Ayurveda for Eczema
I’m not sure how I initially heard about Ayurveda for eczema. I think Ayurveda is just sort of part of the 21st century wellness-person’s zeitgeist. It’s on teas, it’s sometimes mentioned in yoga classes, and it’s mentioned on personal care products. It’s even mentioned on the National Eczema Association’s website, as is acupuncture.
Realistically though, I think I coalesced on what Ayurveda was when I was googling around for eczema cures and stumbled upon this book called Absolute Beauty. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that when my skin was in more of a maintenance phase (before I got COVID and all hell broke loose), the suggestions in this book were working amazingly. Not only was my skin clear, I was sleeping super deeply, waking up early naturally on the weekends, and generally extremely happy.
Ayurveda, at least at that time, just clicked with me. Ayurveda is the ancient Indian medical system. The word literally is the combination of the Sanskrit words “Ayur” meaning “life” and “veda” meaning “science or knowledge.”
Ayurveda is the science behind how to live a good life. There are many tenants to Ayurveda, and I’m by no means a certified practitioner, but I have read a lot on it. The entry level is that Ayurveda believes each person is born with a certain “constitution” that is some combination of three “doshas” – called vata, pitta, and kapha.
As a gross generalization, vata people are typically prone to new ideas and excitable, they learn quickly but also forget quickly, they’re prone to dryness, and generally need “grounding” in their lives. Physically, they’re often slim, with dry and sometimes wiry hair, and relatively sharp features.
Pittas are “fire-y” people. They work hard and play hard. They’re competitive. They are prone to redness and have excess “heat” in their bodies. Pittas achieve well and set goals. They sweat easily. Physically, they often have a “warm” look about them, e.g. rosy cheeks.
Lastly, kaphas tend to be associated with grounding, and slow and steady behaviors. They sleep deeply. They may learn more slowly than a vata, but forget slowly. Physically, they may often have thick, long, lustrous hair and large, clear eyes. They have calming voices and talk slowly.
A person can be a combination of the doshas. Sometimes a person resonates with all three, but that’s rare. Resonating strongly with one or two is most common.
So what does all this mean?
Isn’t this fascinating?! I’m a vata-pitta type, and my husband is nearly the “textbook” definition of a kapha. He is my grounding force.
Unfortunately, vata-pitta types are often prone to eczema! What does ayurveda for eczema consider?Well, both doshas I resonate with can lead to eczema symptoms – pitta is out of wack when the skin is hot, fiery, weeping, and angry, and vata is out of wack when the skin is super dry and flaking.
I associate personality wise with vata first as my “dominant” dosha, and then pitta, as my secondary. This is interesting because my skin is more often dry and flaky than hot and weeping.
There are tons of Dosha quizzes online that rapidly tell you your dosha. There’s also a quiz in the Absolute Beauty book.
How did they know??
The more I read about Ayurveda, the more I kept thinking, “oh my goodness that is me…how did they know that?!” when reading about vata-pitta types. I was motivated to explore Ayurveda for eczema.
Absolute Beauty is very entry level. I read several more books after it when I was really getting into this stuff, including Ayurveda : the science of self-healing. After all of my readings I remarked that it was actually quite crazy that an ancient system designed and recorded nearly entirely by men on a different continent could predict my behavior and physical characteristics so well. I think I’m due to pick up a few of these texts again just because they’re so fascinating to me.
Simply said, I was bought into Ayurveda for eczema, and it’s excellent to follow some of its tenants when in the “maintenance” phase of life (i.e. not battling something acutely as those of us with severe eczema are – more on how I did try aggressive Ayurveda for eczema below).
When I was in this glorious “maintenance” phase, here’s what I did each morning to keep myself happy, healthy, and my skin glowing (these largely come directly from the Absolute Beauty book).
My Ayurvedic Morning Routine for Eczema
- Wake up time: I would wake up early (as indicated by Ayurveda, usually around 6-6:30AM) and immediately scrape my tongue with a tongue scraper. Ayurveda prescribes specific metals for specific doshas, but honestly you probably can’t go wrong with a durable stainless steel version. Regardless of whether or not you think Ayurveda is bogus, please get a tongue scraper and use it first thing in the morning. It’s disgusting what kind gunk your tongue collects and you definitely don’t want it on there all day. Brush teeth and splash water on face: in Ayurvedic speak, this is to greet the day, essentially, and it’s “required” to have a clean mouth before meditation.
- Exercise (sometimes): Ideally do something that makes you sweat. Bonus points if you can do it outside in the rising sunlight. At the time I was doing Beach Body’s T-25 HIIT workouts (highly recommend) outside in the chilly Boston April air. It was invigorating!
- Meditate & Yoga: my goodness is this a good morning routine. Have you ever stretched in the morning? I, for one, am so stiff after laying in bed that stretching in the morning feels so, so good even though I’m about 20% less flexible than through the rest of my day. I would do yoga first, then meditate for about 10 minutes before showering and starting my workday at 8:30AM.
Did this stick?
I’m trying a version of this again now even though I’m not in a full Ayurveda for eczema routine. Instead of meditating daily, per se, I instead have a new “mantra” I promised I’d repeat to myself in the new year (2024) anytime I start aggressively scratching. That mantra is: “be at rest.”
