Yoga & Ayurveda Combined - Abhyanga Massage

Yoga helps us to listen deeply to our body and Ayurveda is the science of life that gives us tips and tricks on how to balance our dosha. I share the many ways I use sesame oil. If your feeling anxious, have aches and pains, or your skin is dry then you can try an Abhyanga. A massage with warm oil. For a Vata, black try sesame oil or gingerly oil which is warm and soothing. For a Pita, type try coconut oil which is cooling. And Kapha, see what you think of using mustard oil.

Transcript

Hello,

I'm Zoe from Yoga Works for Over 40s and this is where I combine yoga and Ayurveda together as a therapy.

Ayurveda is the science of life and yoga means union.

I need yoga in my life because it connects me with my body and since being a young child even in the crib people are taking your attention outside of your body and then we're at school and we're sitting in chairs and there's not a lot of internal reflection going on.

And then we hand our power over to doctors and say to the doctor,

What's wrong with me?

And the doctor has to try and work out what's wrong with you from asking you a lot of questions,

Possibly creating the bridge between the mind and the body so that the doctor can kind of work out what's going on.

So I practice yoga so I can tell what's going on in my body and I notice different things that happen.

For instance,

My skin is dry because I'm Vata.

Vata people are predominantly air and ether.

My first dosha is Vata,

My second dosha is Pitta and Pitta is the fire and I'm grateful for the fire because the fire motivates me and the air,

I'm grateful for the air too because the air energy gives me a lot of lightness and it allows me to try things where other people might can't make themselves try new things.

So I do try new things.

I don't mind change.

I don't mind a challenge.

I love the,

Yeah,

Let's give that a go.

But the problem with that can be is that I can be a bit too compulsive and impulsive and I haven't really thought it out that well because I don't have the earth and even my,

Well my star sign is Aries.

It sounds airy but it's fiery,

Isn't it?

Mars.

As I treat my Vata,

My Vata comes down and what becomes more obvious is my Pitta,

My fire.

If I eat tomatoes,

I notice now that I start to get like a little bit of eczema on my face and that's what Pitta does.

One of the things that Pitta does is it,

Well Pitta increases the heat so if you've got a high Pitta,

You've got a high digestive fire which we call the Agni and that heat burns from the inside outwards and Pitta people can experience skin eruptions like acne,

Psoriasis,

Yeah eczema,

Dandruff,

Yeah all of those skin,

Inflammations that we get where the skin is burning and of course the inflammations inside.

Let's come back to the Vata.

What am I doing right now?

Right now I am doing what we call an Abhayanga massage.

I get the sesame oil,

I put it in a little steel bowl and that sits in a saucepan with boiling water and I warm up the sesame oil and I come into my bathroom and I put a sheet down and put a towel down because the oil goes everywhere.

Believe me,

We took the lid off the light switch and there was oil under there.

It just goes everywhere,

This oil.

And this oil,

If you get it on the carpet or get it on your clothes,

It's so powerful.

You can actually read about it.

I've got a post on it on my website,

Why I Love Sesame Oil.

It's got a lot of healing properties in it and it actually even clears up any skin cancers or blemishes.

That's what I've found with my skin.

Now whether it's believing it or whether it's really happening it,

Happening,

Who knows?

But actually I do think it's really happening.

I,

Oh maybe 23 years ago I had a squandoma cell carcinoma on my nose.

I'm born in Australia,

I've lived on the beach.

We had a swimming pool as kids so I've always been out there in the sun.

Squandoma cell carcinoma,

I was on an island in Vanuatu with a little tiny mirror living in a grass hut with the native people.

It was in an island called Tanna off Vanuatu and this thing starts growing on my nose like a,

Yeah like a wart kind of growing on the end of my nose.

I was only there for three weeks,

Three,

Four weeks but by the end of that it had grown quite big.

Came home,

Got it burnt off.

It wasn't bad enough to get it cut off,

Thank God.

Or maybe it was just in those days where they didn't cut things off because my sister and my friends that I've grown up with,

They have got some major operations on their face.

It's just really horrible to see that the big huge cuts in their faces.

So I go back to the skin doctor like 20 years later and he goes,

Your skin is remarkable.

I can see here you were here 23 years ago for a squandoma cell carcinoma.

Why is your skin so remarkable?

And he's like one of the leading skin specialists here in Bondi that everybody goes to.

And I said,

Oh it's the sesame oil and he goes,

Oh ho ho ho.

And I go,

Well it is,

It's got a lot of anti-carcinogenic properties in it and it's very healing.

Oh ho ho ho.

Anyway,

That was it.

