Daily Yogi’s Guide to Ayurveda & Hydration

Hydration

Good morning Yogis! When we started our first challenge in June, today was National Hydration Day! I have mentioned that I love resolutions, and “drink more water” has been at the top of my New Years’ Resolutions list every year for at least 20 years. I also love holidays and any reason to celebrate, so I hope you all enjoy recognizing some of these random national and international holidays. Today we will focus on hydration before restarting our 8 Limbed Yoga practices, since I personally need to revisit my resolution to drink more water and many of you may also struggle with this.

Each Hydration and Ayurveda Day, we track, evaluate, and possibly increase our hydration levels.

If you are like me and need help with this, maybe get a new water bottle to keep water with you and help track oz you drink during the day. If you have a favorite bottle already, perhaps try the Ulla clip which will blink to remind you if you have not drunk for a while (thanks to S for this tip!). Try adding fruit, mint, tea, cucumber, etc to your water if that encourages you to drink more during the day. Or perhaps try an app like Drink Water – Daily Reminder (free version is fine) to help with tracking and pop-up reminders, and a tool for a personalized recommended oz of water per day.

Need help hydrating? Check out our recommended tracking bottles and reminders

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Ayurveda

This is also a good time to introduce Ayurveda (EYE-your-VAY-duh), which literally translates as “science of life” and can be thought of as a sister science to Yoga. You may be familiar with some Ayurvedic practices such as neti (sinus rinsing), oil pulling, or tongue scraping. Many of these practices are recommended first thing in the morning, along with drinking water.

Ayurveda & Hydration

In the morning, Ayurveda recommends drinking warm water to start the day after cleaning the mouth, but I personally prefer tea rather than water to start the day. Ayurveda also recommends drinking less water or other liquids at/with meals to aid digestion.

Ayurveda – Chapped Lip Remedy

You may learn Ayurveda has may natural remedies and health practices you may have already tried, like oil pulling, tongue scraping, and Neti. I have recently learned a new Ayurveda practice that finally solved my long dry or chapped lips! Although I do still use chapstick with sunscreen during the day, I now apply coconut oil at night to both my lips and inside my belly button! I was amazed at how well and quickly this worked. This is one of my favorite Ayurvedic practices… please try for yourself!!

Ayurveda – Morning Routine

Ayurveda recommends a daily morning self-care routine. One of the first recommended morning ritual practices in Ayurveda is tongue scraping. I tried this practice during my Ayurveda training, but have recently stopped some of the morning practices or practice less than daily. This is something I want to revisit, and am adding back tongue scraping, water before coffee, and my morning meditation and sun salutations, which takes about 20 minutes on average. I am keeping oil pulling with coconut oil and a couple other self-care items to every couple of days.

If you want to try a new Ayurvedic practice, perhaps add this to your morning routine and see what you think!

More info on Tongue Scraping from healthline