How to eat to support digestion.
- Oct 29
- 3 min read
"When diet is right, medicine is of no need; when diet is wrong, medicine is of no use." -Ayurvedic Proverb
Every fall and spring I offer a digestive reset to my community. This program supports us all in taking a few weeks to nourish our foundational health habits, while doing some mild detoxification and supporting our digestive function. The first few days I present the Āyurvedic guidelines of how and when to eat. These support good digestion, often healing digestive imbalance like gas, bloating, acidity, constipation, etc. within days.
Even if we're eating the "right" foods, if we eat them too often, in the wrong way or at the wrong time, we won't be able to digest them well, and so we'll get less goodness from them.
In Āyurveda, digestive health is central to our overall health and immunity. Taking in and digesting what we eat, drink and experience, and transforming those things into something nourishing for our organism, is key. The following practices, will support your digestive function so you'll get even more goodness from what you eat:
Eat your meals at regular times --this will shift a bit as we move through the seasons, but find your rhythm each season to support regular appetite, elimination, inner stability and calm.
Sit down to eat so you can slow down and enjoy your meal. Digestion is a parasympathetic activity, and we need to be calm to digest our food well.
Eat until satisfied rather than full (sitting down and slowing down will help with this).
Wait to eat until the previous meal has been digested. (You'll know this has happened because you'll be hungry again). Eating between meals interferes with the digestion of the food you're snacking on and the meal your body's in the process of digesting. Neither will be digested well, and you'll likely increase gas, bloating and acidity in the process
Eat your biggest meal at mid day (brunch or lunch) when digestion is strongest, to fuel your work throughout the day. Skipping lunch or grazing through lunch inevitably leads to binging in the late afternoon, often on carbs or sugar, and overeating at night.
Eat a lighter supper, at least 3 hours before sleep, and then close the kitchen. This supports sleep as well as freeing up your metabolic energy to do some inner cleansing/repair while you sleep.
Fast between supper and your first meal the next day. This one habit takes care of so many things: improves sleep; enhances cellular repair overnight; keeps blood sugar down; and invites metabolic flexibility, allowing the body to use both fat and carbs as fuel.
Some of the habits that interfere with the above principles
not eating enough during the day--grazing through lunch--so you eat too much snack food in the late afternoon, and too much at night, when your digestion is less strong.
snacking between meals, so you're never really hungry. Eating when you're not really hungry means digestion is not strong, and so that food will not be well digested, and will cause indigestion.
eating on the run, in the car, standing up, while preparing food for others, often leads to overeating and indigestion.
Next Steps:
Take inventory of the healthier eating guidelines in the first list. Which are dialed in? Which need your attention? Look at the habits that interfere with HEG. Are those creeping in?
The healthier eating guidelines are powerful. Every reset season I have a small handful of people who resolve their indigestion within days of practicing them. Amazing!
Next week I'll say more about what to eat. Until then, I'd love to hear how these HEG land for you. Are there any barriers to you following them? What helps you digest like a champion. Leave a comment, or reply to the newsletter to share.
Love,
Shannon
Comments