Detoxification and Monodiet: 5 Steps for a Bowel Vacation
From an energy point of view all disease begins in the GI tract Foods introduce to the body vibrational frequencies that are called qualities or gunas in the energy science of Ayurveda When these qualities become too much in quantity (eg too much hot quality from too much hot sauce then symptoms such as heartburn or hyperacidity syndrome occurs and you take an antacid) then disease occurs It's like this for all disease
But another way we can get sick and by the way the most insidious is by having a poor digestive fire or agni When this happens we don't digest well and the end result is toxic load that can spread to parts of the body susceptible in taking this toxic load on So you can see that having a good digestive fire is very important to good health and prevention of disease
The Bowel Vacation
Wouldn't you think it unusual for someone not to ever take some time off? To maintain mental strength and creativity we all need breaks from work and a little R and R
So if it's true for our lifestyle choices shouldn't it be true for parts of us as well? However the idea of giving the bowel some time off doesn't seem to be part of the equation Trigger words such as water or juice fasting come up for many and cause people to cringe at the thought of going without food
But a bowel vacation means that the heavy foods normally consumed(pizza, rich cream sauces, lots of meat, heavy dairy. ice cream as examples) are removed from the nutritional meals for 3 or 4 days and a more simple diet is taken
You see the enzyme systems(the chemical fire if you will) need to be replenished and if you're continually asking our agni or digestive power to be used over and over again it becomes overtaxed These above wet logs as I call then place a heavy strain on your campfire(agni) and at times it is not up to par leading to toxic accumulation In essence increase of toxic load is what is behind the whole idea of detoxification
How To Go On a Bowel Vacation: 5 Things to Do
1 Make something simple to digest Kitchari is a time honored energy science nutritional tool to give your bowel enzyme systems a break from their work You can find it here at this link Do this for 5 days and notice how your bowel symptoms begin melting away!
2 If hungry snack on a piece of fruit but not in the meal
3 Consider an occasional juice day
4 Use cooling spices(cumin coriander fennel vanila turmeric cardamom) and avoid hot ones (eg garlic oregano sage rosemary thyme etc)
5 Use 2 handfuls as a guideline as to how much to eat at any one time
These simple things done based on your energy constitutional makeup will go a long ways toward improving your digestive power and enhancing your health
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Seasons and Nutrition.
Have you ever heard of a racial riot in the winter? Beaches packed in December in the Northwest?(or are they ever packed?) People packing the parks during January? The seasons change our internal climate as well.
The hot and cold qualities or primordial vibrational frequencies produce such lifestyle behavior patterns as they do when we are eating our diets.
The seasons have an impact on our digestion. During the winter the hot qualities of foods can be tolerated by people who might not tolerate them during the summer. And likewise the cold qualities for people who wouldn't tolerate them during the winter would find them somewhat permissible during the summer.
For example a predominantly Pitta individual might not tolerate hot chillis during the summer months but in the cold winter months, this hot quality and pungent tastes would not be so imbalancing.
Predominant Kapha would not do well with dairy due to its congestive nature in the cold winter months but during the hot summer could use it occasionally.
The energetic nutritional concept is that our biologic energy fields are affected by the environmental energy field. Recently I reviewed a matter science article about the effect of the season on digestion and questioned how this observation could be true. An observation by a matter field model that cannot explain it.
If we are to come to an understanding of nutrition and its role in health it will have to come from an energy science approach
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Fresh Water Prawns
A patient of mine told me about freshwater prawns that are farmed here locally. “What a great idea!”, I said. All of us could benefit from this novel animal food since freshwater fish can be used by everyone regardless of their energy pattern. Freshwater fish will pacify everyone’s physiology and promote energetic balance Salt water seafood is potentially Pitta provoking so having a freshwater alternative sounded like a great alternative
Then I began thinking of possible problems. They’ll probably have a weird taste. “No”, my patient explained, “they taste even better than the saltwater prawns.” They’re probably hard to find, I thought. “And they are locally available just off Lake street.” My mindbody began searching for other possible reasons but having no more objections, I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try them.
The next day I found myself ambitiously getting ready for my sojourn to the store to try this new found possible taste thrill. “Maybe I won’t have enough time,” I thought to myself. Nonsense, just go get them and if I don’t like them, my daughter will eat them.
So I get the prawns and they’re delicious! And now I noticed the same process that my mindbody goes through when confronted with something new. There is hesitancy about what might happen if I do something out of the ordinary. Something that’s not in my realm of comfort. I’ll have the saltwater prawns, thanks very much.
What gives? Why do I get so resistant to trying something new? I think the simple answer is the fear of the unknown. The uncertainty of predicting what lies ahead prevents us from moving off center and doing something different. For some the acceptance of change may be easy, for others it may be more difficult. And for all of us, there will be guaranteed issues that we balk at and say to ourselves, not today.
Freshwater prawns may be easy but perhaps changing our whole nutritional pattern may be something else. But the key to any change is realizing the fear and stepping through it. Everyone has their pet ways of resisting change. Predominant Vata people run away from fear, Pitta criticizes and becomes judgmental, justifying their resistance by talking themselves out of whatever they’re fearing to change. And Kapha simply resists by inertia-just not going to do it. A sense of complacency becomes overwhelming.
