Ayurvedic medicine is perhaps the oldest living whole system of medicine known to humankind. By “whole system of medicine,” we mean a medical art that looks at the whole person all at once, rather than one system or organ at a time (e.g. nervous system versus digestive system versus skin, etc.).

Ayurveda comes from India, and we have evidence suggesting that the practice of Ayurveda began sometime more than 5,000 years ago. Although we do not know who the first true Ayurvedic physician was, there are a number of different myths that highlight that Ayurveda has both a healing lineage and a spiritual lineage.

Ayurveda is important to me (Dr. Matt) personally, because as a complete medical science, it offers its own unique frame of reference for understanding human beings and the world that we all live in.

In my experience as an everyday person, Ayurveda has given me tools to settle into a way of life that is more balanced, comfortable, and meaningful. In my experience as a physician, Ayurveda and its unique frame of reference has provided me with something equally valuable: the means to understand both the every day concerns and the many challenging and unique cases that my patients sometimes come with - and ways to care for them even when a variety of other tools have not worked.

I practice Ayurvedic medicine because, frankly, it works. Ayurveda is flexible and wholesome - each person is looked at as the unique individual that they are, so every single treatment plan is also unique. Ayurvedic medicine, when practiced the traditional way, is genuinely individualized medicine. Everything from nutrition to exercise to therapeutic breathing to distinctive styles of massage to medicinal herbs and beyond are used to meet each individual wherever they’re at.

And this is true for assessment and diagnosis, too. We can incorporate terms and names from western allopathic medicine for conditions and health issues, but we do not have to rely fully on them; they do not describe the uniqueness of each case. We can use modern diagnostic tools like labs and imaging, and we can recognize that those tell just one part of a much larger story.

And in a nutshell, all of this is some of why I became an Ayurvedic doctor. Over the course of my practice, I found the tools of allopathic medicine, and even modern integrative medicine helpful in some ways - but unable to meet my patients’ needs by themselves. Ayurveda filled in the blanks in ways that I found nothing else did or could.

Dr. Matt has been studying Ayurveda for 15 years as of 2024. He has been a student of Ayurveda since 2009. He began his studies at the DINacharya Institute in New York City. Since then, he has studied extensively in apprenticeship and collaboratively with Vaidya Vasudha Gupta of American Ayurveda.