Simple Practices to Reliably Support your Digestive Health

If you’re suffering from chronic indigestion (gas, bloating, GERD, slow, sluggish digestion), difficulty maintaining your ideal weight (not a cultural ideal, but what is really ideal for your body-type/structure), there are a couple of  Āyurvedic practices that may help resolve these problems. 

1. Eat your main meal at lunch rather than dinner. Consuming  your main calories, and most nourishment mid day, supports your body-mind in high functioning during the day. That meal literally fuels your day’s activities and thinking, and is made good use of as you move through the day. 

Evening correlates with less digestive strength, and so that same nourishment in the evening will not be used as efficiently. Much better to top off lunch with a lighter, earlier dinner, 3 or more hours before bed time, and fast through the night until the following day’s breakfast or lunch.

2. Close the kitchen after dinner, and give your body a 12 - 14 hour fast through the night. That intermittent fast, has been shown in studies to 

• lower blood sugar markers

• support liver repair through the night

• Support autophagy—the body’s self-cleaning mechanism where it literally digests poor quality cells in the body.

Anecdotally, weight loss is easier, sleep improves, and you’ll awaken more refreshed. 

OK, here are two more key practices to support digestive health and function.

3. Mitāhara: consuming the right amount of food; i.e., eating to satisfaction not fullness. This single practice allows your digestive organs to do their pumping and churning, properly digesting what is consumed.  When food is not properly digested, a sticky, morbid residue lingers in the stomach which is toxic to the body. Over time, if this is not resolved, this AMA begins to circulate through the body, lodging in the joints and connective tissues leading to achiness, and eventually, it will lodge in an individual’s “weak links,” seeding a disease process. 

4. Wait to eat until the previous meal has been digested; i.e., refrain from snacking. This is huge. When we snack and nibble between meals, we interfere with the digestive process in progress. It’s like adding more dirty cloths to a laundry cycle that is already on rinse or spin—the clothes won’t be properly washed, and, in this case,  the food will not be properly digested, leading to indigestion (read about how this undigested food-stuff, ama,  affects the body above).

It takes 3 hours for the stomach to empty after a small meal, like a bowl of oatmeal,  and 5 - 6 hours for a full meal. Hunger is your indication that you’ve reached that point. 

Sometimes dehydration can feel like hunger. This “false hunger,” can be satisfied if you  drink a glass of water and take a short walk. 

So, my friends, here’s the challenge for you: take 1 week and practice these principles faithfully:

• Do some meal planning, and arrange to have a full meal at lunch time (protein, fat, carbs).

• Eat slowly, and notice when you feel relaxed and satisfied and then stop eating.

• Eat nothing between meals, but stay well hydrated with water or herbal teas.

• Top off lunch with a light dinner, like a nice soup or stew and then close the kitchen.

• Wait to eat until the following morning.

These foundational principles relating to “how to eat,” can turn indigestion around, increase your energy and mental clarity, support sleep and better metabolic function.

I'd love to hear how these land for you. Leave your comments below.

In service and love,

Shannon