Abstract:

The Ayurvedic texts designate kala or “time” as one of the three main categories of disease causation, and detail specific recommendations for timing of sleep, eating and exercise. Yet the dimension of time has largely been ignored, or has remained undiscovered, in the contemporary practice of medicine and preventive health education. Recent discoveries in chronobiology and chronotherapeutics document significant, and often marked, physiological modulation and therapeutic effects of time on regulation of mood, cognition and weight as well as in the treatment of hypertension, cancer, asthma, depression and other disorders. The latest scientific research elucidating Ayurvedic chronobiologicial principles for health will be reviewed and the implications for improved societal health through widespread implementation will be explored.