What are Our Clinical Goals?
We aim to:
- Establish strong, healthy digestion
- Encourage regular elimination with minimal gas & bloating.
- Reduce pain & inflammation in your GI
- Refresh your whole body and mind as your blood is properly nourished and cleansed through good digestion.
- Teach you how to make the best food choices for your body.
- Teach you about your body, including its strengths and weaknesses.
- Help you find freedom, energy, and live your life again.
Can balancing my doshas heal my gut?
As you age, imbalances in your digestion weaken your ability to nourish your body through food. Ayurveda can rebuild your
agni, your digestive strength, so that you can nourish yourself properly. Ayurveda achieves this through balancing the doshas and gunas of your digestive tract. As you correct imbalances of dosha and guna in your gut, you may experience reduced inflammation, healing of damage in your gut, and improvements in your gut/blood barrier so that your gut will be more resilient. Through balancing your digestion, you will discover you can eat more freely, reduce allergic reactions and food sensitivities and have improved immunity & resilience in general.
What if my condition is incurable?
Even if you are right, you can still support your body with good digestion. Poor digestion creates a lot of strain on your body, which reduces your body’s natural ability to fight disease, cope with genetic conditions, allergies and auto-immune disorders. With Ayurveda, you will learn how to support and strengthen your body, regardless of the condition you are suffering from, so that you feel better even when your condition is incurable. Many so called incurable conditions have seen great success with Ayurveda. Although individual results may vary, good digestion gives your body more energy and capacity to fight chronic disorders.
Why did I get sick? Can I prevent this from happening again?
Many individuals are wondering this very same question. They simply cannot understand why their luck has run out, why they are sick. Sometimes, it is true that a twist of fate has undermined your wellness. Far more often, we find that your body gives many clues along the way before getting sick. Ayurveda resolves confusion about why you’re feeling sick by teaching you how to read your body’s warning signs that you can identify problems before they erupt into full scale diseases.
his will help you tune in to your body's innate wisdom, so you will feel empowered rather than victimized around health problem
Can Ayurveda improve my tolerance to food?
The goal of Ayurveda is to improve your diet flexibility, not reduce it. Through healing imbalances in your gut, Ayurveda improves your ability to tolerate a diverse array of foods, so your diet will become less and less restrictive over time.
I already have a perfect diet. What can Ayurveda teach me?
Many people follow diets advertised in the media, instead of one that is uniquely suited for their body type.
This one-size-fits-all style of dieting fails to acknowledge each individual has a unique constitution.
In Ayurveda, we will help you discover the ideal diet for your specific constitution.
The three dosha types are just the tip of the iceberg.
There are many different kinds of Vata, Pitta and Kapha individuals, each with a unique diet to match their type.
Your practitioner can provide this fine-tuned missing link between you and your diet.
What if my western medical doctors have been unable to find a diagnosis?
Ayurveda doesn’t need a label or diagnosis to support your body’s health and healing. Ayurveda studies your body, in addition to the disease. If you cannot identify your condition, Ayurveda can still help.
Will my diet be very restrictive?
No. Many clients come to our clinic after trying to resolve problems on their own by strictly following and avoiding foods based on a list they found in a book or over the internet. We will resolve this confusion about your diet so it is not overly restrictive. You will find there are only a few foods that you must avoid, a few that you must moderate, and several foods that can help you in a pinch.
We see clients using one or more of the following methods:
- Phone
- Skype
- In-person (Asheville, NC)
Consultations last one hour and roughly follow this outline:
- Examination of client and/or photos
- Analysis of intake forms & quizzes
- History & Interview
- Recommendations
- Weekly follow ups
Ayurveda works from the subtle to the gross. This means that we will address your beliefs about healthy eating first, followed by your lifestyle and routine, and then your diet. This is because beliefs lead you to behaviors. Your behaviors become your routine. And your routine becomes your diet. It is not possible to have a good diet without a good routine. Once you have a new approach to food, we will address the specific disorder through herb formulas and specific recommendations.
How do you do consults over the phone? Isn’t taking the pulse necessary?
There is no one diagnostic tool that is completely relied on in Ayurveda. We use many tools to confirm a condition - the primary one being questioning the patient. Pulse is useful for in-person appointments, but not essential to get to the bottom of digestive issues. We gain a lot of insight from the extensive quizzes and forms you fill out, the photos you send us, as well as conversing with you. We are also experts in tongue diagnosis. The tongue serves as a window into the digestive tract and since we specialize in digestion, intimate knowledge of this area of the body allows us robust understanding of what is happening digestively. We also ask a lot of questions about elimination as your poop is like your digestive system’s report card, and along with these other methods gives us the insight we need to address your concerns. We have been refining this method of treating clients in our specialized focus of digestion for over 8 years and thousands of clients. While in-person consults are useful, don’t miss out on the expertise we offer simply because of location.
Is it okay to talk about emotions in my consultation?
Joyful Belly Ayurvedic practitioners study the psychology of their clients so that we can help the clients overcome obstacles to living healthfully. Since Ayurveda encourages self-healing, at Joyful Belly we study models of behavior change.
How soon can I expect to see results?
Many clients experience improvements after the first appointment. It is not uncommon for it to take several sessions before clients notice improvements if their condition is more serious. Some clients may take even longer, depending upon their ability to follow the recommendations.
In these cases we offer strategies to help them incorporate the recommendations into a busy lifestyle, such as kitchen tools & cooking skills that make it easy to prepare meals without standing over the stove all day, and other coaching techniques that make it feasible to stick to their new routine.
How often will we meet?
Depending on the client’s availability and the severity of their condition, we will generally meet once a week for the first 5 appointments. After 5 appointments, 1x/season for one year, 1x/year after that. Clients who are extremely motivated to do more reading and research on their own may meet less frequently. We recommend a cleanse with us twice a year in Sep/Oct or Mar/Apr.
How many sessions will I need?
This depends on the client. For relatively simple cases, clients will meet with us over 5 sessions. For long term, serious disorders achieving balance may require up to 15 sessions.
Why do I need 5 sessions?
The Ayurvedic treatment approach is one of “slow and steady wins the race.” There is no "quick fix" and the length of time that it took for the condition to get to the point it's at will determine how long it takes to resolve. This doesn't mean you won't see significant improvements early on, just that it is a gradual process to ensure steady progress until your body fully heals itself. "Quick-fixes" are just treating symptoms, not addressing the root cause, in which case, the symptoms will continue to reappear. Why not end the cycle for good?
Each session you will receive one or more of the following recommendations to enhance the vital energy of your digestion:
- A suggested diet for your body type.
- Tools to address appetite & food beliefs to structure your approach to food.
- Tips to establish healthy food cravings for your body type.
- Tools to establish a healthy eating routine.
- Online diet planner for your body type complete with recipes, ingredients, and spices.
- Advice on how to cook & where to eat out.
- Troubleshooting obstacles in your diet and routine.
- Ayurvedic perspectives on specific digestive problems you experience.
- Stretches, yoga poses and other tips to improve digestion, posture and release abdominal tension.
- Herbal formulas customized for your body to balance vital energy in the digestive tract.