Dr. Andrea Seiffertt
Medical DirectorCenter for Sustainable Medicine
5/12/13 edited! see below for minor additions 
Sustainable Health Nutshell: Keep a schedule and routine to allow your body to trust you, so it will not have to compensate for stressful circumstances (that over time leads to ill health). Starting every morning off with a gentle cleansing routine sets a stress-free tone for the day and prepares you to calmly meet whatever demands life has in store.
A fellow meditation teacher recently led me to a site that included Dr Vasant Lad’s daily routine suggestions. I was initially entertained by the sheer number of things one is “supposed to do every morning” (19!), but as I thought more about it, I decided rather than writing them off, I would try the suggestions in order and see if I noticed any changes. After two days, my system has had a major overhaul. So I figured I should tell ya’ll about it so you can too!
Now, in Ayurvedic school we learned a loose bunch of suggestions for mornings that seemed nearly impossible, and until I was in my own practice and doing the suggestions myself, I had no idea if any of them actually worked, so I think my recent (in the past year more or less) obsession with routine is because of direct experience more than any teaching I’ve received.
The following is a modification of Dr Vasant Lad’s daily routine prescription. I have combined a few steps so it seems less overwhelming, and changed the order of a few d/t my own experience, as well as added my own suggestions. Please let me know if any of you try all these steps and how you feel! I used to meditate immediately on awakening, check my email on my phone directly after, do the other steps whenever I felt like it, sometimes in the afternoon, and sometimes picked up a Backyard Bowl hot quinoa bowl on my way to work late in the morning. Since spending last week with my grandfather, I decided to get on a schedule while there to make caring for him easier, and it seems to have stuck, so upon returning I started this daily routine and am not going back- I have more energy and feel much less pressed for time during the day, which helps me get even more accomplished while feeling super relaxed. Enjoy!
1. Go to bed early! Before 10pm. Wake between 5 and 6am (at first you may need more sleep to catch up, that’s ok). Look at your hands, move them over your face and down to your waist to clear your aura. Move to get out of bed, touch both hands to the ground, then to your forehead, then fold at your heart. Give thanks to the earth and the divine for the opportunity to practice your true purpose today: to be a light of love, joy, peace, and compassion.
2. Wash your face (try just a splash of rosewater), rinse your mouth and eyes (pure additive-free eye drops work well).
3. Drink a cup of warm or room temp water. Sit in a squat pose and do 5 min of alternate nostril breathing pranayama [if your nose is clogged in the morning, do the nose oil first ). Then evacuate the bowels and bladder. Cleanse yourself with a bit of rosewater followed by a few drops of sesame oil on your paper.
4. Gently sniff 1 drop of plain or herbalized sesame oil into each nostril (Nasya), place 1-2 drops of sesame oil into each ear (Karana Purana).
5. Scrape your tongue, brush teeth, and use a ‘gum annoyer’ if you have one. Hold and swish 1 Tbsp of sesame oil in your mouth (Gandusha or Oil Pulling) until out of the shower, then spit into toilet (in order to not clog sink or shower).
6. Do your daily warm oil massage (Abhyanga) with the oil prescribed for you- if you don’t know, try sesame or sunflower, then take a warm shower.
7. After the shower, use simple gentle scents without chemicals, and dress in clothes that lift your spirit and feel comforting.
8. Exercise gently- yoga, a 15-30 minute walk, or stretching exercises- this warms the body and starts the metabolism.
9. Meditate. If you are new to this, start with 5 minutes of the Healing Breath pranayama I may have given you already at your appointment. If you’ve been taught to meditate, aim for 20 minutes, but start with 10 if that seems too much. Remember, you can likely sit easily for 2 hours watching a movie, so sitting lovingly with your highest self for 20 isn’t nearly as hard as it sounds! :)
10. Eat a nourishing breakfast, seated, near a window, without computer or phone. Breathe in the scent of spices, chew well and enjoy helping your body digest, enjoy with gratitude.
Still a lot of steps, but getting up early, giving yourself this time to care for and show utmost respect for your body is a game-changer. See what appeals to you, try a few steps, or commit and jump into the whole routine- let me know how it goes!
And for fun, here’s another picture of my fantastic grandfather- please wish him a happy 91st!
