How to Do an At-Home Ayurvedic Detox: Internal Oleation Basics

If you are not near a center where panchakarma is available under the supervision of a trained Ayurvedic physician, you can do an effective purification program at home. Begin your home detoxification program with internal oleation. For three days in a row, take about 2 ounces of warmed, liquefied ghee early in the morning. (See appendix 2 for instructions on making ghee.) For a vata person, take the ghee with a pinch of rock salt.

For a pitta individual, take the 2 ounces of ghee plain. The kapha individual should add to the ghee just a pinch of trikatu (a mixture of equal amounts of ginger, black pepper, and pippali, or Indian long pepper). The ghee provides internal oleation and lubrication, which is necessary so that the ama or toxins begin to come back from the deep tissue to the gastrointestinal tract for elimination. After your three days of internal oleation, it is time for external oleation.

For the next five to seven days, apply 7 to 8 ounces of warmed (not hot!) oil to your body from head to toe, rubbing it in well. The best oil for vata types is sesame, which is heavy and warming; pittas should use sunflower oil, which is less heating; kaphas do best with corn oil. You can do this oil massage for fifteen to twenty minutes. After the oil is well rubbed in and absorbed, take a hot bath or shower.

Then wash with some Ayurvedic herbal soap, such as neem. Let some of the oil remain on your skin. The ancient Ayurvedic textbooks recommend rubbing some chickpea flour over the skin to absorb and help remove the oil. This works very well to remove the oil, but it is more suited to a culture in which individuals bathe outdoors.

Today, if you use chickpea flour, be aware that oil, flour, and hot water combine into a formidable mass that can easily clog your plumbing. Flushing the drain with extra hot water immediately following your bath can help. During your home purification, every night at least one hour after supper take ½ to 1 teaspoon of triphala. (For information on triphala, see appendix 2.) Add about half a cup of boiling water to the triphala powder, and let it steep ten minutes or until it has cooled down, then drink it.