Digestive Health with Ayurveda Siva Mohan, MD MPH www.svasthahealth.com
Session 2: Digestive capacity agenda Quick Session 1 review What is agni? Assessing your agni How your digestive system is communicating with you (tongue reading and appetite) How to improve digestive capacity Q&A 2
Ayurvedic review Everything in the universe is energy • This energy can be categorized, or witnessed in • patterned ways Ayurveda presents the universe and its patterns in the • form of 3 primal energies (doshas): vata, pitta, kapha Doshas are flowing through everything in the universe • including ourselves and our food We are unique manifestations of the doshas • How we interface with the universe is in part • determined by our energetic make-up, and in part by our current state of affairs There are patterned ways we experience this • interaction with the universe, and we can see this in our digestive systems & health FREE INTRO VIDEO • 3
Session 1 review • Food is energy • We can assess what the state of our digestive system is based on our stool and symptoms • We can then choose foods that are appropriate energetically to help balance us (the doshas) • Foods themselves can be modified; what is important is the energetics of the end product or prepared dish • Tastes can give us insight into the energetics (doshas) of food 4
Learning Objectives To begin to be aware of your digestive capacity To understand that ayurveda is applied dynamically, not a rigid system of rules To begin to understand how your digestive system is communicating with you via your agni (appetite and tongue) 5
Q:What is agni? A: Agni is loosely translated as “fire” • Fire is a transformative force • We actually have an agni in each tissue system • Appetite, metabolism, digestive enzymes and anything else that affects digestive capacity 6
Assessing your agni Am I really hungry? How ready is my body to receive food? How have I been feeling after eating? Agni is not static It can be in balance, or not When imbalanced, can be due to excess vata, pitta, or kapha The best way to gauge agni is via your appetite and your tongue 7
Assessing your agni When in balance, we experience: 1. A distinct hunger or appetite before eating 2. A feeling of being satiated but not too full after eating 3. Reappearance of hunger 2-3hours after a meal 4. Regular bowel movements 5. No digestive symptoms When out of balance, we experience appetite or digestive disturbances and toxic buildup (ama), which we can see on our tongues. 8
Agni out of balance Dosha VATA PITTA KAPHA Appetite Variable-low Very strong Very low Eating On the move, or Wake up hungry; No morning patterns forget to eat, then prefer meals so appetite; may get get starving or they can get full; hungry by afternoon light-headed; get eat several meals or evening; ok to eat full quick; prefer a day and snack one meal a day; late to snack all day night sweet snackers Tongue Ama coating, No ama; If any Thick ama coating especially in coating, yellow on whole tongue; back; gray, or or greenish color; white color; pale brownish coating tongue, or swollen Hyper-red tongue color; tongue with looking tip discoloration and 9 indentations
How your digestive system is communicating with you Excess Vata Pitta Kapha Appetite Low; variable;full Strong; excessive; hungry Low in am; most active quickly soon after eating late night Symptoms Gas; bloating; cramping; Heartburn; heat; pungent Sluggish digestion; food pain gas; inflammation coma; heaviness; bloating long term; weight gain Stool Constipation; hard; dry; Loose to diarrhea; yellow- Easy movement; mucous; nuggets; lots of gas at red-green; feels hot postprandial; smell of night; darker color; least coming out; ribbony; decay smelly pungent odor; urgency 10
improving your agni All the eating habits we’ll discuss next week Only eat when you are actually hungry Eat according to what your tongue is showing that morning “Spiceballs” Kapalabhati breath Doshic balance 11
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