Dr. Marc Halpern – Ayurveda for Strengthening Your Immune System and Balancing Mind, Body & Soul

In this opening module, Marc will ground you in the deeper principles of Ayurveda — starting with the perspective that your body, mind, and consciousness are integrated and cannot be separated. That which affects one aspect of your being affects all aspects of your being.

As such, you’ll dive right in to specifically how to use Ayurveda as a true holistic approach to both preventing and treating disease.

You’ll discover:

• The 3 fundamental causes of disease that weaken the body: the movement of the mind (parinama), the failure of the intellect (pragyaparadha), and the misuse of the senses (asatmendriyartha samyoga)
• The primordial cause of all suffering that makes it almost impossible to hear your deep inner wisdom
• The 3 Pillars and their importance to the wellness of your body and mind: healthy digestion, healthy sleep and rest, and healthy sexual expression

In this module, you’ll explore the core of Ayurveda.

Your Ayurvedic constitution (prakruti) is the key to understanding who you are as a unique individual with a unique body type and a unique personality. Your prakruti provides you with a roadmap to your inner nature and a clear path to maintaining balance throughout your life.

Nothing is right for everyone. Everything is right for someone. Your prakruti holds the key to understanding what’s right for YOU.

This session, you’ll delve into:

• The 10 pairs of opposite qualities of nature, which are inherent in all the elements
• The 5 elements — Ether, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth
• The 3 doshas — vata, pitta, and kapha — and how they combine to create your unique constitution
• How to calculate the percentages of each dosha in your constitution
• How your uniqueness is meant to complement other people and vice versa — and how to use this knowledge to improve your relationships
• How creating a unique lifestyle — with the specific colors, aromas, sounds, foods, and herbs that apply to your individual constitution — can support your optimal immunity

While knowing your constitution is the key to disease prevention, knowing the nature of your imbalance (vikruti) is the key to restoring balance and health.

In this module, you’ll explore how to determine your imbalance and what that means for restoring the health of your body and mind and for strengthening your ojas. You’ll:

• Understand how imbalances in the 3 doshas and their combinations affect your sleep, appetite, digestion, elimination, menses (if appropriate), and mind
• Explore your symptoms and begin to label the doshic imbalance
• Define your imbalances in terms of primary, secondary, and tertiary doshas
• Use this knowledge to set up a path for getting back into balance

In this module, you’ll explore the most important physiological concepts in Ayurveda: agni, ama, and ojas.

Agni determines how well you digest your food. Ama is the residue of poor digestion that causes toxicity in your body. Ojas is the factor that protects you against disease and maintains homeostasis. When agni and ojas are healthy, no disease can affect you.

You’ll discover:

• The state of your agni (high, low, or fluctuating) and how that influences your digestion and elimination
• Self-care practices to balance your agni
• The state of your ojas and how it influences your resistance to stress and disease
• How much ama is present in your system
• Several steps you can take to reduce ama in your body and mind
• The principles for building and protecting your ojas to maximize the health of your immune system

Now that you understand your constitution (prakruti) and imbalance (vikruti), we’ll explore the types of diet that prevent disease by supporting a healthy immune system. You’ll also delve into how to use food to return your body to a state of balance.

In this exploration of Ayurvedic nutrition, you’ll discover:

• Which foods and spices are the best and worst for each dosha
• The spice in your cupboard that enhances agni and reduces ama
• How to make sure the foods you eat build ojas — not ama
• Which foods you can eat to prevent disease
• The specific foods that’ll help you restore balance to your body and mind
• The principles of Ayurvedic cooking
• Simple recipes and menu ideas for each dosha

A healthy lifestyle is one that keeps you healthy and supports you to reach your full potential. Ayurveda provides lifestyle guidelines that meet the needs of each individual.

Based on your constitution (prakruti) and any imbalances that you may have (vikruti), Ayurveda details a way of living each day that will maximize the strength of your immune system and your healing potential.

In this module, you’ll explore:

• The daily lifestyle and routine that supports healthy sleep
• Why healthy digestion is based not only on what you eat, but on HOW you eat
• The best time to exercise according to your dosha
• How to create a calm, healthy morning routine
• Five self-care practices that support the immune system — including daily self oil massage (Abhyanga), nasal irrigation (Jal Neti), and eye washes (Chaksu shodhana), plus two more self-support techniques

Herbal medicine is a crucial part of the Ayurvedic approach to restoring balance and building immunity.

In this module, you’ll explore the 10 plants of the Ayurvedic pharmacopeia that are essential to your wellbeing — and how to use them to improve agni, reduce ama, and build ojas.

You’ll explore:

• The energetics of Ayurvedic herbalism, including the concepts of rasa (taste), virya (energy) and vipaka (long-term effect)
• Four herbs that build agni (dipana)
• The 2 primary herbs for reducing ama (pachana)
• The 4 main herbs that build ojas (rasayana)

As the course wraps, Marc will guide you to synthesize all you’ve learned, and you’ll find yourself well equipped to maintain or restore balance and support your immune system.

How are Ayurvedic herbs used to treat different types of cancer? In this lively dialogue, Marc and plant medicine pioneer David Crow discuss the key principles of Ayurvedic herbalism, the Ayurvedic paradigm for cancer management, and specific Ayurvedic herbal approaches to managing lung cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer.

David Crow, LAc, is one of the world’s foremost experts in botanical medicine and grassroots healthcare. He’s a master herbalist, aromatherapist, and acupuncturist with over 30 years of expertise in the Ayurvedic and Chinese medical systems, and the founding director of Floracopeia Aromatic.

What are some of the best herbs from around the world for building immunity? Join Marc and the founder of the American Herbalists Guild, Kathi Keville, to find out about the immune-boosting plant medicines just about everyone on our planet needs right now.

Kathi Keville is the author of 15 herb books. She’s been highly recognized in the herbal and aromatherapy field since 1970, when she began teaching. She’s been the director of the American Herb Association since its creation in 1981 and was a founding member of the American Herbalist Guild in 1989. She operates Green Medicine Herb School in Northern California.

Prana is the knowledge energy of the universe. Shakti is the power of that energy to create. In this teaching, you’ll explore the many layers of prana as it influences bodily functions, the functions of the mind, and the unfolding of consciousness.