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IF YOU HAVE ever thought about natural ways to boost your child’s immune system ahead of cold and flu season or before returning to a classroom full of germs when the new school year begins, you’re right in step with the Ayurvedic view. Ayurveda’s natural healing principles understand that immunity is within us, and we can support and enhance our own immune resistance. In fact, the very definition of immunity in Ayurveda is the ability of the body to resist and overcome any disease process. Immunity depends on how balanced and strong your system is so that it can resist imbalances like viruses and bacteria. When your immune system is robust, pathogens won’t be able to intrude and create disease. We can also look at immunity and everyday health issues with our newfound understanding of the doshas and see how to balance them before we get into the basics of everyday care. As Ayurveda gains popularity as a holistic life science alongside other types of complementary and mind-body medicine, more and more families are turning to natural remedies to boost immunity and manage everyday health issues—especially when it comes to their children.
The Age of Kapha
Now that you have discovered your child’s individual prakriti, let’s zoom out for a moment and take a broader perspective of the overarching kapha age of childhood.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re a human sneeze guard or endlessly in search of a tissue to mop up your child’s runny nose, there’s a reason for that! According to Ayurveda, kapha reigns supreme during childhood, and the various qualities of the kapha dosha are expressed more predominately during this time of life. Since every child is governed by the kapha dosha, there is a greater tendency toward kapha-related health issues. By nature, kapha is heavy, sticky, and slow. As you probably know from your own experience, the accumulation of these qualities leads to coughs, colds, earaches, upper respiratory infections, allergies, and—of course—lots of excess mucus. Recognizing some of the common pitfalls associated with childhood that often lead to illness can help you fend off and manage a good number of those coughs and colds in your home.
You may be wondering where this fits in to balancing the doshas according to your child’s prakriti. Shouldn’t that be enough to prevent any imbalances that might lead to these common illnesses? Yes—if it weren’t for the fact that the doshas continuously shift both within you and around you in your external environments. Since it is impossible to synchronously balance what is always in motion, the key to prevention is recognizing signs of imbalance and aggravation before the seeds of illness take root and manifest as a disease or disorder that becomes harder and more complicated to treat.
The same way you experience various daily imbalances from an interrupted night’s sleep, changes in the weather, eating on the go, or simply through the course of a day’s emotional highs and lows, your children also cycle through the dynamic balancing act of the doshas—except they don’t feel or express these subtle changes in their bodies the same way you do as an adult and aren’t yet fully capable of taking the necessary steps to correct them. This is where you come in. Without your awareness and intervention, these imbalances will require a much longer time for the body to correct on its own and leave your children vulnerable to further aggravation and illnesses.
In the same way parenthood challenges you to continuously foster your children’s positive behavior, development, and enthusiasm and curiosity for life, your commitment to their health is the single most important influence on your child’s well-being. Your close attention can support your children beyond measure during this vital stage and, no less important, show them the ways to live in harmony with nature and how to respect their unique constitution throughout their lives. From toddler to teen, Ayurveda offers you a path that can deeply nurture and renew your relationships with your children and at the same time awaken the joys of mindfulness practices within you. It starts with simple, quiet observation of your child’s expressions.
Just as important as striving for balance to maintain your child’s health is understanding the ways to gently restore imbalances when they do arise—as they will. There are a few variables you should be aware of that may require a little more attention. For example, if you have a kapha child who is already prone to kapha disorders, the age of childhood itself presents another contributing factor that can increase tendencies of a kapha imbalance. Similarly, the kapha-dominant seasons of late winter and spring add yet another layer of instability. You can see the ways that simply being aware of different influences in your children’s environments can help you adjust their lifestyle routines accordingly. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure—the cornerstone of Ayurvedic principles.
The good news—the great news actually—is that imbalances that occur during the kapha stage of life are the easiest to correct since this stage represents nourishment and stability. During this period marked by rapid growth and development, the ratio of nourishment outpaces degeneration and naturally supports healing and regeneration compared to the other life stages marked by the fire and transformation of pitta and the movement and dryness of vata. A little of your support during this period in life goes a long way toward minimizing your child’s symptoms and suffering and allows you to restore balance quite easily.
