Three easy ways to improve your digestion
Three ways to quickly improve your digestion-according to Ayurveda
We’re all looking for the perfect foods that will help us improve our health. But how we eat is every bit (and maybe more) important that what we eat. If we can’t digest and assimilate our food, the nutrients won’t make their way into the cells that need them.,
Ayurveda, the medical practice of the ancients, has some suggestions based on a deep understanding of our bodies that has been backed up by modern science.
Making these three easy changes can bring surprising shifts:
1. Drink room temperature or warm water. Drinking ice water immediately constricts the digestive juices in the stomach. When we start a meal with that cold glass of water that every restaurant serves, we reduce our ability to break down the food that follows. On the other hand, warm water helps build the “digestive fire” and prepares the body to easily digest. Starting your day with a cup of warm water and lemon is a great way to prepare your stomach for the day’s bounty.
2. Chew your food! Digestion starts in our mouth when the food we consume is mixed with saliva, signaling to the stomach how much acid is required to break down whatever is coming. When we chew a couple of bites and then swallow, it’s likely there’s some confusion in the belly and it’s hard to be efficient without some clear direction from the mouth! Chewing each bite 26-32 times (maybe less for watermelon or more for a steak) allows the essential information to be transmitted to ensure the right amount of digestive juices are available to breakdown our meal.
3. Don’t snack. I know…you’re thinking but what about my blood sugar? I have to eat every hour or I get a headache, irritable, shaky! Grazing is a new concept in response to highly processed, sugared diet. Our bodies have evolved to digest efficiently if we give them the opportunity.
There are three parts of the digestive process. Digestion takes place in the stomach as ingested food is thrown around and mixed with digestive enzymes and stomach acid until it becomes “nutrition soup” call Chyme. This process is the most energy consuming process in the body and can take anywhere between 2-8 hours (or more) depending on what is eaten and if it’s been predigested by chewing thoroughly.
Assimilation happens in the small intestine. This is the process where nutrients are further broken down and drawn into the blood stream to be used by the body. This is the most important part of the nutrition process because if the nutrients we consume aren’t passed into the blood, they’re useless. This process takes somewhere between 2-4 hours.
Elimination. Poop tells the story of our digestion and assimilation. Brown, banana shaped poops are ideal. Loose stools, constipation or different colored stools indicates issues in both digestion and assimilation.
So what does this have to with snacking?
Once the stomach empties and small intestine is doing its essential work of absorbing vital nutrients, the small intestine needs the energy resources of the body to further break down the chyme. If we eat during this time, the energy hogging stomach slows down the effective absorption of vitamins, glucose, amino acids (among other things) into the blood stream. Snacking reduces the effectiveness of both processes and often results in bloating, gas, undigested foods and overall lack of nutrients.
Making these simple changes can have result in less discomfort and allow the body to utilize all the nutrition that comes our way. Join us for Ayurvedic cleansing in the Spring, Fall and at our Cleansing Retreat in Costa Rica!