HEALTH BENEFITS OF MUD THERAPY
When you see yourself in the mirror, what do you perceive? Where is all your shimmer? What happened to your glow
Much to our amusement our skin looks many days older than the precious time we have watched ourselves. A part of it is not our fault either. Being an active member of the constantly evolving modern society, our skin has become a bumper for dust, smoke pollutants, stress and finally a thick layer of cosmetics that claim to nurnute your skin. While considering the physical factors, the emotional state of an individual is also important, the sleepless nights of hectic work schedules, late night meetings, constantly annoying boss just adds on to the burden your skin is already carrying in the form of lines of worries or wrinkles.
Why is skin the most affected
With the entire sleep wake cycle going haywire combined with all the incompatible and unwholesome food we recklessly consume, the Skin is the first to suffer showing new speckled blemishes and annoying botches. According to ayurveda, the skin or Twak is the first byproduct of Rasa, the end product of digestion. Naturally as all maladies begin with an improperly lit digestive fire, the formation of optimal Rasa becomes a query, questioning the health of the skin. Ayurveda offers a number of indulgent therapies that offer health and beauty from outside in. This is where ayurveda offers the best topical method to relieve you of your skin snags, The Mud Therapy.
To connect with nature
Mud, being a solid entity, is closely related to the Pridhvi or the earth element who is responsible for maintaining all the structural aspects of an organism, a member of the Panchamahabhuta, the five eternal elements. Mud is an important entity of nature that offers many minerals that ensure the wellbeing of the body. Being a mother itself, it has immense capability to absorb toxins from the body and provides a long term cooling effect to the body. Considering the ayurvedic classics, the present mud therapy is comparatively a new concept that evolved around the medieval age. While we assume the gradual introduction into medieval medicinal mud therapy, it was prevalent in many parts of the world for generations. Naturopathy, another branch of ayurveda focuses on using nature and its components in its most original form for the treatment of maladies, and mud therapy is the shorling of this concept.
The stretch before workout
For mud therapy, the selection of the right soil is one very important factor like the stretch before a workout. Ayurveda rightfully explains about the five types of Mrithika or mud that has innate medicinal values and which is only advised to be used for any therapeutic purpose. These include Ishtika (brick red soil), Gairika (Red soil or red oxide of iron), Lona ( mud from broken mud pot), Bhasma ( fine ash to finely clayey soil), Valmika ( soil of ant hill). For the purpose of mud therapy, these have to be collected from 60cm below the superficial soil surface, dried well under sun, sieved and powered into fine particles. further according to the needs of the recipient, they are ground to fine paste with suitable adjuvant including Gulabi arka ( Rose petal extract), Takra ( buttermilk), Godugdha ( milk) or Ambu (water, preferably rainwater), as required by the patient. Mud paste prepared with such perseverance has the potential to absorb endotoxins, with citatrizing and stimulating action that accounts to antimicrobial function at the superficial levels, further penetrating deeper down to the successive layers of the body.
The immense health prospects
Mud therapy is derived from two basic Ayurvedic external therapeutics, namely Abhyanga (oil massage) and Udvartana ( dry powder massage). Mud packing and mud bathing are the two commonly used methods of Mud therapy in India. The former includes applying a layer of mud paste in the entire body or the required area and later washed without scrubbing which improves the blood circulation and initiates the innate radiance. While the latter involves application of mineral salts combined with mud paste all over the body for skin changes such as Psoriasis, urticaria, Leprosy and other allergic manifestations.
Other than improving the quality of skin, mud therapy also has mystic effects on normalising the gut feelings by optimising the digestive fire, relieving tingling sensations of the body, eliminating aches and pains especially headaches, improving systemic blood circulation, loosens the stiff joints, improves the quality of sense organs considering the special effect on vision, reduce inflammation over joints and other areas, reorientation the disturbed sleep wake cycle, relieving episodes of insomnia, removing endotoxins from the body, thus, Finally relaxing the entire mind and body with its caring touch.
When doshas are everything
While the appropriate mud paste is smeared onto the body, the sensation of touch activates the Vata entity, which is understood to be residing on the Skin or Twak Dhatu. Vata, one among the three bodily entities, is accepted as the mastermind behind the optimal functioning of the body including an optimal range of sense faculties. As the Vata entity awakens, under the mystic spell of the mud paste, the Vata returns to optimising all the knots in the body thus normalising the entire body mechanism, from irregularities in the joints to most superficial aches. The cooling sensation of mud further normalies the Pitta entity responsible for the skin reflections of blotches and blemishes. Once the cooling reaches its epitome, the Pitta subsides, gradually releasing its hold of variations on the skin, thus optimising and returning your lost radiance.
Nature holds the power to solve many problems from the root without having to tackle any side effects which other medications often leave behind. Earth is rich in so many minerals which can be used to cure many ailments. While there is a great deal of interest in supporting health and beauty from the surface of the skin inward, it is equally vital to protect the radiance of your shimmer by consuming the right food at the right time and by following the regulations meant for health in ancient ayurvedic classics.
Dr. Vikram Chauhan
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