Immunity
According to Ayurveda, every individual possesses all the healing mechanisms necessary within every system of the body to both resist and recover from health problems. In other words—everyone has the tools for robust immunity. When you support the immune system naturally, rather than suppress it, you can strengthen your child’s innate resistance to imbalances and build a powerful first line of defense.
Let’s examine how this works using the example of increasingly prevalent seasonal allergies—a common culprit for children suffering from symptoms of allergic rhinitis at the same time every year. Why is your child sneezing, sniffling, and possibly even wheezing or having difficulty breathing while other children are happily running around enjoying the bloom of spring? The standard response is to blame the seasonal pollens wafting through the air from trees, weeds, and grasses. But the reality is that if the pollens were really the problem, every child exposed would suffer the same way. It’s actually not the pollen at all, but a hyperactive immune response that makes certain children reactive and symptomatic to these exposures. It would be challenging to zero in on exactly why your child is hypersensitive to certain allergens as there are many factors that contribute to hypersensitivity of the immune system including genetics, diet and lifestyle, and sensory, emotional, and mental inputs. Ayurveda’s approach to these types of conditions is to stabilize and strengthen the immune system and carefully manage diet and lifestyle routines to reduce exposures and return the body to a state of balance.
Let’s take a look at what happens to the immune system when you give your child an over-the-counter antihistamine or decongestant—after all, you don’t want your children to suffer, and allergies can interfere with everything from sleep to schoolwork, leaving kids miserable and exhausted. While it’s true that OTC allergy medications may offer some immediate symptomatic relief, they can never provide a long-term sustainable outcome—the most important factor for your children. Relying on these products leads to greater exposure to the allergens, recurrent inflammation, and a higher likelihood of developing chronic degenerative changes in the respiratory system. In addition to the unwanted side effects many of these products can cause such as drowsiness and dullness, giving your child OTC medications for symptomatic relief works directly against the body’s natural defense mechanisms. For example, coughing and sneezing are the body’s protective responses to expel the allergens creating a crisis in the lungs. The wheezing and difficulty breathing that sometimes follow are a result of the body’s natural response to constrict the lungs and minimize exposure of the irritating allergens. Ayurveda’s approach to managing immunity issues is to strengthen and stabilize the immune system and reduce hypersensitivity reactions so the body’s innate defense mechanisms remain uncompromised and can resist possible irritations and inflammation.
When it comes to keeping your child’s immune system strong and resilient, a good defense truly is the best offense. In parts two and three of this book, we will discuss the many different Ayurvedic tools and techniques you can follow to maintain your child’s health and keep the doshas balanced, including diet and lifestyle routines, herbal formulations and applications, yoga, meditation, therapeutic Ayurvedic oil massage, breathing exercises, and even sound therapy. Later, you will find basic recipes to enhance your child’s immunity along with simple home remedies for common childhood complaints in chapter 16.
Let’s look next at some useful Ayurvedic tools that can help you manage common immunity-related conditions and get your children on the road to recovery as quickly as possible.
Immunity-Related Conditions
Many parents feel like their children have only just recovered from one bout of something when they get struck with another. For busy parents, waging war against the steady stream of germs running through the house can feel like a losing battle. Following some basic Ayurvedic tips lets you manage your child’s symptoms like a pro, cut back on missed days of school, and catch up on some much-needed rest yourself.
colds and congestion
Let’s talk first about colds and congestion—by far the most common immunity-related conditions your children are likely to experience over and over…and over again! First and foremost, avoid any exposure to cold. This includes foods, beverages, and even weather—and at the top of that list is ice. We will take a deeper look at the ways ice and cold drinks extinguish your child’s digestive fire according to the Ayurvedic principle of agni in chapter 5, but for now just know that ice in any form—including the ice you blend into your child’s favorite smoothie—is crucial to avoid until symptoms abate. For children especially prone to congestion, including recurring ear infections, it is best to follow these guidelines as often as possible, especially during the kapha-predominant seasons of late winter and spring. When you do venture outside into the cold together to play or send your children to school, remember to protect them as much as possible by bundling them up in warm clothing and outerwear that will keep their extremities warm.
