What if the most profound change you could make in your life was a seemingly small one?

The word dinacharya means, “to follow the knowledge of the day” in Sanskrit. This concept is based on building a simple structure into your day. With this in place, you keep the doshas in balance and maintain healthy agni or digestive capacity and strong ojas or immunity. Mental, physical and emotional health is the result. This Ayurvedic approach to life allows you to live according to your intentions.

Think about this: You may have the intention (even a resolution) to start a meditation practice. You meditate a few times – just whenever you can fit it in. But after a couple weeks, the practice is overtaken by demands from your mind, family, career and life. Sound familiar?

Creating a supportive dinacharya is the key to health and removal of diseases. By making the changes you want to see in your life, through a simple schedule, you become in control of your day instead of it controlling you. If you're looking to begin meditating (or eat better, exercise more, spend time with family), rather than making a resolution, create a dinacharya. It's a sustainable approach to grounding into your day. It'll lay the foundation for everything else to fall into place in your life.

How to build a simple Ayurvedic daily routine? Better to start small than not all! Begin with one or two new practice or change. Then build up gradually once you've relaxed into it.

Here's a simple structure to start with:

1. Wake before sunrise. Becoming an early riser ensures you avoid sleeping past the heavier kapha time, which leads to grogginess and inertia in the body and mind. Aim to get out of bed before or at 6 a.m.
2. Purify your body. Scrape your tongue, brush your teeth, use your neti pot and bathe or shower.
3. Practice Meditation and Holistic Yoga to balance your body and mind.
4. Eat breakfast by 7:30 or 8 a.m. Take 20 minutes to sit down and give your digestion a good start for the day.
5. Eat lunch by 12 or 12:30 p.m. Setting a designated time to eat lunch reduces the desire to overeat or eat poorly because you are too hungry. This will improve your digestion and as a result your health. Walking away from work or daily activities for a short time also helps you come back with a clear focus for your afternoon. Be sure to sit down while you eat and leave your phone, email or other distractions behind.
6. Eat dinner by 6 p.m. This gives your body enough time to digest before bedtime so you avoid feeling foggy and heavy in the morning.
7. Wind down activities (including shutting off electronics) one hour before bedtime and focus on your spiritual practice, reading or quiet time with loved ones. This prepares your body for the transition to sleep, ensuring a peaceful rest and more energy for the next day.
8. Go to bed before 10 p.m. Getting to sleep before the more active pitta time begins (after 10 p.m.) ensures you don’t get caught in the “second wind” trap – working or doing chores at midnight will not lead to you feeling good the next day.

Once you relax into this basic structure, there are other practices you may want to add to improve your health, such as abhyanga.

From Ayurveda, we understand the greatest benefit dinacharya offers is calming vata dosha by tuning to your body’s natural rhythms. The lack of routine weakens our digestive capacity overtime and distrubs vata, combining the air and space elements. When vata is out of balance, excess movement occurs. The element of air acts as a fan blowing and throwing pitta and kapha doshas out of balance. This creates stress, burn-out and other diseases in the body and mind.

With a dinacharya, the air and space elements receive a grounding container to balance all doshas. And, in the free spaces in between the structured times, balanced vata supports greater creativity and flexibility. Through this change, you begin to experience deeper enjoyment in life – and have your intentions stick all year-long.