November 2024

Many people go to Nepal to climb Mount Everest, or at least part of Mount Everest. Since I can’t climb mountains, I did something a little different. My mom and I spent a week at an ayurvedic wellness retreat.

Ayurvedic medicine is a holistic type of medicine that originated in India – which is right next door to Nepal – thousands of years ago. At our retreat, we spent a week doing panchakarma.

The literal translation of panchakarma is “five actions,” or five karmas. Panchakarma is basically five types of detox treatments for body. They consist of Vamana (vomiting), Virechana (cleansing of the digestive system with herbal medicines), Basti (enema), Raktamokshana (cleaning of the blood using leeches), and Nasya (cleansing through the nasal passages).

The idea of panchakarma is to create balance for the body’s three doshas. We all have them – pitta, vata, and kapha. When one is out of balance, our entire body – physical, mental, and emotional – is out of balance. Through the cleansing process, and a precise prescription of herbal medicines, the three doshas become balanced, and thus, we will be balanced.

The entire panchakarma process takes several weeks as it’s an intense cleansing process for the body. Since we could only stay for one week, we completed just one the five cleansing processes.

On the morning that we arrived, a driver from the retreat met us at the airport. We had asked the wellness center that we were staying at if there was a lift and an accessible room and they confirmed that the entire center was wheelchair friendly. Woo hoo! Standing outside the airport holding a sign with our names on it was our driver, and he had an empty wheelchair sitting next to him. He didn’t speak much English, but we assumed he and the center wanted to be sure we had all of our needs met, and making sure I was able to move around was one of them. I didn’t need the wheelchair since I had my own, but seeing him welcome me and all my uniqueness into his country gave me the biggest sense of belonging, and I couldn’t wait to see more of Nepal. Plus, he wasn’t insistent on pushing me around, and allowed me to have my own independence, so I was grateful for his demeanor.

We drove for about an hour outside of the city, up windy roads and through lush forests. The roads were paved with asphalt, and for a mountainous part of the world, were in really great condition. At the top of a mountain, our driver stopped and pointed in the distance.

“There,” he said, as he pointed. It was evident that the large brick building standing alone on a mountain off in the distance was where we would be staying for the week. He turned off of the main road onto a muddy, dirt road. We went up and down, sliding sideways at every turn. I quietly wondered how the heck we were going to get to the beautiful brick building so far away, and then suddenly, we turned on a stone road, drove up a big hill, and we were there.

We were escorted to our room, given some herbal tea, told to rest before lunch, and that we would be meeting with the doctor for our initial consultation soon.

In our shared room, with two twin beds, we had a bathroom and a small patio with just enough room for two chairs. The view out of the large glass windows overlooking the Himalayan mountains was stunning and peaceful. I didn’t know at the time, but for the next week, I would spend much time staring out that window, detoxing physically and mentally. It was the perfect place to be serene.

We each met separately with our doctor that afternoon. In my consultation, the doctor asked me a series of questions:

* How have you been sleeping?

* What’s your appetite like?

* Are you having any health issues?

* How do you feel mentally?

* How have your emotions been?

He took my blood pressure and pulse, and had me lay on my back so he could lightly press against all of the organs in my abdomen.

He told me that my pitta dosha was very high and my vata dosha was slightly elevated. In basic terms, my high pitta dosha was causing some stomach upset, joint pain, anxiety, and sleeplessness. My increased vata dosha was causing my thoughts to derail, forgetfulness, and emotional withdrawal. This all made sense, and yes, I was experiencing all of these ‘ailments.’

We talked about what my treatment plan was going to look like. He advised that for the first three days, I would drink a cup of warm ghee mixed with a specialized combination of medicinal herbs. Ghee is a type of clarified butter, and is one of the most common ingredients in all foods and treatments for panchakarma.

He explained that the ghee would pull out toxins living in my cells – both physical and emotional toxins. By this point, I was becoming a bit skeptical that purging my digestive system was going to clean out any mental or emotional toxins I had, but I was already there, and I was going to drink the ghee anyway…

He went on to tell me that the first three days I would drink ghee each morning followed by multiple deep muscle massages to my body. The idea of the massages was to help my muscles release the toxins into my digestive tract. On the third day, I would be given a different type of medicine that cleans out my digestive tract completely. On this day, I would not leave my room as I would need quick and frequent access to the bathroom.

I didn’t have a lot of questions for him. Rather, I was very skeptical that this would make me feel more emotionally and mentally calm. I can understand being physically detoxed, but emotionally? Plus, several days of being massaged did sound amazing. And, I really trusted my doctor. He seemed to understand me and we laughed together as I learned about panchakarma through his consultation.

That evening, we had dinner – rice and steamed vegetables – in the shared kitchen. For the next week, we would have a combination of rice, steamed vegetables, and kitchari. Kitchari is a porridge like soup made from rice and lentils. A special blend of spices is added to help with panchakarma and it’s meant to be easy for the stomach and digestive system to process.

Before each meal, we took a shot glass size concoction of herbal medicines. There was a tray in the shared kitchen and taped to each glass was our name. Sometimes we got one glass, sometimes a few. And they were awful! Many tasted like mud, and some tasted like liquid grass.

Before bed each night, on a small shelf outside our room door, we were given a ‘bedtime’ dose of herbal medicines. And laying under each glass was our prescription plan for the next day. The prescriptions were hand written on a piece of paper about the size of my forearm.

Some days we began with an hour of yoga, or a full body massage. Sometimes we were prescribed to rest, or we received an herbal bath. There were sound baths, where half a dozen staff members circled us and played sound bowls as we laid on the massage table. Sometimes our chakras were cleaned. Most days it was a combination of treatments, and we never knew what we would have coming until the night before. But every day, we knew we would receive a full body massage.