Just a quick post to say hello to some friend’s sites I’ve been overdue to link to:
1. Didi Pershouse has a Center for Sustainable Medicine too! How great is that! She came up with the name back in 2006, and I came up with mine in a brainstorm sesh a few years later- love it how great ideas are birthed simultaneously by many of us!! She’s on the other coast up in Vermont, so we’re doing a little back-and-forth on how to collaborate and get our extremely-similar messages out! Check out her site linked up there, and by all means if you’re on the East Coast, go see her! :)
2. My friends at Rebelle Society have published two little bits of my writing, see what you think, and leave comments please!
a. My poem Guru b. my modified meditation manifesto (not the same as the one here… I might just keep writing them
3. A great talk by Choyam Trungpa on how to talk to kids about meditation
4. My friend Dawn from MedMob who lives in Canterbury England and has a business called “Fresh Connective Coaching” linked to ME and said such sweet things!!!! so here’s her blog (with her post about me first, but please check out her other fabulous articles too!)
5. My friend Robert who is a great supporter of MedMob and is a fabulous artist and yoga teacher as well as a physicist (! right?), has a line of t-shirts he’s working on called Rocket Buddha. Please take his survey and let him know which ones you’d like best!
6. Then there’s this guy, Ben Riggs, whose articles keep popping up and are a really good perspective (and less wordy than mine!) on meditation and evolution… Reading other people’s ideas is a great way to open up your mind and learn new things about your own… Enjoy his posts!
That’s probably good for now… In other news, the new office is picking up speed which is great, MedMob Santa Barbara has returned to Thursday nights in Alice Keck park, I’m offering free Biodynamic CranioSacral treatments to friends/family while I’m refining what I learned at my conference in Oregon last month, and in April I’ll be in SF for the weekend of the 13th and in STL from the 27th-May 6 for my Grandfather’s birthday and my cousin Danny’s pharmacy school graduation. Busy fun times. Hope everyone is well- please drop me a line and tell me how you’re doing!
Much love,
Andrea
Sustainable Health Nutshell: (I tell all my patients the following- thought it was a good time to reiterate!)
My job as a doctor is to help you contact the part of yourself that knows what is best for you and will allow you to most efficiently bring yourself back to balance and truly heal. I cannot fix anything and could never (and would never) do your work for you. If it were even possible, that would be cheating, and disrespectful to your own process. I can, however, help you contact that part of you that naturally pulls you towards health, I can educate about physical, mental, and energetic things that may help you become more aware of how your body works, I can translate your body’s messages, and I can encourage tissues to live in a place of more ease and efficiency with OMT… and I can hold space and encourage you to do the right things for yourself. But only you can truly heal yourself, or rather, remember that you are whole and allow parts of you that have forgotten that fact to reintegrate.
This may be a bit esoteric, but after spending 4 days immersed in what I can only describe as ‘medical meditation,’ I thought it was a good idea to put it out there since the concepts are central to what I’ve been doing all along anyway. (yay, synchronicity! love when that happens) The class I took was phase 2 of Osteopathic Biodynamics. The system teaches how to contact and engage the patient’s indwelling therapeutic force and promote healing. After learning and using Osteopathic manipulative skills for years, it’s fascinating that I’ve seen more healing happen with this version of A.T. Still‘s teachings than the standard methods developed and taught since his passing.
When I teach meditation (see my little manifesto here), I teach a technique to help students connect more easily to the part of themselves that is peaceful- really, that is pure consciousness, or love, or their soul that is a part of God, or whatever you like to think of it as (semantics and religion don’t really matter- the technique works whether or not you believe in anything or even the technique!). The funny thing is, what I learned this week was how to apply that exact principle to treating patients. The same core part of each of us that is peaceful, calm, and full of love, that is unfettered by the messiness we call ‘daily life,’ is what my teacher, Dr Jim Jealous, calls “the Health.” And the same thing I’ve been calling the ‘unified field’ or ‘pure consciousness’ is what he terms “the Tide.” Now, if I hadn’t been meditating and teaching it and attempting to get my patients to do the same, this whole class might have sounded not a little insane to me. But as it stands, I’m definitely interested in learning more, and can’t wait to use the skills I’m learning to help my patients and improve my Osteopathic technique.
