Shirodhara Oil Flow
The Shirodhara treatment is fast becoming the most talked-about and most-requested Ayurvedic treatment. It lowers your metabolism like sleep or meditation and really soothes your mind before for a massage, putting you in the right mood. The word "shiro" means head and the word "dhara" means flow in Sanskrit. This beautiful, deeply relaxing treatment involves pouring a continuous stream of warmed herbal oil over the forehead allowing the oil to run through the scalp and into the hair. (Head bands are available if you prefer not to oil your hair).
Shirodhara helps combat fatigue, mental exhaustion, anxiety, insomnia, depression, burnout, mental disorders, headache, excessive thinking, nervousness, and many other stress related conditions commonly affecting persons in today’s active lifestyle. With repeated treatments, it often adds hair strengthening, shine and growth to its list of benefits. In Ayurvedic Medicine, it is considered an important tool in the pursuit of higher states of consciousness, as the oil falls on the third eye, the seat of knowledge and wisdom, intuition and psychic insight. Shirodhara works primarily on the mental sheath or "manomaya kosha" as it is referred to in Ayurveda. It is here that the mind holds on to past impressions that create imbalanced desires and habitual patterns of behaviour. These impressions are held captive in the limbic system of the emotional cortex of the brain.
Herbalized sesame oil is the traditional oil used for Shirodhara. Other oils or liquids, such as water, Coconut Oil, Olive Oil, milk, buttermilk, Neelibringadi oil (for hair and scalp treatments), Argan Oil, Mahanarayan Oil, Balaswagandhadi Oil, Bala Oil and Nirgundi Tail Oil can also be used here at al Covo. We can choose the appropriate oil based on your prakruti (ayurvedic constitution), season and condition.
Shirodhara is often added to an Indian Head Massage or Ayurvedic Full Body Massage, for example for 20 mins at the beginning. It is also an excellent treatment on its own, for example for 30-60 minutes. Read my blogs for more of my personal knowledge and experience.