Ayurveda is the traditional Indian application of the biocharacteristics theory of medicine. It is a system of health & wellness developed in ancient India circa 250 B.C. At its core, this system matches diet, lifestyle, and herbs to the individual using biocharacteristics to improve health & wellness, and harmonize one's body. Biocharacteristics medicine also includes techniques to cleanse / reduce excess, as well as tonify / nourish deficiency.

Joyful Belly promotes this practical core of Ayurveda for use in a modern, functional medicine context. Functional Ayurveda looks at your body's shape, size, bone structure, appetite, and food cravings to determine your biocharacteristics and unique body type. Based on these, we show you how to take immediate action to improve your health & wellness using familiar household materials. Our goal is consistent, evidence based improvement in clinical wellness outcomes for our users. The result is a practical, highly personalized method to improve your health that is easy to do at home.

More technically, Ayurveda is the study of how lifestyle patterns and habit contribute to the health, wellness, and disease process. Specifically, Ayurveda studies the characteristics of habits, and the characteristics of their influence and pathogenesis in the body. It groups habits and disorders into types or categories (called biocharacteristics) to assess general strains on the body. For example, spicy food would be classified as having a heating biocharacteristic. A rash would too. Anemia would be classified as having a cold biocharacteristic. A cucumber as well.

Once imbalanced characteristics have been identified, Ayurveda suggests habits with opposite characteristics to restore balance. For example, eating spicy food would be contraindicated for a rash in Ayurveda. Instead, cooling foods are recommended, like cucumber. Using these characteristics, Ayurveda supports the body by restoring homeostasis. It increases the overall strength and resiliency of the person, improves quality of life, and minimizes the effects of disease.

Functional Ayurveda's greatest strengths are in the areas of digestion, skin care, stress management, and fertility. Functional Ayurveda offers some of the most advanced and cutting edge digestive health solutions out there. Ayurveda has limitations too - for example disorders of discontinuity (broken bones) may require surgical intervention. In some cases, antibiotics and anti-parasite medications outperform herbs.

You can't take the doctor home with you, but what you do at home matters. Functional Ayurveda is a do-it-yourself health and wellness system that facilitates self care at home. It is an easy to understand, simple to do, inexpensive and practical approach used for prevention of disease, recovery from illness, and to improve vitality. It is not just a list of home remedies, but a method to help you coordinate diet & lifestyle to your unique body. It is an approach to help you figure out how to make choices. We hope you enjoy this website!

Ayurveda literally means the science of life. The core of Ayurveda's health approach offers much more than freedom from disease, but total well-being. Functional Ayurveda looks at the whole person when assessing health, rather than the parts alone. Functional Ayurveda believes that a highly personalized approach brings the best results possible. To achieve its results, Ayurveda uses a classification system which we've automated on this website.

As you start your journey in Functional Ayurveda, you'll love how great Functional Ayurveda makes you feel, and the balance it brings to your life. Ayurveda was the primary form of medicine in India for thousands of years. This functional core of Ayurveda is still the easiest and most effective way to maintain health & wellness from home. To get started, we recommend finding your body type first.

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HOW CAN AYURVEDA HELP ME?

Here are just some of the reasons why Ayurveda is highly relevant to your health and well-being:

1	You can do it from home. Ayurveda shows you how to interpret signs and address symptoms of imbalance on your own. You can use it at home to optimize your health on a continual basis. You can't take the doctor home with you, but you can take Ayurveda home with you. The simplicity of Ayurveda will be there for you every time to you open the fridge, or turn on the stove. Ayruveda doesn't replace the doctor, but it gives you tools for health and wellness between visits to your qualified medical doctor.
2	Ayurveda's tools not only prevent and fight disease, they also strengthen your body, even if you have an incurable or difficult condition.
3	No other health approach offers such a detailed, individualized model showing the relationship between habits and health, diet & disease. Ayurveda shows you which food, lifestyle habits, and herbs are good for you, uniquely.
4	Instead of using an across the board statistical approach, Ayurveda identifies lifestyle and dietary habits that are uniquely matched to your body - and therefore fit your health powerfully like a hand and glove.
5	Instead of focusing on the disorder in question only, Ayurveda shows how your symptoms are interrelated to one another. By giving you perspective instead of a piecemeal approach, Ayurveda greatly simplifies your health and wellness plan.
6	Ayurveda is the most advanced and easy to use home system for self healing with an exceptional prognosis on digestion, skin care, aging well, reproductive health, and quality of life care.

HOW IT WORKS

Ayurveda recommends diet and lifestyle habits, as well as herbs using a highly detailed classification system. This classification system includes your body type, your imbalances (gunas, tastes, elements, etc.), your digestive strength (agni), and toxicity (ama). Using this classification system, Ayurveda can identify diet, lifestyle and herbs that may be beneficial to you.

You don't have to learn this system, you can let our website do the guesswork for you by taking your quizzes. Afterwards, study your results and review them with your doctor or practitioner to determine if your recommendations are right for you.

By eating an optimal diet that balances your gunas and fits with your body type, your whole body is strengthened, quality of life is improved, and you become more resilient to disease as well. The above methods lead to greater body awareness, and understanding of how your diet & lifestyle choices affect your body personally.

On Joyful Belly, we've created a system to help you assess your imbalances from an Ayurvedic point of view, to learn about your imbalances through our extensive articles, and to discover remedies for your imbalances so you can feel better.

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