James Brooks' young children go to the Maharishi School for the Age of Enlightenment in Fairfield, Iowa, where they study not only the usual math, spelling and geography but also meditation and the subtleties of "pulse diagnosis."
From an early age they have learned to place their fingers on their own wrists to feel the delicate beating of three separate pulses that can signal imbalances in their health. If a cold is brewing, says Brooks, they can detect it days before the first sniffle - and can begin to change their diet so that the cold is nipped in the bud.Pulse diagnosis is a central technique of "ayurvedic" medicine - a 5,000-year-old natural medicine system from India that might have languished in relative obscurity had it not been for two pop icons, guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and physician/author/TV talk-show guest Deepak Chopra.
The two have popularized "ayurveda" in the West, where it has joined the ranks of respectable "alternative" medical practices.
Jim Brooks, a former Salt Lake psychiatrist who is now director of Iowa's Mental Health Institute, has used ayurvedic medicine in his mental-health practice for two decades. He'll be back in Salt Lake City next weekend for lectures and to sign his new book, "Ayurvedic Secrets to Longevity and Total Health," co-written with Peter Anselmo.
According to Brooks, there are plans to build an ayurvedic university in every state in the United States.
Ayurveda's premise is that our bodies, which are connected to a "universal intelligence," are trying to be healthy all the time; that our bodies try to use their innate self-healing, self-regulating abilities to strive for a balance that keeps us well.
The problem is that we're always getting in the way. We sleep too little and at the wrong times. We eat fast food and soda pop and take drugs we may not need to take. We have gotten out of balance. Our bodies are trying to tell us something, and we're not listening.
Western medicine, says Brooks, tends to treat all bodies and their diseases equally. One person with the flu is pretty much treated the same as another person with the flu.
Ayurvedic medicine, on the other hand, would look more closely at the body that has the flu and would ask a fundamental question: what is that body's basic constitutional type?
According to ayurveda (which means"science of life"), there are three main body types, or "doshas" - "vata," "pitta" and "kapha." Most people are a combination of two main doshas.
A vata type, for example, has high energy and mental quickness, is slender, and often suffers (when out of balance) from headaches, anxiety, constipation and arthritis. A pitta type is more likely to have a medium physique, to sunburn easily, to anger easily and to suffer from acne, insomnia and acid stomach. A kapha is more easygoing, deliberate and strong, and is prone to depression, allergies and weight gain.
Relationships between people of different doshas work better when the doshas are in balance and when the people involved take the doshas into account.
Diet, exercise, activity - and medical treatment - should vary, according to body type, says Brooks. And it is possible, he says, for a person to stay in tune with body imbalances by learning to do a pulse diagnosis that detects how much vata, pitta and kapha are in the body at any given time.
A person who is mostly vata should not exercise too much, should eat vata-balancing foods such as warm soups, should avoid cold drinks and should get 6 to 7 hours of sleep each night.
Meditation, yoga, purification techniques to rid the body of impurities, and a good night's sleep are all hallmarks of ayurveda. Because Fairfield, Iowa, is the home of Maharishi University, at least a third of the town's population meditates daily, says Brooks. At the Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment, children learn to listen to their bodies.
"And there are probably more people per capita who go to bed before 10 o'clock," he says, "than anywhere else in the world.,"
Brooks will lecture on Saturday, Sept. 27, at 4 p.m. at the Golden Braid in Salt Lake City, and at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble in Orem. He will also lecture at 11 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 28, at the Thought Continuum in Ogden, and will present a workshop from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Hampton Inn in Sandy. The lectures are free; the workshop is $175.