Food Cravings and 3 Things To Do
Happiness for me is largely a matter of digestion
Lin Yutang Chinese writer, inventor, and liguist
What this quote implies is that if the digestion of food and thoughts are good then contentment will follow The person will be happy The energy science of Ayurveda has stated for 5000 years that if the strength of digestion(aka agni) is good then health and happiness naturally follows As a matter of fact it's said that a person is only as old as his agni since digestive fire bestows longevity and strength
But when food cravings or addictions occur, is that an aspect of too strong an agni? Or are cravings a normal aspect of digestion? Let's examine this from an energy science view
Normal cravings
Cravings can be due to psychological or physiological factors If the sweet taste is craved it may mean that the person is craving love However, if there is an imbalance of the hot quality someone may be craving the sweet taste to reduce the hot quality because the sweet taste carries the cold quality
Vata, the energy pattern of movement has a normal cravings for the warm drinks and hot foods that carry the spicy, mushy oily properties If it's cold out during the winter, Vata becomes aggravated in the gut and you would naturally seek warmth and a cup of hot chocolate or cider
Pitta, the energy pattern of transformation expresses the hot quality amongst others and when it's hot out a person will nnormally craves cold foods, drinks, and cool air
When Kapha, the energy pattern of stability becomes aggravated in the gut, the cool qualities will prompt the person to normally seek hot, spicy food
So you can see that you will naturally seek out how to bring about balance in the body if you are sensing aggravation in yourself And these are normal cravings In actuality they are not real cravings as much as the body just looking to balance itself
Abnormal Cravings
Once there is dissemination of these bodily qualities and tissues are affected, wrong cravings show up
For example, someone with too much of the hot quality begins craving the hot qualities in foods such as hot chiles, cayenne pepper, and horseradish dependent on what's available and the personal preferences for the hot taste These are abnormal cravings and should not be satisfied
When someone is overweight, they already have too much of the sweet taste whose qualities are heavy, slow/dull, liquid, oily, cool, dense, static, cloudy When they crave cookies, candy, and chocolate, they are adding more to the already imbalance of qualities This then becomes again an abnormal craving
If someone is a skinny mini and has a strong Vata imbalance, seeking out cold salads, rough, dry, and crunchy salty chips, there is an abnormal craving being satisfied
3 Things to Help With Abnormal Food Cravings
1 Determine if the craving is normal or abnormal; if abnormal try not to cave into the craving Of course, this is easier said than done but just by observing the mind obsessing about a particular food can be a ginormous step in the right direction Then let it go if you succumb to the craving Just making the observation is enough
2 Improve your agni There are multiple ways to do this Using ginger pickle, observing appropriate food choices according to your energy makeup, avoiding incompatible food combinations are all fundamental first steps to enhancing digestive fire Use of ghee or clarified butter which has the qualities of digestive fire or agni will help burn away toxic load in the peripheral tissues
3 Fasting of any kind is beneficial Chose one day a week and fast for that day If Vata or Pitta dominant, do juice fasting If Kapha, do water fast for 24h Fasting will be difficult for Kapha but it is a major player is managing cravings long term for this energy pattern There are many other different forms of fasting that can be explored but this one day a week is a good start
So have fun with your cravings and see them for what they are
To health as a Skill Love DrBill
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The Danger of Feeling OK After Eating
Foods can create unarguable imbalances in the physiology which over time leads to disease And for the most part some of food's effects may not be associated with ill feeling
However my point is that all foods have the potential for creating imbalances in the mindbody if they don't resonate with our energy makeup Because of different factors these imbalancing choices don't give us symptoms
Feeling Bad After Eating
Haven't we all had the experience of eating a meal and not feeling well afterward? Sometimes we attribute it to food poisoning which might be the case but most of the time it is a physiologic consequence that defies an easy explanation.
From an energy science perspective the reason is imbalance. The vibrational frequencies consumed have created an obvious dis-ease in the physiology. When we eat a hot spicy meal, sometimes the result is heartburn. There is a chemical burning in the stomach experienced near the heart we call heartburn or acid indigestion. This increased acidity in the stomach is a result of the increased vibrational frequency of hot among other vibrational frequencies.
