I’ve been working with Jessica and Kush at Radiance the past month or so; they’re doing what I might describe as data-driven Ayurveda. Every day, I fill out a spreadsheet tracking sleep, vitals, food, symptoms, bathroom trips, moods, and just about everything else. If you can think of it, there’s a spot on the spreadsheet for it.
I was pointed to them after my Hashimoto’s Disease diagnosis. Some folks mentioned that autoimmune conditions are complex, multifaceted, individual things that involve unique triggers, nutrition, and underlying imbalances — all things that most doctors are pretty bad at dealing with, but traditional medicine systems are a lot better suited to.
I’d heard good things about Radiance, so I set up a meeting, bookmarked the spreadsheet tracker, and changed my diet entirely.
I can’t speak to the efficacy yet, and I don’t know enough about Ayurveda at large to say anything about that either — but the broad strokes of Ayurveda have gotten me thinking about my media diet lately.
I woke up around midnight on February 6, mostly deaf in my right ear and with roaring tinnitus. I went to the emergency room, and after 24 hours of being poked, prodded, shuffled from one specialist to another to an MRI to an ultrasound to more blood tests, they basically said they had no idea what was up with the ear, but they’d found Hashimoto’s Disease while they were looking.
I was bummed. I felt like there was cotton perpetually stuffed around the right side of my face. I hated the idea of taking a pill every morning for the rest of my life. I cried a lot. I watched a lot of tv to distract myself and get through the days.
Like, a lot of tv. Whole seasons devoured in a day or two.
Then I read a lot. Entire trilogies in a week or so.
By then, I’d regained a bit of hearing, I started listening to audiobooks. According to my apps, I got through about 20 hours in 4 days.
I kept consuming until I got nauseous with it, a fictional sugar crash — no doubt partially driven by my real-world abstention from sugar. During all this, I’d changed to an elimination diet where I couldn’t eat grains, dairy, nightshades, legumes, nuts, or anything processed. I wasn’t working with Radiance yet, just doing a standard Auto-Immune Protocol diet.
So when I did start working with Radiance, it meant that I was re-introducing some foods I hadn’t eaten in weeks, and noticing the effects they had on me.
I’ve been impressed with the subtle responses of my body to certain foods, activities, and protocols. Some of them made a lot of sense to me, others I can’t begin to fathom. Like the past week or so, it seems like sweet potato triggers an ear ache. Jessica seems to have a good handle on it (something something carbohydrate metabolism something vata aggravated something something), but me, I’m just disappointed that one of the last treats available to me is off the table for a bit.
Which brings me back to my media diet.
As my real diet became simpler, more natural, wholesome, and intentional, my media diet became an overstuffed mess of junk and empty calories.
I can’t help but wonder what an Ayurveda of media would look like.
The same way that Ayurveda pays close attention to subtle currents in the body, and uses that attention to notice and remove obstacles and return a strong, proper flow — what would it look like to do the same thing for media?
Most of the media diet suggestions I’ve seen seem comparatively lazy.
“However little TV you watch, watch less.”
“Only consume media with a positive tone and message.”
“Stay off social media, it wrecks your psychobiome.”
“Reading too much fiction is dissociative escapism.”
“Reading too much non-fiction is mind-killing hypnosis.”
“Having music in your ear all day numbs you to real emotion.”
On and on and on. Attitudes like these feel very whack-a-mole to me, like a doctor over-prescribing antibiotics and steroids and just hoping it fixes whatever mysterious ailment is in front of them. They beg consumption to have clear, simple rules that apply to everyone, rather than complex dynamic currents that respond to individual situations.
This might require media fasts from time to time — no tv, no twitter, no books or youtube or music — to see what your system does in absence of its usual meals.
It might require you to notice on a very subtle level how you respond in the days after consuming certain media. That song might feel good to listen to in the moment, but does it reliably lead to a twinge of interpersonal despair a few hours later? Are they causally connected, or does the connection just point towards a deeper imbalance?
I don’t have any answers; I barely have any starting points or experiments we might try to run.
I’m mostly just coming to appreciate something about the Ayurvedic view — the holism and subtlety of its gaze, the metis it aspires to — and feeling like such a view might be well-suited to more types of consumption than just food.
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so sorry about your Hashimoto’s! I hear it’s a difficult thing to live with, wishing you the best with managing it.
I have been dealing with a range of health issues since I was a small kid, and while I have been given real western medical diagnoses for my ailments, most of my symptoms don’t respond to any conventional treatment (pharmaceuticals) and doctor’s have always kind of shoulder shrugged and said “the only thing you can do is have a good lifestyle and minimize stress.”
The lack of help from them led me down my own path of healing with eastern traditional medicines, which became about much more than just my own health. Every time I get sick with a new thing, it now becomes this quest to understand it on the deepest possible level, and by approaching it this way, I have reached deeper understandings of how other things work. It’s like sickness/disease has become my entry point to exploring phenomenology.
I don’t mean to downplay the frustration you might be going through with your health right now with “the everything happens for a reason” platitude, but sometimes getting an opportunity to do a deep dive into understanding your own health issues unlocks much more than just a way to manage those issues. I like where you are going with the application of Ayurveda to social media. Digital health is something most of us are mystified by, and an abstinence only approach to social media feels like an unrealistic solution. Excited to see what you come up with as you continue to explore further.
Also working with Jess + Kush currently, very impressed so far and excited for the journey...