“I have been traveling since my husband died in 2000,” said Holaday, who was married to Dr. Bill Holaday, the director of radiation therapy at St. John Medical Center.Holaday leads a morning yoga class five days a week in Longview, yoga teacher seminars on Ayurveda and yoga, and counsels individuals as a certified consultant in Ayurvedic diet and lifestyle.

By herself, the 65-year-old has sailed around the world on a freighter and visited New Zealand, Spain, China and other countries.

Back in Longview, Holaday felt restless, she said. “I got an e-mail from a friend in French Polynesia. She was planning to attend a retreat in India, a silent retreat. I went on the Internet and there was one space left.”

The retreat led Holaday to a 10-day course on Ayurveda, a 10,000-year-old health regime. After that, she spent three months at the Jiva Institute near Delhi with yoga mats.

“It changed my life, it really did,” Holaday said.

Shes no stranger to transformative events.

The former radiation therapist kept vigil in the spring of 1986 when one of her two sons, Giles Thompson, became trapped by a snowstorm on Mount Hood. Of 19 climbers from Oregon Episcopal School, six turned back, 11 died on the mountain, and Giles and one other student survived.

Holadays son lost both legs in the tragedy, one below the knee and one above the knee. In 1996, she wrote a book about the climbing accident, the worst in Oregon history. Four years after she finished the book, her husband died.

Today, Giles lives in Seattle and has two sons. As for Holaday, she has branched out from a career in Western medicine to embrace the benefits of Ayurveda.

She has noticed “huge changes,” she said. “I have an inner calm, and terrific strength. I travel a lot, by myself, so I have to be able to run for trains and carry my bags. I have to be in tip-top shape.”

Living by the principles of Ayurveda and yoga also has improved her flexibility and vitality, she said. “Im never tired.”

Yoga has enjoyed 30 years of popularity as a exercise program in American culture, and Holaday teaches the familiar three-part regime of stretch-and-hold poses, breathing exercises and meditation.

Ayurvedic health practices complement yoga, but theyve only recently gained a critical mass of awareness in the U.S.

“The basic principles are 10,000 years old,” Holaday said. “They look at the body quite differently. … Its a science of life that is truly holistic - the body, the mind and the spirit.”

Ayurveda treats the human body as a part of nature, containing the same components: earth, fire, air, space or ether, and water. Each of us has a distinct combination of vata (air and ether), pitta (fire) and kapha (water and earth).

“When these elements get out of balance, thats when disease happens,” Holaday said. “Theres a lot more to it, but thats the core principle.”

Ayurveda includes exercise and diet changes that improve sleep and digestion and rid the body of toxins, she said. The diet is vegetarian, and herbs play a major role, especially turmeric, cumin, cardamom and ginger.

Honey and ghee, a kind of clarified butter, also heal stressed digestive systems, Holaday said. “Ghee makes the skin get soft and smooth, and pull toxins out of muscle tissue.”

Americans suffer from overeating and processed food loaded with additives and preservatives, she said.

“The body has no way of eliminating” the excess and the toxins, which stay in body in the form of plaque in the arteries and harmful chemicals that get into our brains.

We feel terrible, so we put more invasive chemicals in by taking prescription and over-the-counter drugs, which may cause us more harm than good.

“Its amazing how many people suffer from depression, insomnia, high blood pressure and cancer,” Holaday said. “And were giving medications to children at younger and younger ages.”

Together with the discipline of yoga, people can begin to see benefits that are “extraordinary,” said Holaday, who continues her training with visits to The Ayurveda Institute in Albuqueque.

The ancient path to healing “is becoming a major player” in alternative health systems in the U.S. and around the world, she added. “In Europe, many people have two physicians - an allopathic one and an Ayurvedic one.”

Ayurvedic health practices focus on cleansing the body, clarifying thought and dealing with stress in a natural, holistic way. She explains these and other processes in weekend seminars and consultations with individual clients.

“The real secret is to make it part of your life.”