Ayurveda
Subtitle: A Comprehensive Guide to Traditional Indian Medicine for the West
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: Praeger Publishers; Praeger
Published: November 30, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 376
ISBN-13: 9780313348372
Subjects: Ayurvedic therapies; Medical; Consumer Health; General; Health & Fitness / General; Alternative Medicine; Attitude to Health; Medicine, Ayurvedic
Description: Written by a North American psychiatrist (Yale Univ. School of Medicine), this is a first-rate introduction to a set of traditional medical theories and practices from India that are represented as an organized system of healing principles and clinical interventions. In India, Ayurveda has enjoyed a postcolonial resurgence, and elsewhere it finds a place today among alternative and complementary forms of medicine. Healing as a process of restoring balance through exercise and physical manipulation, prescribed diet, and carefully selected herbal remedies is a key feature of Ayurveda. The ancient wisdom of Ayurvedic medicine, with its emphasis on balance in diet and lifestyle, is a good fit with the contemporary Western model of integrative mind-body medicine. He introduces the underlying concepts, applications, and scientific research on this Indian tradition that treats disease from a holistic perspective. Appendices add a timeline of Ayurvedic oral and written tradition, list of disorders said to be caused by doshas (a fundamental bioenergetic principle, per the glossary), and clinical case examples.