Depleted Ojas: Ayurvedic Treatment, Causes & Natural Remedies

Kshaya means depletion. Ojo-kshaya is the loss and wasting of ojas in both quality and quantity. Normally apara ojas is half an anjali and para ojas is eight bindu (drops); when this quantity is reduced, the result can be unconsciousness or coma — uremic, diabetic, hepatic, encephalitic, or meningeal. When ojas leaves the body, the person loses consciousness. This is why Ayurveda teaches that prana, semen, orgasmic fluid, and ojas must be protected.

Signs of depleted ojas include chest pain, palpitations, breathlessness, fear, dehydration, muscle wasting, osteoporosis, and loss of muscle mass. Ojo-kshaya can progress to pitta-type chronic fatigue syndrome, in which ojas in the liver is affected — the person feels extreme tiredness unrelieved by rest, with poor digestion, muscle pain, and mental sluggishness, and may have hepatitis B or C. The most serious form of ojo-kshaya is full-blown AIDS.

Ojo-kshaya typically begins with ojo-vyapat. Increased pitta can affect ojas and cause mononucleosis or HIV infection (pitta ojo-vyapat); if untreated, these can develop into chronic fatigue syndrome or AIDS respectively (ojo-kshaya).

Many factors deplete or disturb ojas. Too much sexual activity — excess indulgence with multiple orgasms in one night — depletes ojas. Physical trauma such as a severe car accident, and psychological trauma such as intense grief, are contributing factors. Overexposure to bacteria, viruses, and parasites, as well as vigorous exercise beyond one's capacity, also affect ojas.

Chronic wasting diseases — tuberculosis, chronic ascites, diabetes, chronic asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, typhoid fever, and ulcerative colitis — all deplete ojas. Some families have a genetic weakness of ojas causing tissue deterioration. During pregnancy, a mother's wrong diet, lifestyle, and emotional stress can also affect the unborn child's ojas.

On a subtler level, tejas can disturb the intelligence of ojas, causing the body's own cells to create antibodies that destroy healthy cells. Nervousness and anger destroy cellular intelligence, and molecules of ojas can become toxic and act as a foreign body or antibody — the root mechanism of autoimmune disease.