I wake between 5 and 5.30am. In ayurveda this is the Brahma muhurta — roughly 90 minutes before sunrise — a period when the mind is naturally clear and the nervous system is at its most settled. I don’t begin the day by reaching for a phone. The first thing I do is sit quietly and simply notice: how does the body feel today? Digestion, energy, the quality of the sleep that preceded it. After that: oil pulling, tongue scraping, warm water with ginger.
I spend 30 to 40 minutes on pranayama (breathing) and a short asana (movement). The movement is calibrated to my constitution and the season. Breakfast is light — cooked grain, ghee, a little rock salt, eaten without rushing. The largest meal is midday, when digestive fire is at its peak. This is not fasting in the modern sense. It’s simply eating in alignment with the body’s natural rhythm. Many of our guests with metabolic concerns see measurable improvements when meal timing alone is corrected.
I take a small selection of classical ayurvedic supplements — chyawanprash through the cooler months, and medhya rasayanas including brahmi and ashwagandha consistently. These are the original cognitive and adaptogenic compounds, documented in clinical detail for over two thousand years.
My physical practice is largely yogic, and it shifts with my energy on a given day. There are mornings where the practice is vigorous — sustained asana, breath retention, standing sequences. There are others, particularly during intensive clinical periods, where it’s primarily restorative: long holds, breathwork, a short yoga nidra (sleep).
I find sweda, the classical ayurvedic sudation (sweating) therapy particularly useful in the winter months. Sweda therapy has been prescribed for musculoskeletal complaints, circulatory health and detoxification in classical texts for centuries. Guests sometimes arrive at Ananda having already tried cold plunges, infrared saunas and compression recovery devices. I don’t dismiss any of that. But part of what I do is help them understand why those things work — the physiological mechanisms — through an ayurvedic lens.
“Some of our guests come to Ananda effectively estranged from their own bodies”
An ayurvedic physician’s diagnostic process is built around direct observation of the individual. Nadi pariksha — pulse diagnosis — reads constitutional imbalances, nervous system state, organ function and emotional patterns with a granularity that no wearable currently replicates. So I don’t use any myself. However, for our clients it helps to use the readings from health tracking wearables and sleep tracking devices to support my observations and clinical diagnosis. Some of our guests come to Ananda effectively estranged from their own bodies. They know their VO2 max and their deep sleep percentage, but they can’t tell you how they feel.
For fatigue during heavy clinical periods, I step away for 15 minutes — eyes closed, with yoga nidra. Not sleep, but a guided rest that achieves a depth of nervous system recovery that rivals it. I prescribe this to guests who tell me they can’t meditate.
I try to complete dinner before eight, ideally earlier. The evening meal is lighter than midday — digestive fire is descending, and a heavy meal after dark creates ama, incompletely processed residue that accumulates and becomes the substrate for disease over time.
After dinner I walk a bit. Then to wind down, warm oil on the feet, a short breathing practice, sometimes a mantra. I’m usually asleep before 10.
Everything starts with timing. Spend the first 10 minutes of the morning in silence before you touch a screen. Begin the day with cleansing dinacharya practices. Eat your main meal at midday. Be in bed before 10. Practise at least one self-application of oil over the body with self-massage weekly. These adjustments cost nothing, and if followed for 30 days will produce changes that no supplement delivers.
Dr Naresh Perumbuduri is Senior Ayurvedic Physician at wellness retreat, Ananda in the Himalayas; anandaspa.com
