All-Day Ayurveda

No time for yourself? No problem. India’s ancient system of medicine offers quick morning and evening self-care rituals to help you balance your energy and boost your health.

- Shannon Sexton

IF WAKING UP IS A STRUGGLE, midday finds you crashing, and you're restless and alert at be time, it may be time to reset your clock. According to Ayurveda, yoga’s 5,000-year-old sister science, one of the keys to good health and feeling great all day long is living in tune with nature’s cycles. Literally and energetically, that means using the sun as a guide for when to rise and when to go to bed. To help you align your system more closely with the cycles of nature, Ayurvedic tradition recommends a routine of morning and nighttime practices collectively known as dinacharya. These rituals are designed to give you calm, focused, sustainable energy to support meditation, yoga, and everything you do throughout the day.

“When I do my dinacharya, there’s a sense that I’m taking really good care of me,” says Kathryn Templeton, founder of the Himalayan Institute’s Ayurvedic Yoga Specialist Training program and an Ayurvedic practitioner in New Haven, Connecticut. “My ability to meditate, teach, parent, and practice feels steadier and easier. And I experience more peace of mind.”

To get back in sync, make over your daily routine with the simple Ayurvedic practices on the following pages. The morning practices are cleansing and energizing; they’ll infuse you with a calm sense of presence. The evening ones will help you wind down for a restful sleep. Movement, such as yoga asana, and meditation are also essential to dinacharya. Consider incorporating asana before breakfast, and meditation in the morning and evening.