Sunflower Organics and Wellness – Ayurveda and Natural Wellness A Journey to Better Health
There are many reasons why human fast – for health, for spiritual reasons, all that will offer each individual benefits of healing. Fasting is a very effective manner to detoxify, it rekindle our digestive fire, burn away the accumulated toxin from our body and our mind, to let go the attachment to food, so that our digestive system can rest and our mind will be calm and peaceful.
Ayurveda fasting leaves you feeling lighter, refreshed and energised with a clearer skin and brighter eye, clean tongue and fresh breath. Ayurveda favours short term regular fasting rather than long term infrequent fasting. According to Ayurveda practice, long term fasting depletes our body from our bodily tissues and leading it to a dosha imbalance which can lead to other health complications. Generally all foodstuffs are omitted from our diet except water, fruit juice, soup and kitchari.
Kitchari is a simple balanced vegetarian dish made of basmati rice, mung dal, spices to your body constitution with your choice of vegetables. A very light easy meal to cook and easily digested.
When we are ready to fast, we must put some thoughts and do it accordingly to our body constitution and the appropriateness of the season. As fasting is a gentle slow manner to cleanse and detox our body, it is necessary that you understand what your body is going through and not assume that you are going to be strong for this procedure. A proper consult with an Ayurvedic practitioner is required for supervision for your cause or wish for doing a fast.
During a fast, remember to
- Drink regularly throughout the day – very warm boiled water. Warm water helps to remove the toxin in our body.
- Avoid all cold drinks.
- Drink spice types of tea to help ‘burn’ toxins – for example chai spice tea, or cinnamon, lemongrass, clove, ginger, turmeric teas.
- Avoid all stimulating social activity.
- Pre and Post periods of 3 to 5 days before and after fasting, eat light simple food to reduce congestion in your digestive system. The pre fasting period will prepare our digestive system to ‘get ready’ for the fast and the post period will slowly get the digestive system to be back to better digestive and absorption performance after the fast period.
- Avoid any indulgence into intensive exercising.
- Practise meditation and to have calmness to allow the body and mind to work in synergy to achieve your objective.
Here is an easy to prepare Kitchari recipe for you.
Season to Fast and Detoxify
- In temperate climate, the chosen period to fast and have a good cleanse will be end of summer/begin of autumn and end of winter/beginning of spring period.
- In Tropical climate, the chosen period will be end of a rainy monsoon period or the beginning of the year whereby we head start the new year with a new fresh energised body system to relinquish our energy to a more confident year ahead.
For anyone who wish to perform a fast, again refer back to the body questionnaire that determines your body constitution as a guideline on the choice of veggies and fruits to choose for your own body type to cook the kitchari and make your juicing.
Vata Person Constitution – Fasting Guideline
Vata body type typically has difficulty to hold onto energy as they are always as active with their light and cold features. They have to take extra precaution when they perform a fast as they tend to be ungrounded and they cannot be deprived of nutrition for too long as this will shift them to an imbalance state. Vata person can fast between one to three days and their fast should contains simple nutritive meals for example the kitchari rice cooked with vata cooking spices together with some diuretic or herbal teas and with a light purge to assist to clear toxins from the system.
Pitta Person Constitution – Fasting Guideline
Pitta body type tends to have more heat and they are good at managing energy but they tend to be impatient with their aggressive nature. They can benefit from a one day to three days fasting with appropriate Pitta reducing vegetable or fruit juices with sweet, astringent and bitter quality and accompany with a mung bean soup cooked with Pitta cooking spices, also together with some diuretic or herbal teas with herbal purge or enemas to assist clearing of toxins from their digestive system. Pitta person nature who perform this fasting must allow themselves to rest and restore their energy level, otherwise it would be depleted at a much faster pace which will imbalance their state of calmness to complete this fast period.
Kapha Person Constitution – Fasting Guideline
Kapha body types tend to store energy, overweight and of all the body type – they are the type of persons who will need a longer period fasting which they can tolerate and gain the most benefits from it. A kapha body type person can fast on water, spicy teas or lemon water fast with appropriate pungent spice drinks to keep them alert throughout the day to keep their motivated. As they tend to be slow and grounded by nature, these type of fasting will throw out their old stubborn congestion deposits, brings clarity and lightness to their body system.
I would like to stress here again that to have an overall balance in your health and vitality, fasting is not the sole solution to a healthy you. It has its benefits if it is done in a proper manner as part of your cleansing and rejuvenation process to have a balance state of health. Long fasting periods will hamper your body to be deprived of their nutrient absorption and you will have cravings for food and when you are out of a fast, you will indulge into your food craving and will eat more than necessary and will get yourself back to your original weight and with much more state of a stressful imbalanced mind and health.
Congestion and weight gain is not gained overnight but over a period of time and there is also no quick fix to intense fasting to lose weight and become healthy. Any extreme weight lost over a short period of time needs to be carefully monitored under a proper consult in whatever modality you chose for yourself.
If you have any existing health issues, it is best to get a proper consult before you perform a fast. A proper guidance is necessary to determine whether you should be doing a fast at your present state of health.