The second tip for managing colds at home is to minimize hair washing. According to Ayurveda, wetting the scalp is a common trigger for congestion, which suggests you reduce the frequency of this routine. You can still give your child a warm, comforting bath or shower once or twice a day, but limiting the frequency of hair washing just may ward off that next cold. The general rule of thumb is to limit washing your child’s hair to once a week or so if they have a tendency toward congestion and refrain from wetting the head at all when your child is suffering from symptoms of colds or congestion. When you do wash your child’s hair, be sure to thoroughly towel-dry the scalp or use a mild blow-dryer setting. Also take care to avoid extreme heat as Ayurveda considers this exposure unhealthy for the hair and eyes.
As parents know better than anyone, feeding a sick child can be tricky business. Very often, appetites run low, and a cranky mood can leave your child pickier than ever when it comes to mealtimes. According to Ayurveda, food is nature’s medicine and has tremendous power to heal, support, nourish, and repair when consumed properly. You should consider what you offer your children to eat throughout the course of an illness vital to their recovery. Your food choices can either pacify imbalances or further aggravate them, resulting in greater accumulation and imbalance of congestion in this case. This can lead to worsening symptoms, unnecessary OTC interventions, frequent visits to the doctor, and repeated antibiotic use. We will examine Ayurvedic nutritional guidelines more closely in chapter 4 and discuss the ins and outs of what to feed your children, but the most important recommendation when it comes to colds and congestion is to offer your child easily digestible, cooked food and hold off on the raw veggies and salads until recovery is complete. It is also best to refrain from anything oily and too many sweets.
Remember, the best way to support your child’s colds and congestion and shorten the duration of illness is through warmth. Keep an eye on the thermostat, be at the ready with a warm sweater and extra blankets, and offer your child plenty of warm water and herbal teas to sip throughout the day. And don’t overlook the importance of those warming cuddles and hugs!
allergies
If you’ve ever been advised to keep your kids indoors and the windows shut on a breezy spring day when pollen counts are high, chances are you have a child who suffers from allergies. Maybe you’ve heeded this advice in the past—or tried to, at least, but were moved by the feeling that there must be a better solution. Keeping your children from going outside to play and enjoying the blossoming spring flowers and warmer days seems detrimental in other ways and an unfair punishment on top of all the sneezing, coughing, and sniffling they endure from the hallmark symptoms of allergic rhinitis. With allergies on the rise for millions of children, more parents than ever are looking for ways to prevent and effectively treat the symptoms of seasonal allergies.
As mentioned earlier, Ayurveda identifies allergies as hypersensitivity of the body’s immune system. In other words, it’s not about the allergens or the pollen—or even the season. It’s about the strength and stability of your child’s immune system. The remedy isn’t to keep them from playing outside, it is to enhance your child’s immunity.
Ayurveda takes a comprehensive approach to managing seasonal allergies that considers your child’s body, mind, and environment. Treatment begins with minimizing exposures to specific allergens while supporting your child’s immune resistance, then slowly reintroducing specific environmental triggers. This process involves careful management of your child’s diet, routines, and mental exposures along with the use of immunity-stabilizing herbs that an experienced Ayurvedic physician can recommend as part of a comprehensive treatment protocol.
One of the best ways you can support your child’s immune system naturally is using traditional household spices such as turmeric and ginger in small quantities when you are preparing food or teas. These are common kitchen spices that you may already have in your cabinet or are easily picked up at your local grocery store. One very effective home remedy to treat allergies, for example, is a simple preparation of turmeric powder with warm milk your child consumes daily for a few weeks. You will learn more about the effective uses and healing properties of herbs and spices when we discuss Ayurvedic nutrition, but in the meantime, you can find immunity-enhancing home recipes for common childhood conditions in chapter 16. Remember to follow the same kapha-reducing guidelines you would for colds and congestion if you have a child who suffers from allergies and take special care to avoid cold foods and beverages.
DAIRY, GLUTEN, AND OTHER FOOD SENSITIVITIES
With rapidly expanding gluten- and dairy-free aisles in your local grocery store and so many parents declaring their children are on restricted diets, it can be hard not to wonder if you should restock your pantry shelves at home and adapt to a new diet and lifestyle that might offer increased benefits to your children.
