Today I visited the Ayurvedic Wellness Centre in Bondi Junction, and I wanted to document my experience here because there are so many thoughts going through my head post-consultation that I wanted to write it all down!

First to say, the location is very convenient; a brisk 10 minute walk from Bondi Junction station. I went into my pre-booked appointment at 12:30pm and was greeted by Michael. They first had me fill out a 4 page form with questions from "What do you do as an occupation?" to "How many times a day do you go to the toilet?" to "Where is your happy place?" It was intriguing to complete, as Ayurveda takes everything from diet, to lifestyle, to physiology into consideration. I handed the forms back to Michael and after about 10 minutes, was greeted by my doctor Souhrida Menon. 

She brought me into her room and began my asking me to tell her a little about myself and my main areas of concern. After a quick 2 minute introduction, she ran through an agenda with me and then listened to my pulse and examined my tongue. From that, she concluded my pulse is very low, and that I should consider working on my low blood pressure. Something I have yet to attend to because there is SO much information out there that it overwhelms me. Oops.

From my tongue examination, she concluded my constitution is Pitta-Vata dosha - so I have a dual dosha type however am predominantly Pitta, the fire type. She then recommended some Lifestyle, Diet and Medicinal treatments. 

There was a certain point in the Lifestyle aspect that was particularly intriguing to me. She asked me what time I usually wake up, to which I replied 7am then she smiled and said "And how do you usually feel after waking up?" and I said "Pretty tired, considering I go to bed at 10pm." She explained that this is because between 6am - 10am is the Kapha time of day, where Pitta-types usually thrive when they wake up before 6am. This was interesting to me, as I have always been a morning person but since I started waking up at 7am... I've constantly felt tired and bogged down! I never would have considered waking up earlier to remedy this. She also recommended a few things to fill in the extra hour before continuing with my normal routine; self-message with oils, cooling breathing exercises, meditation and/or yoga positions (in particular, child postures which are Pitta balancing). 

We then moved on to Diet, which was where a lot of the consultation focussed on. She ran through what I regularly eat in a day and then tried to make recommendations upon that, which I felt was great, because the idea of changing my entire diet would have been overwhelming, and let's face it, I probably wouldn't follow through with it. There was a lot of information to take in during this part of the consultation, but she was writing down notes whilst she was speaking for me to take home. 

We then moved on to the Medication (or treatment) part of the consultation, in which she recommended a tablet called Pitta Digest by Banyan Botanicals and a powder for a body-cleanse I was to undertake. 

This is where things got tricky. The medication was $40 for the pills and $20 for the powder (which I was only required to use 1 tablespoon of) on top of a $120 consultation. I may seem a little uptight, but I have been to SO many doctors (both Western and Eastern) looking for healing that I have spent too much money, and haven't seen the results come through. After expressing this to them, Michael and the doctor seemed to get a little defensive and argumentative exclaiming that if I wanted to heal my body, these were the steps I had to take. I tried to stay calm and let them know that I was going to begin with the lifestyle and diet modifications and go from there. After this awkward encounter, they seemed less friendly to me and were quite happy to see me walk out the door. 

The core of Ayurveda belief is that when you are balanced, you are in full health and your body, physiology and mental state work harmoniously amongst one another. This means you are at optimal weight, health, energy, positivity and clarity. This is a belief I have always carried with me, even before I knew about Ayurveda. After reading about my dosha type, I see a lot of it resonates with me and it's interesting that the doctor could have made all these recommendations for me after a 60 minute meeting and an examination of my tongue. I'm taking her recommendations very seriously and will be paying close attention to my body during the next 2 weeks upon her lifestyle and diet changes she has recommended. 

There is SO much information about Ayurveda out there but seemingly less so about Pitta-Vata. I will be adapting my lifestyle to the recommendations by the doctor, and track my progress. Wish me luck!

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The top lifestyle changes I will be making: 

1/ Waking up at 6am
2/ Meditation and cooling breathing exercises
3/ Eliminating cheese, canned and fried foods
4/ Eliminating spicy, sour and overly-salty foods
5/ Cooking with ghee in place of olive oil
6/ Focussing on foods from the 'Best' list on this table