So, it seems there is a practical medical application for meditation, and I am so glad I was led to it. Learning how to contact that indwelling therapeutic healing force that we all have to bring all the layers of ourselves back into the wholeness that we’ve forgotten we are. Who wants a treatment?
Ashland, Oregon
Sustainable Health Nutshell: To keep digestive and immune systems happy during travel and holiday party schedules, keep the nervous system as calm as possible. Meditate, listen to calming music, use sesame oil to moisturize the sinuses and skin, and take a warm, simple (and mostly liquid) diet when flying.
Do you expect holiday travel to be terribly stressful, exciting and fun, or a little of both? Are you one of those people that always gets sick on planes? Or does your digestion becomes so irregular during travel or during the diet variations of the holiday season that you use medications to help with symptoms, or give up entirely, becoming resigned to being uncomfortable and vowing to improve ‘next year?’ Does this season more than others affect your sleep and compound any stress, digestive troubles, or immune system suppression? Besides the obvious (getting up and stretching during flights and car trips, resting if you do get sick, limiting alcohol intake, sleeping and exercising enough, and eating the healthiest food you can), you’ll be happy to know that all of these issues can be improved or avoided entirely with a few simple tips!
Flying! The altitude and pressure changes, the dryness, the close quarters and recirculated air, noise, and time zone changes our circadian hormonal rhythms must adjust to, all can wreak havoc on our nervous systems. Since the nervous system affects sleep, digestion, and the immune system, just flying itself can be a major player in our health during travel. The following will keep the stress on your body minimized during and immediately after the flight:
1. Use 2-3 drops of nasya oil in the nostrils before and after (and during if it’s longer than 2 hours). You can also place a drop or two in your ear canals (and use earplugs) to help with the noise. The oil acts as a physical barrier to viruses, bacteria, and allergens, and keeps the sinuses moisturized. Oils infused with herbs like brahmi can also help keep your mind clear and calm during travel too. Ask me for individual recommendations for herbalized oils or supplements for travel. Keep up your abhyanga routine as well to make sure your skin stays comfortable, and rub a few drops on your hands before and after flying- the daily massage also helps detoxify and move lymphatic fluid to keep your immune system humming along!
2. If you don’t need to, don’t eat anything right before, during, or right after your flight. The pressure change affects the gas in your digestive tract (imagine what it does to those plastic water bottles!), and affects its efficiency. If you are hungry or the travel is lengthy, eat small amounts of warm smooth things like thin oatmeal or soup- avoid foods that are more difficult to digest like dry, raw, or cold food (including meats and cheeses).
3. Keep hydrated with Spice Water. You’ve heard me talk about this often, but the extra-dry environment of a plane cabin is a perfect time to try it out. Pack a small bag of spices (2 parts fennel seeds, 1 part cumin seeds, 1 part coriander seeds, and perhaps a little ginger for winter), and an empty thermos. When you find a restaurant with a hot water dispenser or on the plane, ask to have it filled, and add ½ a tsp or so of your own spices to the water and sip throughout your flight. The spices keep your digestion gently stimulated to help you detoxify, and keeping hydrated of course helps all systems function optimally. The added benefit is that there are no plastic cups or cans to dispose of!
During car travel, listen to calming music or upbeat books on tape to pass the time without being disturbed by violence or negativity in popular music or news. A few good ones I’ve found recently (and I love singing along- but that might just be me J) are Deva Premal’s meditation cd and the 108 sacred names of the Mother Divine.
The last tip is arguably the most important of all and can be your gift to yourself this season: keep to your daily meditation practice as much as feasible. Whatever your practice- meditation, mindfulness, prayer, or yoga- the reminder that you are, at your core, love, peace, and joy, will help carry you blissfully and compassionately through the holiday season. At the same time it will help your immune system function optimally, stabilize emotions through stress and colder darker weather, and keep joy, love, and compassion (for yourself as well as everyone else) at the forefront of your holiday experience!
Love and Joy to you all this holiday season!
Sustainable Health Nutshell: Enjoy life, take care of yourself, your community, and your planet, and when something is out of balance, try and find the root of it rather than blaming it on something outside!
