Daily Wellness Routines
Garshana: the old Ayurvedic dry brush before the bath
In a small flat in Pune, an aunt of mine keeps a pair of raw silk gloves folded inside a wooden box...
Section
Daily Wellness Routines
Quiet habits, soft rituals, and gentle structures for a calmer day. Cultural routines that prioritise slow over busy.
18 entries in this section
Daily Wellness Routines
A cold water splash on the face, first thing
In my aunt's house in Pune, the first sound of morning was not the pressure cooker or the milkman calling from the...
Daily Wellness Routines
Barefoot on morning grass: an old five-minute habit
The grass behind my aunt's house in Belgaum is cut short, almost like a cricket pitch, and in October it wakes up...
Daily Wellness Routines
Weekly hair oiling: a slow Saturday ritual
Saturday afternoon in my Tamil neighbour's flat in Kyoto always carried the same smell. Warm coconut oil, faintly with curry leaves and...
Daily Wellness Routines
Eye cooling: cucumber, rosewater, and rest
In my aunt's house in Lucknow, the small afternoon hour between three and four was sacred. The shutters were half-closed against the...
Daily Wellness Routines
Deep breathing: the slowest skill we forget
The Sufi master in my mother's old neighbourhood in Marrakech used to say that breath was the only currency that all humans...
Daily Wellness Routines
Walking after meals: the village evening walk
In Calabria, the after-dinner walk is called the passeggiata. It begins shortly after the plates are cleared, often around eight in summer,...
Daily Wellness Routines
Daily journaling: a folded page kept close
My father kept a small notebook in the breast pocket of his shirt, the kind with a brown cloth cover and an...
Daily Wellness Routines
The traditional sleep rhythm: two halves of the night
There is a passage in an old English diary, written before the railways changed everything, where a farmer describes waking around midnight,...
Daily Wellness Routines
Hand washing rituals: more than hygiene
In Tunis, my aunt kept a copper basin in the corner of her courtyard, beside a small ewer of water and a...
Daily Wellness Routines
Sitting on the floor: a vanishing daily posture
In my grandmother's house in Kanazawa, there were no chairs. There was a low wooden table called a chabudai, a few cushions...
Daily Wellness Routines
The early dinner tradition: light evenings in old households
In my mother's village in Calabria, the kitchen lamps went out by seven. Dinner was eaten while the light was still in...