Regarded as the oldest healing science, with its origin about 5,000 years ago, ‘ayurveda’ literally means the science of life. Its major focus is on nature and maintaining balance of body composition. It identifies three major energies that are present everywhere and inside everybody. It is an imbalance in these energies that causes disease and illness. According to ayurveda, health is order and disease is disorder. The three major functional energies of the body are – vata, pitta and kapha.

The cosmos is made up of five components or panchatatva, i.e. space, fire, water, air and Earth. It is a combination of these external natural factors that makes up the three internal components vata, pitta and kapha also known as the tridoshas. Nature or external factors have a dominant role in the imbalance of these tridoshas.

Vata is responsible for movement of the body and is a combination of Space and air, if in balance, it promotes creativity and if imbalanced, it causes fear and anger. Pitta is responsible for the body’s metabolic function and is composed of fire and water. In balance, it promotes understanding and intelligence, out of balance, it causes anger, hatred and jealousy. Kapha holds the structure of the body together, it is a collation of earth and water, in balance, it leads to love, calmness and forgiveness and out of balance, it promotes greed and envy.

Each human body has a dominant dosha, and maintaining the balance of the dosha is essential to a healthy life. To maintain optimum balance within bodily functions, one must identify thero dominant dosha and eat, exercise accordingly.