For an entire week, we wore only bathrobes – hot pink bathrobes that went to our knees. During our massages, we stripped out of our robes and were completely naked. These deep massages were important to release our toxins. Using sesame oil, one or two masseuses would spend several hours massaging everything from the hair on our heads to our stomachs to our toes. There wasn’t a part of my body that wasn’t massaged. By day seven, my mom and I both agreed that we were quite exhausted with being covered in sesame oil and being massaged. Who would have thought we’d ever mumble those words?

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On our first morning, there was a knock on our door at around 5:30 am. A woman holding a glass of warm ghee on a silver tray was on the other side. She watched as I drank the warm, thick, awful tasting ghee before taking my cup and moving onto the next room.

As the sun rose, we drank herbal tea in our room, and shortly after the center started to wake up, we spent an hour in yoga in a large room with about ten other guests and one yoga instructor. By this time, my head was starting to hurt. I wasn’t allowed to have caffeine at the wellness center, and the withdrawal from my typical two-to-three-cups-of-coffee-a-day was starting to set in. The yoga instructor was quite insistent that I move my body in ways that it just couldn’t bend, and coupled with a belly full of ghee and a pounding headache, I felt awful. I knew then that the yoga instructor and I weren’t going to get along and the rest of the week would be difficult when I had to deal with him. And I wasn’t wrong.

On the day of my purge – when I wasn’t allowed to leave my room – he appeared several times to inquire on how many times I was using the bathroom, how I was feeling, and making sure I was drinking enough ghee. I became annoyed after several visits and finally told him that I wanted the doctor to come to my room. I had drank three cups of oil – either ghee or sesame oil – and I just couldn’t put anymore in my belly.

The doctor came to our room, asked me to drink an herbal drink instead, and reminded me that I was irritable because all of my negative emotions were detoxing. Whatever! I thought. I’m just annoyed cause the yoga instructor keeps knocking on my door!

The yoga instructor came once again, about 20 minutes after the doctor, and I finally yelled at him, “I need you to leave me alone! I am trying to detox.” I didn’t see him for the rest of the day, and only once after that when we crossed paths just briefly in the lobby.

On the day after my purge, I was able to leave the room and resume treatments and massages. My meals were limited to kitchari and warm apples, so my digestive system could return to normal. I would continue eating a mild diet for the remainder of the week.

On the last day, when I met with my doctor for my final consultation, he asked me if I felt lighter. “I really do,” I said, surprising myself at my response. I hadn’t thought about it but I was suddenly so calm. I was sleeping better than I had in months, and I no longer felt like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders.

When I look back on the entire process, I wonder what really caused my serenity. Was it the quietness of the Himalayan mountains, with no sound or light pollution? Was it the total relaxation that I got every day, filled with massages? Was it the foods, specifically designed to be easy on the stomach? Or was it truly possible that my cells were holding negative emotional toxins inside of them? How would that even work?

On the day of my purge, when I would be using the bathroom frequently, I had an early morning belly massage to relax and prepare my digestive system. I persistently asked my therapist – the center’s lead therapist – over and over what the process would look and feel like. I wanted to know exactly how I was going to respond to the treatment and when. If he could have given me a minute-by-minute schedule of the next 24 hours, I would have been thrilled!

He tried to calmly answer my questions, but frustrated at my need to understand everything, eventually stopped massaging me, slowly smiled at me, and said, “We cannot know all things in life Renee.” I smiled back, stopped talking, and let him continue the treatment. He was right: we cannot know all things in life. And right then, I think I started to emotionally and mentally detox – letting go of everything – without even knowing it.

Outlined here are the treatments I received for the week I spent doing panchakarma in Nepal.

Day 1:

* Arrive at wellness center and meet with doctor for initial consultation

* Dinner in the evening

Day 2:

Morning Treatment:

* Drink 1st dose of ghee

* Eye exercises and eye wash

* Mouth gargle

* Whole body cleansing massage

* Picu (a type of massage that involves placing strips of thick cloth in warm oil and resting them on the back and extremities of the body to help release toxins)

Afternoon Treatment:

* Facial Massage

Day 3:

Morning Treatment:

* Drink 2nd dose of ghee

* Whole body relaxation massage

* Picu

* Pinda Sveda (a type of massage that involves placing large bags of heated herbs on the body to relax the skin and release toxins)

* Yoga

* Neti pot (the process of cleaning out the nasal cavity)

Afternoon Treatment:

* Rest in room

Day 4:

Morning Treatment:

* Drink 3rd dose of ghee

* Yoga

* Neti pot

* Spinal Abhyanga (a specific type of massage focused on the spine and back)

* Chakra Basti (a process where the chakras are balanced using dough to create a bowl like receptacle filled with oil on a specific part of the body, either the belly button, heart, or eyes)

* Siro Dhara (a treatment where warm oil is dripped on the forehead for an extended period of time to help induce calmness and sleep)

Afternoon Treatment:

* Citz bath (a treatment that involves sitting in an herbal bath to help cleanse the perineum)

* Ubatan Abhyanga (an herbal powder scrub and massage to improve the complexion of the body)

* Herbal steam bath (removes toxins by laying in a wooden box that is filled with steam)

Day 5:

* Virecana (day of purging)

Day 6:

Morning Treatment:

* Head and foot massage

* Karna purana (a treatment that involves pouring warm, medicated oil into the ears)

* Siro Dhara

Afternoon Treatment:

* Spinal Abhyanga

* Chakra Basti

Day 7:

Morning Treatment:

* Whole body cleansing

* Karna purana

* Picu

* Facial massage

* Herbal tub bath (soaking in herbal tub for around 30 minutes)

Afternoon Treatment:

* Final consultation with doctor

For more information on our wellness center, please click here.

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