But what if we can't associate something eaten with feeling bad after a meal? Does that mean that there isn't a imbalance of vibrational frequencies? From an energy perspective, the answer would be that an imbalance or an increase of specific vibrational frequencies have accumulated and are causing obvious dis-ease
The Salt Story
Salt-written-on-spilled-saltLet's take an example of the complex vibrational frequency of salt. If we ingested three tablespoons of salt, there would be clearly physiologic consequences or imbalance. We would become very thirsty, our blood pressure would transiently rise, our saliva would increase and we would urinate more frequently. Hot sensations would occur with flushing and acid indigestion might occur. Since the salty taste has a laxative effect, it might stimulate a bowel movement. So all of these changes occur in the body because of the consequence of excess salt.
If these changes can occur with excess salt, why couldn't simple ingestion of salt lead to imbalances if preexisting imbalances possibly already exist? From an energy perspective this is one of the reasons why food can produce physiologic consequences of imbalance soon after eating.
Basically we should never ignore a message from the body telling us of distress even though we can't explain it. And the most frequent explanation of the dis-ease in the mindbody is a result of imbalancing choices that we make through our nutritional choices
The Energy Science View of Disease
From an energy science view all disease begins in the gut so you can see why it's so important to eat according to our mindbody energy makeup even though you may feel OK Or do you?
To Health as a Skill Dr Bill
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Am I Healthy or Not?
"How am I doing, doc?"
"Well, all your lab tests and xray tests are normal."
"Great but why do I feel bad then."
This kind of patient/doctor discussion occurs occasionally and brings up for discussion the reliance we have on measurement in matter field healing. We have to start somewhere and certainly using tests for screening for standard health parameters such as cholesterol, triglycerides, PSA, and a host of other types of lab testing is a good starting point.
The concern is that from an energy perspective the imbalance may not show up in lab tests until a while later but the ongoing symptoms of imbalance are front and center at the time the lab and xrays are normal. For both matter field doctor and her patient there lingers the possible denial that anything is wrong simply because everything checks out by measurement.
The mindbody is not a well oiled machine that has somehow learned how to think. It is an energy field composed of form and that form thinks. And when symptoms come deep from inner space, it is reporting a disturbance that presents itself to our awareness. The mind may try to ignore but the body never deceives because sensations are always real.
So denial can go on with measurements but the sensations reported to us are important and we should always pay attention. For example, heartburn that occurs once a month may not seem abnormal because of its infrequency. But from an energy science perspective, this sensation however infrequent should never be dismissed because it implies a disruption that is beginning to become something.
This is why the energy sciences can become preventative. Due to the attention paid to the sensory experience and not relying on measurement, imbalances are detected early and dealt with. So don't ignore anything that your body tells you.
To Health as a Skill DrBil.
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3 Simple Ways to Reverse the Aging Process with Energy Science Nutrition
To biologically function you need all three energy patterns, Vata, Pitta, and Kapha
Vata is the energy pattern of movement and when out of balance, it prematurely produces physiologic degenerative changes over time This is why the nutritional format for Vata is called an antidegenerative format
So you can see that Vata is the energy pattern responsible for aging Vata is also primarily responsible for neurological function so that if you slow the mind down, you reduce aging The Vata energy pattern is dominant in about 60% of people so many people can benefit from doing this kind of nutritional work
Reframing Digestion
The mindbody is just that....the body is mind and the mind is body They are intimately spliced and cannot be separated What happens in the mind, happens in the body and vice versa Thoughts are food and need to be digested
So you can see that digested thoughts have the same degenerative effect on the mindbody as degenerative foods that are not balancing for the mindbody So an active mind can be as degenerative as eating corn and tomatoes(salsa with chips anyone?)
