Book review: 'Forever Young'

Inspired by my travels to India, I was drawn to what Reenita Malhotra Hora, a lifelong devotee of ayurvedic medicine, had to say about holistic ways to cope with the stresses of life.

And in her new book Forever Young: Unleashing the Magic of Ayurveda, I was not disappointed.

Ayurveda could be called the oldest medical science in existence, passed down by the Vedic gods more than 5,000 years ago, according to Indian folklore.

Unlike Western medicine, which focuses on the physical, ayurveda acknowledges that the mind and body are intertwined.

So if we have high-stress lifestyles, drink too much coffee and alcohol, spend long hours under bright lights (which interrupts our natural rhythms) and eat based on whims rather than the seasons, our mind and body are both under pressure.

These stresses, Hora explains, cause imbalances that deplete our life energy, or ojas, and lead to ailments such as a feeling of heaviness in the mind and body, and intolerances to certain foods.