Panchakarma is Ayurveda's most powerful tool for returning the body and mind to their natural state of health and harmony. Its not just a Spa program or a general purgation therapy. It’s a very individualistic approach based on the body-type and the clinical signs the patients shows . It involves mainly three steps . First step is called as Purvakarma (Preparatory treatments ), Pradhanakarma( Main treatment) and third Paschyathkarma ( Post-operative / Rejuvenative treatment) .
First step involves Snehana ( oilation ) and Swedhana ( Fomentation) . Snehana is done both internally by taking medicated Ghee and externally with the help of massage . Snehana followed by Swedhana that involves Fomentation with which the adhered toxins will be brought to the near by exits and channels either gastrointestinal tract , skin pores , or through Urinary system .
Second step – Pradhanakarma have the five treatments that includes
1)Vamana: Therapeutic emesis for excess Kapha (e.g., congestion, allergies).
2)Virechana: Purgation therapy for excess Pitta (e.g., inflammation, skin conditions).
3) Basti: Herbalized medicated enemas, considered the most important for balancing Vata (e.g., anxiety, arthritis, constipation).
4)Nasya: Administration of herbal oils through the nasal passages to cleanse the head region (e.g., sinusitis, migraines).
5)Raktamokshana: Bloodletting (rarely used today in its classical form) for blood-borne toxins.
The third step is Paschatkarma (Post-Treatment Phase): Often the most crucial, this is a gradual period of recovery and rejuvenation. A specific diet, herbal regimens, and lifestyle guidelines are followed to "reset" the digestion, nourish the newly cleansed tissues, and solidify the benefits.
What are toxins ?
In simple terms, it refers to substances—both from outside and inside the body—that can cause harm if they accumulate beyond the body's ability to neutralise and eliminate them. Ayurveda call it as “Ama” .
It can be Metabolic Waste (Produced Inside the Body like Urea,Ammonia, Billirubin etc ), Environmental & Dietary Toxins (Coming from Outside- Like heavy metals ,Persistent organic pollutants, food additives ,Herbicides,etc..) , Gut derived toxins like Lipopolysacharides (Bacterial endotoxins).
Most of these toxins after getting accumulated for a long time will trigger inflammatory responses that will hamper our system and leads to different diseases. This process of accumulation of toxins mainly happen with fat soluble toxins because water soluble toxins can be easily removed from the body through urine, sweat or through the anus . Fat soluble toxins escapes from this detoxification cycle and absorbed into the blood from the digestive system and carried to different part of our body and store into adipose tissues(fat tissue) . Its extremely difficult for our body to bring these toxins back. So,it will keep on accumulating and leads to different diseases. Ayurveda call these “Ama” as equal as Visha (Poison) . This can cause a wide range of diseases like a simple allergic response to some severe inflammatory diseases. In our contemporary lifestyle, we are consuming such toxins through our daily meals, we may not be able to follow systematic eating habits, we are living in a sedentary lifestyle, our sleep cycle may be irregular, may have high stress job or other personal matters, all these things are playing the role in our body’s detoxification mechanism in a harmful way. So, if our digestive system misses the first round of detoxification as a part of our normal digestion and let the toxins in, then it starts the cycle of this vicious toxicity.
Can we bring these toxins back to the exit routes to eliminate it ?
Yes … But its difficult… Why ? In order to do that , we have to break these fats in which the toxins are adhered. Its called Lipolysis. But the problem is that the body initiate Lipolysis only when there is high calorific deficit or Energy demand. Exercise, Sauna ,all these are helpful in this way to initiate the lipolysis that can bring back these toxins . But these toxins will not come to our gastrointestinal tract directly . We don’t have such a physiological channel ,instead ,it will go to our master chemist of Detoxification – The Liver . Liver has a three staged mechanism to make fat soluble toxins into water soluble toxins and then it will expel through Bile. Once the bile is secreted to our intestine, then we can easily remove these toxins through our Anal route.
Liver is not the only organ that have the ability to convert Fat soluble toxins into water-soluble toxins . Other organs like Lungs , Kidneys , Gut with the help of some specialised bacterias ,can also do this conversion in a limited manner .
How Ayurvedic Panchakarma works..?
First of all ,I repeat, Panchakarma is not just a Spa Programe or Just an act of drinking some fruit-Vegetable Juices to proclaim yourself as Detoxified. As mentioned before, It starts with Snehapana ( Intake of ghee in empty stomach). Just like we all know that our body depends primarily on Carbohydrate metabolism for its energy demand, Not Fat metabolism though the fat gives 2.25 times more energy than carbohydrates per unit mass . Intake of Medicated Ghee on empty stomach and waiting till extreme hunger comes is actually a kind of Metabolic Shock to the body . This will initiate a signal that the system has to make use of the fats . The first response due to that signal will be from none other than liver by increased secretion of bile to the Gastrointestinal tract . Remember ,Bile is a medium through which the already converted water-soluble toxins get released into the intestine for its removal..
There is one important question here. How did the accumulated fatty toxins (Ama) from different parts of our body reach the Liver? ? The answer is the reason why we do Abhyanga (Massage) and Steambath. That’s why these two procedures are integral to all the other provedures of Panchakarma. Abhyanga and steam bath will stimulate Lipolysis ( breakdown of fats) that drive these toxins to blood by activating Systemic circulation as well as Lymphatic circulation. Once the blood detects the toxins with the help of chemo receptors , all these Toxic blood will rush to our master chemist -Liver. Liver will detoxify it and gives it to the Intestine. Once the toxins reach intestine, we can remove it by creating forceful lower peristalsis with multiple spells of Vasti and Virechana. The similar action will initiate in lungs also that will cause excess mucous secretion as an act of toxin expulsion. These Toxins we can expel through another Panchakarma procedures called Nasya (Nasal drops ) or through Vamana(Emesis) if the excess mucous comes from stomach or upper respiratory tract level. Still there will be some toxins that bypassed our detox Net that may still circulate in the blood stream. Before it get accumulated to some part of the body along with fats, we have to remove some quantity of blood from the body carefully from the areas where there us more chance of blood pooling, Eg;Legs. A portion of water soluble toxins will be also removed through sweat during the course of the course of the procedure.
After the procedure , our body will be definitely tired. Its digestive fire might have diminished. There will slight weight loss. But, these are not problematic signs. These are ideal signs of efficient Panchakarma. Next step is to give some restorations or rejuvenative medicines with proper diet recommendations so that the body will bounce back to its normalcy with more power, enthusiasm and Happiness.
