Traditional Vedic Insights To Boost Your Immunity

India is in a unique position to resist disease and educate the rest of the world, because she is home to the world’s supreme natural health care systems. Ayurveda, Yoga and Yajna offer remedies for every stress-related disease. Here are a few simple, powerful, time-tested techniques, in addition to washing hands and social distancing.

Ayurveda recommends respecting your food and eating moderately. Do not overeat. Avoid processed, packaged foods, bleached white sugar and bleached white flour. Reduce fried food, dairy, cold foods and cold drinks.

Improve your diet. Favour organic food. Reduce toxic food grown with chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, which poison the earth. Grow fresh, organic veggies in a backyard garden (if you have one). Compost and recycle.

Eliminate red meat from your diet. Reduce consumption of fish and fowl in order to aid your digestion and to reduce the confinement and torture of helpless animals. Industrial meat production is a crime against nature.

Cook with ginger, cumin, black pepper, coriander, cinnamon and turmeric. Squeeze lemon juice on your food.

Brew teas with tulsi, lemongrass, ginger, turmeric, giloy, cinnamon and licorice root for strong immunity. For specifics, consult your local vaidya.

Breath deeply. Stretch regularly. Take a walk in the morning before breakfast and after dinner. Practise yoga asanas daily. Start with simple Surya Namaskar and Pranayama, breathing exercise.

Maintain a regular schedule -- early to bed, early to rise. Avoid day sleep. Eat your main meal at midday, when digestive fire is strongest. Eat dinner several hours before bedtim

Learn meditation from a certified instructor. Practise meditation twice a day around sunrise and sunset, before breakfast and before dinner, to reduce stress and promote health and happiness.

Store drinking water overnight in a clean copper vessel. Each morning, drink lukewarm water with a drop of organic, unheated honey and a squeeze of fresh lemon.

In the morning swish a little organic sesame oil in the mouth; sniff in nose, and rub on limbs before bathing.

Play Gandharva Veda ragas in your home. Notice how much more healthy your houseplants become as these soothing rhythms enliven natural law. Also listen to Shanti Mantras and Vedic stotrams to create positive energy in your home.

Stapathya Ved Vastu Vidya describes the subtle but noticeable environmental influences of your home: In general, if possible, enter your home from the East or North. East is the direction of rising vitality and nourishment from the sun. West is characterized by diminishing energy. North entry favors abundance. South entry may invite disintegration.

Another subtle influence comes from the Brahmasthan, the exact centre point of your home. Make a small, open, clean, shrine-like space to centre the activities of your home, just as the inner silence of meditation can centre the activities of your life. The effects of Vedic Vastu are subtle, but cumulative -- adding or detracting from your health, wealth and happiness day after day.

Greet others with hands together in the respectful 'Namaste’ prayer gesture. Join your two palms in front of your heart to express “Unity from Duality.” Practise social distancing.

Anyone, regardless of religion or belief, can use these simple, universal, time-tested, Vedic techniques for prevention and cure of stress, strain, tension and anxiety, and thereby add to the collective peace, prosperity and progress of the nation.