to widen our understanding of health, hold multiple ways of knowing, and remember that care, balance, and relationship sit at the heart of wellbeing
Shownotes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-85-what-ayurveda-can-teach-us/
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com
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Mentioned in this episode:
How to Teach Climate Change