“It’s not the food!” was the most obvious thing I learned from my 10 day silent meditation sit a year ago. I was sick every single day, and couldn’t figure out why my body was rejecting everything I put in it- simple vegetarian healthy food, cooked with love, that was tasty and eaten in a calm (and quiet!) environment… but a voice in my head kept saying it wasn’t the food, and sometime around day 8, during a group silent hour-long meditation session, I noticed an anxious fluttering in my chest, followed instantly by an anxious cramping in my gut… and a pinball-like exchange that went between my head and heart and gut regarding whether I’d have to get up and leave the meditation room and be embarrassed and all the other things that had been coming up that week…. and it clicked. Somehow I was creating and amplifying my body’s reaction by my thoughts and emotions. Now, if I’d been eating junk food or lots of GMO/non-organic processed stuff, maybe then the food choice would’ve had something to do with it… but nope. This was all ‘in my head’ as they say. But it was brilliant, because it gave me a very clear understanding of how our consciousness either allows our natural state of health and balance, or creates resistance to teach us something… Apparently I still want to learn a lot!
Anyway, today’s post is to help you understand the basic framework of the 3 Ayurvedic “Food Rules,” and a brief explanation of the 4 Pillars of Health that we focus on when you come in for consultation… Understanding the basics here can help you pinpoint where the health issue you have may be coming from, and once you find the source, you can then dig down and find the root and pull it up to “eat” (meaning process/transform) it!
The 3 food rules!
1. Eat delicious food. Enjoy each bite, sit down, eat it in a calm environment, eat only until 75% full, but 100% full of gratitude!
2. Eat food prepared with love. When you can, choose food grown by an organic and sustainable farmer that loves their land, as close to where you live as possible. Cook the food with love and the intention to nourish and help create health.
3. Eat according to your imbalance and constitution. You can ask someone like me for help, but you really know your body better than anyone- eat intuitively- imagine what the food choice you’re making will taste like, will feel like in your mouth and stomach, and how you will feel after eating it. If it isn’t nourishing and energizing, then perhaps make a choice that is!
The 4 pillars of health! {If even one of these is off, we feel terrible… your body is asking for attention!}
1. Sleep (rejuvenation includes rest and meditation): Humans’ natural hormone cycle would like you to turn lights down at 8, be asleep by 10, and sleep straight through until 530 or so- anything else causes the body to have to compensate and burn reserves. If you have trouble sleeping there might be a simple reason, but it might point to something else that could use a little attention! See my sleep post and please ask questions!
2. Digestion (transforming and processing of food and experience): If you aren’t digesting what you take in and it rushes through too fast, if the body is creating toxins or storing too much, or it isn’t absorbing nutrients and energy efficiently, you’re probably not feeling as energetic or healthy as possible. Eating according to the food rules above will help- but again, it might not be the food! Timing, emotions, sleep, and nervous system overload all affect digestion (and thus the immune system), so sometimes changing one of those things ‘fixes’ a perceived problem with digestion!
3. Elimination (cleansing and releasing toxins both physical and mental/emotional): This is the loosening, cleaning, and pushing out of toxins. You eliminate through stool, urine, and sweat. If there are issues with these, again, it might not be the food, though food choices of course may be an issue. Using stool as an example- if you don’t eliminate efficiently (‘normal’ is once a day, between 5-7 am, easily and completely- sometimes with a second in the afternoon also during ‘colon time’ between 5 and 7), toxins build up and can cause illness. If each elimination process is not too slow, not too fast, and without pain or difficulty, then you can assume the process is going well- if not, your body is asking for help!
4. Purification (menstruation, exercise, and panchakarma = flushing the channels or srotas in Sanskrit): This is a periodic ‘reset’ of the entire body system. For part of their lives, women get the chance to cleanse monthly without having to do anything at all (which may be why we live longer!), but ayurvedic panchakarma treatments can mimic the same process for anyone. Exercise is also helpful to create heat and movement to eliminate toxins. The body’s channels all need to be open and flowing to allow toxins to leave and for health to exist. Periodic flushing is recommended, but is best done very gently and with the body’s own mechanisms in order to not deplete the system or cause more imbalance. Please ask me for individual recommendations!
Learning a little about the most important ways your body wants to work can help point out a problem, can help you translate your own body’s messages, and can then allow you to see that you can choose to remove obstacles to your own best health!
Happy learning!
Office: 136 W. Cota St.
Santa Barbara, CA 93101 Phone: (805) 966-0055