Recognize These Early Warning Signs Of Illness & Protect Yourself From Disease

The Key to Disease Prevention

What if you could feel your illnesses coming a week in advance, or even two?

You know that feeling the day before you come down with a cold? With greater awareness, you can extend your prediction and prevention.

Here are the common last-minute signs of illness familiar to almost everyone. They indicate you should stay home, get some rest, and eat healthy foods.

• Aches and pains
• Stuffy nose
• Cloudy thoughts
• General fatigue

Ayurveda also recognizes warning signs of imbalance, not just illness, so that you can maintain your resilience to diseases and illnesses.

If you could recognize changes in your body and attitude as early as possible, you would have a chance to make choices that are supportive of your health ahead of time.

Learning how to discover your warning signs is a bit like filling in a crossword puzzle - you have to be a great detective and learn how to interpret the clues.

My dad's warning signs, for example, are swollen hands. My warning signs are insomnia.

Everyone has unique warning signs of imbalance, but there are also some common ones.

Read more to find out.

The Importance of Warning Signs

Warning signs are not just a preventative tool for catching a cold.

Many diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, also wax and wane.

When diseases are intermittent, that's a sign they may be curable using basic Ayurvedic techniques.

If your disease flares up on Tuesday, for example, you have an opportunity to examine your diet and lifestyle on Monday - to figure out what's caused the imbalance. Then you can avoid a flareup.

Emotional Warning Signs

Surprisingly, the first signs of imbalance are often emotional. Changes to your blood chemistry affect your emotions, often before you are even conscious of feeling "off."

Here are emotional warning signs by dosha:

Vata	Spaciness, hyperactivity, mood swings, distracted
Pitta	Grouchiness, irritability, over-analyzing, cold hearted, passionate
Kapha	Depression, complacency, overwhelmed

Behavioral Warning Signs

Sometimes, a loved one will notice you are slipping back into unproductive behavior patterns. These behavior patterns may be entirely subconscious, but they are warning signs that you are becoming imbalanced.

Here are behavioral warning signs by dosha:

Vata	Erratic schedule, late nights, skipping meals
Pitta	Overworking, critical
Kapha	Laziness, Aversion to effort

Digestive Warning Signs

Here are digestive warning signs by dosha:

Vata	Small appetite, Gas, constipation
Pitta	Loose stools
Kapha	Burping & tiredness after meals

Systemic Warning Signs

As the imbalance progresses, physical symptoms become more noticeable.

Here are physical warning signs by dosha:

Vata	Insomnia, hyperactivtity, dry skin
Pitta	Yellow eyes, body odor, acne
Kapha	Mucus congestion in mornings, sleeping late, puffiness

Remedies for Warning Signs

If you experience Vata warning signs, the rule of thumb is restore and self-nurture. Eat meals on time with easy-to-digest, Vata-pacifying ingredients.

If you experience Pitta warning signs, the rule of thumb is to cool down and let go of any attachments and goal-oriented behavior.

If you experience Kapha warning signs, avoid wheat, sweets, red meat, and dairy. Get plenty of exercise and avoid excessive sleep.

Steps to Find Your Warning Signs

• Observe and write down mucus congestion and sleep quality immediately upon waking.
• Observe and write down how you feel immediately after meals (full, happy, guilty, tired)
• Set a phone alarm for 45 minutes bodily checking after meals. Notice any of these signs
  • Bad taste on the tongue
  • Mental fatigue
  • Heavy limbs
  • Indigestion, gas, nausea, heartburn
• Notice the quality of your stools (foul smells, loose. Hard, etc.)
• Notice the quality of your urine (cloudy, bubbly, dark, etc)

Find Your Unique Warning Signs with Journaling

Buy a notebook to use just for journaling about your health. This is something you can refer back to over and over again through the years and see very clear patterns emerge.

Once you've recognized an early warning sign, take careful notes of your diet, activities, digestion, elimination, and the weather for the 24 hours leading up to the symptom. This will help you identify which foods and activities caused the imbalance. Once you identify the offending food or lifestyle activity, write down how it tasted or felt. Remember this as the 'taste' of the activity.

By journaling you may also begin to discern the biocharacteristics, tastes, and doshas that are out of balance in your body.

Journaling is important to capture the unique conditions and patterns that aggravate and pacify the disease.

Finding Your Reset Button

Everyone falls off the wagon occasionally (more often than we'd like to admit). It's important to recognize this as part of the growth process.

Accept it and learn from it instead of becoming discouraged.

Use difficulties as a way to fill in another piece of the crossword puzzle.

After one of these indulgences, you'll need a reset button you can use to bring your body back to health.

Gentle laxatives, easy-to-digest food, and an early night to bed will reset most Vata people. Triphala is the most famous Ayurveda laxative "Reset button".

A day of rest and a walk in nature are often good reset buttons for Pitta, as well as cooling food.

Kapha people could use a little exercise, light food with bitters, and hot teas to reset.

Kitchari is Ayurveda's most famous reset button for all three doshas.

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