RR Recommended: Aashica Khanna On The Ancient Wellness Ideas The World Is Rediscovering

When you think of wellness today, the words that come up are longevity, circadian rhythm, forest bathing, meditation and the sauna. Aashica Khanna, our RR Circle Member, says each has an older name, and that the modern world is only now rediscovering them. She runs Ananda in the Himalayas as its Executive Director, from the Palace Estate at Narendra Nagar in Uttarakhand, a short distance from Rishikesh. The retreat opened in 2000 and marked 25 years in 2025, and its programmes of seven to 21 nights are guided by specialists in Ayurveda, yoga, meditation and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Her thinking begins with balance, the idea that mind, body and the larger ecosystem are interconnected. From there it travels outwards to the rhythm of the day and the season, to longevity, to nature, to stillness and to heat. India, she told Skift in February 2025, has the knowledge and heritage to lead this conversation.

Longevity may be the subject everyone wants to talk about today, she notes, but ancient philosophies approached it thousands of years ago. These are the six ideas she names, and the evidence that has caught up with them.

Daily And Seasonal Living

The first idea on her list is living in step with the circadian rhythm, across the day and across the seasons. Ayurveda describes this as Dinacharya and Ritucharya. Dinacharya is the daily regimen and Ritucharya the seasonal one, and both are described in the classical texts. Ritucharya is prominent in the first chapters of most of the Ayurvedic Samhitas, including the Charaka Samhita.

Modern science caught up in 2017, when the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young for the molecular mechanisms that control the circadian rhythm. The body clock influences sleep, hormones, body temperature and metabolism.

Longevity

“The concept was called Rasayana in Ayurveda and Yangsheng in Traditional Chinese medicine,” she says. Rasayana is the sixth of the eight branches of Ayurveda and the first chapter of the Chikitsa Sthana in the Charaka Samhita. It covers rejuvenation and anti-ageing therapies, and can take the form of food, lifestyle, a drug or a combination. Yangsheng is often translated as nurturing life.

At Ananda, the 21-night Rasayanam programme is built around rejuvenation and longevity. The diet moves from light cleansing foods to nutrient-rich Rasayana meals, with consultations before arrival, on arrival, through the stay, before departure and after.

Nature As Medicine

She turns next to nature as medicine, and to what time outdoors does for stress, mood and physiological restoration. Japan has put numbers to it. The term shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, was coined in 1982 by Akiyama Tomohide, then Director General of Japan’s Forestry Agency. Its Forest Therapy Base scheme, started in 2005, studied 756 subjects at 63 forest and urban sites.

Time in the forest lowered pulse rate and blood pressure, and reduced the stress hormone cortisol. It also raised parasympathetic activity, the body’s relaxation response. In a study of 92 subjects, a 15-minute forest walk lowered blood pressure in hypertensive people. Urban walks did not.

The Lost Art Of Stillness

Her fifth idea is the lost art of stillness, which she finds in yogic meditation and Japanese Zen. At Ananda, yoga is taught in the Hatha and Raja systems, with meditation and Vedanta talks on the schedule alongside pranayama.

Thermal Therapies

“Modern wellness is revisiting thermal therapies for relaxation and recovery and its potential cardiovascular benefits,” she says. She points to three traditions: Japanese onsen, Moroccan hammams and Finnish saunas.

Japan has more than 3,000 onsen resorts, according to a 2016 Ministry of the Environment survey. Under the Hot Spring Law of 1948, an onsen must discharge water at 25°C or more, or contain specified substances.

Finland has about 3.2 million saunas, and almost 90 per cent of the population bathes in one once a week. UNESCO inscribed Finnish sauna culture on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity on December 17, 2020. A 2015 study in JAMA Internal Medicine followed 2,315 middle-aged men in eastern Finland for a median of 20.7 years. Men who used a sauna four to seven times a week had a 63 per cent lower risk of sudden cardiac death than those who went once a week. The study is observational, so it shows an association and not a cause.

The Moroccan hammam traces its roots to Roman bathhouses. Under Islamic influence, many were built near mosques so bathers could purify themselves before prayer. It has three or four long tiled steam rooms, each at a different temperature, and no pool. Black soap made with olive oil goes on first, and then an exfoliating glove. For many Moroccans it is a weekly habit, and a social one.