Next time I go and see him he goes again,

Your skin is remarkable.

Yeah,

So what do I do?

I heat up the sesame oil,

I rub it on my body.

Sometimes I get a sore knee.

When I was in my 20s I did a yoga class and the young yoga teacher and I still see them do it today,

Put me in Vajrasana.

Ooh,

Where you meet,

You kind of sit on your feet and you lie backwards and it's a shocking posture.

I see teachers do it all the time.

And back all the way back then I had no idea and I overstretched myself.

And so that knee,

Here I am at the age of 64 and that knee can play up at times.

And you know what fixes it?

Sesame oil,

Warm sesame oil.

It sounds too simple to be true,

Doesn't it,

But it actually does.

And that sesame oil is absorbed into my joints.

It nurtures my body.

I'm Vata,

It needs an oil and grease.

I also put it into my hair because it's calming on the mind,

It's good on the head.

And some people,

One friend I know actually had a skin cancer in the middle of her skull and ended up having really serious treatment for that,

Chemotherapy.

The whole thing.

Now I hope I'm not talking out of line and maybe something will happen to me,

But nothing's happened as yet.

I do believe in the sesame oil.

If I have a sore throat,

I will do oil pulling.

I'll gargle with it.

And then of course I don't spit it into the drains.

I've had plumbers come to my house going,

Oh my God,

What's this in your drain?

I've never seen anything like it.

And it actually ruins your drains,

Ruins your carpets,

Ruins your clothes.

And that's why I'm sitting in my bathroom on a sheet and I have paper towels and I need to,

I have a special thing in my drain that collects it that I empty out before it actually goes into the drain pipe.

It's a black thing that plumbers put in.

Where else do I put the sesame oil?

My nose,

My nose gets dry.

My sinus passages get dry and I put it up in my nostrils.

And sometimes if I feel like I've got a bit of sinus,

I'll snort it up.

I'll put it on my finger and go and snort it up.

I also put it on my gums.

The dentist told me,

You've got long in the tooth because my gums have receded.

So I put it on my gums in a downward movement and it fixes that.

It stops the nerve from being exposed.

It's fantastic.

Now get ready for this one.

I had a bladder infection.

I had some kind of bladder thing going on,

Which was most annoying because as you get older,

Past menopause,

You are prone to these things.

I had one of those and so I have an enema and I was putting that inside of me and it was very calming,

Very soothing.

And one more place I put it.

I actually do use it as an enema.

Well I used to.

But now I've really got the Ayurveda sorted.

I know if I don't do a poo first thing in the morning and maybe another one towards the sunrise and sunset is when I know I should do a poo.

And believe me,

Some people think one poo a week is good enough,

But we have not talked enough about poo.

So stay tuned to hear more of how Ayurveda can come into your everyday life.

Put it into your ears.

Pay special attention to your ears.

Pay special attention to your feet.

You can do a reflexology foot massage.

Notice,

Get yourself a foot map.

Notice where the painful parts are on your feet because they relate to organs in your body.

Using the sesame oil,

Put it around your heels so you don't get those cracked heels that we see a lot of older people get.

Yep,

You can use it just for about,

Just about for everything.

It's my make up.

I don't have a moisturiser.

I don't have a cleanser.

I have a little bottle of sesame oil.

And one last tip.

It is not the toasted sesame oil that smells.

It is called in,

In um,

What's the Indian language?

Anyway I can't think.

Odoo?

Odoo?

Or Hindi?

Or gingerly oil?

Where do I get it from?

I get it from the Indian spice shop and I buy it in a big two litre thing and it costs me a quarter of the price of what the health food shop's going to charge you.

Anyway,

Oh that's enough of me.

I hope you've enjoyed the chat.

Check out my Facebook page,

Yoga Works for Over 40s.

Check out my website.

Come along to my Yoga Works for Over 40s classes.

My morning,

Lunch and sleepy time class and learn how to integrate yoga and Ayurveda into your life in a daily,

On a daily basis.

And yep,

We want to have as much energy as we want to have,

As we need to have to do all the things we want to do in life.

And us pitters,

Well you know I'm a vatter,

But I got that pitter who wants to do lots of things and so does the vatter.

Yeah,

So I want to move.

I want to live my life.

I want to look after this vehicle that I have and give myself the best opportunity to make the most of this life and give service to others,

Give service to myself and yeah,

Connect with my higher power,

My,

My,

Those people,

Those guides that are way higher than me and ask them what is your purpose for me and follow that.

So all the best.

Thank you for listening.

Reviews

So informative!! Thank you!

Great information for the many benefits of Self massage.

Interesting!
Thank you so much.