Our Digestive System

Most of the time, we go out to eat for many reasons/ excuses. For some of us, eating out is a norm procedure 3 times a day for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner and at times for Supper too. We do always hear the same reason being given each time this question is asked. Why are you not making effort to do some home cooking and spend time to catch up with all the family members? What do you think their respective replies would be? One of the most common statement reply would be time constrain because of work. Another person might reply to say that they cook on weekends and heat up the frozen food to eat over the weekdays with their family members.

One of the most common practices that I have heard from mothers that I know is that they will purchase bags of bread/buns and biscuits and will feed their kids with it when they are picked up from school or kinder garden and will not have a proper meal when they reached home. Doesn’t this seem an usual practise for today’s urban modern living simply to state that time is a big constrain to one’s lifestyle? Is this just happening to our kids or also to any single person living in the city?

Most common practice among school going teenagers and young graduates is waking up late and skipping breakfast to leave for school and to work citing the same reason – No Time. Most have not even taken the trouble to drink 1-2 glasses of warm water in the morning. Over a period of time, what do you think will happen to their respective digestive systems? What do you think they will eat later if given the time at recess or morning tea break at around 10am?

Some of the Common Health Issues cited over a period of time with this type of ongoing lifestyle:

• Dehydration
• Gastric pain
• Regular fever and discomfort
• Period pain and irregular periods for some women
• Bloating and indigestion
• Constipation
• Headaches
• Unable to sweat, feeling cold most of the time
• Unable to lose weight
• Irregular breathing complains
• Lack of energy

When some of the above off track health issues occur, the root cause of the issues starts from our current diet and lifestyle. But most of the time, a person with the above health complain will probably seek some western medication example like an antacid prescription, pain killer prescription to relieve their respective pains and discomfort without even giving a thought on how they should improve their daily regular intake of a proper meal on time.

Our digestion is the core centre of our health and Ayurveda goes far to say that poor digestion leads to every disease. In Ayurveda, we think of our digestion as a fire to cook our meal in our stomach. This fire is known as ‘Agni’. A good quality agni fire in our stomach will burn well when it is healthy and this will give us our immunity and will give us the glow. It gives us energy, vitality, optimism, and happiness. When our agni is weak and irregular, we will feel some of these symptoms – lethargic, cramps, constipation, bloating, feeling cold, irritable, depressed, unconfident, to name a few symptoms. This is the beginning of the accumulation of future health issues such as allergies, high blood sugar levels, high cholesterol levels, imbalanced thyroid issues, women/men reproductive health issues to name a few.

Kindly refer to the section where I wrote to advice and guidelines about the Factors that Alter Our Health and upcoming Ayurveda Cleanse – Adapt to Modern Living, to restore and to set a balance of health for ourselves.