3 Simple Ways to Reduce the Aging Process
Meditation
Following from what I just said above, a very active mind causes systems in the mindbody to deteriorate more rapidly The converse is also true Eating foods that cause the mindbody to be "hyper" will also produce degenerative changes Trying to digest thoughts can be at times difficult Meditation improves digestion of foods and thoughts
A simple meditation technique is use SO HUM mantra SO on inhalation and HUM on exhalation Close your eyes and watch the breath SO HUM....SO HUM.....SO HUM..... Sit quietly close your eyes and use the mantra Do 5 minutes morning and evening Try before going to bed or when waking in the am It will put years on your mindbody and change your life
When you meditate, excess energy comes off your mindbody like a 4th of July sparkler as in the accompanying diagram The mindbody needs to get rid of this excess pent up energy that has not been digested So meditation is powerful digestion and improves physical digestion of broccoli and improves absorption and assimilation of that broccoli
Use the appropriate nutritional formats for your mindbody constitution
When you go to foodsheal.com under the Getting Started tab there is a questionnaire that can help you find out who you are energetically Then go to the nutritional formats and chose the format for yourself Following your foramt will be the first step in avoiding degenerative changes in your mindbody
If thoughts can cause degenerative change so can foods as we already know from biologic studies And it's not about being a vegetarian but about the qualities of the foods eaten
Avoid incompatible food combinations
Some foods just don't belong with one another such as fruit with other foods This poor food combining can lead to degenerative changes as well since they aggravate the Vata energy pattern
To Health as a Skill Love Dr Bill
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9 Biological Energy Drainers and How to Fix Them
Any chronic disease produces a described "drain on the body" Symptoms such as those of muscle and joint aches(aka fibromyalgia), osteoarthritis, depression,chronic fatigue all begin to show up as the chronicity wears on the mindbody
This observation shows our intuitive connection with the energy body which acts like a car battery When the car lights are left on overnight, the battery is drained of its stored energy To see the mindbody as an energy field opens us up to a wide variety of tools that are not currently available from the matter science approach
Let's take a look at some of these tools and how you can get renewable biological energy
9 Ways to Get More Energy
Reduce mental turbulence Perhaps a surprise to some is that the mind is the biggest drain of them all! Often the mind is running in the background even though you think it's quiet This incessant turbulence shows up as fear, anxiety, depression, worry, and of course fatigue because the body gets beat up with this kind of mental activity Solution Spend 5-10 minutes twice a day(morning and evening) closing your eyes and watching the breath
Remove nutritional stressors There are foods that drain the body's energy such as refined sugar, coffee, chocolate(what the heck?) carbonated drinks
Improve food choices Foods that bring about balance for you according to the nutritional formats at foodsheal.com after you take the mindbody questionnaire will help you sort this out
Improve digestive strength Eating your biggest meal at noon, drinking room temperature fluids(ice is not nice!), using spice mixtures(churans), simply paying attention to what you're doing when eating(few meals a week in silence), or not eating when busy helps replenish your body's energy
Using proper food combining stops the depletion of energy expended due to difficult to digest food combinations
Avoid snacking Eating before you have digested the last food that you've ingested requires the mindbody to use more energy so this habit is depleting At least 4 to 6 hours between meals or better yet wait until your hungry since appetite is the best gauge of the body's readiness for food
Lack of exercise/Too much exercise Excercise improves digestion but too much is overdone and will then begin to drain the mindbody's battery
Lack of adequate rest Surprisingly when under the stress of pain or low energy the mindbody should be rested more than usual What happens often with people with IC is that you tend to be more active than normal It establishes the "can't sit still" syndrome which causes a drain on the battery
Toxicity If you have poor digestion, chances toxic formation will occur leading to the qualities in the bladder being held there and unable to be released But this toxicity is everywhere and it reduces the mindbody's efficiency in functioning The mindbody can no longer function with "ease" but now functions with "dis-ease"
So improving digestion with ginger pickle or the above churans is a fundamental step toward improving your energy
Baby Steps
When you do energy work it requires a shift in our lifestyle choices that is not easy but with baby steps, small incremental changes in how you do things, day after day, month after month, year after year, will pay dividends in your healing IC
Best of luck DB
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