The primary reason for the gluten-free trend is that some children as well as adults develop intolerances to gluten ingredients. Food intolerances are hyperimmune sensitivities just as we have discussed with seasonal allergies, but some can be life-threatening and may need emergency management. In this case, the immune system identifies gluten as toxic and releases antibodies that create inflammation and lead to intestinal symptoms that can include bloating, excessive gas, cramps, nausea, diarrhea, and incomplete evacuation. This affects absorption of nutrients and overall nourishment. The only way to treat this issue is to strengthen and stabilize the child’s immune system so it stops triggering the false alarm. It’s the same with other food sensitivities such as dairy, for example.
While there are many children who are in fact intolerant to gluten and dairy products, these are person-specific, and there is no need for a universal approach to any type of diet or to avoid gluten or dairy without a reason. If you discover your child is allergic to gluten or dairy, at that point you can avoid those ingredients and create a protocol with an Ayurvedic professional to strengthen and stabilize their immune system against the sensitivity and carefully reintroduce the ingredients slowly over time.
Allergies and intolerances take many forms from babies who are allergic to their mother’s breast milk to sudden, adult-onset food sensitivities. Regardless of age or type of hypersensitivity, here is a good step-by-step approach:
1.Avoid items known to create allergic reactions in the body, whether it is milk, wheat, rice, or breast milk.
2.Guide diet and lifestyle practices based on age, constitution, and type of allergies.
3.Integrate specific Ayurveda and yoga health enhancement practices into your child’s routines, such as regular neti (nasal irrigation), nasya (nasal drops), pranayama (breathing practices), asana (body postures), meditation, abhyanga (massage with oil), and so on.
4.Consider condition-specific and immunity-enhancing herbs and herbal formulations under the guidance of an Ayurvedic practitioner with the goal to stabilize and strengthen immune resistance against allergens for at least a few months.
5.Follow a course of panchakarma (Ayurvedic purification process) followed by rasayanas (rejuvenating protocol) under the supervision of an Ayurvedic doctor if the individual requires such a healing process and is eligible based on considerations like age and condition of health.
6.Monitor the condition and reassess the individual’s health based on Ayurvedic principles on a periodic basis.
7.Slowly reintroduce the items that caused sensitivities once the individual is stable and stronger as per the Ayurvedic assessment.
eczema and psoriasis
While allergies are the hypersensitivity of the immune system to something outside of the body, eczema and psoriasis are the hypersensitivity of the immune system to its own tissues and systems. These types of conditions cause your immune system to mistake your body’s own healthy cells and tissues as foreign and attack as if they were pathogens. This is known as autoimmunity. Since this is another type of aberration of the immune system, strengthening your child’s immune system will provide the best sustainable, long-term outcome.
In addition to boosting immunity, there are certain dietary triggers you’ll want to avoid or minimize because they can increase the irritation and itching associated with eczema-related skin disorders. These include anything that creates sliminess in the system such as yogurt, sour oranges, mangoes, vinegars, and even sesame seeds. Preparing warm, freshly cooked foods, reducing sweets, and monitoring your child’s dairy intake can correct primary imbalances that lead to eczema and psoriasis.
With the many benefits you can achieve by following Ayurveda’s nutritional guidelines, it can be easy to overlook your child’s lifestyle routines. Is your child staying up too late at night or not getting enough exercise? Ayurveda’s recommendations for eliminating and reducing symptoms of these autoimmune conditions and providing supportive care emphasize both a kapha-balancing diet and lifestyle. Be mindful of your child’s routines and activity levels, and bear in mind happiness is very much a part of healthiness! Keep your children’s spirits high by visiting new places and varying your local adventures and activities with them to stimulate excitement and curiosity.
Parents often want to know how long it will take for symptoms to resolve once they begin following various Ayurvedic remedies and protocols. Natural approaches to systemic conditions may require some time to see results. Remember, Ayurveda addresses the root causes of all disease and disorders and strives to eliminate underlying imbalances. When you only treat health symptoms, you will see conditions manifest again and again and often progress into a chronic ailment or disorder. That said, as imbalances start to correct, you will begin to notice that your child’s flare-ups become less frequent or perhaps don’t require management as often with steroid creams or antihistamines, for example. The body expresses healing just as it expresses disease. Stay tuned in to your child’s mind-body expressions, remain adaptable to modifying lifestyle protocols as needed, and always express a positive outlook—your energy plays a vital role in your child’s recovery!