Knowing this resistance to the uncertainty and realizing that we will always express our resistance is unique ways allows us to watch ourselves in the midst of our resistance and perhaps walk through it. But if not, it’s OK. There will always be another day
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Irritable Bowel Syndrome: An Energy Science Perspective
Digestive fire is a collective term for all the enzyme and bacterial systems from mouth to anus So you can see it has broad connotations in terms of good bowel function and if abnormal potential for poor bowel function
From an energy science point of view irritable bowel syndrome(IBS) is a collection of bowel symptoms related to disturbed digestive fire or what Ayurveda terms agni As I have written in the past most people's agni is not up to par The reason for this is quite simple The concept of agni is not even in our health vocabulary
How would you know about it and hence take care of it if you don't know it exists?
This is a significant problem for the present day health consumer but unfortunately she is duped by the matter science model into believing it is complete Suffice it to say the majority of the population suffers from symptoms of IBS
The Symptoms of IBS
The types of IBS fall into four categories: Vata Pitta Kapha and combination patterns By far and away the latter makes up the majority of those affected by symptoms The most common symptom of IBS is bloating after eating for short or extended periods of time
Many people don't know that they bloat and some who have an exaggerated bloat know it very well Abdominal distention occurs as a result of the gaseous bowel distention Other symptoms include diarrhea, constipation, or a mixture of diarrhea and constipation At times flatulence or excessive gas that may be malodorous may occur
When the Kapha energy pattern is manifested in large degree mucous will be present in the stools but the worst IBS of all is when the mucous becomes dried in the GI tract This creates a marked problem for elimination This latter group of IBS can become severely debilitated professionally, physically, and often emotionally drained due to the chronicity of the disease This is the ultimate in the manifestation of IBS and the matter science has little to offer in such cases
The Creation of Ama
Now the stage is set for the next phase of disease Agni becomes impaired and due to this undigested food begins to accumulate in the GI tract The energy science of Ayurveda terms this ama(not to be confused with the American Medical Association)
This ama begins to clogs the lymphatics of the bowel wall leading to malabsorption, food intolerances(aka allergies), and "overgrowth syndromes"(yeast etc), and in children the autism spectrum disorder As a matter of fact we could simply do fill ama would be part of the disease
In essence IBS goes together with almost all diseases except for perhaps trauma The bowel dysfunction related to disturbed agni is fundamental to the unfolding causative process of every disease in the mindbody even mental disease
Energeticall vibrational frequencies begin to accumulate in the GI tract and then spread to different partsof the mindbody to promote mischief
Treating IBS
So treating any disease requires that IBS is treated as well According to posts there are essentially two levels of therapy for any energetic imbalance in the mindbody The first level is to stop the condition from getting any worse The second level is to remove the offending vibrational frequencies using specific therapeutic modalites that have already been discussed
But one of the integral therapies in IBS treatment is to deal with the cause of the problem.....disturbed agni This is paramount to successful management and since the matter science doesn't even have the concept all bets are off that IBS management will be successful
Many many of the blog posts done in the past have made suggestions about how to promote better agni CCF tea, agni tea, ginger tea are all about promoting better balanced agni Herbs can be very impactful in this regard and it's beyond the scope of this dialogue today to address them
Using a nutritional format appropriate for your energy constitution and avoiding incompatible food combinations can be very helpful in not aggravating the condition In this regard the daily use of churans as talked about in the past is very advantageous
A specific pranayama(breathing exercises) flow sequence can really help impaired disturbed agni by balancing it Dependent on the severity of the IBS other methods can be employed And yoga asana practice has been successfully employed in the matter science literature
As in all energy work however it's not just one thing that creates healing....healing requires a multifaceted approach to bring about real healing
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Nutrition Bad Habits: Snacking and Overeating
Digestive strength as I've talked about in the past is called agni(we get our word ignite from this word) and it's said that if you have a strong agni you will live a long and healthy life The converse is also true If you have poor agni you will create disease for yourself So taking care of your agni is paramount to good health
How Does Agni Affect Heath?
If poor agni exists then there is residue due to incomplete digestion The metaphor of a campfire is often used If the campfire is robust and good wood(food that is appropriate for your energy constitutional makeup) then what's left when the fire is out is fine ash All the nutrients have been harvested
But what about a poor campfire? The result is charred wood that has been ineffectively digested by the fire In the energy science terminology in the gut the result is ama or undigested food This undigested food clogs the lymphatic channels and sets up the possibility of being disseminated to the rest of the body
Snacking
Eating in between meals affects agni by overutilizing it.....the gut's enzyme system is busy digesting the last meal But then the choicemaker(that's you) makes the choice to eat ............(fill in the blank) Now the agni has incompletely burned the meal and has to turn around and digest the snack
A vicious cycle is set up where the digestion is never complete....hence the result is ama Not good The solution to snacking is not easy because it's an addictive habit especially in the work environment But with resolve it can be overcome like any addiction Creating more balance will ultimately stop the snacking because the body will send signals of rebellion
Overeating
When we overwhelm even a good digestive fire by loading the stomach up too much(defined as what you can hold in the palms of your two hands) then it's like putting wet logs or too many logs on your campfire The result is charred remains or in energy science lingo ama Now this amount of how much to eat can vary from individual to individual because of many variables including exercise which puts more demand on agni
But I think it's fair to say that everyone will know when they have overeaten due to the sensation in the stomach The remedy for overeating is simple Fasting until you're really hungry for the next food
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