I don’t always remember to say or think this, but when I do I typically succeed at stopping scratching, at least for a bit. My other mantra for the year is “bloom where you’re planted”, for what it’s worth, as I was feeling rather discontented with my life last year. I was traveling way too much and about as ungrounded as one could get (read above – this is particularly bad for vata types like myself according to Ayurveda).
This is my first year of setting “mantras” for myself – we’ll see how this goes (and if I still remember that I set them come fourth quarter…).
I found I was so productive at work when I was following the above Ayurvedic morning routine.
In terms of skincare…
My Ayurvedic Skincare Routine
- Minimal soap in the shower, though Absolute Beauty (and plenty of online blogs) detail homemade soap and shampoos. I made a few of the shampoos from the book, and they worked surprisingly well.
- Body oiling or “Abhyanga”, i.e. Ayurvedic self massage done with warm oil. My skin absolutely loved this. If I were truly in balance, according to Ayurveda, I wouldn’t have needed moisturizer after this practice. You can watch videos on how to do this “correctly”, and you can make your own oils based on your Dosha (found in the book or plenty of blogs) or order online. Many health foods stores also have pre-made Ayurvedic oils.
- Because my skin is prone to dryness, I would follow up with a cocoa butter or shea butter body butter. Again – recipe in the book, specifically regarding which essential oils to add at the end for your Dosha. I really liked this cocoa butter and shea butter, both found on Amazon. Note: you can add arrowroot powder to the mixture to make it feel less greasy going on. If your skin is in good shape, though, you just need a little body butter, and it goes a long way.
My Ayurvedic Diet
I also tried to eat somewhat “Ayurvedically” at this time. There are lots of rules about food in Ayurveda and frankly it would be impossible to stick to them all while living a “normal” lifestyle.
I tried to stick to: warm, fat-rich foods at breakfast, eating my biggest meal at lunch (not dinner), eating dinner earlier, and generally adding more ghee to my diet. (Ayurveda also introduced me to ghee, for which I’m forever grateful, because it’s become a staple in our kitchen).
These “Ayurvedic lifestyle” routine and “Ayurvedic skincare” routines, I know, work quite well when my skin is behaving. I hope to get back to this sometime soon.
What about when my skin is not behaving, which is most of the time?
My Ayurvedic “Detox”
I also tried Ayurveda when my skin was very, very angry at me. I worked with an Ayurvedic Doctor in Boston who also had a PhD. Note: there are numerous “levels” of Ayurvedic practitioners. I would highly recommend talking to an Ayurvedic Doctor for anything like chronic, severe, eczema. This doctor was sympathetic and incredibly well-reviewed. She’d treated eczema before, and I was very hopeful about working with her.
She recommended numerous herbs in addition to this wonderful lotion, which I highly recommend even if the website looks a bit sketchy. It is cooling and incredibly soothing to very itchy skin. The herbs she prescribed didn’t seem to do much (and tasted bad), but this lotion was great.
I also was supposed to have coriander seed tea (coriander seeds steeped in hot water) each morning and to chew on fennel seeds. The fennel seeds were meh, but the coriander seed tea was actually quite a pleasant taste.
I was to avoid meat, eggs, anything cold, and use a special salt she recommended, in addition to all of the typical “health maintenance” stuff you might expect (e.g. exposure to sunlight, keeping to daily routines, meditation, etc.)
All of this was “phase 1”, and it didn’t do much to move the needle (except for the lotion being a great discovery, as mentioned).
What then?
“Phase 2” was a full-blown cleanse/detoxification, sort of like pancha karma-lite for those familiar. This was borderline crazy.
In theory, it seemed this would work, if I had some sort of pathogen in my gut or body. The idea was to flush out the bad, as with any detox, to make way for the good and new. The plan was 13 days long. During it, I couldn’t travel, eat dairy, processed food, or meat, or drink alcohol.
What did the cleanse look like?
The first 3 days required taking herbs with all meals. Days 4, 5, 6, and 7 required sipping a nasty, herbed ghee. Day 8 was a whole body massage by an Ayurvedic masseuse (This was really nice. I’m definitely due to find an Ayurvedic massage again).
Day 9 was my “purge” day. I ate an herb that made me poop literally all day. I was not allowed to eat. Days 10, 11, and 12, I was only to eat rice cooked in lots of water and topped with salt and cumin. That’s all. The AD said many people with eczema had their itching resolve during these days, so while I certainly thought this was all a bit odd, I remained both desperate and hopeful. On day 13, I could start my normal diet again.
This detox…. did nothing for me. That said, some people (mostly men) swear by fasting for clearing their eczema. The book CLEAN 7 also suggests fasting (which in the case of that book occurs on one of the days of the 7 day “cleanse” diet they recommend) can clear up skin conditions. Fasting can be dangerous, particularly for women, so be sure to talk to a nutritionist/other medical provider before proceeding. So, I’m glad I tried the fasting part, at least, even if the rest did next to nothing. Would I recommend this particular facet to others with eczema, though? Probably not.
Would I recommend looking into Ayurveda as a whole to those with and without eczema? Absolutely.
Again, I am not a medical provider. Please consult a licensed medical professional before proceeding with anything recommended on this blog.
