Yoga & Breath
Breath practice for anxiety: the specific thing to do
Of everything discussed on this site, slow breathing has the best combination of evidence, accessibility and safety. Here is the practical version.
Meera Kulkarni
22 articles by Kulkarni
Diet & Digestion
Cooking oils: the classical selections and the current evidence
Ayurveda assigns properties to different oils and recommends them for different constitutions. Nutrition science asks different questions, and the answers do not entirely align.
Diet & Digestion
Drinking with meals, and the classical instructions about water
Classical texts give specific instructions about when and how much to drink around eating, and several popular claims about this have no support at all.
Daily Routine
The evening routine and winding down
Classical texts give less attention to the evening than to the morning, and what they do prescribe corresponds closely to what sleep research recommends.
Diet & Digestion
Honey: the classical instructions and the evidence
Classical texts treat honey with unusual specificity, including a prohibition on heating it that corresponds to a real chemical change, and one absolute safety rule.
Daily Routine
Bathing, skin and what the classical routine gets right
The classical sequence of oil, bath and specific practices corresponds surprisingly well to what dermatology recommends for skin barrier function.
Diet & Digestion
The sattvic diet: what the category means and what it does not
Food classified by its supposed effect on the mind is a philosophical category rather than a nutritional one, and it produces a diet that is defensible for reasons unrelated to the classification.
Diet & Digestion
Buttermilk, yoghurt and the gut
Classical texts recommend fermented dairy in specific ways and for specific conditions, and gut microbiome research has become one of the more overhyped areas in nutrition.
Daily Routine
Routine when your routine is disrupted
The classical framework treats travel, irregular hours and disrupted eating as specific aggravating factors. That is a reasonable description of what shift work and modern schedules do.
Diet & Digestion
Rice, wheat and the staple grain question
Classical dietetics assigns properties to different grains and preparations, and contemporary nutrition has a specific concern about the staple that dominates South Asian diets.
Diet & Digestion
Milk and dairy in Ayurvedic dietetics
Classical texts recommend milk warmly and in specific ways, and a majority of the world’s adults have reduced ability to digest lactose. Both things are true.
Daily Routine
Copper vessels, warm water and the practices around drinking
Storing water in copper is a widespread traditional practice with a genuine antimicrobial basis and a set of safety limits that popular coverage usually omits.
Diet & Digestion
Cumin, coriander, fennel: the digestive spices and what they do
Traditional Indian cooking uses particular spices in particular sequences, and several of them have carminative properties that are better supported than most herbal claims.
Yoga & Breath
Surya namaskar: what the sequence does and who should modify it
The sun salutation is the most widely practised sequence in modern yoga, it is more demanding than it appears, and several of its components need adapting for a lot of people.
Diet & Digestion
Fasting in classical practice, and what modern research adds
Upavasa appears in classical texts as a therapeutic measure with specified indications and contraindications, which is a more careful framing than most contemporary fasting advice.
Yoga & Breath
Yoga nidra and structured relaxation
A guided practice performed lying down, with a defined structure, and a small but reasonably consistent research literature.
Diet & Digestion
Ghee and the fat question
Ghee occupies a central place in Ayurvedic dietetics and it is nearly pure saturated fat, which puts traditional recommendation and cardiovascular guidance in tension.
Daily Routine
Ritucharya: adjusting to the season
Classical texts prescribe different diet and routine for each season, based on a model of how the body changes through the year. The specifics assume a particular climate.
Diet & Digestion
The six tastes: a framework for building a meal
Classical Ayurvedic dietetics organises food by taste and holds that a meal should contain all six. As a practical cooking heuristic it works better than the underlying theory would suggest.
Diet & Digestion
Incompatible foods: what viruddha ahara claims and what nutrition says
Classical Ayurveda lists combinations of foods considered harmful together. Some correspond to recognisable issues, most have no support, and one common example is worth examining closely.
Daily Routine
Sleep in the Ayurvedic day, and what sleep science adds
Classical texts treat sleep as one of the three pillars of health and give fairly specific instructions about it. A good deal of that instruction has held up.
Daily Routine
Dinacharya: the daily routine, item by item
The classical daily regimen is a long list of practices. Some are ordinary hygiene, some have interesting evidence behind them, and a few are worth being sceptical about.