I once treated a man who came in with a pounding headache that wouldn’t go away. He had tried everything – painkillers, rest, even that trendy ice therapy he saw on Instagram. But there he was, sitting in front of me, eyes squinting as if the air around him was too loud. I felt his pulse – rapid, fluttering, almost chaotic. ‘How’s work?’ I asked. He groaned. ‘Work? It’s like everyone’s shouting in my ears all day long.’
Now, to most people, this would sound like a classic case of stress-induced headache. But Ayurveda sees beyond the surface. This wasn’t just a headache. It was a loud, screeching imbalance in the subtle body – the Sukshma Sharira.
In modern terms, the Sukshma Sharira can be likened to what psychology calls the subconscious mind or what neuroscience refers to as the limbic system – the storehouse of our emotional and sensory experiences. Think of it as the Wi-Fi signal that connects your mind and body, invisible yet constantly transmitting information. And just like a Wi-Fi router, the signal gets jammed if there’s too much interference, mental clutter, or unresolved conflicts. That’s when the headache started.
Ayurveda recognises three types of bodies – Sthula Sharira (the physical body), Sukshma Sharira (the subtle body), and Karana Sharira (the causal body). The Sthula Sharira is the body we can touch and feel – muscles, bones, organs. The Sukshma Sharira is where thoughts, emotions, and prana (life energy) reside. And the Karana Sharira? That’s the deep vault, where karmic impressions and deep-rooted samskaras (imprints) lie dormant. Think of it as the black box of your life, holding records of every thought, action, and desire.
When I told him that his headache was not just in his head but in his subtle body, he looked at me like I had asked him to grow wings and fly. What do you mean?” he asked.
‘Your subtle body,’ I repeated. ‘It’s the part of you that absorbs every argument at work, every unspoken grudge, every little piece of resentment that doesn’t get released. It’s where your feelings go when they can’t find a way out.’
He blinked. ‘So, what? My headache is from… feelings?’
‘Precisely,’ I said. ‘And right now, your subtle body is like a noisy Bangalore street – too much traffic, too much honking, too many unexpressed emotions fighting for space.’
Ayurveda treats the subtle body not as a mystical concept but as an intricate web of thoughts, emotions, and memories that impact our physical state. Take the woman who walked in with persistent throat pain. Tests were normal, yet her voice was shaky. ‘What are you not saying?’ I asked. Her eyes welled up. It turned out she had been holding back a confession from her husband for months. The subtle body was speaking—or instead, choking on unspoken words.
Or the young techie with chronic fatigue. Blood tests, MRI – all clear. But his pulse was sluggish, heavy. ‘How do you feel about your job?’ I asked. ‘Like a prisoner,’ he said, half-laughing, half-crying. His subtle body was exhausted – not from lack of sleep, but from feeling trapped in a career he hated.
In Ayurveda, the subtle body is like a sponge – it soaks up every hurt, every slight, every unshed tear. And when it’s too full, it leaks into the physical body as pain, fatigue, or disease. Then, how do you clean a sponge that’s soaked up years of emotional grime?
Brahmi for the mind. Ashwagandha for the nerves. A hearty laugh for the soul. And a long walk under the trees to let those bottled-up words flow out like a river breaking through a dam.
Once, a man came in with chest pain, convinced it was a heart attack. Just three hours earlier, he had rushed to ColumbiaAsia Hospital. The doctors had done their job—checked his vitals, run an ECG, and tested his troponin levels. Everything was normal. Blood pressure: 120/80. No signs of cardiac distress.
Still, he came to me, seeking a second opinion. ‘What’s going on in your life?’ I asked. ‘My daughter just moved abroad,’ he said, eyes misting. The pain wasn’t in his heart – it was in the space his daughter had once filled. I gave him Arjuna – a heart tonic and herb that soothes a grieving soul.
Ayurveda teaches that every ache, twinge, and mysterious rash is a love letter from the subtle body – a cry for attention, healing, and letting go. The question is, are we willing to read those letters?
I asked the man with the headache to write down every frustration he was holding in – every argument, every unmet expectation, every unspoken truth. ‘Get it all out,’ I said. A week later, he returned, a different man. The headache was gone, not because of Brahmi, but because he had finally emptied the sponge.
The subtle body is a storyteller. It holds the memories we refuse to confront, the words we choke down, the feelings we deny. And when it speaks, it doesn’t use words. It uses headaches, ulcers, and sleepless nights. The trick is to listen before it has to shout.
